Tuesday, March 31, 2009

My whereabouts

I haven't been around much lately because things have been hectic. Story of our lives, right? Sometimes I think I would like to have been a cave person. Sun sets at 4:30 in the winter? Might as well go to bed, nothing more to do for the day...

We've had a little home improvement project on the go lately that has been keeping us busy. We are drywalling and putting a floor down in the main part of the basement so it is better for the kiddos to play down there. We did spend lots of time during the winter riding plasma cars and bikes around a circuit, but with unfinished floors and walls, it has never felt like the kind of place you can go without putting on your outside shoes. This will make it a happier place we want to spend more time in. Well, except for the fact that it's spring, and we are all rip-roaring to get outside.

We have a lot of painting ahead of us... it's a big space, and there's primer, then multiple coats on the ceiling and walls... this is not going to be a $50 paint job. It's going to be a serious wad of cash in paint alone, never mind the effort to get it on the walls. Chad ordered the floor today - we're just going with a simple laminate - something the kids can pound on (and ride their bikes on again next winter) without any angst from me.

In the meantime, work has been hectic as well. Tonight I am working from home. This irks me to no end because today was a mother-lode kind of a day. In the mail I received issues of two new magazines, some fabric for a project I'm working on, and a scrapbook kit I've been waiting on for three months. In addition to wanting to work on all of those things tonight, I also went out at lunch today and bought Eclipse, the third book in the Twilight series. I am number 35 on the waitlist at the library as of today, and the suspense is killing me. I simply cannot wait that long to read what happens next.

So, yeah. There's nothing like having lots of great stuff available to do and not being able to do any of it, right?

One last photo to show how I've been spending my time lately. This is what happens when you have a basement full of drywall dust and a cat who likes to prowl around down there. Every morning we come downstairs and find this on the kitchen counters. Damn cat.

Friday, March 27, 2009

Going a little crazy with the movie camera

Since I seem to be on a roll with all these movie clips... here's another one. This one features Mallory dancing to The Aristocats. Her favourite part is the "Everybody Wants to Be a Cat" song, which starts out slow and then picks up the tempo, and that's when she goes crazy dancing. When the song starts she spends a lot of time making sure that everyone is bracing themselves just like she is to get ready for it. I love the look on her face when the tempo picks up - it's too bad that YouTube chops the top and bottom of the screen, and messes with the resolution - I hope you can make it out.
Liam waited until the tempo picked up to decide that he had to go pee - thus his reason for hitting pause just when Mallory was really getting into it. *sigh*...

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Big finish

Our little camcorder was Chad's birthday present to me a couple of years ago, and sometimes I feel guilty that I don't use it enough. I think he was feeding off my photography obsession when he gifted it to me, and it was definitely something I wanted and had toyed with the idea of getting - but it is not something that will ever take the place of still-frame photography in my life. I am not likely to become the next Steven Spielberg. Or the next Dawson Leary, for that matter. :)

Still... I treasure a lot of these little clips that we've collected over the past two years. Some of them are pretty mundane, but it's fun to look back and hear Liam's little colloquialisms from when he was younger or to see how shaky Mallory was when she first started walking. The reading of Brown Bear, Brown Bear that I caught the other day was a completely lucky catch. I had never seen Mallory do that before, and I only had the camera out because I was checking on the battery so I could film Liam's skating routine this week. It's made me pledge to have the camcorder out more often. You never know what you might get.

Without further ado... I present to you, from the 2009 Figure Skating Club production of "A Night At the Movies"... the preschool CanSkate class, and their interpretation of Kung Fu Fighting. Liam is maybe half a dozen kids in from the right hand side.

There are several more minutes of the routine that I have edited out for you - the whole class skates down to the other end of the rink and back again. Those poor instructors must have nerves of steel. They have been practicing this over and over for the past three weeks and they don't really seem to be that much better than they were when they started.

Having said that though, Liam has come an awfully long way in his skating. Look how fast he can move now. Remember the clip I filmed during his second (I think) lesson? I guess the money was well spent, after all.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

I like this picture of Mallory because the way Cindy fixes her hair after her nap reminds me of the girl from Napoleon Dynamite

If it seems to be all about Mallory lately, well, that's because it is. But don't kid yourself and think that is necessarily a good thing. A couple of nights ago, Mallory realized that unlike the crib that actually confined her - her bed has no mechanism to prevent her from getting out at will. So I put her to bed, and she got out. And I put her to bed, and she got out. And we repeated the game several more times before she gave up and went to sleep.

