Those videos I promised...

Last time I posted, I promised some videos.  I was just reminded that I forgot to make good on that promise.  When I was assembling said videos, I suddenly felt like those all happened a lifetime ago - there as actually been quite a lot happen in the last couple of months. 

Anyone call for a superhero?

So, of all the things that happened, the two most notable:

1. Juniper got glasses!  When I noticed her eyes weren't aligning properly, we had her checked out, and sure enough she has strabismus. We don't know how long she will need to wear them - years, probably.  I was very nervous about potential fights about keeping them on, but so far, she's been really surprisingly good about them. Case in point:

2. In a very stressful, jam-packed weekend, we:

a) learned that our little Suzuki Swift had to return to Canada, within the week

b) visited with Deborah and Yvon in Boston

c) bought a new car (?!)

d) had Deborah and Yvon drive ours back to New Brunswick for us (thank you, thank you!)

We ended up with a Prius, of all things - it hadn't been on my radar at all, but so far we love it. And hey - if you know of anyone in the NB area looking to buy a Swift, let me know! Anyway, two pictures from that adventure:

The gang, after one crazy weekend

We say good-bye to our little car once and for all.

  And before I leave you with the video I promised, here are a couple of other shots:

Juniper learns to sew, with embroidery floss and burlap.  She threw her hands in the air at one point, and joyfully exclaimed "I'm learning!" Linden is clearly into just lounging with his sis'.

Kids, this is what happens when you don't listen to your parents, when they repeatedly tell you not to sit on your play kitchen. We left her there for awhile.

And finally, here is that video!

Happy, Merry, Joyous...

"This is my crazy face.  It's a little scary" - Juniper

.... Solstice, Christmas, New Year... it's been awhile since I posted!  Lots to celebrate, to be sure.  We had a lovely, quiet holiday season, which is just what we needed.  Things got started early with a visit from my parents and my sister Faye in mid-December, and then moved on to some Solstice celebrations, Christmas, New Year's - and here we are, just coming out of it all on the other side. There were no grand adventures - in fact, Clark worked for most of it, so in some ways it was just life as normal.  Except, of course, with a much more laid-back attitude, fun surprises and celebrations, and more than a little indulgence. Here is a glimpse of it all.

Some Early Christmas Visitors!

We had a fun time with my parents and Faye in Mid-December.  We met them for a weekend in Boston (where I very serendipitously and unexpectedly got to see Leonard Cohen at the Wang Theatre?!?), and then brought them back to the Cape for a few days to have some extended family holiday celebrations.

Bob, Mary and Faye. We must have taken two dozen versions of this photo, and yet the best one still has Juniper  with her hand down Mom's shirt.  Go figure.

Choosing a Christmas tree. Not sure why this drawing that Juniper is holding needed to be included. We ended up with a VERY modest Charlie Brown tree for a whopping 20$.  Welcome to the Cape!

Solstice Celebrations

We got invited to two lovely Solstice celebrations.  The first was a bit of a variety show, geared toward (and mostly featuring) the kids. Juniper, in particular, loved it. At the end, there was also some wreath decorating:

Working hard

I am completely kicking myself for not capturing it at all, but the highlight (for me and Clark, anyway), was this act called the "Snowflake Song".  It was organized by our neighbours (and new friends), Mak and Liz (and their son Kunio).  It involved singing and playing a Japanese song about snowflakes, while the "snowflake kids" (a bunch of kids wearing toques and holding some cut-out snowflakes on branches), danced around the stage.  It was incredibly cute, and lovely to watch. The reason it was so amazing for us, however,  was that when someone said "OK, I need my snowflake dancers to get on stage!", Juniper promptly jumped up and joined the act. She wasn't wearing a toque, had no clue what was involved, but figured she should be a part of it.  Luckily, there were some extra snowflakes on sticks to go around, and she pranced around the stage with some inspired gusto. Hmmmm... perhaps she has a little of her mother in her?

The final product!

Christmas Lead-up:

The lead up to Christmas/Solstice this year was actually pretty fun.  I fashioned an advent/solstice calendar (*side note: can you tell we are a little undecided about what we are trying to emphasize? We're still trying to feel our way through this now that Juniper is old enough...*) Anyway, I fashioned this calendar for the kids:

The "Advent/Solstice" Calendar

As you can see, there is an "ornament" for each day leading up to Christmas, and you turn them around as you get to them.  For a little extra fun, each day there is a little slip of paper in the pocket of the "ornament", giving clues as to where to find a little present, or stating what the fun activity of the day is.  For example, some days there was a new book or a candy cane, other days it was an outing of some sort (dinner at Friendly's, for instance), and still others, there were promises of making cookies or building a gingerbread house (etc). It was a lot of work, but boy oh boy did Juniper have fun with it.  And it made December pretty extra-special, if I do say so myself.  Here are some pictures from advent surprises:

"Girls Night". We went to a café, got a treat, and wrote in our journals (and played "I Spy", and other such things, of course)

Making special mint chocolate cookies for Santa.

