It's Out!

She lost that tooth.  Finally!  And the tooth fairy came as planned.  It was all fabulous! 

It's a bit of a goofy picture, but you get the idea! 

And here's a few pictures of my tulips.  The very first tulips I have ever grown.  I am inordinately proud of them!

And because my little son is insisting that I include a picture that has him in it....

And one more of my lilac tree.  We planted two lilac trees two years ago - they came courtesy of a job Aven was doing at the time.  (you know I love FREE!)  Anyways, last year only one of the trees bloomed.  This year only one tree is blooming but it's the one that didn't bloom last year.  The one that bloomed last year is stubbornly refusing to show any blossoms at all.  I think these trees are confused. 

It`s not fully in bloom yet, but in a few days, there will be glorious, beautifully scented purple lilac blossoms all over the place! 

I have decided that annuals are a waste of money and from now on I am only planting perennials.  I have potted a few azaleas in my pots where I would usually put annuals.  But I`m tired of having to replace them every year.  The only thing I`m not quite sure of is how a perennial would do in a hanging basket.  Maybe I`ll have to experiment a little this year. I`ll keep you posted on that.

Have a lovely weekend! 

Loose Tooth

Miss H has always been a late bloomer as far as her teeth go.  She got them in late when she was a baby and now here she is, almost 8, and has yet to lose a tooth. 

She has watched in envy as her friends started showing up to school with big gaps in their smile starting in kindergarten.  Her most fervent wish was to lose a tooth at school because then she would get to go to the office and have her tooth put in a special little box that they have just for that purpose. 

She finally got a loose tooth a few months ago.  She still has that tooth, it’s still wiggly, and two adult teeth are popping up behind her bottom two center baby teeth.   She calls them her Shark Teeth because now she has the two rows of teeth like sharks have.  We went to the dentist to get the situation checked out and the dentist assured us that her tongue would keep pushing the new teeth forward which would, in turn, help the baby teeth come out.  He encouraged Hope to keep wiggling the loose tooth and eat some apple slices or carrot sticks! 

Well, H took him seriously and literally spent the whole next day wiggling her loose tooth.  By the time I picked her up from school the next day the tooth could bend almost the whole way forward.  She could feel the bottom ridge of the tooth with her tongue when she tipped it forward.  She was so hoping the tooth would come out that evening – she really wanted a visit from the Tooth Fairy. 

Miss H confided in me that she was going to write a letter to the Tooth Fairy requesting a pair of Fairy Wings and a map to Fairy World because she would like to be a Tooth Fairy, too.  She started describing how she would shrink so small to fit the pair of wings that the Tooth Fairy would leave and how she would go to school to be a Tooth Fairy.  “Do you want me to ask for two pairs of wings so you can come, too, Mom?” she asks me.  “Cause I’ll probably have to be there a long time if I’m going to school and stuff there in Fairy World.” 

I said I definitely also would like a pair of fairy wings.

It’s funny to me that she knows the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus are not real and yet she still believes that the Tooth Fairy does exist.  Total separation of ideas, I guess.

She tried to get it the rest of the way out but the tooth was feeling stubborn and even trying to pull it out with dental floss didn’t do the trick. 

I’m wondering if maybe the tooth came out at school day or if it’s still hanging in there.  I had bought a special little Tooth Fairy Purse a few weeks ago.  It’s super cute.  It comes with a tiny tooth pocket to put the tooth in under the pillow and then you put the money in the purse and exchange the purse for the tooth pocket. 

I’m going out tonight to pick up some sparkles (fairy dust) and a few trinkets to exchange for that all important “First Lost Tooth”.  I typed up a letter from the Tooth Fairy named “Tabitha” because H mentioned that her friend’s tooth fairy was named Tabitha and she wondered what her Tooth Fairy’s name was.  I guess they have the same one! 

I will sprinkle some sparkles in a trail from the window sill to her pillow (Fairy Dust!) and leave the letter explaining why she can’t be a tooth fairy (she’s much too gifted a human girl and we must bloom where we’re planted).  Should do the trick.  «

She’s gonna love it!!  I’ll post a picture when we get that most-coveted gap.

