Wordless Wednesday - Just for a smile

xoxo

Why Brea is a great big sister.

I had the pleasure of a bit of travel with my wee ones this past weekend to visit my cousin and to celebrate her son's birthday. Brea and Rhys were ecstatic to see their cousin and have a visit with him. They always seem to forget though that it is a bit of a way to go and involves staying a couple of nights away from home.

We arrived without a hitch and settled into my aunt's house for a nice few days. The party was a success, the kids had a great time, there was face-painting and cupcakes and playing.

A very happy angry bird!

The race car that he cried over later when I washed it off.

My little butterfly.

That night, as we lay down to camp out together, Rhys had a few things to talk about. Namely at the party, there was a little boy who was not so nice and spent quite a bit of time chasing Rhys. Rhys was on a push car and the boy was on a trike. At one point he sped up to Rhys, hit him from behind and was pushing him full-throttle for a good 4 meters or so before I caught up and managed to stop him from ramming Rhys into a wall. Nice boy! Rhys was apparently quite traumatized by it as he kept telling me over and over again about the big mean boy who chased him and hit his truck. I tried the best I could to explain that he lived far away from us and we would likely not see him again for a long time and that he was safe now and there was no harm done. After several minutes of listening to Rhys, Brea spoke up.

"When I have a party Mommy, I'm not inviting that boy because he is not nice. I will invite my friends who are not mean. And next time at Aidan's birthday, I won't get my face painted."

Brea had a fantastic butterfly that she waited in line so patiently for and was over the moon with. So I had to ask: "But why Brea? You waited so long for the face painting, I thought you like it!"

Here is her sweet reply: "I know, but if I don't get my face painted, I could keep Rhys safe. I didn't keep him safe today." My heart melted.

And that is why I think Brea is a most wonderfully great big sister. And why I so love my little girl.

Dinnertime convo/Sleeptime convo

Dinnertime conversation with Brea -
I'm spooning food out and watching Rhys who is trying to choke himself by putting way to big of a piece of food into his mouth.

Brea  helps herself to some delish Herb Loaf from COBS and starts talking:
"The world is filled with bread! There are lots of different people in the world who eat bread and they all eat different bread. Some people eat it with jam and some people eat it with butter..."

At this point I missed a part of her monologue because Rhys was doing something...
"What was that you just said Brea?" I ask.

She offers an exasperated groan worthy of a teenager: "Mo-om! You have to listen to my conversation!"

Sleeptime conversation with Rhys -
We have just finish reading a story about airplanes when Rhys notices on the back cover a field full of sheep that the plane is flying over.
"Beeps! Beeps!" he points.
"Yes, Rhys, those are sheep, SH-eep."
Brea attempts to help: "Shh! Rhys, like when you have to be quiet."
Me: "Rhys can you say shh?"
Rhys: "Shhh!"
Me: "That's right Rhys, SHHH-eep! Can you try? Sheep."
Rhys: "Shhh... beep!"

Weekend happenings

The Christmas lights are up at our house. It took a little while but it's done and it's lovely. The logistics of the way the lights went up was a bit harried and Craig ended up doing it twice since the connection to the power source ended up being on the wrong side of where we wanted it. I went to the hardware store to see if we could get an adapter to make the wrong end of the plug work but it turns out no such thing exists. We can't have been the first people to string up the lights away from the power source! I kept giggling to myself as I was seeking help, asking for "two male ends" to plug into. Very immature, I know.

The kids had plenty of fresh air running and biking around as we tackled the lights and we were tired so in the end we went out for food! Brea immediately suggested her choice of sushi and in the end that's where we went. The car ride was interspersed with Brea asking how far the restaurant was because she was very hungry and Rhys screaming very loudly in sheer excitement at intervals "Hey! Bismass lights!" - he's really taken by the illuminations of the season. I can't wait until we hit December and more and more houses light up.

We were recently in the States and since we were there for an interview, we went early and killed time by driving around and seeing what was near where we had to be. Brea was so funny because she couldn't wrap her head around the States being a country and not a specific place. She kept asking when we would get there and when we said that we had already arrived for a while, she disagreed because we hadn't parked and were still driving. She decided that the States was very far and too much driving and she preferred if we went home. Tonight, apparently the restaurant took too long to get to for her. She started asking if it was "in the States".