Decorating our awesome gingerbread house (the day earlier , Juniper and I made the pieces)

Notice Juniper licking her fingers?  That happened a whole lot during this process. She explained it was the only way to get all that excess icing off.

The finished product.  And yes, that's our christmas tree on the dining room table.

Decorating the Christmas tree. I love this photo, because Juniper is examining the ornament with a photo of her great-grandparents

Christmas Morning:

Requisite tree shot

Requisite family tree shot

Linden checking out his new glow turtle, wearing his new Tigger costume (?)  You'll have to ask my mom about the costume.

New Year's:
At the very last minute, we were invited to Fiamma (Clark's post-doc supervisor) and Rosalba's place for a New Year's Eve dinner. I was a little shocked to get the invite, as they had just (like, the day previously), gotten home from a family trip to Italy.  But we sure weren't going to turn it down!  They have two kids, Kea (who is almost exactly Juniper's age), and her older brother Yani, so it's always loads of fun to get together. We had a delicious meal, and then counted down the New Year at 6pm (midnight Italy time), and popped a bottle of sparkling apple juice (Juniper opted for water, however, as the bubbles taste "spicy" on her tongue).

Kea and Juniper having a chuckle before dinner

Yani made these amazing "Pear Mice" for desert

All the rest:

Those were all the festivities, but of course life happened as usual as well:

"SSR". (silent sustained reading.  How adorable is that?)

On a carousel at the big mall in Hyannis 

Hanging out at Spohr Gardens

Juniper insists on making her very own pizza now, from scratch. She actually does a pretty amazing job! 

At the Woods Hole playground...

... and the Falmouth playground

Look who's big enough to go down the slide by himself!

When I asked what Juniper was working on, she replied "my PhD". Sigh.

Snack time.  On a train, I think.

Linden very quietly snuck off one day.  This is how I found him. He clearly takes dental hygiene very seriously. 

Juniper's latest obsession: doing the dishes.   We'll see if the enthusiasm lasts until the point where she can actually properly clean them!

Linden helps out with the gardening.  This may seem like a mis-placed photo, but in November, we worked our butts off to completely tear out all the wild overgrowth in our garden patch and get it ready for planting in the Spring.

More gardening. Linden is also a serious gardener.

This is what we were doing when everywhere else was getting nice wintery snow.

Clark brings home a mini wave tank to do some internal wave experiments with Juniper.  He is likely giving Juniper a lecture on the basics of fluid dynamics here. 

See?  Learning CAN be fun! 

OMG, we got SNOW!

Juniper and Linden sliding on a Boogie Board we found in the garage, in our almost flat yard.  Hey - it worked!

 And there you have it, folks!  I've got a video montage in the works - stay tuned!

October Wrap-up

I love fall.  I always have.  And, believe it or not, I love it for more than just the new school supplies :)  October in particular, with it's colours and crispness, has always been my favourite.  This year, however... this year was a little crazier than I typically like my October.  Crazy for some wonderful, wonderful reasons, but it was just completely non-stop. I simultaneously find myself happy to have been able to do everything we did, and relieved to call it done.  Mostly, I just want to be able to settle for the first time in...  well, in a year and half, I guess.

Checking out the sunset over Quisset Harbour at the Knob

The first half of October I actually covered in my last post, so in this one, I might as well just wrap it up, all neat-and-tidy.  I think it will feel satisfying. 

Linden turns ONE

Yes, I know - hard to believe, right?  In my recollection, it took Juniper about 10 times as long to reach a year.  I just kind of blinked, and all of a sudden I was no longer counting Linden's age in months anymore.  

I've been wanting to make a "happy birthday" banner for three years, and finally did it!

As it turned out, we had multiple festivities in celebration of Linden's birthday - in Cape Cod,  in Fredericton and at the farm.  That also means three cakes.  I would never have allowed such blatant sugar debauchery in my early days as a mom, but now... well, let's just say things change. 

On Linden's actual birthday, Clark, Juniper, Linden and I had a small celebration complete with a banana bread "cake" with a natural foods peanut butter nutella-type thing as frosting.  I figured that was a relatively healthy alternative to just regular old cake.  Linden had no complaints.

Trip to New Brunswick: Deborah and Yvon's Wedding!

Staring longingly at the wedding cakes that her aunt Liz made!

