Aloka and her funny mind

Today Aloka said to me "Mama, can i pay you for for taking care of me my whole life?"  It was so sweet and touching, and then she handed me a penny!  She is so funny and sweet!

Today was the first day of school, Grade 1.  She did great, and LOVES it!  She has an amazing teacher, named Mr. Lunde, he's 6'2" and fabulous with the children.

There was the Rose Ceremony this morning, which is very *very* moving.  The oldest grade in our school is Grade 8, and for this ceremony which is at the beginning and end of each year, the new Grade 8 children walk in with the new Grade 1 children.  Each Grade 8 student has two little Grade 1's holding their hand, one on each side.  So they parade slowly in, and everyone is dressed in 'festival' attire, which means white.  White clothing, white with flowers, etc.  The boys have white shirts and dress pants, and the girls have all their fanciest prettiest white dresses.

They go up to the stage, and one by one, Mr Lunde reads the name of each 1st grader, they come up and their respective 8th grader gives them a rose, to welcome them on their journey.

Boo hoo.  So sweet, and as we watched and cried, Josh joked that there are boxes of kleenex you can purchase as a Grade 6 fundraiser, ha ha!

Throughout the year, the 1st graders buddy up with their 8th grader friend and they learn things from the older students.  It flourishes into a sweet relationship, as the 1st graders so look up to the older kids.

At the end of the year, there is another Rose Ceremony, and the 1st graders give back a rose to their 8th grade mentors, as a gesture of well wishes on their new journey into their next chapter in life and leaving the Waldorf school.

Gonna be bringing more Kleenex for that one!

Nancy Drew Party coming soon, i promise!

It's on my to do pile, at the top!  But in the meantime here are some pics.  We've had a very full summer, Aloka attended a camp with the SPCA (like the humane society) and learned all about animals, animal care, bear awareness, and did a million crafts and even did a field trip to a farm.
We also just got back from camping and she caught her first fish!   I have videos and pics of that trip, but next up will be her birthday party, soon, i promise!

Oh, and my dad came out for a great visit, there's picture of him too.
 

Genetics are amazing

Aloka saw this photo and said "Is that me, Mama? Holding Junie?" No dear, that's me when I was seven. She thought that was pretty cool!

the latest tooth loss!

I just wrote about Aloka's tooth, and the cool thing she did with it on my other blog (the one i have for my toy store) called "The Meadow". You can pop over to take a look at it here.


Also, the other day, Richard was holding Junie in the kitchen while he was doing something. She started saying "hop, hop, hop!". She says this fairy often actually, so he didn't really pay any attention. She kept saying it though, and he looked up and sure enough, there was a bunny in our yard!

A Moose and a song

I've been wanting to post some videos for a while, and my connection is always so slow. But I managed to do it the other night, so ta da!
The first is a moose that we saw coming home last week (we were going home, not the moose). This moose was only a few km's from our house, and now there have been meese spottings, so it's probably the same one (or from the same herd?). It was very exciting for the girls!



Second video: Aloka has been watching me watch people performing on YouTube (like that Greyson Clark kid for instance) and she decided she wanted to perform on YouTube also. :) Here's her version of White Coral Bells for your listening enjoyment! Is she going to hate me when she's older or what?



And the last video is just a goofy Aloka and a skunky Junie playing. Again, saving this one for the "gonna show your boyfriend when you're 18" collection.

Waldorf May Fest

This is Aloka and her friend Avery on the swing at the Waldorf school a couple weeks ago!

Apple Art

My daughter Aloka loves Apples.
My daughter Aloka loves Snow White.
My daughter Aloka loves Art.

My daughter Aloka loves this picture.

luck?

Well here's a funny little conversation that Aloka and her dad had the other day, when we were over visiting.

Aloka had chewed on a bunch of hair elastics (yuck and gross) until they were all soggy, and then shoved them into her jeans pockets.
She went up to Josh and said "Daddy, put your hand in my pocket and you have luck!"

Josh said "really??" and stuck his hand right into a soggy hair elastic pocket, and pulled it out with a dramatic and gross "eeeeeeeewwwwwww!"

Aloka was cracking up of course, and with her pointer finger sticking straight up in E.T. Phone Home fashion, she says, "I didn't say it was good luck!"

I think I may be resurfacing!