The same thing happened again last night, except that she was much more persistant and we played many more rounds before she finally went to sleep. She cannot open her bedroom door and in fact, the only way I knew she was out of bed was that every once in a while, I (working in the office across the hall) would hear the sound of plastic rustling coming from her room. And I would go in to find her sitting right by the door (likely because that's the only place there was a crack of light to see by) playing with an unopened package of baby wipes. Where she kept finding these packs of wipes, I have no idea. I mean, there's a box of them in her closet, but I wouldn't expect her to be going in there in the dark to find them. It was actually pretty funny, to find her sitting there acting like this package of wipes was just the best plaything ever.

Each time I found her I would pick her up and plunk her silently back into bed, and the last time I heard from her, she was talking to herself around 9:40 p.m. I figured that was it for the night, but she woke up crying hysterically at 2:30 a.m. I dragged myself down the hall to see her and found her standing by the door. When I put her back to bed, it seemed pretty cold and empty. I have a sneaking suspicion that she was actually out of bed again, unbeknownst to me, and fell asleep beside the door before she woke up cold in the middle of the night after the furnace ratcheted back.

Oh well. Serves her right, and will hopefully teach her a lesson.

And just so he's not left out of everything around here this week, here's Mr. Liam, sporting his spiffy duds. Man, do I love this shirt.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

The kind of day I'm having

I just had someone come up to me, shortly before noon, to point out the inseam length and "stretch denim" stickers still on the backside of the new jeans I am wearing today.

I wonder how many other people saw those before that kind soul pointed them out.

Monday, March 23, 2009

Work? What's that?

Today, I am back at work after a week off. I wasn't supposed to have a week off - it was only supposed to be 4 days - but I was so sick on Friday that I lost my voice. I called a coworker and left a message telling him I wouldn't be in. I'm not even sure that he could make out what I was saying, but I'm sure that sooner or later it all made sense. Like maybe around 4:30 that afternoon when he put on his coat to go home, and I still hadn't shown up.

It was extremely strange to have a full day around the house with neither Chad nor the kids there. Liam and Mallory had gone to Gramma and Grampa's the night before for a sleepover, arranged long before Mallory infected me with her little germs. It sounds so great, right - eight hours! So much opportunity to do stuff! But then I went back to bed for a few hours, watched a bit of Ellen, and before I knew it the day was done and everyone was home again. I just didn't have the energy to do any more than that.

During my time off with the kids I did get a few projects done. Blind sewn and hung? Check! Drywall patched and painted where I erroneously told Chad to drill some holes four months ago? Check! I wish I could say as much for my personal projects, which have been lacking lately. I decided to start making another quilt from some leftover fabric scraps from my other projects. I got 14 of the 48 blocks done before I ran out of fabric. I don't want to buy any more since this is supposed to be a scrap project and besides, I only need a small piece of each fabric... buying even a 1/4 yard would give me tons of leftovers I just don't need. I went so far as to cut up one of Mallory's old dresses and include that (it fit perfectly with the brown/pink/orange/yellow colour scheme) but I am still way short. So that has been put on hold for a while. I also wanted to catch up on the kids scrapbooks, which have been sadly neglected lately, and I did get one page done for each of them, but that's all.

In other news, Mallory single handedly ate about a quarter pound of raw carrots yesterday when I put them out with a container of French Onion dip, something we have never even bought before, but Liam accompanied me to the grocery store and... well... you know how that goes. At least he was begging me for vegetable dip rather than cookies and candy, so how could I say no? If I had known that onion dip was the key to getting Mallory to eat her vegetables, I would have bought the stuff a long, long time ago. (I tried it myself, and I don't like it at all. I would say I will never buy it again, but if it works for Mallory, so be it.)

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Mallory reads a classic

She has a couple of false starts ("uh... that's not a yellow duck!"), but quickly learns to improvise.

Friday, March 20, 2009

When you know that having kids was the right thing to do

Tonight, as we were huddled in our bed reading stories before tucking the kids in, Mallory tackled Chad and said, "I love you, dad!" Then she did the same to me: "I love you, mom!" And to Liam: "I love you, Hee-hum!" Whereas Chad and I both responded with an "I love you too, Mally", Liam remained silent. So she said, a little louder, "I LOVE you, Hee-hum!" and squeezed him even tighter.