Clark's mom got married!  So of course, we packed up and took a road trip back to good old Fredericton.  This wasn't a small feat, especially since while we were gone, our kitchen floor was getting re-tiled.  This meant we had to completely empty out the kitchen, and be ready to boot it out at 8am the morning we were leaving, as that was when the floor guys were coming. But, we did it!  And we had a lovely visit.  Unfortunately, the one thing we forgot was our good camera.  Of all the times to forget it!  Consequently, we have very few pictures from the trip at all, let alone post-worthy ones.  Here's a little video, anyway, from between courses at the reception, while we were trying to keep the kids occupied (it at least shows off their cute outfits!)

While we were in New Brunswick, we obviously had to celebrate Linden's birthday another couple of times, right? First at my parent's house:

With my cousin Claire, and her two little boys: Evan and Xander

The kids got to hang out with their way-cool cousins: Sawyer, Ethan and Ali

... and then at the farm:

"Man, where have these never-ending offerings of cake been all my life?"

Deborah and Yvon visit

Deborah and Yvon decided to honeymoon in New England, so very shortly after we made it home from NB, who showed up for a couple of days but the newlyweds themselves!  Yvon, in particular, put in a lot of on-demand play time with a very insistant little 3-year-old.  This was especially true after Deborah and Yvon hauled out the new present for the kids - a full IKEA kitchen.  Juniper hasn't stopped playing with it since.

Juniper even got Yvon to read to her outside!

Deborah tries to prevent Linden's escape attempts

Sandy

Just as we said goodbye to Deb and Yvon, we welcomed the temperamental Hurricane Sandy into our lives.  We weren't hit nearly as hard as some of our neighbouring cities and states, but we had one very windy, rainy day, with mostly no power.  Really, more exciting and fun for the kids than anything else.  When else to you get to have peanut butter sandwiches for supper by candle light,  followed by a glowstick party? 

What is this magical glowing thing?

Glowstick madness

Hallowe'en

I wasn't sure what we were going to do about Hallowe'en this year.  I didn't have time to think about making any new costumes, and Juniper hadn't been talking about trick-or-treating, so I figured we would just play it by ear and see what happened. To tell you the truth, I was skeptical that Juniper was even old enough to enjoy going out at all (she is still painfully shy around strangers), and I wasn't keen on all that sugar coming into the house.


The day we got back, however, there was a Hallowe'en party at Clark's office, so I hauled out last year's wizard costume for Juniper, and fashioned together a make-shift lumberjack ensemble for Linden, complete with a cardboard axe, slung in a tool belt.  I have to say, Linden was the star of the show!  We went out for dinner after the party at Friendly's, and Juniper insisted on keeping her costume on, and everyone made a big deal of her.  Fun was had by all.  So all in all, it was a successful pre-Hallowe'en party.  I thought that was likely going to be the extent of things.

Hanging in Clark's office, post-party

When Hallowe'en actually arrived, however, the excitement just couldn't be contained.  Pumpkins were carved, the costumes came back out, and Juniper REALLY wanted to go "trick-or-treating".  I don't think she even knew what it was, but she REALLY wanted to go.  We had no idea even where to take her - as far as we knew, we were the only family with kids on our whole street.

Linden got into the spirit and tried on the wizard costume. He was enthralled with the lit pumpkins.

We figured it wouldn't hurt to just see if any of our neighbours were giving out treat, so with the wizard costume on top of a belly-dancing costume (handed down from Ali), Clark and Juniper ventured out into the night with a flashlight.  Lo and behold, they met one other kid out doing the same - a little 4-year-old boy named Kunio.  As it turns out, he just lives down the street, and we've already had two play-dates!  So Hallowe'en was a major score all around.

Back at home with a bucket of treats.

The other awesome score was that I was looking at a blog I follow and found out about the little-known Hallowe'en fairy!  Did you all know that if you want, you can choose out a few of your favourite Hallowe'en treats to eat, and then put the rest out in your bucket, and then the Hallowe'en fairy will come while you're sleeping, and replace the candy with art supplies?  It's true!  So stinking brilliant. Juniper woke up the next day, and had big girl paints and paint brushes in her bucket!  She was VERY excited.  This was the first thing she painted.  It is her interpretation of Mary (my mother).

Not bad, eh?

And that about wraps things up for the whirlwind that was October.  I have visions of November including a lot of walks and yoga and knitting and sewing and just generally taking nice big deep breaths and trying to settle.  And hopefully also taking some pictures and videos along the way, and sharing it with all of you.  I'll leave  you with one of my favourite pictures:  Juniper in the leaves.  I love it for any number of reasons, but especially because it looks as though Juniper is conjuring the leaves into dancing around her. Happy November!

The fall elf princess.