Thursday 28 May 2009

Switched sides

On Saturday we had the car cleaned and Lucy's carseat was moved to the left (the big girl side!) She was pretty excited but the smile in this photo was caused by the promise of a chocolate chip cookie.

Wednesday 27 May 2009

Tuesday 26 May 2009

Memorial Day long weekend

We celebrated Memorial Day with not one but two cookouts! We headed over to Dave, Amy & Dominic's for a hamburger lunch and then over to the Atentos for a lamb (BYO) bbq dinner. Lucy had a great time swimming, eating and playing bocce. Over the weekend we also went to the beach, did some gardening and ate pancakes. Andrew got some pizza oven work done and we all had several naps. I vote for more long weekends!

Thursday 21 May 2009

Wednesday 20 May 2009

Board Games 8: Let's Go Fishin'

Lucy received this game for her birthday. It is a motorised game where the pond turns in a circle whilst the fish open and close their mouths. The object of the game is to catch a fish with the fishing rod by placing the end in the fish's mouth when it opens. The inner circle fish are harder than the outer circle fish as they open and close their mouths faster. Lucy has enough patience to sit there for some time in order to try to catch the fish. A winner!

Btw given the swine flu outbreak Andrew and I have been playing Pandemic. We have played at least 6 times and have not been able to win any game by stopping the diseases in time. Sorry world, you are doomed to destruction!

Tuesday 19 May 2009

Lucy is sick

Lucy had strep throat over the weekend. We spent most of Friday night calming her and she went to the doctor on Saturday for a diagnosis. (Strep is the name Americans give to a form of tonsillitis) On Friday night her throat was so sore that she was refusing to even swallow her own saliva! She is doing well now and has enjoyed eating her pedialyte popsicles to combat dehydration. However she is on antibiotics (again!) as this is a serious condition that can lead to bronchitis and pneumonia.

Monday 18 May 2009

Baby shower

My good friend Alexis hosted a baby shower for me on the weekend (along with the help of Amy, Monica and Jackie). The shower was a lovely luncheon with quiche, salad, tomatoes stuffed with chicken salad, fruit, and brownies followed by my favourite ice cream, Haagen Daaz's Lehua honey with sweet cream. The iced tea was my favourite flavour called 'On the waterfront'. How nice it is to have a party without doing any organising! I didn't give any instructions to Alexis but she knew not to play any embarrassing games and she themed everything with the nursery colours of red and grey including the fresh flowers. We played a trivia game about babies, opened presents and talked. It was very relaxing. It inspired me to get all the baby clothes washed and put away which I did with some success until the thunderstorms came.

Thanks to everyone who came along! And an extra shout for Alexis for doing such a superb job!!

Friday 15 May 2009

First Dental Visit

A few weeks ago Lucy had her first visit to the dentist. I know I should have taken her earlier but I just didn't think of it. Her dentist, Dr Halley only treats children so the whole office is very welcoming and kid-friendly. Lucy and I went to a special room for her examination. There were 2 regular chairs, a sink and lots of toys. Lucy sat on my lap while the dentist brushed her teeth and put on tooth vitamins(?). Of course she screamed at this point but as Dr Halley told me beforehand screaming actually makes the examination easier for her as she can see all the teeth very easily. Lucy really didn't like the tooth vitamins as the paste was melon flavoured (the only the food in the world she doesn't like) but she was happy to get a take home bag, a soft toy fish and a new toothbrush. She wasn't supposed to brush her teeth that night and it took a lot of convincing not to do so. She is now really into flossing her teeth every night with her crayola flossers and she often asks me at various points throughout the day if she can floss her teeth. Here she is in action:

Thursday 14 May 2009

First bike ride

Lucy went for her first solo bike ride on Sunday and she did surprisingly well. Of course she was wearing a helmet and knee pads but she kept her balance with the help of her training wheels. She managed to ride up and down the driveway making turns at each end. It must be all that practicing on the tricycle doing a loop through the kitchen! BTW this is a 14 inch bicycle as the 12 inch standard for her age was too small. Initially she wasn't sure on the colouring even though the bike is purple because there is a significant amount of blue too. We were able to convince her that this was the bike for her (the only other 14 inch bike at Toys R Us was a red Dora bike) She loves the purple helmet with ladybugs!

Wednesday 13 May 2009

Garden update

Andrew and Lucy's vegetable gardening is proving very successful so far! They are growing corn, tomatoes, beans and carrots. To date they have already harvested some delicious green beans. They have also picked some home grown strawberries. The zucchini plants are flowering and the raspberries are growing tall. It is all looking fabulous!

Tuesday 12 May 2009

Where are the roses?

We are having some rose issues.