Love that girl. Even if she did get me festering sick.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Where is the justice?

It's March Break. It's my last day off (the kids go to Gramma and Grampa's tomorrow so I can head back to the office to play catch-up). And I'm sick. Mallory got the sniffles on Monday and by last night, my throat was so sore I couldn't even talk without wincing. Feeling a little better today, but still definitely under the weather. We are trying to soldier through and have some laid-back around-the-house fun. So far we have gone to pick Daddy up from the office and take him to lunch (yay us for inadvertently picking a restaurant where kids eat free on Wednesdays!), made a batch of spring-themed sugar cookies which Liam raced home from skating lessons to decorate, done some painting, had a picnic on the living room floor, and right now the kids are down for some rest while I putter around the office and alternately sew/edit photos/plan a birthday party/watch The Dark Knight on the computer (technology is a wonderful thing!) A trip to the tropics, this week was not, but March Break is a good thing no matter how you slice it.

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

How things have changed

We spent the early part of this week in Toronto, visiting these guys. We don't get there all that often and my sister is on maternity leave right now - meaning that with a few days off work, it was the perfect time for me to go. We didn't do much - rode the subway around town a bit, much to Liam's delight, and hung out at the park on a warm spring morning. It's still nice to be at an age where it doesn't take much to impress.
Liam and Mallory shared a bed during this trip, which is probably not the best way to do things. Liam was clearly exhausted at the end of the day, having skipped his nap entirely. Mallory skipped most of hers too, but when I put them to bed together, she thought it was time for a sleepover party. It took nearly an hour for her to stop talking to him, jumping on him, wrestling with him, and otherwise provoking him. He practically had his head stuffed under the pillow, trying to drown her out. At one point she started wailing and I headed back in to her, expecting to find that she had fallen out of bed. Nope - "Liam did something!" she wailed, which is her code for letting me know that he hit her/pulled her hair/bit her/took something away from her. It's likely that he clocked her, and I can't really blame him for doing it.
We got back to town last night and the kids had enough time for a good visit with Dad before bed. We were eating dinner in Toronto on Monday night when Mallory suddenly looked up from her plate and asked, "Where's Dad?" Dad had to stay home and work this week, so he didn't make the trip with us.
After the kids were in bed, Chad went out for some green beers for St. Patrick's day, and I stayed home to do some sewing after taking a couple of days off. It's funny... he went to a restaurant for these drinks, a restaurant that used to be a roadhouse, and I was just at that restaurant a few weeks ago remarking that I can still remember being there when it was still a roadhouse, drinking green beer on St. Patrick's Day in 1993 when I was 17. The rest of the grade 13 class (Chad included) were on the not-officially-sanctioned grad trip to Jamaica, and I wasn't allowed to go. My parents were afraid of what kind of trouble I could get up to in Jamaica, I suppose, which is kind of ironic. Bar hopping at the age of 17 makes it obvious that I could get up to no good at home, too. I can imagine my parents having several hernias apiece as they read this, though it was really only the tip of the iceberg with respect to what I was up to in high school. But it's all water under the bridge now, right? Look at me now: I have become the kind of person who stays home on St. Patrick's Day to get some sewing done. Let's be glad that I got the wild child business out of my system when I did.

Saturday, March 14, 2009

At the pool




Friday, March 13, 2009

Happy, happying

Sometimes I look at my kids and feel totally overwhelmed by their beauty. How on earth did I have any part in producing a little girl as pretty as her?

Tonight, I am sewing away happily, almost finished my blind. Maybe Chad can hang it for me tomorrow. Joy!

I'm singing along with Chantal Kreviazuk, looping through all of her CDs on my iTunes playlist. In a few short weeks, she is coming to my small town to sing to me. (A few hundred other people will be there, too.) Chad got us some great seats as a Christmas present to me. Looking forward to it immensely.

Today, I got a birth announcement in the mail from a family I recently did some newborn photos for. I am so glad that they like the photos so much, and it was so nice of them to send something like that. It totally made my day.

There's a sign up on a lot around the bend from us (the other lot we considered purchasing) - it looks like another house is going up. Our little neighbourhood is filling in. Love that.

The sun was shining today, the heron is back in town and I saw a couple of robins this week. It all bodes well for lots of spring break fun next week.

