Brrrrrrrrrrr

It's warming up a little bit. Now it's 'up' to -27. We were out on Tuesday when it was close to -40 and I was trying to keep little Keira as warm as I could.

Random Conversations from the Latham Household

This evening Michael and I were sitting on the couch and I was laughing because Keira was wearing a very cute super skin tight sleeper that made her look like a little sausage.

Michael: She's just like your little doll!

Me: Uh, yeah. Have you seen the boxes and boxes of clothes I have for her? Yes, she's my doll.

Earlier this evening while I was out at Superstore, Michael was looking in the fridge for a container of sour cream, and not being able to find it, said:

Michael: Your Mommy is a weasel!

Aidan: No she not! (very indignantly)

Michael: Why do you take mommy's side?

Aidan: Because sometimes I no like you.

Michael: Why not?

Aidan: Sometimes you mack me

Michael: Why do I smack you?

Aidan: When I be bad

Michael: So do you ever think that if you are not bad maybe I would not smack you?

Aidan: Yeah. Sometimes when you no mack me I like you then sometimes.

Michael: Doesn't your mommy smack you sometimes?

Aidan: Yeah.

Grrrrrr

Did I mention I was sick before? I haven't left the house for 2 1/2 days, and while in the house, have barely left the bed or couch. I'm feeling a little better today, and since it's Sunday we're going to go to church. Not the early service...we'll take it easy and go to the late one. We get up, I change Keira's diaper and get her dressed, put her in the highchair while I get Aidan some breakfast. Then mix up some cereal and warm it and some juice up for her breakfast and feed her. By that time Aidan is done so I put a show on for him and Keira and I go downstairs in a vain attempt to finish the baby blanket I started the day before. I barely finish the one (long) seam I wanted to do before Keira has had enough so we head back upstairs for her to have a nap. In between her yelling and me going in to re-wrap her and re-insert her soother I get myself a bowl of cereal and eat it. Finally she's sleeping so I have a shower and get dressed. Just as I'm all ready she wakes up (it's like she knows!) so we all get our outside things on and head out to the car. Which won't respond to my repeated clicking of the unlock button on my keychain. Not a good sign. I have to manually open all the doors from the inside after using my key on the front passenger door. I hate not having power locks. After struggling with the stupid carseat and seatbelts I get in and turn my key and there's nothing. Well, I'll just have to go get the starter thing from the shed which is annoying, but at least we have it for these situations. Only problem is, my hood is completely frozen shut and so is the hood release handle. No matter how hard I pull on the thing it won't give. By now my ears feel like they're going to fall off and I've had enough so we all troop back inside. It's -29 outside and with the wind, feels like -44 (which explains my ears). I hate mornings like this!!!

Skating

Yesterday was Aidan's very first skating lesson with his Uncle Corey. They were out on the ice for a little over an hour and Michael said Aidan went from having to be held up to being able to totter around on the ice. Keira and I were at home napping but hopefully next time I can go watch.

Hats and Shoes

The other night Keira decided that instead of taking a nap like a good little baby, she was going to yell until I finally let her stay up. So I said fine, you can get up, but then we're going to play dress up and take pictures! I was going through her clothes to weed out the too small ones and so she tried on all her hats:

She only wore this twice, but now it's waaay too small - is that why she's so happy??

Look at those big blue eyes!

Such a cute hat. I remember when I bought it on the receipt it said something like 'Faux boa monkey hat' or something equally silly

EVERYTHING must be grabbed. Aidan says 'She has long arms' but it's not so much that they're long, just constantly reaching for anything and everything!

Looks like her hair is on fire :)
Still my favourite hat of hers

I found these in Abbotsford - aren't they adorable??

These I found in Edmonton. Little fur lined pink suede boots from H&M. Also super cute - and perfect for winter :)

Finally Home

We've actually been home for just about a week now, but after getting home and taking a few days to unpack and catch up with the laundry and cleaning up, I got sick. I hate being sick so much. It's not like life stops when you're sick; I still have to get up in the night to feed Keira, and Aidan still gets up at the same time every morning. How I feel is really a non-issue and then it makes it harder to get better when you can't just sleep all day. Anyways, enough complaining. Here are some pictures from our trip and right after we got home. While we were away I didn't use my camera very much so I don't have very many.

Keira practicing her big city driving skills in Daddy's car while we were in Edmonton.

Michael and Keira. You can tell Michael loves having his picture taken.

We brought along the Veggie Tales show 'Gideon Tuba Warrior' for Aidan to watch. I couldn't get the portable DVD player to work, so Michael let Aidan watch it on the screen in the dash. Keira was really into it too.

Our friend Joy very graciously let us stay at her place while we were in Edmonton. She was out of town and though it would have been great to see her, it worked out really well. Keira slept in her playpen in the kitchen and took naps in the storage closet; and Aidan went to sleep in the bedroom and then got moved onto the couch in the living room :)

Keira had a great time meeting Mama again and there were lots of opportunities for snuggles.

She's such a happy little girl and smiles so easily!

While we were visiting my parents, Keira decided that it would be a good time to start eating cereal and other exciting things like pureed beans and sweet potato. My mom had a box of Arrowroot crackers that she gave to Keira. It was so funny to watch her eat one - as soon as it came out of the box she focused her complete attention on manipulating her hand into the right position to grab the cracker. Once it was in her hand it made a one way trip to her mouth where most of it disappeared into her tummy and the rest was a big gooey mess on her hands, face and shirt.

Keira had her own little room at my parents house, and in that room was a 3ft tall doll that she was obsessed with! Well, mostly the dolls feet because they had really cool sparkly material and hung over her face while she was getting her diaper changed.

Keira has lately discovered her feet and it's so cute!

Here she is in her highchair at home all ready to eat. Her favourite thing to eat is yogurt. If I have a little yogurt container on the table while she's eating her cereal first, she'll fuss and refuse to eat cereal until she gets the yogurt!

Getting some rare tummy time.

She rolled over three times all by herself today. So exciting :)

Keira was 6 months on Friday. Sometimes it seems like time has flown by and other times I find it hard to imagine life before she came along. She was wearing a little white onesie that said Love Bug in red with some red sweats and I meant to take some pictures...but I was sick and she kept napping so it never happened. Maybe tomorrow when she's all dressed up for church...

Laundry

A few weeks ago I decided that Aidan should start helping out a little more around the house. He's old enough now that he can clean up his toys by himself, clean his room and put all the cutlery away from the dishwasher (which he does on a regular basis) and I figured there were other things he could do as well. I thought we would start with laundry.

First he made piles of pants, shirts, socks and underwear. Then we put all the pajamas on the hangers - folding the pants over the bottom of the hanger and hanging the shirt over top. Next we made a pile of the shirts and stuck hangers in the necks. After that we tackled folding socks into pairs, which was the most difficult skill for him to master. Lastly I taught him how to fold his pants in half vertically and then horizontally - and then he went and folded every single pair of pants he owned so his pants shelf looked as neat as if I had done it myself.

I was very proud of him. He tried very hard - and for the most part succeeded in doing most everything by himself. The whole thing took about an hour but hopefully next time he will be able to do more of it by himself with less help from me. I had never before realized how difficult it was to fold socks into pairs! He was also very proud of himself when he was done. He likes being able to say he did something all by himself :)