But i'm not completely sure yet. It's been 7 weeks now, and my business plan is due tomorrow. eek.
My poor family hasn't seen much of me (quality time that is) as my head has been in my computer morning, noon and night. I've been working until about 1am every night, and I'm really feeling to toll. I also feel like my social life has been put on hold. Actually, everything has been put on hold except for the basic necessities, like feeding my children, putting them to bed, getting Aloka to school in the morning, etc.
But holy cow, you should see my house. I think I need to hire a maid just to get it to a place where I can clean it again, it's so messy.
Richard has been great with certain household things, like keeping the kitchen clean, cooking many of the meals, all while holding down a full-time job AND building the addition to our house. So between the two of us, we're managing. But what i'm really missing is the relaxation, the down time, playing with my kids, watching a movie, having dinner at the table (that's actually not happening because the reno's are infringing on our dining room right now).

I'm just looking forward to this all being done, house and business plan.

So. It's due tomorrow. It's going to be about 100 pages including my appendices. After I turn it in tomorrow, they will get back to me after they review it, with revisions. Then I'll have about 3 weeks to complete and submit revisions, and then it's the final review.
Wish me luck!

And in the meantime, here's a couple photos of my growing children!

Skiing at home

First of all, I need to apologize for my lack of posting especially lately. I recentely got accepted into the Community Futures Start Smart program which is where they pay me to write my business plan. It's a 10 week program and my plan is due after 8 weeks.
It's incredibly intensive and time consuming. On top of all the research and writing I'm doing, I'm also required to take 10 workshops through the duration of the program, and many of these workshops are all day long.
So, I'm BUSY!! I'm required to work a minimum of 35 hours a week on my business plan, and I'm finding myself in the 40 and 50 hour range, all while taking care of two kids!

And while I'm talking about my business plan, I guess I should mention here that I need to collect at least 50 questionnaires by potential customers, and so far i've only collected 24. If you feel so inspired, it would help me out HUGELY. Click here to go to the survey.

So on with the ski videos! This is just across the street from our house!





This is a really fun ice slide they built at the intersection of Ward and Baker Street, during the Olympic festivities in Nelson:

PACKRAT again.

This is the second brush with a packrat since our time in Nelson began. I posted about a packrat a few years ago, that had gotten in my car and caused a scene in front of a shop on Baker St, but this packrat is a slightly different scenario.

This packrat found a nice little home somewhere in the rafters of the roof of our house, and was inaccessible to anyone.
It started when Richard actually saw it, and then the next day we were hearing scurrying in our ceiling. It was SO loud, and kept us up at night and woke us up in the morning. We had no idea how we were going to catch it. A live trap at the store was $70 which we couldn't afford, and we asked neighbors and friends if anyone had a live trap.
By now a month had gone by, and we had gotten pretty used to the sound of the packrat living in our house, though it was distressing imagining all the things it was collecting, not to mention using our roof as a toilet.

It finally looked like we might have a lead on a trap, when the packrat made an appearance or two. It seemed to enjoy our storage room, not sure why. All the boxes full of my toy store inventory perhaps?

One night, Richard realized it was there, and managed this amazing feat!

Our Christmas!

We had the best Christmas ever this year. It was small, and perfect. Josh came over on Xmas eve and brought a feast that he had cooked at home; Honey-d ham with cloves, baked sweet potatoes, pickled beets, roasted onions, and green beans and a creamy mushroom sauce. It was soooo yummy!
We had a lovely evening, and after Aloka was in bed, Santa came! Josh spent the night in Aloka's room which was extra special for her.



The next morning Aloka was up at around 7am (not too bad!) and there were stockings for everyone, and the tree was beautiful and abundant.
The first thing we did was open the stockings. Even Juniper had a little one and she just loved it.





Aloka got all kinds of fun stuff in hers; hair things, nail polish, little games, cool magazines, and lots of chocolate and treats. Oh, and of course, socks. :)
She did great! She didn't get overwhelmed or frenzied with the gift opening. She paid attention to everything she got, and even played during intervals in present opening. Her big present was a new pair of Cross-country skis and boots, and Richard got a new/used pair as well (his broke in half last year!).

Jeanne sent us these very cute little Christmas pajamas from Hanna Andersson, the girls were adorable in them!

After the whole present opening thing, Aloka tried out her new skis.



We've gone tons more since then. We are so lucky to be living in a beautiful ski town with amazing trails right outside our door. Our neighbor is an avid xcountry and downhill skier, and lives next to a huge parcel of Crown Land. He made a huge loop that meanders through trees and meadow, and has a few little hills even. It's SO fun and we've been out there a ton!
Richard and I made the Christmas day feast, a delectable brined organic Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, his famous red cabbage with apples and cloves (this is soooo yum), and cranberry sauce, with a decadent chocolate torte for desert. Oh, and of course christmas cookies!
Josh stayed one more night and then I gave him a ride back home the next morning. It was fabulous!

A sweet little video

Richard watching Juniper at night for an hour or so, while I put Aloka to bed. Here's a litte clip he filmed the other night... they are always very quiet because Aloka is trying to fall asleep.

