December Snow

So, haven't had much to take pictures of lately except broken trees, falling gutters, ice and collapsed stuff. Erin got back home....(despite Air France trying to send her to Santiago Chile....note to anyone travelling SCL is Chile, SLC is Salt Lake...be sure your airline rep isn't dyslexic...she only realised the mistake when she tried to get on a flight on the Thursday...as it was she didn't get home until Sunday morning.)

We've been chasing run away dogs (Kiwi AGAIN...twice) and Charlie (who hadn't really run away but chased the neighbour's cats into his little garden and then got stuck and mom had to climb up on the log store and lower herself into the neighbour's garden to get Charlie out!

We got stuck on Grannie's driveway and had to send Isla ahead, then put Ailsa in the sled (with our picnic basket--we were on our way to see Grannie and have a lunch with her), send Cassie out running and we walked up the drive....then mom went back to shovel but in the end just had to slide backwards to where she could turn around and drive the rest of the way down.

Work is crazy as so many lorries couldn't get thru to deliver or pick up goods. More snow is forecast for this Thursday so it will be a marathon four days to get everything possible out before the country shuts down again!

We've started a sticker chart to help with Isla's behaviour. So far it's working well, although not as well as our phone calls to "Santa".....Alisdair's receptionist is one of those special types of people who can say ANYTHING and not bust up laughing. (A good reason the guy is the guru of customer service!) We discovered after an especially head strong afternoon, that Steve, I mean Santa, has a way with Isla. It was a magical phone call and she asks every morning, noon and night now if she can call Santa back, but Santa informed her he only brings gifts to good girls, who use the toilet, are kind to their baby sister and are polite...he said he would go put some gifts on his sleigh for her if she did these things....we're going to use this for the next few weeks to help "train" her. We just hope the weather improves as mom, the girls and the dogs are all going a little stir crazy.

We have discovered that there is a Scottish Country Dancing class for toddlers on Friday mornings though in Alloa, so we might go check that out after the holidays!

St Andrews

Our Happy kid
All smiles at St Andrews
Recreating Chariots of Fire...
Lots and Lots of shells!
Picking up more shells...

Here are some pictures of our trip to St Andrews with Erin.

We went to the beach. Isla collected shells, then we had a picnic of Thanksgiving leftovers in the car (it was REALLY cold but Isla thought it was great that we let her eat in the back of the estate), then walked around the town.

It was a nice trip and both girls fell asleep on the way home.

SNOW!!!

The bins with their 22" inches....
Snow coming off the roof over the mudroom
The back garden
The front garden.
We're a little worried about the snow's weight on the centre window in the house!!
A view up the main street...the A9 has been closed on and off for three days...
Isla has been "playing" with Ailsa again...
Yes, it's deep!!! This is the front walk where the roof's snow landed on top of the snowfall...and compacted it.
Erin and the girls in the kitchen. Loving the heated floor!

So, we had a lovely Thanksgiving. Auntie Erin was great to have here and we went to St Andrews on Friday, then we attempted to go to Edinburgh on Saturday, but the trains weren't running normally and we got stuck in Linlithgow for WAY too long in the cold, so we gave up and came home.

Sunday morning we woke up to SNOW....and not a little snow, TONS of snow. Kenna shoveled as Alisdair is still quite sick and has agreed to go to the doctors since everyone tells him he might have pneumonia. For over 2 hours she was outside trying to get ahead of the storm, but with little luck. Realising that Erin was supposed to leave on a 6:10am flight out of Edinburgh, Alisdair braved the storm and we got her on a train at Gleneagles and she arrived in Edinburgh and got a hotel near the airport.

At 3:45am she left for the airport on Monday morning (we woke up to MORE snow), only to have the airport close and her flight to be rescheduled for Wednesday night....she spent the day trying to get back to Perthshire and we spent the day shoveling and trying to help her get back. Alisdair's devoted employees all got to the shop (minus 1), including one who walked all the way!

We've been holed up in the house. The snow is so deep the terriers are going mental as they can't run in the snow and it's so deep now that even Cassie is struggling. At last measuring, there were 22" on top of the trash bins, but with MUCH more on the driveway and roads as it is super light and blows and has come off the roof and such. (and Alisdair is feeling better after having Sunday to rest and we gave him honey and hot water---a Grammie Long remedy. It seems to have done some good)

We spent today (Tuesday) shoveling again, and got the driveway cleared (again), neighbour Anne's car in our driveway (the main street has been taken down to one lane because there is so much snow and so many cars stuck on both sides---they don't do parking restrictions here!), and the front walk done. Luckily Auntie Erin has been happy watching the girls as mum's been shoveling. (It's SO much easier to shovel when one isn't pregnant! Last time mum shoveled she was 6 months along with Ailsa).

We'll see what tomorrow brings on the airport front. More snow is forecast and some say up to 2 more feet may fall....we have tons of food (gotta love our shopping for Thanksgiving at Costco!), enough wood and coal for quite awhile too. The town post office is pretty empty we are told, but as Alisdair has taken his truck into work, he stopped and got some stuff today for us and neighbours on his way home. The girls and I went and checked on some of our neighbours and everyone is in good spirits over being housebound...again....but it is amazing how many didn't learn the lessons from last winter (and still like to shovel with dustpans!)

Cold weeks

Our trip to NH in September with Isla's "bestest" friends, Abbey, Paige, Colin and Bo (the dog). She still asks daily when we're getting on the "big airplane" and going back. I told her to save her pennies...she adored the kids and they were so good to her and great examples of going to bed at bedtime, so we'd be happy to go back anytime! We don't think of her as a baby, but it was interesting to watch the dynamics of a 2 year old around kids who are all older than she is.
Happy Baby now loves tummy time, in the bath and pool too!
This picture makes me laugh...as usual, Thing 1 is explaining the deeper meaning of life to someone, and Ailsa is feeling her new tooth (or telling us that someone smells....) eitherway, it makes me chuckle.
SOMEHOW she managed to turn on a disco track on Spotify and then insisted she get her picture taken dancing....she also managed to find a program on the computer for people who are short sighted that reads out every key. HOLY annoying!!!!


It's only Friday, but seemed as good a time as any to update the blog. We've been dealing with the cold, and getting quite good at lighting fires, Ailsa is settling into a food routine--and has now tried porridge, apples, pears, bananas, cheerios, rusks, spinach, water, diluted juice, toast and clumps of charlie hair (kidding). Her two little dagger teeth are in and she is now sporting a lovely amber necklace....it seems to be helping. She's been much less drooly and red cheeked!

Today Kiwi ran off on us again. We'd taken her to the farm to let the dogs have a good run and she was off....when she was found, she'd obviously been digging after rabbits as she had a fair amount of dirt on her. Charlie has been adopted by Isla and now spends almost no time in the mudroom as Isla makes her her "playmate" (and we finally gave Charlie a bath...they've been found locked in Isla's bedroom again, Charlie has been found on top of the coffee table (Isla decided she's a vet and was giving Charlie an 'exam'), Charlie is LOVING the fact Ailsa can't find her mouth and drops mounds of Cheerios on the floor, and lately Isla has been eating at her little table in the kitchen, which is much more Charlie-friendly height for being fed (or stealing food)...

Isls is loving swimming lessons again this week. Ailsa is getting adjusted to the water as well. Thing 1 has also declared herself "Incredible Isla" and is convinced she can climb anything. On Thursday it was the giant sand hill during our dog walk....by the time mum got up to her, she was 3/4 of the way up the hill, and Kiwi had taken off again. She'd climbed up on her hands and knees and left a trail in the sand like a slug, then kicked and screamed as she was carried down the hill....ah, 2 year olds! She does seem to enjoy playgroup and has ruined most of the teacher's Christmas surprises as she is a bit too verbal for her own good and loves to tell you everything they do in class on the way home.

