CelticCowpokes

Rebecca is Five!

Rebecca is five years old today! We were lucky to have visitors from family, including Janice and Reg (Pop and Nan) and cousins Ocean, Summer and Doug and Sabrina.  The first part of the day involved running circles outside and playing with Willow and on the tree fort.   We then made some chicken wings,  ribs on the campfire and of course, a rainbow coloured cake. 

Rebecca was serious about her cake!

Abby was excited as well.  Needless to say, the cake didn't last long!

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeqHyGAjmpk

Fun with Food

 

Last week, we had some fun with some seasonal foods.  Our first watermellons of the year brought out some funny faces from Abby.

She could eat a whole watermellon, at least until her eyesight fails. :)

 

Later, we picked up some lobsters as the season started earlier last week.  It was Abby's first time seeing them up close and alive.  They both loved one of them which was a bit feisty before accepting its fate in the pot.

After they were cooked, Abby kept checking to see if they were alive.

Sun Dresses

Outdoor time with the kids

The warmer weather has the girls playing outside more now. 

We dug out the old marbles for a game on the driveway.  That's one good thing about having a dirt driveway!

Rebecca and Abby try their attempts at sinking their marble. 

Here's Abigail with her best friend, Willow.  There is a bit of evidence on Abby's face of her marshmallow eating.

Sheena brought out some salmon filets for us to try on the campfire.  They worked out great and cooked very quickly.  Much quicker than ribs, with a carmalized flavour to them.  Of course, we thought the kids would just eat the weiners, but they devoured the salmon as well.  Willow's treat is in the tinfoil.

Here's Rebecca concentrating on cooking her dessert.

 

The girls were proud of their Sunday jumpers.  I think YMCA was playing on the radio at the time.   Oh wait, Sheena says its a ballerina pose.  *sigh*

Rebecca has been wanting to fly a kite lately.  She's a natural at it -- with lots of wind of course.

After supper tonight, we went outside to take advantage of the wind.

A few weekends worth...

A couple of weeks ago, I met with Laurena and Mom and Dad in Brook Village for a major facelift/overhaul of the Brook Village Grocery (Dad's store).  We began on Saturday at 2pm and ran to the following Saturday at 6:30pm, painting, renovating and organizing the front part of the store.  It was long days, but fun to see the day to day goings on at the store.  We also heard lots of stories from the customers about their own experiences as kids at the store and even more about the store's history and its various owners.  Dad plans to repost the store for sale soon. 

This past weekend was another busy one with the kids going for their first hike of the year.  Rebecca and Abby brought their magnifing glasses for a little investigation along the way.  Rebecca was really proud to find a pheasant feather during their trip.  Abby and Rebecca walked on their own on the trail as well!

Rebecca and Abby wearing their backpacks and picking rocks.

Rebecca celebrates that they found the waterfall!

Abby at creekside.

On the same weekend, I had some new training with the Belleisle Valley Fire Department.  We were being trained as ice rescue technicians, being able to go out in the water and ice to retrieve someone from the ice or open water.  With the warm weather through this week, the training was a little bit more difficult.  Most ice was stable for a while, but began to sink with any extra load.  So, we had to be quick with our rescues!  It was really too bad that my suit had a tiny but chilly leak in the backside! (Photos by Mike Sherwood)

Starting off on the rescue sled. 

Making my way past the open water and slushy ice.

Here we are practicing loading a patient on a floating stretcher, except the ice was sinking quick!  Coming back was always the fun part as those on the land were pulling our rope lines and we could float on the way to shore.

Sheena's also been hard at work over the last few months with her wood working for the Wonderland Day Care and some other projects.  Here's a few photos of her great work:

 

 

 

 

A family day in February

 

 

It was a mild but blustery day yesterday -- the girls still love their tree fort in the winter.

 

We had a little sleigh ride too.  It was our first of the year as we haven't had much snow this winter, up in the last couple of weeks.

Later, we made some maple bacon wrapped salmon.  It was delicious!

 

Hockey!

 The past few weekends we've had some warm stints in the weather, letting us get outside for some more time on the ice.  We brought the sticks out and turned one of the skate buddies into a net...the girls took to the hockey right away.  Abby is great at passing and Rebecca likes playing goalie! 

Willow seems surprised that even us humans chase after objects.  She seemed to be on my tail the whole time I was on the ice.

Here's the girls playing with the puck on a sunny day last week.

Our cute little hockey players!

Rebecca with skates on pushing the net...

 Sheena going for the East Scotch canal skate :)

A portion of the the East Scotch Canal.

 

Photos by request!

 

 At special request, we are posting a few pictures of Abby's new haircut.  Now, she has finally put away her toque for a while! Abby was a little angel getting her haircut.  She sat quietly while two hairdressers worked the tangles out of her hair before her haircut.  Every now and then, she'd look over at Sheena.  There were even a few smiles near the end.  In the photo, Abby is playing with the homemade playdough that Sheena and the girls made earlier in the week.

We've also put up some pictures of Sheena's hard work in the basement.  We have most of the basement framed in and need to do some electrical work later in the spring.  The plan is to have another bedroom, a storage room, furnace room, a 1/2 bath and a long den and play area.

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Theme Nights and Backyard Skating

A few weeks ago, we decided to start having themed food nights.  The girls really took to them and look forward to suppers and desserts on certain days.  So far, we have 'Pizza Fridays': where the girls make their own pizzas (Naan bread and their own toppings).

And...'Sundae Saturdays'.  The kids do the same with ice cream and the assorted toppings, but usually get carried away with the sprinkles.  (Ha!)

 Yesterday, we moved some snow from the swail in the back yard and found a perfect little backyard skating rink underneath the thin layer of snow. 

Rebecca is quickly getting more confident on the ice, although loves getting dragged around by Mom.

We also had a campfire yesterday, to warm up between the skating and the playfort(ing?)  I caught Abby sneaking a few more marshmallows! (Zoom in to see the hand in the bag)

 

Revving up for Christmas

The third week of November is as far as we could get without 'Dad, is it time to decorate the house yet?" "Mom, can we put the lights up?" "Dad, Dad, Dad, when are we going to put the tree up?"  So, naturally, on the evening of the second snowstorm of the year (and a whallop it was), we set on decorating the house for Christmas.  Sheena cut a tree from the front yard (!), which is actually woods, but still!  And it was all decorated by nights end on November 23rd.  The lights outside took another week, but were up soon enough as Rebecca and Abby needed our house to be like the others that they see regularly on the evening drives home from 'school' (daycare). 

 

 

 We made our usual visit to the Moncton Christmas parade.  This year was clearly Abby's year at the parade.  While we sat watching the parade this year, she was jumping out of Sheena's lap for each float.  There weren't many good pictures that night, but this one kind of exemplifies how she was.

The next day, we went to Saint John for a kids Christmas party for work.  There was all sorts of activities for them, including tons of fun food, balloon making...

... paint on tattoos (Rebecca had a rabbit)...

 

...Abby had her favorite penguin...

There was even face painting.  The lady doing the work had amazing talent and made Abby look like a cheetah.

Rebecca wanted to be a bat (she usually draws bats all over her drawing papers).  The cheetah and bats are courtesy of their favorite show, 'Wild Kratts'.

And of course, Santa arrived at the party.  Rebecca ended up sitting front and centre at Santa's feet.  She didn't take her eyes off Santa the whole time he was there.

Rebecca's name was called and she didn't sit on his lap, but stood in awe at his feet.  Abby was a bit shy, so there was no photo as I was nudging her up to him.