Glue and paint.

Fun times on a Saturday night with glue and paint.

I took the littles to see the Good Dinosaur this afternoon but other than that it's been a pretty lazy day.  Jia and I loved the show.  Scared Luk so badly he let out an ear piercing scream at one point and then moved onto more guteral yells.  It was suspenseful at times but he was the only one scared.  He spent a lot of the show with his head buried in my lap.  His retelling of the show to Eric included the words 'it was scary' but he didn't talk about the hiding and screaming.  Too funny.  He says he was scared for Arlo and Spot because he loved them so much.  Spoiler alert...Arlo and Spot were fine when we left them ;)

Eric isn't as ga ga for kittens as the rest of us.  He mostly sees the work and damage.  Just this morning he was patching a new hole in the wall from the kittens.  Different story with Walter though.  ;)

Is this how everyone bathes?!

Armloads of joy.

The High Spot

Esmei made it up to Walter's high spot! 

Light Up

Oh my gawd was it ever cold tonight.  Felt bad for the kids with no jackets and little highland slippers on freezing cement.  Brrr.  It was fun to have all four kids dancing tonight.  Luk and Jia's first time performing.   She hated it.  Luk loved it.  They were sooo cute.  Wish I knew how to load video here.  Lili and Fei were lovely as always.  We've been home a couple hours and I'm still freezing.

Bedtime with Esmei

When I head to bed I call my crew.  Jia, Lacie, Esmei and they all come up at once.  Its super cute. Usually Walter and Isabel come up too but they don't sleep in my room.

Esmei has several hours long naps through the day and her favorite thing is still bedtime ;)  She is the best snuggler  ever.  But she only settles in to snuggle in bed.  No clue why.  Maybe it's the only time I'm still enough to bother.  Perhaps because Lacie prefers to be by my feet under the blankets and Esmei doesn't have to compete for attention. 

Tonight while I'm feeling better, I'm climbing into clean sheets and life feels a tad organized it's pretty cozy in here.  Jia is even singing lullabies to me and Esmei.

Xmas concert costumes.

Ok, on Thursday I was enormously annoyed with the costume requests for Jia and Fei's classes.  Poodle skirt for Jia and 1980 neon arobic wear for Fei.  This wasn't something I could just pick up at Walmart. 

50 cents for a piece of felt and a flouncy hippy skirt from Fei and we made a poodle skirt tonight that I think turned out pretty cute.  Fei managed to put something together out of her own closet while still looking modest and cute.  Phew.  Bags packed and ready to send in to their classes.

I also put together three out of four warm Highland outfits for the kids for Friday. They're all dancing at Light Up.  Fun.  Jia has joined Luk's class!  Her first class was yesterday.  She loved it.  It was quite surprising that she decided to go back.  Likely just because Luk is going and having fun so she's had to rethink her fears.  The only plaid shirt I had for Luk here is flannel, at least it will be warm.  I saved a lot of the girls plaid so Jia had fun digging through them tonight.  Most of them are still too big.  Fingers crossed she stays with dance this time.  Eric didn't take any first class pics.  I keep telling him that if there are no pictures it didn't happen. 

Let's talk about Walter.

I believe that cats with his amount of personality are rare.  We adore and treasure him.  He is Fei's baby.  He has totally claimed her.  He is the picture of innocence when he's in her arms.

However...

We have never been so challenged by a cat before.  We are constantly trying to thwart him.  It took Eugene six months to jump the gate to the laundry room, took Walter one day.  Walter has found the cat door and checks it out several times a day.  It's just a matter of time before he gets brave enough to go out.  In the mean time we all go get him and bring him back in the kitchen.  He does not give up.  I was hoping to keep the kittens in until spring.  Esmei doesn't know there is a gate.

He doesn't know his name.  Won't come when called to any version of "kitty kitty".  He hasn't learned 'down'.  But call out the word BATH and he's there!  We're mostly getting used to him on the edge of the tub.  Not sure what Eric really thinks of his audience ;)  He's fallen in the tub three times that I know of.  Is it possible a cat would like swimming?  Do we try putting him in?  Wait till he finds out we have a pool.

He has leaped into the kitchen sink.  He wanders around the mantle and the top of the piano.  We hear him playing the piano often.  He's the worst pianist here.  The kids don't even react to him being 'up' anymore.  They just go get him and put him down.  We're trying to allow one high spot per room.  I'd prefer he stayed off tables and kitchen counters. 