She is VERY excited for Auntie Erin to be visiting for Thanksgiving and has planned a birthday party (complete with pink cupcakes), a trip to the castle (she's a bit fascinated with the Wallace Monument, which she thinks is Stirling Castle), and Erin to take her ice skating :) Ah, Aunts rock....

Busy weeks

The highlight of our day is about 5pm when Neighbour Anne comes over. She has been teaching Isla to Scottish Country dance (another creative way to get her to walk up the lane when you're out with the dogs). Here they are with Jimmy Shand's ceilidh music blaring off the computer (gotta love spotify!) and them doing the Gay Gordon's in the playroom...
Step two-three--the twirl, twirl...kids here actually learn it in PE class!
Ah yes, carrying wood...she is 1/2 Maughan afterall! Must be genetic...and notice her red little hands. She refuses to wear gloves (but loves to play in the coal and is fascinated with the town's coal man who wears a hi-viz suit, but is black from carrying all the bags into people's gardens. She's jealous that he gets to get so dirty.) Note the Halloween socks from Grandma Maughan!
Baby Ailsa and her new hat, thanks to Grannie Troup--Her first tooth is THROUGH!! Bottom left and it's SHARP!

This week we had the usual, playgroup, swimming lessons, toddler's, cleaning house and also managed to get the new front doors painted, visit with Grannie Ella, see daddy at work, do TONS of laundry, and we made it out a few days to walk the dogs when the rain let up. We finally also got Charlie stripped and the dogs bathed. Kiwi has now taken up a spot about 2 inches from the wood stove...I can only assume she's intelligent enough not to touch the stove, but you never know. The house is toasty warm with the new front doors.

AND in very exciting new, we found the key that has been lost for months to the DVD cupboard! Isla has a habit of taking keys out of doors and making them disappear. We just happened to find a key that looked promising and now we have access again to that cupboard. HOORAH for little miracles :)

Rainy Weeks

Ailsa grabs at everything...including Isla's glasses....
Saint Charlie, the great Cheerio eater...don't let the adorable face deceive you, she gets her own back from Isla during their "wrestling" matches and has been accidently locked in the butler's pantry more than once as she's followed someone in and steathily hid, looking for scraps...
5 months old! Where has the time gone???

This week we've had the cold and so have stayed indoors most of the time. The builders finished off our doors and built a new step which is great as it keeps any cold air from coming in under the back door. Ailsa is getting more fun by the day and is loving porridge, bananas, apples and cheerios (She grabs at everything and loves to put things in her mouth, so we let her play with Cheerios...Charlie LOVES it that she drops most of them on the floor).

Isla made it to playgroup just one day this week because of her cold, but had a good time making "firework" pictures (glue and glitter on black paper). "Remember, remember the 5th of November afterall....Guy Fawks day and the town fireworks (the girls slept through them but Alisdair and I ran up to the attic and had a lovely view!)

Isla's latest destructive behaviour is taking door handles off doors...so not only have we lost keys, we now can't get into room, like the bathroom, because she had taken the door handle off. This house might be 150 years old, but it's obviously not had many 2 year olds living in it! Her other "fun" was playing with Charlie in the kitchen. When she couldn't find a ball to play catch (it was awful outside and so I let her play with the dogs in the warmth of the kitchen), she ran out to the mudroom, came back with her boot, declared that they were going to play a game called "boot catch" and proceeded to throw the boot AT Charlie...that ended the game....(I was impressed she was making up her own games, until it turned violent!)

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Scary hair....this is just hair gel and her natural hair....she thought it was great fun.
Another trick or treating opportunity with Auntie Claire...