Our magnificent rose bush seems to be dying. It has black spot but it also seems to have a disease killing the stems. It has produced 19 roses over the past 2 weeks but none have been the long lasting sweet smelling blooms of last year. There are a couple more buds to bloom but that is all there is. I am so sad!

On the other hand, all our other rose bushes are doing tremendously well. The white climbing roses (left) are about the bloom furiously. Our delicate pink rose bush had about 30 roses on it. Here's where the problem comes in - a deer ate about 25 of them on Saturday night. It just bit the whole rose head off cleanly! Last year our neighbour told us that a deer had eaten his roses and frankly I didn't really believe that we had deer around here (and that they could jump a 6 foot fence but evidentally they will do so for some beautiful pink and yellow roses). The red roses are still doing well but I'm sure the hungry deer will be back in a few days to eat those as well. I'm enjoying looking at them while they last.

Monday 11 May 2009

The fun never stops...

Although we finished the birthday celebrations in our house for a while we still had two events to enjoy this weekend. On Saturday we attended Katie's nursing graduation lunch and on Sunday we celebrated mothers day. Lucy and Andrew spoiled me with breakfast in bed, lunch at the Brasserie and lots of presents. In between all the fun Andrew got a lot of stone work done on the pizza oven. Now its back to another busy week with no less than 3 doctors visits scheduled, 2 playdates and some long working hours.

Friday 8 May 2009

Strawberry fields

It's strawberry season again!! We headed out to Lewis farms (3 minutes drive from our house) with the moms group to pick some berries. Lucy picked one or two strawberries, ate 5 or 6, and smeared several on her face on purpose! We all enjoyed some strawberry ice cream afterwards. I love summer!

Incidentally I learnt about chiggers. They are a red bug that burrows into your skin, and they like to hang out in strawberry patches. Not nice and thankfully we didn't come across any. But isn't 'chigger' a funny word!

Thursday 7 May 2009

Wednesday 6 May 2009

Another birthday celebration for Lucy!

This is the final birthday bash for Lucy (thank goodness because I am tired!) We had the moms group over this morning for a playdate to have a splash in the water and throw sand everywhere. I spent 20 minutes washing the sand out of Lucy's hair before her nap! The moms spent most of the time arbitrating sharing problems so it wasn't all that relaxing but the kids had fun. Lucy enjoyed her fish cupcakes but she told me she liked her fish cake from Saturday the best (isn't she sweet!)

Tuesday 5 May 2009

Lucy turns three!














Another big birthday celebration for Lucy! We all had the day off together to celebrate! Here are some of the fun things that happened yesterday:

  • pancake breakfast with new monkey, lion and elephant moulds

  • visit to a toy store for a new bicycle and helmet
  • visit to another toy store to return some duplicate presents and get new ones

  • beach for swimming and sand castle building

  • lunch at Kohls for hamburgers and frozen custards


Monday 4 May 2009

Lucy's birthday party










Lucinda Rose is 3 years old! She has been singing happy birthday to herself all week and having make believe parties with her stuffed animals. Her fish-themed party on Saturday was AWESOME! I say awesome because it was fun for both the kids AND the parents. We had a water area set up with a slide, frog pool, water town, baby pool and sprinkler ball. The mums supervised the kids whilst the dads drank beer and made pizzas. Yes, Andrew fired up the pizza oven but we decided to keep things simple by offering three pizzas - cheese, tomato and pepperoni. Combined with pesto and herbs from the garden there were a surprising number of variations. We had lots of fruit esp. in-season strawberries, mini quiches, jelly sandwiches (in the shape of dolphins) and cheese & spinach triangles rounded things out.










The fish theme meant that inside the house was decorated with blue streamers and coloured fish and the outside had plenty of inflatable fish hanging from the umbrellas. The fish pinata was a huge hit with the kids literally! They loved the idea of being allowed to hit something with a stick. In the end Andrew had to give it a good what for it to break open and the fish candies to pour out. The birthday cake was a fish, lovingly decorated over 2 hours. Unfortunately my naturally coloured icing didn't work so I resorted to the artificial with plenty of lollies. Lucy was so excited that "Lilia sang happy birthday to me!". The party favours were treasure chests full of fish goodies like stickers and sunglasses.













The weather was ominous at the start of the party and it even started spitting for a while but everything cleared up and it became hot and sunny - perfect for a water party in the backyard!
After the party Lucy had a great time opening presents and the neat part is that is wasn't a great rush. She opened each card and present and played with that present. We opened four presents over an hour and the rest the next day. And it wasn't imposed from us, that's just how she did things.

Thanks to everyone for coming - Jack, Lily, Cooper, Lilia, Dominic, Ava, Samantha, Benjamin, Seth, Shayne, Julian, and Gabriel.

Friday 1 May 2009