As promised

The Hawaiian thing was sprung on us at the last minute. There was a Hawaiian caregiver day at the OEYC, and Cindy hadn't planned to attend until something changed at the last minute allowing them to go. Since we had exactly one night to root through the kids' closets and find something suitable for them to wear, and it's the dead of winter (meaning there is nothing out in stores), we had to make do. Luckily, we had enough to work with. Mallory's little hibiscus-print sundress from last year still fits her as a long top with a t shirt and a pair of jeans underneath. We thought we didn't have anything for Liam except for these swim trunks that I bought him about two years ago that STILL don't fit because they are too big around the waist. (Actually, I think this might be the year for them... stay tuned!) Then we remembered this shirt with palm trees and surfboards on it. But by then Liam was set on the swim trunks, too... and since it's March he couldn't wear them on their own... they had to go on over his pants. He was quite a sight. Before we found the t shirt, Chad ran out to the grocery store for a few things and came home with some leis and sunglasses from the dollar store next door - having felt bad that Liam might not have anything suitable to wear. So by the time all was said and done, Liam was probably one of the most decked out kids there.
At the OEYC, the kids hula'd and limbo'd, and they made a smoothie out of pineapple, mango and coconut. Mallory spent the entire morning playing at the water and sand tables. It sounded like they had a great time. It got me thinking about how much I miss the OEYC and doing that kind of thing with them, and as luck would have it next week is spring break, and I am taking most of it off to be with the kids. I'm not sure if we will make it to the OEYC as we have some other plans up our sleeves, but it's bound to be a fun week nonetheless.

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Praying he doesn't figure it out

Lately, Liam has wanted me to take him skating every week, and Chad to take him swimming every week. Last night I dutifully carted him over to the rink, did up his laces and left him for the wolves out on the ice. I knew it would happen sooner or later after the participation slip came home a few weeks ago, but last night was it: they started practising the routine for the end-of-season skating show. For which I already sent in the slip saying he would not be participating.

So I got to see them do this over and over: they put their hands up in the air, do a praying lotus position, take a bow, punch two jabs, and then skate to the other end of the rink, all in time to "Kung Fu Fighting." (The routine made a heck of a lot more sense when I left the warm confines of the area lobby where I usually watch, and went into the rink itself where I could hear the loudspeakers.) They did this about five times in a row last night (keep in mind how long it takes kids this age to cross from one end of the ice to the other). (The lessons from now until the end of the season have been lengthened from 30 to 45 minutes to allow for this, and really, I have no problem with that, except that nobody told us. We just figured it out on our own when he kept skating until 6:45 last night. The lack of communication is my biggest pet peeve about the Figure Skating Club... I just wish I had figured that out before they sent out the parental satisfaction surveys a few months ago. But I digress.)

Anyway, we had not mentioned anything about the skating show to Liam, figuring the less said the better, but now that he is practising for it with music and extra-long sessions, I wonder how long it can go before he starts to inquire. For what it's worth, I know of several other kids his age who aren't going to be in it either, including one whose dad said he was last night and then after I rhymed off my reasons for not wanting to do it, changed his mind. I hope his poor kid doesn't know he has me to blame for it. I really do think the skating show is going to be ten minutes with a hundred little kids on the ice to appease the parents and then two and a half hours showcasing their star figure skaters. I can't blame them, but I'm really not into that.

Today is Hawaiian Day at Cindy's house, and I hope I can get a good photo of Liam's get-up to post later today - he is really quite the sight.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Giving my two little models a break, and picking on the cat for a change

On Saturday it was pouring rain outside, so we took the kids on a field trip to the pet stores (there are 2 right across the road from each other, and they each have their merits: one has a talking parrot, the other has a big fat toad and a Nemo fish.) After that we went next door to McDonald's for lunch (with the justification that we were there to let the kids burn off some steam in Playland. Yeah, right. :) )

Mallory's favourite movie lately is The Aristocats, and in the movie there is an elderly lawyer whom Mallory has named "Old Boy". Every time he comes onscreen she says, "It's Old Boy! There's Old Boy!" She has a thing for him, I think.

Well, McDonald's was packed, and sitting at the table next to us was a group of old men drinking coffee, including one hunched over little man with glasses. Mallory was watching him intently and Liam picked up on that and pointed directly at him and said, "Look, Dad! Look, Mom! Mallory thinks that guy is Old Boy!" Lucky for us, he was old enough that he was probably hard of hearing. And even if he had heard Liam, I doubt he would know what the Old Boy reference meant, anyway.

