Saturday, November 13, 2010

Scenes from the barnyard


Dear old Penny, such a sweet quiet goat, so easy to take care of. See how fat and round her daughter have gotten. Thanks to Bernie's generous offerings of Swiss Chard and brussel sprouts, she has gained some weight too, but she is so saggy that the fat never covers her bones, and she just collects her fat around her belly and around her ribs. Gravity is not kind to goats either.


Of course what you won't see is what I missed when my camera battery died. The goat and the cat sniffed, then the cat rubbed his head against the goat's head. Typical of a cat. So then the goat did what is typical goat behaviour when something touches their head, headbutt it. Pop. Luckily Wicket is a pretty quick guy and mostly missed it.

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Remembrance Day


This is a photo that I am guessing my great-grandfather sent to his future wife at home. On the reverse of this photo, it says,"Heavy Marching Order. We have to carry this outfit on Route Marches. It only weighs 65 pounds. Nothing when you get used to it. Taken after 20 mile route march."

The kids' school is doing a slideshow today, we had to submit photos of family who had served. Because we live in a community that is home to a military airbase, many of the children at the school submitted photos of their parents who are currently serving, and many had photos of generations of family members who have served. Damon really wanted to participate and since he has a newfound fascination with the history of WW1 and WW2 he wanted to show his family's participation in both of those wars, so he among many old military photographs chose this photo of my great-grandfather from WW1, and another one of 3 of my great-uncles, brothers (another of their brothers served in the marines and can be seen in a separate photograph)from WW2. Luckily all of these men returned safely, while others did not.

Late last week, I made a small donation at a store and picked up some poppies for the kids coats. Now keeping them on their coats is another story.

This morning, we had another chaotic morning of trying to get 4 of them (Hanna doesn't go to school today) out of the door to meet the bus at the end of our driveway by 7:20. Kira was up and ready with plenty of time. She went out and waited by the road with her older brothers. Griffin and I closed the door relieved that they had all made it to the bus in time. I turned my mind to changing Griffin's diaper. Then Kira came running up the driveway and knocked on the door. She was in a panic, "My poppy came off, I need to find it. It's Remembrance Day and Mrs. M told us we needed to remember our poppies." She ran around looking for it, while I went and grabbed the poppy from my own coat to put on hers. As this was happening, the bus arrived. The boys got on and with Kira running down the driveway the bus pulled away. One of the cars stopped behind the bus started honking it's horn, but the bus driver didn't notice and continued on. Kira came into the house with tears streaming down her face.

"This is the worst day EVER. It's Remembrance Day and I missed the bus," she wailed.

"I told her, it is a great day. It's Remembrance Day and YOU remembered to wear your poppy. I can drive you to school," I told her.

I started walking down the hall to get Griffin, Hanna and myself dressed for the drive into town, when somebody knocked on my door. When I open the door, it's Kira's adorable teacher, Mrs. M. She was the one honking her horn for the bus driver's attention. She offered to drive Kira to school. Kira adores this teacher, so I knew that she would love driving in to school with her. I explained that Kira was ready for school on time but had run back in to get her poppy. She laughed and said, "I have poppies to give out to all of the kids."

Kira hopped into the backseat of her teacher's car just beaming. I realize that now Kira's teacher (who I should note is a tiny adorable thing dressed up in heels and stylish business attire, a perfect makeup job and her long blonde hair has been styled in loose curls) has just seen me in my pyjamas, my hair to my waist hasn't been brushed and I've got a poopy baby on my hip. *sigh*

Tuesday, November 09, 2010

Happy Birthday Hanna!

My sweet baby girl turned 4 today.


Hanna is growing up much too fast. For such a long time she seemed like the baby. Even after Griffin was born, she just seemed much more needy than him. I even worried that she might not be ready for school this past September. Even though she could write her own name, she wasn't toilet trained and couldn't put on her own shoes. That seemed to change overnight and suddenly she's an independent little girl. She is shy, but very bright and artistic girl. She loves to dance and draw and lately she has been a bit obsessed with letters and reading. She brought home her school photo a few days ago and immediately named every child in the photo and told me each of their first initials. "That's Karissa, and it is with a 'K' not a 'C'. And Bradley, he's got a 'B' and 'R' together, like 'br'."

Every year we ask the kids what they want to eat for their birthdays and they get to choose whether we eat at a restaurant or at home. Hanna was very specific this year. She wanted homemade macaroni with ketchup and a cake. And the cake was to be a chocolate cake in the shape of a heart with white icing and a rainbow on it. While she was out picking out a present with Grandpa, I iced the cake, with 3 very willing icing assistants.

She is going to have a friends' party another day, but she is having a hard time understanding that day is not the day of her birthday.

Kira could not stay out of the photos! She wanted to model one of Hanna's costumes.


I hope all your wishes come true!