Christmas!

 Since we put the tree up, Ailsa was really sick and we spent a whole week just having lethargic, whiney baby lay on mom and very little was done around the house. Once she started to feel better, we tried to get back in the holiday swing. The girls decorated gingerbread cookies (which we let no one but them eat after we saw their "hygiene" of sucking on the frosting tubes and pre-licking the candies. They had a great time though!

 For Christmas Eve, we braved the wind and rain and went to Gleneagles for their fireworks. Then we came home and made green Corn Flake wreathes and marshmellow snowmen.  Over the years (and as we have more younger kids) the crafts get more and more simple. (someone enjoyed the Cadbury's Toffee Fingers more than putting them on her snowman)

 Ah, putting that engineering degree to work..

 From there we retreated to the warm front room for an attempted explanation of the nativity. This year they both refused to wear their costumes, but thanks to our many manger sets, we got through the basics...

 Uncle Michael did his best to help on the angel and shepard dressing up front.

 Never one to let a chance at danger go untaken, Daddy and Uncle Michael put the star on the top of the Christmas tree as everyone else held their breath, waiting for the disaster!

 Thanks to some friends who came over on Christmas Eve, the tree actually got decorated completely! Nothing like cutting it close....

 Christmas Morning someone forgot (again) that it was Christmas, but once we reminded her, she was more than keen to see if Santa had brought her anything.  Her quote was "I KNEW I'd not been too naughty!" and she ran for the pile of Princess wrapped paper (well,after she tried to claim Ailsa's)

 She got her Huggle Buddie! (A unicorn pillow she's memorized the commercial for off tv..."a strap which safely and effectively holds your pj's for a sleepover)....

 Ailsa got her "BOOOKS" (a favourite word of hers)

 Daddy was put to assembling toys as Isla enjoyed her new watch (she looks SO grown up with it!) and her "leapad" (so she stops always stealing Daddy's ipad)

Neighbour Anne was a big hit with the microphone attached, pink piano keyboard gift.  10 minutes after opening it, Isla was making up her own lounge-singer songs...It started with "Jingle Bells" and "Santa Clause is coming to town" and turned into "Ailsa's been naughtyyyyyy, and is pulling my hHHHHHaairrr....santa shouldn't have brought her any toyyyyyyysssss."  The girl has talent! ;)

We then headed to Grannie's for some more fun. Grannie cooked a good British meal, complete with chipolatas, brussell sprouts, roasted parsnips and sausage stuffing and we pulled Christmas Crackers and wore our crowns. The girls helped daddy put out the presents that were under the tree...Ailsa was more interested in the Jelly Babies (see the Yellow man on the coffee table? she's learned months ago to grab him by the ears and spin them to make his head come off and get "sweets" from inside. Grannie now preps 3-4 in a plastic bag to help ration the girls candy intake per visit).

 They both fight over who gets to sit on Grannie's lap...

Ailsa opening a present.

Today we spent a quiet Boxing Day at home.  Tonight at bed time we heard Isla upstairs making A LOT of noise, mom went to investigate, only to find Isla, radio blaring, "practicing" dancing to "she'll be coming round the mountain" in her bedroom...full force....I was yelled at for "scaring" her....I figure if she stays in her room, even if it is bedtime dancing is okay...it's less messy than getting a hold of scissors, pencils or raiding other bureaus upstairs! (For things like fingernail clippers...which she has been known to do)

No baby yet, by the way!

Christmas excitement

It was a MAGIC day for a certain 3 year old! For some reason, when daddy went to check on her at bed time, this is what he found...asleep, right in the middle of her bedroom floor...must have all just been too much.

The 12 days of Christmas

Auntie Tiina spoiled us this year with 'The 12 days of Christmas' parcels and the girls have had a blast opening their 'daily gift'...yesterday was '11 pipers piping'. Here's (a much better feeling Ailsa) showing off her skills over her morning porridge!

School

Our little mud monster had a great time at school this week...mom's not had as much fun doing laundry, but such is the trade-off for outdoor preschool!!

Christmas Tree Hunting

So rather than go do the boring thing and buy a tree, we took Auntie Claire's suggestion and went to a Christmas tree farm to "cut our own."  We actually had four trees to buy;  one for Michael, Claire's mother, Grannie and ours. We bundled the girls up and headed off to Bucklyvie. It was a grand adventure for 9am. Ailsa just took it all in, and only a few times declared "All done!" (her favourite phrase, although she has learned a TON of new words this week, including "stuck, apple, gorgeous" and the best was at dinner last night, daddy cooked, put his plate on the table and she came out with a very convincing "Oh WOW!"

