Wow.  I had hoped that the snow was gone for good this season, but we got a dusting on Saturday.  of course, that was just enough to make it a bit yucky to travel in.  The driving was good, but getting in and out of the vehicle was an exercise in keeping little kid’s nice “birthday visiting” clothes clean.  If I had been able to secure a truck for an hour, I would have had to move furniture in that yuck as well (buying a couch and chair from a co-worker).

So, this morning, it was chilly - around the freezing mark - but there were only a few flakes of snow to wipe off the car.  The ice has cleared on the river on our end, down from the dam.  So, now its the dicey exercise for NB Power to open and close the dam to try and minimize the flooding along the river valley.  The water level has risen to about 2 feet below the “overflow” point as of this morning, so it might be us that floods.  We’ll see.

About 3 weeks ago, Abby constructed a chain out of construction paper.  She had counted the days until her 6th birthday and had created the chain with the number of links to correspond with the days left to her birthday.  She’s been taking a link off the chain every day since.  Today, the chain shortened from three to two.  That’s my imaginative girl! I would have just “X”ed the calendar if I was inclined to count something down (my birthday is not on that list of things, though. LOL).

So this is Christmas eve. Our house celebrates the tree worship as do many others in North America. Abby and Caleb are wound right up. They see the gifts for them under our tree and they can’t wait to open them. Little do they know that Santa will be bringing a lot more, despite the fact that they may barely deserve them. I’ve sent them off to bed in hopes that they will settle down and sleep sometime before 10pm. Will they? That remains to be seen…

…and an update on the whole scene.  It turns out that we weren’t too far off from our guess of 10pm.  The kids are fast asleep and Ange and I caught “Superbad”, a really crass but good movie.  Perhaps it’ll get a review soon.  Since I’ve been feeing a LOT under the weather lately, I’m off to bed, as “you know who” will be up bright and early, I am sure (actually, I think that Angela will be up first!).

Merry Christmas everyone!

I took Wednesday off work so that I could be around to see my children’s Christmas concert (and to ferry them back and forth for the evening performance).  This was Abby’s first and she performed smashingly.  In fact, the kindergarten classes did a great job on their song, which was quite funny.  Caleb had a snappy tune to sing with his class, which I still kind of have stuck in my head.  I don’t know if that’s good or bad.  LOL.  If I get the roll of film developed soon, I’ll add a few pictures to this post (maybe with the other kids faces blurred, as I won’t be getting publication permission from them or their parents).

Christmas is around the corner (at least the commercial bonanza that is called Christmas).  What are you going to be doing? What have you done? Ready? Celebrating something else?

“Always keep your kisses in your hand. Then it will go up your arm and into your heart!”

-Abigail Thompson (2007)
(spoken after I gave her a kiss on the back of a hand, as to a princess)

What to dress them in is the title of this post.  Its just a quick thought on the dilemma that many parents face each morning when they are getting their kids ready for school.  There’s supposed to be a nasty storm coming our way, which is over Ohio right now.  It won’t likely get here until tonight, but, in the mean time, the temperature is in the single digits and its raining.  So, its really not warm enough for their rain coats unless they’re layered with sweaters and pullovers, which they hate.  I’ve decided that they’re going to go with their winter coats because of the temperature, but they’ll be wet when they get home today.  It looks like mother nature is going to win again.

This storm is supposed to dump a lot of snow and freezing rain on us, and yet the forecast for our weather doesn’t seem to reflect that.  How can you have a severe weather warning that covers the entire province and yet the very same weather service is showing a reasonably decent weather forecast? I’m confused.  Weather Network, you have to be more clear today!

Caleb asked me how I achieved a few of the effects that I use on the Gimp, so we sat down with a picture and started playing around.  Abby saw and sat down as well.  We got a bit goofy and here’s the result: