Teacher? Class Started Already

I was doing chores one day and the kids were playing on their own.  I walked into Jas' room and found this on her bed.  The bunny is teaching all the dolls how to read! 

She has such good imagination.  Recently, I find that Jas is drawing and writing in the toy room all the time.  She loves to read books too.  Hopefully we are creating the right environment for her to learn.

We Love Train Rides (video)

It's supposedly the last nice weekend before the rain starts next week, so we visited the park with the train ride again.  The kids just love the train and can't get enough of it.  See you next year Mr. Train...

During Julia's nap time, I took Jas out for a bike ride around the neighbourhood.  We went to Weir Elementary School, about 6 blocks away.  This is the first time at this school playground so Jas had an awesome time playing in the yard.  There were 2 different play structures and one of them has really tall slides (I wish we had this at our school when we were young).   

Jas was busily climbing up one of the stairs when she suddenly screamed... Aaaaahhhhhhhh! When I looked up, she was scrambling quickly back down the stairs and ran as far as she could.  I asked her what's wrong, and she pointed to this thing.  That's freaky, I'd do the same!

Nightmares and Not Sleeping

Julia has been having alot of trouble falling asleep and staying asleep.  When we put her to bed, she always wants the lights to be on.  She'd rather have the bright lights on and covering her head.  This is what she looks like when we check on her...

I think nurses would be scolding me if they saw this photo of her, with the blanket all around her head.  But that is the only way she will fall asleep.  Now, we make sure only her eyes are covered, not her mouth or nose.

She often wakes at night, screaming and crying.  Not sure what is going on but hopefully she'll learn quickly that just because it is dark, we are all still close by.

Who Looks Like Wendy's? Raining Bubbles (video)

Something funny happened today.  I woke up this morning as usual and started to get the girls ready for the day.  Julia was brushing teeth in the bathroom and Jas just finished changing her clothes. I had put Julia's hair into two pig tails, one on each side, quite low by the ear. Jas walks by, looks at Julia and blurts out "Wendys!" then starts laughing. It's because Julia looks like the Wendy's logo.  Jas has such good imagination...

In the afternoon, the girls enjoyed some time in the back yard, playing with 2 bubble machines/guns.  Last year we bought a bubble machine and it turned out to be a dud so I was kinda skeptical about these; however, they turned out to be quite good.

The girls had no issues with popping all the bubbles.  They loved them.  Take a look at the video.  After 30 minutes of running and screaming, both were tired and sat on the camping chair together.  They don't usually "share"  but I guess today was special.  

 

Please Don't be Angry at Me... Angry Bird

Jas has been crazy over Angry Birds lately (the game) and tonight, Jas asked Dad to draw angry birds on a piece of paper.  We have 3 angry birds, red, yellow and blue one.  Dad only drew 2 of them, red and blue ones, missing the yellow one.

Jas was in her room, playing with the birds, talking with them. I went into the room, grabbed the yellow angry bird and started talking with it.

"I'm yellow angry bird and I'm angry at you because you didn't draw me..."

The next thing I know, Jas was completely in tears and really upset.  The yellow angry bird quickly said, "If you draw me tomorrow, then it's ok".

Jas then grabbed the yellow bird and hugged it so tightly.  I felt so bad!  So sorry Beeps!

Kindergarten at Carlton Elementary

It is Jas' first day of kindergarten today at Carlton Elementary School.  For the first week only, each day is only 1 hour long... (really?  How do you expect kids to learn in 1 hour?)  I took the first week off, to walk Jas to school and make sure she isn't bullying the teachers (just kidding).  In the first 3 days, there was already parent-teacher interviews and I was told Jas is very stubborn!  My dear girl sure knows how to make an impression on people.

I'm sure Jas will adjust just fine to her new school.  She's all grown up!

Julia Sick Again

After the Portland trip, Julia became very ill on the very last day while driving home.  She was throwing up in the car so we had to stop several times.  It took about 10 hours to drive home from Portland.

Once we got home, we put Julia on the nebulizer as she seemed to have some wheezing.  Luckily, we had some extra medication left over from Jas, now that she uses a puffer instead.  We went to the doctor's and Jules was prescribed not only inhaling medication, but also oral medication - 10 days of medication.  Let's hope she recovers fast.  Poor Julia.

Portland Trip on Labour Day (video)

On the Labour Day long weekend, we took a short driving trip to Portland, Oregon (4 nights).  We left Vancouver on Friday night at 6:30pm and came back on Tuesday late night. On the way down, we were expecting heavy border waits but to our surprise, it was the shortest border crossing we've ever had - 10 minutes.  Since it was already evening when we drove down, the kids were mostly calm and very well behaved.  We stopped once for a break and it took only 5 hours to get to our hotel!  Wow.  

The 1st day, we took advantage of the free breakfast at the hotel (had great selection including cereals, bread, waffles, muffin, egg, bacon, sausage...) and we were ready to rock by 10am.  Our first stop, shopping at the outlets!  No tax.  We managed to buy some kids clothes and a few things for each of us but unfortunately, the stores there were only so-so and we didn't feel like driving another hour to a different outlet mall so we called it a day.  The kids mainly sat outside where all the rides were...

I didn't look into restaurants for the trip so we mainly ate at fast food places and the restaurants by our hotel (Sweet Tomato and Applebees).  All the McDonalds there had Playplace (play area for kids) and boy, did the kids love it.  They wanted to go to McDs all the time.  We discovered Sweet Tomato on our very last day and the food was very good, nice selection and pretty healthy.  Too bad as we'd have eaten there more often.

On our 2nd day, we marched towards the Portland Children's Museum.  I've read mixed reviews about this place and decided to check it out anyways.  it's basically a little exhibits such as water works, pet hospital, dig pit, clay studio.  It's more for younger kids I think as even Jas was a bit too old for it.  Julia had a fun time.  They loved the ball shooting thing at the entrance of the museum (check the video).  You stick the balls into the hole, shut the door, push the button and the balls shoot up into the air!  The kids played with this thing for 20 minutes.

On the 3rd day, we went to the Oaks Amusement Park...  the highlight of our trip!  Both Rich and I love rides.  The kids too.  Oaks is like a mini-Playland in Vancouver except without the high prices.  The regular all-day-ride pass is only $15!  For kids, only $12.    And for the Labour Day special... only $9!!!  Yay!  What a nice surprise.  We would have gladly paid full price.  

It took about 1.5 hours to get there (traffic) but so worth it.  We got there around noon and basically went on non-stop rides until 7pm, when the park closed.  The kids didn't even want to leave.  I lost track of how many rides we went on, some we didn't take pics or videos of (like roller coaster, bumpy airplane, boat ride).  Check out the video.  Everyone had a blast.    

 

For our 4th day, it was time to drive home.  We had to make stops at Costco, Target and Walmart though to buy our TVs, pillows and other junk.  We also noticed that Julia wasn't feeling well, not eating well and she started throwing up while we were driving.  We had to make many pit stops, to use the washroom, buy food, stretch legs...   It took us over 10 hours to drive home.  Boo.  Oh, and the border crossing was also only 10 minutes!  But best of all, no tax!