Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Happy Halloween!

Finally Halloween is here!

I have been working on costumes for the kids for about a month (off and on).  I was inspired by a tutorial on a crafty blog to do My Little Pony costumes.  I did decide to do fabric hair instead of yarn (as a knitter, cutting all that yarn was a scary thought!).  In retrospect, while the hair is perfect looking, it is a bit heavier than yarn hair would have been.  Katie is Princess Celestia and Sam is Pinkie Pie.  
 I think both girls are very happy with the result, as am I.  The costumes are made out of fleece and very warm (good thing as I think they are calling for a windchill of about -16C tonight, yuck!).
Here are images of the actual ponies, so you can see, particularly with Katie's, the details that were included.  You can't tell in the photos, but Sam's pinkie pie hair even has stitching to mimic the curlicue lines in the cartoon.
As for the rest of halloween, we carved pumpkins last night (I will get a photo later!) and both girls drew their own pumpkin and Ben carved them.  We have a deal with the girls this year, influenced a bit by diabetes, but really just a healthy practice I think, to TRADE a large portion of their candy for a toy. Kids just get way too much candy for this holiday and its not necessary.  (yes, they probably have too many toys too, but that's another battle)  

Hope you have a Happy Halloween!
(ps...thanks to Gram and Papa for the photos...our camera batteries (yes both of them) are dead and I cannot cannot find the charger.  I'm getting very desperate to find it!)


Sunday, October 21, 2012

Funny Faces

The girls and I did some craft work this week...we haven't really been as crafty since they do a lot at school and when the girls are home they are often happy just playing with toys and pretending etc. We did potato stamping and the girls loved it.

One day Katie say she wanted to look at her Facebook...it took me a startled minute to figure out that she meant this book. (and not another more well known Facebook)  This book has empty faces for colouring and putting stickers on to make funny faces.
Yesterday we had a special day...the local JDRF put on their KidsnUs conference...a conference for families facing Diabetes.  A chance to learn from sessions and connect with resources and families that also have diabetes.  It was a pretty interesting conference (some speakers were better than others) but the best part of all was that they provided child care ALL DAY for the kids.  Supervised by nurses and nursing students and put into age specific groups. The girls has SO MUCH FUN.  I can't even think of the last time they have had this much fun.  They did a bunch of colouring and other crafts, got balloon animals and face painting done by Shriners clowns and watched a movie in the late afternoon.  Ben and I did have to run down and test and provide insulin at snack times, but really, that wasn't a big deal.  There was also lunch provided and we all ate together.















We didn't really meet any other families like us...with a 3 yr old with diabetes...though I think they might have been there.  I would suggest that next year the conference do some more formal networking between similar families...its hard to exactly relate to all the families with teenagers.  But it was nice knowing that all those families know about living with diabetes...watching food, waking to do night testing etcetc.  And there was a very interesting heated discussion (at one of the concurrent sessions) from the government and school boards about diabetes in classrooms...and it seems that while there is no current legislation requiring certain care for students with diabetes, our city school boards are making a decent effort for accommodation.  I do feel for some of the parents in smaller cities, as it sounded like they weren't feeling very supported.  A good, if long, day overall!

And in other big news...I have agreed to start teaching in Sam's preschool classroom.  They had lost a teacher and were in need of someone and I was sitting in the hall the whole time anyway so I offered my services (no movement on them wanting to learn to test Sam).  There was some talk of moving Sam to the older class, three days a week (and we tried it and she did fine) as thats originally where the need was, but the head teacher has recognized that we would rather stay in the 3 year class (two days a week) and so we will.  It's an unexpected change for me...I wasn't really looking for work at this time, but I think that for various reasons, it will work out very well.  Sam seems to enjoy sharing her class time with me and isn't too clingy (which I think the teachers were worried about)...frankly, sometimes, (I was in class a few days this past week and the week before) I don't even get a chance to see her much during class.  This, plus the usual rush of getting Katie to school has kept us feeling pretty busy.  

Katie had an all day field trip last Friday to Prairie Gardens.  She had so much fun, even though it was a bit of a cold and rainy day.  I found it very very strange to have her away all day, but managed to survive.  

Winter is coming...we have had a bit of snow and the temperatures are CHILLY.  I'm not sure I'm quite ready for it.  Are we ever?


Wednesday, October 3, 2012

New Things...Lunettes and Tires

It's only Wednesday and already we've had a busy week!  

Katie got her second pair of glasses yesterday.  They are colourful and have transitions lenses (turn into sunglasses when needed).  Funny that on the way to pick them up Katie was speculating how this would work..."Maybe there will be a button to push and the arms will get longer and the sunglasses will pop right out on top of the glasses!?"  I asked the lady at the store to explain it and she mentioned something about the lenses being "photochromatic"...I may need to google a video to explain that one to Katie!  These may be her "silly" glasses...don't you think?
 On Sunday, coming home from church we got a warning light that our tire pressure was low.  When we got home we could hear the tire leaking air thanks to a screw we had driven over.
 We learned a lot about changing tires...Ben has done one before (not on this vehicle) and I have never had to do one before.  (look at that dirty spare...it sits under the car and I bet that's years and years of dirt there.)
 Best of all, we barely argued while doing it!
Katie had a PD day and was off school on Monday so the girls and I were able to get in to Costco where they patched the tire and put the spare back and everything.  For free.  Happy day!

It has cooled off a ton since the weekend (glad we did the tire when it was warmer) and I was really happy to bake bread yesterday.  And happier still when Grandpa Ken came to help show us how to turn on the pilot light and get our furnace going again.  Welcome to Cozyville!  =)