And here's a picture just for fun....

Easter Weekend

I haven’t had time to post in the last few days and it feels like so much has happened (nothing major – just lots of little stuff) and what typically happens is I overwhelm myself with all I want to write and so I end up writing exactly nothing.

I’m going to try to not do that this time.

So I’ll start where we left off…Easter weekend.

On Good Friday we spent the morning decorating Easter Eggs.  This was M’s first time dying Easter Eggs and I think it’s safe to say he loves it.  Although he has the patience of a fly and so always wanted to take the eggs out of the dye after about 2 seconds.  I had ended up just hardboiling the eggs instead of blowing them out as I usually do.  I tried to blow out a couple but both eggs ended up cracking so I threw up my hands in disgust and gave up.  So each child had 5 eggs to dye.  It didn’t seem like enough.  Next year I’m gonna have to splurge for two dozen eggs I think.  The thing is that I have a horrible guilty conscience buying just one dozen white eggs – those poor chickens! – let alone two dozen.  Is there such a thing as free range white eggs and I just haven’t seen them? 

Friday afternoon we all napped.  I mean all 4 of us.  And we slept. All of us.   It was lovely.  And obviously much needed.  Much refreshed we went to my brother’s house to celebrate my beautiful little niece’s third birthday.  It was a really fun time with good food and good visiting and tons of kids.   There’s so much good stuff you could get a three year old, you know?  Three is the prime gift giving age, I think.  We ended up finding her a high chair for her dolly that also converts to a little swing.  I hope she gets lots of use out of it.  I could totally picture her feeding her babies in it!

On Saturday morning we headed out to the Up Park for a neighbourhood Easter Egg hunt.  It was put on by a local church and it was really fun to see all the neighbourhood kids there with their Easter Baskets.  The sun was shining and the feeling community was very strong.  I liked it.  A lot.  There were games to start which was really just kids running back and forth in a barely organized chaos.  I think they had fun, though!   

Then there was a mad scramble for eggs and candy that were not so much hidden as thrown-about-randomly.  I think it might have been fun if they had actually hidden the eggs, but that’s just me.  M didn’t get much candy because every little candy he would find he would pick up and in the time it took him to hold it up to me and say “Look Mommy!  Lollipop!” and carefully place it in his basket, all the other candy around him had been snatched up.  H, on the other had, carefully strategized with Aven her best plan to get maximum candy and had cleaned up quite handily.

Also on Saturday Aven started his building project for the year.  Or, I should say, the first building project of the year.   I already have another one in mind for him!  But the project he did during the weekend was to build a platform over the steps in our backyard leading down to our basement door.  When our house was first being built, we had specifically told our contact at the builder’s that we did not want the door in our basement or the steps in the back yard leading down to said door.  Our back yard is small and those stairs eat up a lot of realestate.   So we happened to be driving by the building site just as the builders where pouring the concrete for the steps.  When Aven approached the foreman, he said that would have been no problem to leave the stairs out but it was too late now. Apparently our contact ‘forgot’ to pass on our request.  Bugger.  Hence the platform.  The big black metal railings are gone and there is now a lovely raised little platform that is waiting for me to stain it.  It has opened our back yard right up and it is just so much better.  I will have to post some pictures.  Sadly I always forget to take the ‘before’ pictures. 

Saturday evening after the little man’s nap we piled in the truck and headed out to West Vancouver to visit Aven’s mom.  She has recently moved out there and we had yet to see her new apartment.  She made us a fabulous dinner and then we headed out to spend the rest of the evening at the ocean side.  There’s a great playground and rock area to play on and the kids had such a fun time we had a hard time dragging them away.  I must confess that I feeling a bit grumbly on the way there.  I was feeling very put out because she had previously lived 2 minutes from us and I had really liked that.  Now she’s much farther and it bugged me.  After sitting by the ocean for a few minutes though, I appreciated the location she had chosen and decided to give up my selfish thoughts and enjoy the gift of a reason to visit the ocean that much more.  I do believe West Vancouver and I will become good friends. 