And while we're waiting...

for my Xmas videos to upload (it's been 3 days now)....here are few that somehow were forgotten!

For instance, my amazing 'new' car! It's a 1993 Toyota Lucida (similar to the Previa), it has AWD, two sunroofs, A/C, ABS, CD player, the seats swivel around and fold down into a bed, it's in mint condition and has only 64K on it! It also has a very cool feature they call Sonar, but of course Josh said it's not sonar technology it uses, it's infrared. :)
It has sensors on all corners of the van, plus front and back, and a little picture of the van on my dashboard. When i'm near an object, the corresponding sensor on the picture lights up and beeps (3 types of beeps depending on the closeness of the object)! It's extremely handy for backing up and parallel parking.

It's a Japanese import so it's right-hand drive, which was cake to get used to. Even Richard loves driving it, and was leery about the right-hand drive thing.

no phone

Ok, I swear all the Christmas pics are coming soon!

But in the meantime, we are dealing with typical mercury retrograde stuff, like our phone not working! Since last Saturday!
Our outside phone line somehow got completely severed by ice or a tree or some other wintery obstacle, and we've been without contact to the outside world, save the internet. (thank goodness we have a satellite or we'd be S.O.L)
I've called the phone company (Telus) a million times raging, fuming, weeping, negotiating (see the 5 stages of grieving) and finally accepting that they are really actually not going to fix our line until January 8th. I hate Telus.
Twice now on two separate calls to them from various friends houses, the phone agent actually asked me for my phone number so they could call us to let us know if there was a date sooner that opened up to do the repair. Seriously??

Josh emailed this me:


Have I mentioned that I hate Telus?

After Eight dinner mints

In the advent calender that I made for Aloka, I alternate After Eight mints with a hard candy bonbon. Today is the 11th, so she opened the corresponding little envelope. She pulled out the little mint and the activity of the day (Decorate your tree!) and she said "Mama, what are these chocolates called?"

"After Eight's" sweetie, I reply.

She get's that furrowed brow confused look and says "After 10 you mean?"

She's cleverer than I am, it took me a second to realize what she was saying!
Today's the 11th, right!

Advent calenders and sleepovers

Oh how did a month slip by me? I have so much to post and only one hand (nursing sleeping baby) and not a lot of time. I swear this will pick up again soon!

I've been so busy working on my site www.bumblebeetoys.com amd it's the Christmas season, so it's been crazy. I'm also the class rep for Aloka's class and I'm juggling so much right now.

I have lots, but can't type too much right now...so...pictures are worth a thousand words, right?

The first batch of pics is summer reminiscing. We have hoards and gobs of huckleberries growing on our land, and I still haven't posted those pics:



We picked many many pounds all in all and I made lots of jam, and still have tons in our freezer!

Aloka had her first sleepover last night and she had SO much fun! The two girls get along great (her friend Avie). The mess they made was astounding.

Yes, Aloka painted her face. That's her "cheetah" look.

And lastly, I made an advent Calender for Aloka this year. I found an envelope template online and collected all my papers that i've got laying around. I filled each one with an After Eight mint chocolate wafer and a hard candy, alternating. Then I put a little activity or craft in each one.
So far, it's been a huge hit!

Laying them out and putting the activities in each one. They are written on coloured foil origami paper.

I was given these adorable clothespins, with little felt trees, by Aloka's Kindergarten teacher, Debbie Sunflower!

Aloka loves it!

Democracy vs. Dictatorship

Has it really been a month?? Time flies by in certain ways. Junie is now 14 months just about. Halloween was last weekend and it was spectacular. I didn't get any photos, unfortunately though...

First we went to the Waldorf Halloween Journey, which as usual was incredible. This year, I coordinated and wrote one of the scenes. There were about 8 scenes, all very magical... A Fallen Star, Grandfather Cedar, the Elf King, Jack Frost, a Pirate (our scene), a Bee Hive with Queen Bee, a Peruvian Folktale, and Grandmother Moon. Each scene told a story with one or two actors, and then gave a gift, symbolizing the story that was told.
Our scene was a Pirate who had been searching for treasure for 150 years and has almost given up. He asks the children to help him and he stands up (he had been sitting on a bench by a campfire) on the bench is a giant red 'x' which he had been sitting on the whole time!
The children loved it, shouting 'It's right there!! It's right there!!"
The bench was actually a chest, which contained lots and lots of gold! (gold painted rocks).

After that, Josh, Richard and I took Aloka trick-or-treating and she had SO much fun! She got tons of candy, and when we got home we divided it into piles; the cow dairy pile (she can't eat) hence the Daddy pile, the Aloka pile, and the "Great Pumpkin" pile, where the majority of it ended up after Josh's was set aside.