That little girl can pack it away! In her belly tonight: miso soup, an order of avocado rolls, 1.5 pieces of chicken karrage, 5 prawn tempuras, oodles of udon noodles from Daddy's meal and she still asked if there was more food after that. All I can think of is, what will happen when Rhys starts eating like that too? 

Apples and Leaves

There always seems to be some coughing or sneezing in our house over these last few months. I just wish the cold monster would go skulk somewhere else for a while.

So looking at the drippy kids today I decided to make some crock pot apple sauce. There's nothing like the lovely smell of apple and cinnamon. Rhys snarfs fruit and it's been difficult with him not feeling well to eat more than a few bites of anything.

The little guy was napping, so Brea became my sous-chef. She took out the equipment needed and went to the apples and counted out the biggest ones. Soon I was peeling and coring away. She pulled up a chair next to me by the sink to watch the progress.

"Mom, why are you taking the peel off? That's where the vitamin is."

I explained the need to remove the peel so that the flesh of the apples could cook down and then she could help me mash it.

"Oh." She watches some more as I continued peeling. "It looks like a pile of autumn leaves flying off the trees!" I turned on the tap to rinse off the fruit. "Now it's raining and washing the leaves away!"

A Moment with Rhys

Rhys always asks to have a 'nuggle with me as he goes to sleep or in the morning, he's a very affectionate little boy.
Tonight as I lay next to him with is little arms around my neck, he suddenly perks and turns to me and says, "Mommy, it's raining outside!" We have had a sound machine in the kids' rooms since forever so I laughingly went along with it.
"Is it raining outside? How can you tell?"
He cups his hand to his ear for a few seconds, "hear it", he answers.
"Do you hear the rain every night Rhys?" I continue.
He looks at me and answers ever so solemnly - looking straight into my eyes, "yes! Rain outside helps me sleep!"
I love the sound of rain too. I hope it keeps you slumbering in your bed tonight, all night, my little angel.

Another Halloweenie

I have been looking forward to this Halloween since it would be one where both kids could enjoy it. Rhys is finally keeping up with his sister and cruising door to door wouldn't be so hard for him to do.

We raided the local pumpkin farm last week in search of the perfect pumpkins and on the weekend I spent a goodly several or four hours carving them. This was in between fits of coughing and telling the kids in a loud voice to not touch the sharp things. The kids enjoyed watching me and helped to clean out the innards but were not too keen on separating the seeds out. The requests this year were butterflies and trains so after consulting the web, I found a few designs that I tweaked and they came out looking great.

Side embellishments.

Mouse Hotel where there is always a vacancy.

 As for costumes, I had seen a spiderwebby thing online that seemed like a project I could do successfully. Finding a costume that would work from behind a desk isn't too easy but I decided to embellish on the spiderweb and it grew into a spider witch who was the receptionist at the Mouse Hotel. I made a sign up and had the pumpkin on display and even had a service bell that the kids really LOVED to ding.

Aside from the torrential rain it was pretty nice out. Once the umbrellas were up and the gum boots on we were ready to roll. Brea (the Cupcake) decided after one block that she was done, it was too wet, she was too tired, she wanted to go home and eat her candy. Rhys was SO excited to be a part of Halloween that he was happy to drop his sister off and continue on his way. He lasted 7 more houses before finally succumbing to a potty break and once his costume was off, he was through. But what a haul he made. I guess when you're cute and there aren't many kids making the rounds, you collect more than your fill.

The last house:
Rhys bounds to the front door and knocks.
Me pulling up behind him: "Rhys what do you say when the door opens?"
Rhys: "Pee pee!" as he starts hopping from one foot to another
Me: Horrified, "what?"
Rhys: "Pee pee!"
Me: "Do you have to go right now?"
The door opens, Rhys stops his dance, looks at the lady, opens his bag and says "trickorteat!"
The boy has his priorities! 

Well, it another year down... I think I'll go check those bags now... gotta make sure they're safe and remove the nuts and all that...