The crashes.  Oh my the crashes.  I thought we were fairly child friendly already but he is showing us all the time what we missed.  We hear the crash and automatically know it's Walter.  When we get there he is always looking on like 'what happened?!'. 

He loves the rats.  We can NOT get him to leave them alone.  The girls have a heck of a time cleaning the cage as he tries to help.  For now we've given up chasing him away.  As long as he's being polite we'll let him continue visiting his little friends.  The ratties don't seem to mind him.

Esmei...well Esmei is a doll.  She likes to chase paper balls and lays on her back batting at dust.  She also really likes her naps.  A lot of them.

I'm not keen to decorate for Chistmas.  Eric bought me a fake tree.  We're hoping that will help deter them.  I also located the dollar store decorations I bought for last year with Eugene. 

Too funny.

Busy house these days. 

Here he was laying all sweetly cuddled with Jia's cat but by the time I got my camera he was in full attack mode with a mouth full of ear.

Flu!!

I just came through my first flu.  I get colds and chrones flares but not the flu.  Ew.  Three days of alternating fever and chills.  I'm so ready to be done.  Crappy weekend and flex!

Big thanks to my sweet Mr. for the above the call of duty help.

Thank you Lili for getting up early on Sunday to take care of the littles while Dad was riding.  Thank you Fei for playing with the littles.

Now...collective big prayer that everyone else doesn't get it.  Especially Luk for many reasons but mostly because he is the worst sick person ever.

Luk's Gotcha Day

Celebrations didn't go as planned.  We tried getting Luk to pick a dinner out that he wanted to no avail.  Eric decided he'd make won ton.  Not my favorite.  So I suggested we buy him the Ninja Turtle Big Wheel instead.  Luk wasn't impressed with the box this morning and was quite unpleasant about receiving a gift so we took it away and told him we'd try again when I got home from work.  No lessons learned because he was even more outrageous this evening.  He didn't want it.  Wants his old bike.  Lots of pouting and tears and sent to his room twice.

He has a strider bike that he can't manage and falls down every time he gets near it.  He has a tricycle that he isn't strong enough to move and he has a ride on toy that he is too big for and he ends up dragging his toes.  So, we were really hoping the sit/lounge style of the big wheel would work for him. 

Brutal.  In the end while he was sulking in his room refusing to come downstairs we had a wee meeting and decided it was so crazy that the only option left is that he had no freaking clue what is going on and we needed to just move forward.  He was in a battle and he was trying really hard to win but wasn't using words.  Just attitude, harumphs, wailing and tears.  There is just no reasoning when it gets that crazy.

Finally Eric just started building the big wheel and he slowly joined in.  Now he thinks it's the coolest thing going.  He is grinning and riding it around telling us over and over how much he loves it.  I asked him what all the fuss was about and he just shrugged.  Sigh.  I will never get used to how fast kids moods change.  I can't wait for him to go to bed so that I'm closer to ending my day too.

Not our more successful party for sure.  I wonder how he will remember the day?  Devastation at getting a gift or joy at riding his new 'bike'.

A plan.

Jia drew a plan of how to build her drawing.  So cute. Oh, and it's a monkey ;)

Snoopy and an indoor camp out.

I just took the littles to see the Peanuts movie.  We all loved it.  Jia wants to know when we can see it again.  Luk liked Woodstock the best.  I'm impressed with how much Peanuts history they got into one movie.  Lili and Fei declined going.

Home now and we put up the little tent in the playroom so they can have a camping sleep over.  I don't imagine they'll actually sleep there tonight but they'll have fun playing in there this afternoon.  Hopefully long enough to watch the Originals with the big girls.

Who has the longest tail?

Christmas Photo

Once again, we went to Walmart.  Fabulous photo, she only took six shots, Luk made weird faces in two, Lili had glasses glare, I had glasses glare and Eric didn't smile, then...we got the shot.  Phew.  Painless.  $55 for an 8 x 10 and 50 photo cards.  Local friends, next week Santa will be there in the studio for pictures.  Spots left for booking.

The best part, I bought us all reindeer sweaters for the picture!  They're hilarious.  The cards won't be here for a couple weeks. 

School Pictures

I don't normally post these but I was feeling organized this morning so brought them into work to scan.

Our gorgeous kids.

Lili grade 8 - 13 years old

Fei grade 7  - 12 years old

Jia grade 1 - 5 years old

Luk preschool - 4 years old

Ducks

We don't go to feed the ducks but today that was the plan.  Mostly because we have a giant bag of bird seed and time on our hands this Remembrance day.  Nice day for a walk. Kids enjoyed the birds.