Sunday 26 January 2014

Vaughnster hits the old 0-5

Wow.  Five years.

Of course, it depends on the day, how I describe him, but our big boy Vaughn is brilliant, funny, passionate, articulate, dexterous (lego-wise), athletic, thoughtful, creative, sweet, and wonderful.  Other days, of course, he is destructive, floppy, cranky, challenging, difficult, stubborn... but he amazes me every day.  He is infinitely patient and loving with his baby sister.  With his middle sister, he is a fierce competitor, co-conspirator, roommate, instigator, and gleeful irritant.  Yet today, he insisted on making her a snack of his "recipe":  a blueberry stuffed inside a raspberry.  "Thank you," she said, unprompted.  "You're welcome," he responded.

He draws dumptrucks and castles.  We have a snowman made of foam and toothpicks on our desk at home.  Also, it has fangs.  He is musical, and changes the words of songs to make them silly.  He takes pride in his clothes, and would wear a "handsome shirt" every day of the week, if he could.  He received a necktie for Christmas, and wears it with everything:  pj's, collared shirts, t-shirts... he's our little Alex P. Keaton.  He got his first pair of shoelace shoes, and has been practicing his bunny ears.  

Five years has flown by, but we're so glad to have met him.


On to the celebrations:

As much as I despise the word "epic", I think it's appropriate to use in this case.  Vaughn was feted properly, thoroughly, and excessively, starting with the morning of his birthday, January 9th, which started with opening a few presents.  Although Chris wasn't due to arrive by train till 7 pm, he made a brief appearance at breakfast.  Can you see him in the photo?
Hello, future!  


For school, instead of bringing cupcakes or something simple like that, he told me that he wanted gingerbread cookies.  That looked like ninja turtles.  Trust me, I put in the time trying to plant other ideas.  Sugar cookies?  No.  Cupcakes?  No.  Chocolate chip cookies?  No.  

Sigh.

Confession:  I knocked this one out of the park.



That night, after school, we all went out to pick out an ice cream cake.  
The girls approved.  Tamsin demonstrated, quickly, repeatedly and insistently, that she could say, "more food, please" in sign language.



The next night (Friday), we went to Wild Wing (V's choice) to eat wings and a wee amount of crudités (for balance) for his Birthday Dinner.  Cousins Logan and Jodie attended, as did the local gang of assorted grandparents and an uncle and an aunt.


Saturday was uneventful, in that there were no birthday celebrations, but Sunday picked up again, when we all went to (God help us) Cosmic Adventures for a few hours of running-jumping-chasing-playing, sugar, billions of overexcited children and ding-ding-ding-dingity-ding.  We will never be able to give him a better birthday party, so we took (not enough) photos. 


Entertainment!

Cake!



Friends!

Life at Huff House East

The thing about having kids... sometimes, everything is more wonderful than you could ever imagine.



And weirder.




Tamsin started it, and the other two joined in.




Wednesday 8 January 2014

Vegas, baby! Lake Havasu, dude!

A quick trip to visit two set of grandparents down south gave us a few days of balmy weather while the folks back home shivered in -25 degree weather.  I am not gloating.  I swear.  Some days, we had to wear sweaters.

These kids know how to do "vacation".  Here they wait (fashionably, of course) for the monorail.
Tamsin and I at the lion and dolphin habitat.  Don't worry, they don't house them together...anymore....  (Tamsin doesn't think that's funny)

Ocean's Three:  Waiting patiently for my most favourite thing in Vegas:  the water show at the Bellagio.


It didn't disappoint.  Tonight's song was the theme from the Calgary Olympics.  It was a good last hurrah before we headed to the airport for our red-eye home.  Gack.



This is what I need

Correction:  These three things are what I need.



Cat?  Check.

In-home therapy to deal with ongoing irrational fear of sharks?  Check.

A clean floor*?  Check.








*  This morning, I swept the entire main floor and even polished the stovetop.  We had rice with dinner, effectively negating any cleaning effect I may have had on both.

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