Happy Halloween (Part 1)

So fall has hit St. John's. The trees are turning oranges, reds, yellows. It's quite beautiful. And it shows how many evergreens are really on this island. Some parts of mountains are still 100% green. Some just have a few coloured trees mixes among the hundreds of green trees. The weather hasn't changed much. We have had a few cold days (hovering around zero), but most days it's a nice temp between 5 and 12 degrees.




And with beautiful weather on Sunday, we took the girls to a local park. It was small, but the girls had a great time.

Here are a few of my favourites pictures from the day.. (and yes, playing with the features on my camera ;))







The rest can be viewed here : Park Pictures


Tomorrow Halloween Part 2 will be posted with pictures from today and our Halloween celebrations!! :)

Chilly, and cold

The weather is getting chillier around here. Half the windows in the basement have been sealed. All the baseboard heaters have been cleaned, though so far we have only used 3 of them (livingroom, Den and playroom). It's odd having temperature control for each and every room, and it's something that will take some getting use to. But it's also nice knowing we aren't heating up the storage room. ;)

The cold that has been travelling around this house is very stubborn. Each of us have had some form of it for at least a few days, some of us are onto round two. Ellie had a bout last Thursday and Friday which resulted in a high temp, and sniffles. Kat has had coughing, sneezing, runny nose, but luckily *knock on wood* nothing going down to her lungs, but she has her inhaler nightly as a precautionary thing. Dani is just getting it, and while she is perfectly fine during the day, she gets the sniffles at night, and had the "seal" coughing last night. Steph and I have it lingering. Mainly sinus and throat issues. It just won't go away. We are getting our air purifier up and running tonight, and we have to buy a new filter for our humidifier so that will be running non stop starting this weekend i would assume. So hopefully both of those will help (plus a good dose of Lysol around the entire house.. get rid of those nasty germs).

Kat has her first friend birthday party to go to this Sunday. A halloween dress up party. So she is thrilled. :) Another note on Kat. She read her first book ALL by herself last night. She read Brown Bear Brown Bear What do you see? It's a book that she took out of the library last year at school. And she took it out of the library again yesterday from this school. Definitely a proud moment here!! :)

And my littlest baby is now 18 months old. And she is growing up before our eyes!!
She is eating with a fork / spoon at every meal. Wants to sit at the table without a booster seat (like her sisters), wants to sit on the toilet (like her sisters), decides when her diaper is too wet and takes off her pants and diapers, puts her diaper in the garbage and gets a new diaper, wants to buckle herself into her carseat (though this ends up with quite the fit because she just can't). Loves doing little tasks for us (like cleaning up, turning off the tv, bringing dishes to the kitchen).
She is quickly giving up her one and only nap during the day. And while she can be a bit cranky in the evening, she goes to sleep easily without the nap. With a nap, i can pretty much guarantee that she will be up for at least the length of the nap after her bedtime. She is still not sleeping through the night, but she goes to sleep at bedtime without a fuss, and i love the bedtime cuddles with her. She is getting a big girl bed for Xmas, and i have no doubts in my mind that she will take to it no problem. She is gaining more and more words each day, but still no "Mommy" And she thinks that it's the funniest game in the world when i try to get her to say it.

Here's a pic of my 18 month old goof ball, hamming it up for the camera. ;)

Set the bar pretty high

I couldn't have asked for a more successful Thanksgiving. Absolutely everything turned out wonderfully! The turkey was cooked wonderfully, tender and moist. The stuffing was great. The carrots were great. The mashed potatoes turned out really good. The gravy was good. The pumpkin pies were great (Even Steph who is not a big fan, really liked it). The spice cake hasn't been tried yet, and the sauce for it, well... it's the only thing that didn't turn out. But oh well. Everything else was great. The girls all ate wonderfully. And got to eat off of special China plates! They each said what they were thankful for. And after everything was done. I cleaned up the kitchen while Steph got all three girls changed into jammies and got their teeth brushed. And to end a perfect evening, we bought The Jungle Book to watch. :)

Happy Thanksgiving Weekend

Our first long weekend here. It's also our first thanksgiving without any family other than our 5. But while we miss the big family meal, we are still having a nice turkey dinner. It'll be the first i make, so hoping for the best. On the menu will be Turkey, stuffing, maple glazed carrots, mashed sweet / regular potatoes, gravy, and rolls. For dessert, it will be pumpkin pie, and spice cake with sauce.

I'm of course very thankful to have my husband and my three beautiful girls to celebrate with. I'm also thankful to have this house in St. John's, and thankful that we get to experience this beautiful city for this year. I'm thankful every morning that i get to look out from my kitchen window at my view. And thankful every time we go shopping and I see the ocean (though Steph gets to see it daily). I'm thankful for the support that we have gotten from both sides of our family during our adventure out here. I know it must be tough on the girls' extended family to be so far away from them.



On other news.. thank you to my dad for identifying our mystery birds. But I don't know if we can keep up with their needs. Between the blue Jays, the Yellow-Shafted Flickers, and the starlings, they are emptying our feeder within a couple of hours of filling it!!! And on the days that it's empty, the birds line the deck railings and the lines (power, washing, etc) looking into the kitchen window. It's quite the sight.

The girls are excited for Halloween. Kat is going to be a princess (with LED sparkling dress). Ellie will be Dora (provided we can find a way to dress her warm enough while not hiding the costume). And we had bought Dani a Pooh Bear costume, but she didn't like it around her head, so instead she will be a pumpkin (same one that Ellie has worn the past 2 years). Not sure how many kids we can expect at this house, guess we will find out soon enough. We are planning on just doing our street, and maybe the street that joins the beginning and the end of our street (to make a full loop). And Kat has November 1st off school, so Steph is taking it off as well, so we can have a movie night after trick or treating.


Hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving. :)

Who Am I ?

Time to play the Who Am I game.. Or i suppose the What Breed Am I?

These are the birds that have been visiting our feeder out back. I'm thinking the one with the red neck is male, and the plainer ones are female. There are a TON of them! The first two pics are of the same bird.. The other two pics are of three different ones. Sorry for the lousy quality, but taking the pics through the kitchen door.





This is what i mean by TONS : That's a glimpse of how many were in our backyard (and our neighbours backyards). (YIKES!!)


And here is one of our pretty BlueJays.