On Easter Sunday I had to work.  Blech. 

The Easter Bunny didn’t come until the afternoon for us because of that but it was still fun.  I told the truth to H about the Easter Bunny because she had asked me point blank and wouldn’t accept my evading answering-with-questions responses.  And one hand it did seem to sink in that Aven and I were the Easter Bunny but on the other hand, although we were out and she was with us the whole time she would say “Why hasn’t the Easter Bunny come yet?  I don’t understand…”   And just other things she would say indicated that she wasn’t quite ready to come to terms with the fact that there really was no Easter Bunny.  Funny girl.

 

On Easter Monday I had to work.  Double Blech.  Especially since everyone else that I knew was not working.  Ah well, that’s life.  Suck it up, Buttercup.  Just be glad you have a job when lots don’t.  That’s my pep talk to myself.

The other day me and Miss H were driving along and I had scratched my nose or something with one had and kept the other on the shifter.  (cause I drive stick.  That’s right.  And I LOVE it but that’s another post entirely!)   So suddenly I hear from the back seat “Mom!  You were driving there with NO HANDS for a minute!”   Oh yeah.  I tried to brush it off casually because I was expecting a serious lecture from Miss Safety Nazi.  Instead I hear her breathe “That was sooo cool!” 

Yeah, that’s right.  I will probably always remember that because I seem to rapidly moving over to the not-cool side of life in her eyes.   

I will leave you with a few photos taken by our budding photographer, Miss H...

April Fools!

Last night Aven took me out for dinner to celebrate my birthday – we went to the Salmon House in West Vancouver.  The view and the food were beyond spectacular.  We sat in the lounge area which wasn’t too crowded right beside the window overlooking the ocean and all of Vancouver.  A live piano player came in at 7:00pm to play and sing and it was all very, very special and amazing.    

When we were ordering drinks, I had told Aven I would like a glass of the Gray Monk Pinot Gris.  I thought it would be lovely with the halibut dish I was planning on ordering.  Aven, in all his wisdom, ordered me a ½ litre.  He told the waitress that we wanted the ½ liter and then she started to walk away, thinking that would be for the two of us to share.  Aven says “wait, wait….”  And  I jumped in “yeah, that’s just for me!”

It was lovely wine and a lovely dinner – I had this amazing halibut wrapped in thinly sliced smoked salmon served on a bed of risotto….so so good. 

Sadly, I was cursing Aven for ordering that ½ liter of wine that night at 2:00am when my mouth was like sawdust, my head was pounding, my stomach churning, and I couldn’t sleep. 

I finally fell asleep and my little boy came in and snuggled in beside me…

When I woke back up, I looked at my alarm clock and it said 8:12am.  I cursed, carefully climbed out of bed as not to wake the boy and quickly dressed.  I ran downstairs, thankful that Miss H was up. 
“Get dressed!  Get dressed!” I say, “you’re late for cookie selling!”   She was supposed to be with her group selling Girl Guide cookies at 8:00am.  Crap!

She of course does not want to go so I bribe her with paska for breakfast that she can eat in the car on the way there.  “You know I like extra icing and sprinkles” she reminds me.    

We rush out the door and into the car and I’m driving down the alley when I realize I’ve left the paska on the kitchen counter.  I turn around and drive back home, race into the kitchen and I notice that the clock on the stove says 7:22am.  I look again to make sure I’m not imagining things and then it dawns on me what has happened.  We have these ‘smart’ alarm clocks that automatically set when you plug them in.  Very amazing in that way, although for some reason, my clock does not know when the Spring Forward actually happens so back in March, I had to manually set my alarm clock an hour ahead.  Well, it thought that last night was the actual Spring Forward so it moved ahead another hour.  My alarm clock totally April Fools’d me.

Aven has since promised to throw that alarm clock away for me – this isn’t the first time this has happened. 

Hopefully that’s it for the pranks on me today.