Monday, March 09, 2009

A recommendation for the Blogger people: add a function to let me review my last blog entry while composing the next

That way, I could see whether or not I made any progress on my checklist of things to do on the weekend. I know I wrote about that on Friday, and now I am trying to think of how much headway I made. It would be nice if I could confirm.

Unfortunately, I came down with a bug on Friday night which lasted well into Sunday. So that was kind of a bummer. I'd much rather be sick midweek than on a weekend, thankyouverymuch. I don't think it was the fault of the Thai takeout on Friday night, since there were five other people eating it too, and they are all right as rain.Speaking of rain - that's all it did, all weekend long. So it was, in fact, a good weekend to check things off my list. For instance, I did get the binding done on Mallory's memory quilt. I am very happy with how it turned out though in hindsight, I would have used a different batting. I don't know if that would have made much difference, but it might have made it a little less lofty, which I like. Live and learn. I will probably do Liam's overly-lofty as well just so they match, even though I'm not crazy about it. I am a glutton for punishment like that. We watched Revolutionary Road, which Chad thought was craptastic and I thought was just about the most depressing movie ever. Which I knew it would be, heading into it. No surprise there. On Saturday afternoon the kids video-conferenced with Gramma and Grampa in Hawaii. Liam lost interest after about two minutes, and Mallory spent the remainder of our chat trying to read them her princess books. After that my dad politely suggested that we knock back from attempting a video call every week to every two weeks. I think it's all that his nerves can take. Mallory has that effect on people.

This photo reminds me of something else I swore I would do on the weekend: finish editing the twins' birthday photos (you can see one of them on the computer screen, peeking out in Bridge from behind iTunes (apparently we were listening to Beyonce when Gramma and Grampa called)). Check! They're all posted in the Flickr badge in the bottom sidebar.

I did a few odd jobs around the house that have been waiting for far too long, I did start reading New Moon, and although I didn't finish it, I did start sewing a new blind for the family room window. I feel bad that I got all the other blinds done before we even moved and it's taken me six months to get around to this one. With my sewing machine constantly in use these days, I had no excuse not to do it. I am writing the process out as I go along and will post when it's done. I'm sure there are other ways to do it and probably better ways to do it, and real honest-to-goodness seamstresses will probably cringe to know how I do it, but oh well. It is what it is.

So all in all... it was a pretty successful weekend. I got off my duff and got a lot done. I am normally a pretty high-energy person and it feels like this winter sucked the life out of me. I am just now starting to get some of it back, thank goodness. Most of this stuff is done while the kids are either napping or in bed for the night, and it is not always easy to dive into a project at 9 p.m. at night - I need all the help I can get. Next weekend is another loaf-around-the-house weekend with no plans yet, and if it stays that way, I should be able to knock another good chunk off the to-do list.

(This is Mallory settling down for her Sunday afternoon nap. It doesn't look like she is planning to do much sleeping.)

Friday, March 06, 2009

Why she always has a green or pink smear on her nose

I have been sitting on this photo all day long, thinking that something worth saying to accompany it would strike me with sudden inspiration. Ummm... not so much. I am thrilled to report that it is about 65 degrees and sunny out though, so you know I will be out of here as soon as is humanly possible tonight.

There is not much on tap for our weekend, and frankly, I am ready for it! I have a pile of movies to watch, I just picked up New Moon from my wait list at the library, and a package came in the mail today containing the binding fabric for both of my memory quilts (Mallory's, which is already assembled and just waiting for the binding, and Liam's, which still exists as a pile of baby clothes on the floor in the office.) I have one other quilt to bind, too. I tell you... the quilting is a new obsession.

Oh, and I hope to sew another blind this weekend. If I work up the energy to get to that I will try to take some pics throughout the process for anyone who's interested in following along.

I believe tomorrow morning is my turn to accompany Liam to swimming lessons... I have to finish up editing the twins' birthday photos... so, yeah. Do you think that's a little much to hope to accomplish in 48 hours??

Wednesday, March 04, 2009

Shop talk: Lost

I've been more engrossed in Season 5 of Lost than, seemingly, ever. It is so, so good this year.

For years, I have been reading spoiler sites and theories and bits of trivia about the show. This week I came across this theory that strings together the pieces of the show. I dunno... I think they may be onto something. This is the most cohesive explanation I've seen so far. It doesn't spoil what will happen in the future, but makes a hell of a lot more sense than anything else I've read. And frankly, with the complexity of the show at an all-time high... it's nice to have something spelled out for me.