So she ended up with a nice small little basket of treats, and then put out the Great Pumpkin's into a basket with a little note and drawing for him/her. (She was wondering if it was a boy or girl)
The Great Pumpkin replaced all her candy with yummy treats (mama, I think the Great Pumpkin shops at the co-op) er... she got peanut-ginger chews, sesame sticks, carob covered almonds, fruit leathers, peanut butter pretzels, a cool little card game and a YOYO!! She was very excited about the yoyo and had been asking for one for a while. That clever Pumpkin.
She was very very happy with her trade.

So, I can't remember if I mentioned our wonderful Thanksgiving we had. We had Josh over and our friend Tony with his daughter Avie (a good friend of Aloka's). I brined a turkey (OH MY GOSH it was amazing, I will never cook a turkey any other way) and Richard made his famous German red cabbage dish with apples and cloves. It was a huge feast, and here's a little clip of all of us hanging out in Aloka's NEW room Richard built in the new addition. Soon we'll post the before and after photos to see the transformation of this home. It started as a teeny little trailer, and now it's a 1200 sq ft house. Aloka's was the first room to be completed, and the bathroom is almost done. Next will be the kitchen, we're just about to hang the cabinets. So, more pictures soon!


Ok, and some very exciting news: Josh and I have officially gotten permanent residence in Canada!!! We're SO excited, and totally relieved. It's over!!
So, yesterday I was talking about how we'll have all the same rights as Canadian Citizens except that Permanent Residents can't vote:
Aloka: What's voting?
Richard: Oh, it's complicated Aloka. Maybe when you're older...
Aloka (slightly distraught): But I'm a curious little child!
Mama: well, say there were 6 kids on the playground and you wanted to make a new rule. You asked everyone whoever likes your new rule, raise their hand, and you count 4. And whoever doesn't like the new rule, raise their hand, and you count 2. The most hands wins. So now there's a new rule. And that's voting.

Later on that night, I was in the bathroom with Aloka getting ready for bed. Juniper was sleeping in our bed (where we all sleep) and I told Aloka we couldn't read our story in our bed like we usually do. We'd read it in her room. She'd didn't like that.

Aloka: Mama, I really want to read a book on the couch instead!
Mama: No, sweetie. Let's read in your room.
Aloka: NO, I want to read on the couch. Hey, mama? How 'bout lets vote.
Mama: Ok, now here's where I'm going to explain the difference between a Democracy and a Dictatorship. In our country, it's called a Democracy, where everyone votes on things. But in some country's, there's a ruler and everyone has to do what that ruler says. In our house, it's a dictatorship. So you need to do what i say!
Aloka: NO. I still want to vote.
Mama (being reasonable): Well, tell me why you want to read on the couch so much?
Aloka: Because it's nice and warm, and cozy, and my room is cold and far away from everyone.
Mama: Ok, so what this is called is a debate. Where you try to convice me of your position.
Aloka: Can we vote again? Everyone raise their hand who wants me to read on the couch!
Richard: (raising hand) It doesn't matter to me, let her read on the couch.
Mama: (smiling and raising hand) Ok Aloka you win. We can read on the couch. Good convincing!

Aloka was very happy.

Here's another video of Aloka in her very messy room, and she totally stuffed herself in a leotard. It was hilarious.



And here's cute little one of Junie. it's amazing with the second, everything Aloka does, Junie imitates. Here, Junie is imitating making her stuffy talk...



And one more funny copy cat clip... Junie copying aloka putting on lotion:

Fall has arrived

and I'm sad about it. I could have it be summer for another few months! Like, summer, summer, summer, summer....snow!
Actually, I can't really complain. Fall in Nelson is simply beautiful. Sunny and warm days, cool crisp evenings, and leaves turning all the beautiful October colours of golds, oranges, reds. Washington never gets real fall, just grey and wet.
My garden is as beautiful as ever and I just got my last and final hurrah as far as summer colour with this beautiful lily:

We also had Juniper's first birthday! How time flies! We had Josh, Margaret and Emily over and I baked Junie a delicious banana cake with banana icing which she loved. She LOVES food, have I mentioned that?


Margaret brought all the raspberries from her garden, and she gave us 7 raspberry plants as well! I can't wait to have our own raspberry patch next year. Our little plants already made some berries this year, tiny as the plants are.
And as I've said before, I will be posting videos soon. My connection is slow, so it's harder to get the movies uploaded.

Juniper, in her beautiful birthday dress from Grandaddy and Jammy!

A day at 6 mile beach