Sunday Stills: The Letter B

Sydney has been urging me to try out Sunday Stills - each week you post a picture related to a theme. This week's theme, the letter B, seemed to fit this picture I took on a very warm April 30th in our friends' backyard.

A family of fractions

Faith is working on fractions at the moment, and had to write about our family using, what else? Fractions. Here it is:

Half of my human family are boys. A third of my family are girls. A forth of my family are mamals. One fifth person in my family is an animal that lives under water. 3 out of 5 people in my family have curly hair. One fifth in my family has a tail. 4 fourths like to swim. 1 fifth likes to build dinosaur traps.

Yes, she included our fish in the family. Who else would have a tail? I leave you to figure out who builds the dinosaur traps.

New two-wheeler

Blake graduated from a trike to a two-wheeler at Easter. He has so far mastered forward and steering, but braking...not so much. He's fine with this though. It just means he can go faster. When he goes down a hill, I'm usually running after him yelling "BRAKE!" and he's taking his feet off the pedals so he can go faster.

A major milestone

Riding a bike has been Faith's Waterloo for quite awhile now. She has insisted that riding a horse is much easier. Pointing out a horse is bigger and has a mind of its own hasn't worked. But, we took a chance and got her a new bike for Easter (thank-you Zeller's midnight madness). And, I told her that if she got really good at riding her bike, I'd do a horseback riding lesson with her. (!)

This weekend, she finally realized success! I give all the credit to George, who seemed to have the magic bike-riding touch. She still needs to work on starting and, perhaps more importantly, stopping. But she's OK with falling off. She dragged us out again after supper to ride around the school parking lot like a pro:

A collection of stuff

It's been a little crazy around our house lately, so light on the blog posts. This is a catch-up of various things said in the last little while.

I was sitting on the floor one morning looking through a file folder, when out of nowhere Blake leaned over my shoulder and said, "Helloooo gorgeous!" George started to laugh hilariously from the bathroom. Hmmm.

Faith on why she needs new shoes: "I can't help it if I need to look good."

Blake to George as they were doing odd jobs one weekend: "I think we need a beer."

Blake: "Why is Naomi sick?"

Me: "She has a bug."

Blake: "Why did she eat a bug?"

This morning, upon waking up, Blake said groggily, while scratching his bum, "I'm hungry."

Me: "What would you like to eat?"

Scratchy-voiced Blake: "Something healthy."

Me: (Internal: Parenting high five!) "Apple?"

Scratchy-voiced Blake: "Yes."

Looking back on this, I haven't covered Faith's sayings very well, mostly because she likes to censor me now. ("Mom, you're not going to put this on your blog are you?"). I will try to be more balanced in the future. :)

March Break

Trotting by Faith
Originally uploaded by Robin's Nest3

It's been over a week since we got back from our March Break foray to the farm, but it's been busy getting back into the swing of things. We spent 5 days at the farm with my parents while George remained back home doing tax returns and fighting off a bad cold. Guess who had more fun?

The highlights of the week:

* Power - or lack thereof - The wind turbine project is in full swing, and all the turbines are up, but now they're upgrading all the hydro lines and poles on the road. So, Tuesday and Thursday they turned off the power for about 6 hours or so during the day while 17 hydro trucks (we counted) worked on the road putting up new poles and re-attaching wires. Luckily the weather was incredible so we spent most of the time outside.
* Seeing a movie - Mom, Faith, and I went to see Avatar. Unfortunately not in 3D, which was likely lucky for Mom as she had to shut her eyes in a few parts in just 2D. The movie was visually stunning, and the story was simple, but it was a fun time. And, we pigged out on concession stand food, so a good afternoon all around. Blake spent the afternoon with Grampa, visiting his great grandparents, which he told us was "FUN!" when we got home.
* Visiting friends - We spent an evening with my high school friend and her family catching up in their new home. Funny how you can not see someone for so long and fall right back into an easy friendship. We also spent a great dinner with my oldest friend and her family, who coincidentally live right down the road from my parents.
* Breakfast - Our normal pattern when we visit is to have at least one breakfast out with my grandparents, aunts, and uncles, and my parents. When we packed up this time, Faith even picked out an outfit for "brunch". This time we hit a 50s Diner (shiny, red and chrome atmosphere with tables that look like the first kitchen table my parents had). Food and conversation was good. Hijinks ensued when Faith tied her Grampa's shoelaces together. Apparently she's really good with knots as he had to take them off to undo her work.
* First picnic of the year - We picked up subs and headed to a fantastic park nearby for a picnic. The park looked brand new and it had this cool, rubbery matting underneath the whole thing (for soft landings, and clean kids I guess).
* Horses - Faith spent one afternoon with Sydney riding at a stable about 5 minutes from my parents' farm. Then, I took both kids over there to ride Indigo on Thursday. Sydney is so patient with the kids and she taught Faith how to run the horse on the lunge line before they did a complete "lesson". Blake followed Syd around the ring, stopping to dig in the sand periodically. (I played in the barnyard as a kid, so I figured this couldn't be worse.) Then, Blake had his turn on Indigo. For a kid who hates (as in has a pathological fear) being thrown over someone's head, he has no problems jumping onto the back of a horse 3 times higher than him and riding around a ring. He even went over trot rails, and a cross jump, after which he laughed out loud. The last trick of the day was trotting. I ran beside him holding his leg against the horse, while Syd ran in front (the picture). Faith took pictures as we ran around the ring, with all of us laughing.

Thanks to my parents for putting up with us and not spoiling the kids tooooooo much.

On the shelf

March 12, 2010
Originally uploaded by Robin's Nest3

I was in Chapters today and took a stroll through the investment section to see if I could find George's book. And, there it was! It was very exciting seeing his name on the shiny blue spines.