Time Loop Theory

A potential catastrophe in the making

Last night, Auntie Katrina called and asked if Mallory would be a flower girl in her wedding in July. Of course we agreed to do it, but not without a whole lot of trepidation. If there is one thing I know it is that I have almost zero control over this girl, and goodness only knows how this is going to play out. Katrina says she is willing to take her chances, so we shall see. Who wants to start placing bets about what will happen?

Tuesday, March 03, 2009

Dream on, little one

On the weekend Liam was invited to a birthday party for his friend Elliot. Elliot turned 5 a few weeks ago and I am pretty sure Liam was the youngest one at the party. (I was the only mom who stayed, apart from the next door neighbour who hung out just to help and to, well, hang out.) Liam was very puzzled about why Mallory was not invited to the party, too. Up until now they have generally attended events like this as a pair, so I had to explain to him the difference between big kids and little kids, and how little kids cannot always do all the same things that big kids do. (I did stop short of telling him that he would be a little kid compared to some of the big kids at the party - it was true, but no sense in setting him up like that, right?)

Anyway, Liam went to the party while Mallory napped, and came home full of stories of games and presents and other good things. The party was mid-afternoon, so I was not sure that he would be fed, but he was; so we reported back to Mallory and dad that Liam was not hungry for supper because he had filled up on pizza and cake and ice cream, and especially a lot of chips. Good wholesome party fare. :P

The next morning as Liam arrived at Cindy's house, she asked him if he had had fun at the party. Liam hung back for a second, and I guess that's all it took for him to lose his opening, because Mallory stepped right up and told Cindy that yes, she did have fun and she also ate a lot of chips.

Monday, March 02, 2009

Police lineup

We look like a bunch of criminals, don't we? While Chad was out of town on the weekend, I finally got the kids down to have their passport photos taken (and did one of my own, too). I've been meaning to do this for some time now but had either been (a) forgetting when we had the time to spare or (b) deliberately choosing not to go when I did remember! - not looking forward to the hassle. Liam is never one to willingly smile for the camera anyway, but I thought Mallory would be trouble. How do you get a one year old to sit still, mouth closed, neutral expression, both ears showing, etc. In the end she surprised us all and did really well.

[Chad got around to renewing his expired passport well before I did, having needed it for work - thus his absence from our photo shoot.]

Starting in June, of course, we will all need passports to cross the border into the US. And because we live just 45 minutes away from the border, we are actually there... well, not a lot, but certainly several times a year - trips to the zoo, shopping, sporting events... with Detroit being less than an hour away, it's probably fair to say that we cross the border more than most Canadians do.

Add to that the fact that we have a vacation planned for this year and we had all the incentive we needed to get the passports done. We actually booked a trip to Disney World last summer (!) and it is finally sort of starting to feel like it might someday actually happen. Not til the end of the summer, mind you, but at least it is on the horizon now. The kids know and are starting to get excited about it, although I try not to encourage them to too much; it's still a long ways off. But we have a few brochures and such that they like to look through and pick out the things they want to do and see while we are there - Cinderella's castle of course being the highlight for both of them. One of the brochures has a map of the entire grounds - Magic Kingdom, Epcot, the hotels, you name it - and Liam already knows where our hotel is and where the monorail runs and where Mickey Mouse's house is (somewhere behind Cinderella's castle at the Magic Kingdom I think - though I'm sure he could correct me if I'm wrong). It would be lovely to be going to Florida, like, NOW - to escape the cold and snow - but late summer is low season, so there were deals to be had on both the Disney end and on the flights.

I sort of cringe to mail off all of our ID right now in order to get the passport process started, but I'd rather do that than waste a day going to the office in person with kids in tow - there is no passport office where we live, so we'd be looking at at least an hour in the car each way - and that's not to mention how long it would take once we actually got there. We don't need our ID to cross the border until the end of May, when we have a long weekend planned, so now seems to be a good time to do it. I'm hoping to get the applications completed tonight, have a coworker act as guarantor for me tomorrow, and have it go out with tomorrow's mail. Then we just need to wait six more months... and then we're off to see The Mouse.

Sunday, March 01, 2009

A sneak peek for Deanna

How I spent (part of) my weekend... watching these two dive into their first birthday cake. Hard to believe it's been a year already!