Trick or treating to Grannie...
The girls in their costumes...
Our pumpkins in the back of the house....
Grannie wins the creativity award! She carved an orange pepper....we phoned her when we were heading up the hill so she could light it...her kitchen smelled like lovely roast peppers....maybe she's on to something :)
Baby Ailsa loves her porridge, and bananas and anything else she can get in her little gob....the red cheeks make us count down the days before teeth come popping through.
Isla's "scary" face (she anticipates the flash on the camera and sometimes it's just comica, like the above). Here she's showing some of her handy work with cookie cutters. This is also her "scary hair"...
Ah, a grannie and her glasses reading her slow cooker receipe...I think she looks a bit like the queen with them on...the curled short hair, the see through plastic...a definite royal resemblance...hahahah

To round out the week, we went swimming on Friday, Isla had playgroup on Thursday and Wednesday we made a huge batch of sugar cookies to help showcase the cookie cutter in the new Bushwear catalogue. The weather has been HIDEOUS so spending a lot of time indoors was a good idea.

We also got new front and back doors this week (Hoorah!) which means no wind whipping through the front vestibule or mudroom. Not too much else new but that.

It was Halloween and they had scary hair day at playgroup, which Isla decided she LOVED and wants to do everyday. It's amazing what her hair does with a little mousse.

eBay Magic

Not from today, but a cute shot...
Ah, Chinese made glasses, complete with laser inscribed size and brand (old school would be a sticker you could peel off....she'll just have to live with these). She tells everyone they are purple.
Yup! That's my kid.....headband, mismatched sock, side-e-ways glasses....
Red beans and rice in the slow cooker...
Made by our favourite 2 year old....and her GORGEOUS apron thanks to Auntie Emily.

Yes, it's only Tuesday but in SUPER exciting news, Isla's eBay glasses showed up this morning. We drove ALL the way to Stirling to pick them up from daddy (ok, mom sort of wanted an excuse for some adult interaction by noon). Anyhow, you've never seen a more excited 2 year old (Now she can be JUST LIKE Grannie). She wore them all the way home and then while we were cleaning out boxes of baby clothes from the attic (it sure seems like we do nothing but take clothes out of/put them back in these early baby months), Isla found these baby headbands, which she thought were pretty nifty. She looks a little special, but was having a ball!

These are also pictures of some of her cooking adventures. She loves helping cook and is a really good helper. Like when she'd in the pool, when she's cooking she is cooperative, follows directions and fantastic fun.....perhaps we should just limit our daily activities to swimming and cooking :)

Today was also her first day back at playgroup since mid-September. Most kids only had 2 weeks off, but because we were in America for a bit, it had been awhile. Almost every kid was crying when we dropped them off this morning. We all sort of ran by the leader (Shona) and said "see ya!" Truth be told, Shona prefers us to leave quickly. When we got back 2 hours later they'd all had great fun. Black playdough (yuck! I warned the mother of the girl who likes to eat it as usually her dad drops her off), scary hair day (we put mousse in Isla's and let her blowdry it herself..it wasn't really scary...just VERY curly) and some snack seems to have done the trick. Isla asked if she could go back tomorrow (it's only Tuesday and Thursday).

Her new phrases this week are "So it is!" As in
"Do you want to have some lunch?"
...."no, I want breakfast".....
"but it's lunch time."
"So it is!"

and "In other words"...there's nothing like having a 2 year old try to paraphrase what you've just told her....

Autumn has Arrived!

