she's here!

Maia Claire arrived this morning at 3am in her parents bed while her brothers slept blissfully unaware of the events unfolding around them. 7lbs, 2oz, dark hair and squawking, we now have a girl in our midst.

Happy, healthy and slightly sleep deprived, we are all doing well.

snow

We got snow the beginning of November. It is still here. My youngest didn't remember snow from last year as 1) there wasn't much and 2) he didn't experience it hands on because he was too little. So the first real snowfall was a bit of a shocker for him. To his credit though, he has gone from feeling like this about the snow:



Sort of having fun but not quite sure what to make of it all.



Liking the whole shovelling thing but not liking the mitt thing.

To feeling like this:



Loving every minute outside, eating snow and sliding down the hill on his belly, head first.

Which is a good thing. The snow will be here for another 4-ish months.

arts & crafts

My oldest must be growing up. Lately the resounding refrain is "Mom, can we do a craft?". I never thought I'd hear those words come out of his mouth...this is my boy that loves all things that go. Things that "do". The one that has the attention span of about 2 minutes for colouring and all things crafty.

Not anymore.

We played bingo at James' Christmas party (with a real bingo machine, cards & dabbers - it was actually kinda fun) and brought home some of the bingo dabbers for the boys to play with. I figured it would be another short-lived venture but to my surprise he quite enjoyed making pictures with the bingo dabbers. Unfortunately, they are somewhat limiting when it comes to creativity...or, looking at it another way, fortunately they hide my deficiencies when it comes to painting/drawing. Nevermind that we only have 3 colours to work with.

My creative attempts with bingo dabbers.

Lane's picture (L), my picture of grass, as requested by Lane (R)

But the now oft-repeated refrain has forced this mommy to dig into the archives and come up with crafts that we can do with supplies on hand in the theme demanded of the almost-4-year-old child.

Lane's butterfly and Christmas tree.

So when my child requested a butterfly craft, the first thing that I thought of was to make tissue paper "stained glass" creations. A bit of work for me but a lot of fun gluing tissue paper for my boy.

Avery & Mom's butterfly.

Lane's soccer ball.

And, as always, it is an adventure.