Running away from the camera, Minnie Mouse balaclava and all!
Daddy has been PHENOMINALLY productive this weekend. Here he (and his helper) are "dog proofing" the hen run. The dogs don't bother the hens, but do steal the scraps of food that we feed them. This is the third attempt. You can see the gravel (to keep them from digging...ok, it's mostly Charlie), the board (to keep them from jumping in) and now the screwed on boards on the inside to keep them from ripping the mesh!
Mister Mom watched the girls while I used a spa gift voucher. He had Ailsa in the sling so he could wash dishes, clean the kitchen and do other chores. What a good daddy! (the white board behind him was the list of chores we'd left for him as they cropped up during the week, usually because Isla had broken something) He got them all done and more!
BANANA!!!! Her eye hand coordination is great and very fun to watch. She can put her own binki in and the other day daddy was holding a bottle and her....what he didn't realise was she was staring SO intently and trying to judge the distance to the bottle as she had her mouth open and was attempting to suck on it as he held it upright. It was HILARIOUS to watch...she'd try, and misjudge the distance, then try again...
Last year a friend gave Isla this jacket. It fits this year and she loves it!
The one who loves her picture taken and the one who loves sucking on bananas.....
Hat courtesy of Tara...everyone comments on her eyes...and in NH they called her "Tadpole"...she is still a VERY happy baby, unless you don't feed her and then she gets upset. She's in love with bananas and this week we had her weighed...16 1/2 pounds! She's only in the 75th percentile for weight, but we're not worried. We bought some porridge to feed her last week. She enjoyed it, but it didn't do good things to her insides....mom's decided to try and keep her "baby" for just two more weeks...then we'll move on to solids full force as Ailsa'll be 5 months old.

It was all started because we were at Toddler's 2 weeks ago and the woman next to mum was eating a HobNob (chocolate covered biscuit). Ailsa watched EVER so intently, and after this woman ate 3 bites and shared with her 2 year old, Ailsa just burst into tears! I had to get up and walk away with her to calm her down. The next day she did the same thing when Isla had a piece of cake with chocolate frosting. She gives you 2 "tries" to share with her as she salivates and watches intently, then it's tears. Oh, the trouble we're going to be in!
It's that time again!!! We'll be getting the high chair out tomorrow, but she has great fun in the baby activity centre (when Isla's not trying to spin her in it or take it over). We got more great socks in the US when we were there! I love the ones that look like shoes and they make all kinds of great variations now. I almost cried when I lost a yellow one at ASDA last week :( I went back to try and find it, but with no luck :(

The hat is a great little rugby one that she and Isla have matching ones of. It's definitely hat weather now!
The Bumbo is out again! Isla wanted to know what Ailsa had done that she had to sit in the naughty chair (we used it with Isla as the naughty chair in the dining room for awhile)....we've tried to explain that it's not just a naughty chair. Ailsa, however has a horrible ability to flail backwards, grab the table cloth and try and pull it off the table while throwing herself on the floor if she doesn't get her way....not fun!
God bless Charlie, who continues to put up with a lot!


We took last Sunday off from blogging....it was a crazy week being back from America. We'd all had the stomach flu, Grannie, Anne and Daddy included and it sent mum on a house blitzing spree trying to rid the house of germs and anything else that had come in! Autumn is upon us and the cold is here to stay.

We built a fire this week and Isla loves to use all her girl scout skills to crumple paper, blow out matches (once the fire is lit) and steal the fire gloves. The other day at Grannie's, Grannie let her wear her marigolds (rubber dishwashing gloves) to help with the fire (coal is very messy) and Isla thought that was brillant fun.

The latest joy in our house is a Peppa Pig sing-a-long CD and it's unfortunately very catchy and we all go around singing "Big Balloon, big balloon, bigger than the sun and moon..." The good news though is Isla is really good about going to bed now since we got back from the US because Tara's kids were such a good example. HOORAH for that!

As Isla hasn't had school because schools here are on holiday we've been spending a lot more time doing "school like" stuff. On Friday we were trying to get her to know her own name and (sort of) address. We then started talking about middle names and after multiple attempts we gave up as she was convinced that I'd told her that Ailsa's middle name is "Crispy"...there's no reasoning at times with a 2 year old. She's also ABSOLUTELY convinced that she needs glasses--if you ask her to read you a story, "not without my glasses" (Grannie does afterall!) We've bought her a kids pair off eBay....figured better that than she breaks anyone's real pair.

We had a lovely day today as a family. We went to Glasgow to a friend's kids birthday party, then Lupe Pintos to buy stuff to get ready for Thanksgiving (pumpkin, marshmellows and Mexican stuff) and then Costco. We're excited for the upcoming holidays and it's always fantastic to have daddy around for our adventures.