 9am and not very light this time of year....we temporarily lost our "hair case" full of elastics and it is a little painful putting elastic ones high up in your hair, so we talked Miss Isla into braids (so the elastics only had to go at the very ends and they weren't as painful to take out). She was thrilled putting on her school waterproofs for a non-school day.

 She and Uncle Michael are quite a team. She exclaimed "I know how to do this from school, I'll help!" and jumped down on the ground and stayed till it was done.

 On our way home....once all muddy suits were removed (sorry, the pictures aren't in order)--you can see she's growing hair like mad and we almost have to have two bunches to hold it all!

 Daddy with our "find"....the tree men weren't as chuffed as we were with it's size :)  Let's just say it's a very "full" tree....and about 9 feet tall.

 The mud-magnet drew her in, and Uncle Michael had to pull her out....this was during the "consultation" process on which tree was perfect for our house. (the joy of her suit and wellies is she was bone dry even after this, which makes me wonder what she does at school that she still manages to get soaked and go through two suits in a 6 hour day)

 Running free in the "little" trees....someone gave her the saw on the way out, and mom had a minor panic moment, when Isla laid down under a 2 foot tree and decided she was going to cut it down herself! Dad, Michael,  and Claire had gone on ahead with the smaller trees for Grannie and such.....Mom was carrying Ailsa and trying to "supervise" the ferral child.

 Ailsa and Claire.....who is always a good sport about being covered in mud by our little ones. The Elmer Fudd hat has been passed down to Ailsa now.

 We got the tree home, daddy fashioned a pretty snazzy way to make it stand up (it splits just at the bottom so there is no "stem" and he had to be creative as it is way too big for a Christmas tree stand of any sort).  Someone thinks hoovering is great fun, and who am I to discourage that kind of thing?? :)

 It looks remarkably small in this picture, but if you realise the depth from the windows to the coffee table, it's probably as wide as it is tall. I had a "Griswold Family Christmas" moment and suggested we check the tree for squirrels, to which Isla suggested we check it for monkeys...Alisdair's just laughing, pre-emptively, at how annoyed the bin men are going to be when they try to put it in their truck in three weeks. I think we might be able to get some pretty significant firewood out of it :)

An Isla shot of Ailsa on our way out to the farm.  Both girls just got new car seats as with Baby #3 in its way, Grannie's been doing a lot of helping and Ailsa's seat is SO heavy and cumbersome, it seemed to make sense to get a second, lighter chair that can be transferred between cars. (plus it's isofix and mom's belly is too big to install it right now and she got soaked last Thursday attemping to, during our "hurricane".)The girls had a great time on Saturday morning sitting in their new "chairs" watching tv in the front room.

Someone LOVES candy canes (We found them when Erin was here....not a very common item over here)---our remote control is all sticky now and if we can't find either girls we can go next door to the tree and see how many canes are missing....(Ailsa always pulls her bunches out during her nap, but obviously didn't realise she had two in...she only pulled one out :)

 A bit of older sister logic....

Our little comedian....she informed me after this trip I wasn't to wash her jeans (as she had covered them in some glitter glue she found in daddy's truck)---and thought it was a fabulous thing to do....

The plan was to buy more decorations today (Monday) but Ailsa's been sick, and clingy and feverish all day, so we stayed home. Hopefully we'll finish the tree soon and will post more pictures.

'Skating'

Snowbabies

Isla begged to go ice skating when Auntie Erin was here but it didn't work out, however we found that the Stirling rink does a 'learn to skate for toddlers' on Saturdays and Auntie Claire has been brave enough to take her for the past two weeks. It's a rink made for curling (rather than hockey) and they have lots of 'props' for the kids to play with--hoolah hoops, sledges, sit-on toys, and heavy penguins to skate behind. She's convinced that one more week and she'll be as good as Thayer :) (her hockey whiz of a cousin)

Training

Someone spilled her 'juice' this morning, but was more than happy to clean it up (with some canine assistance). Thank goodness because mom can't really bend down that far anymore!

Hurricanes in December

Today was HORRIBLE weather here. There were gusts up to 165mph, most major bridges in the country were shut, there was major flooding and 2/3s of the schools in the country were shut. Mom had a hospital appointment (where she got to see everyone's car alarm go off in the driving rain and ridiculous wind) and grannie came up to watch the girls and take them to their swimming lessons. Anne was sent home from work as part of the roof blew off where she works and she took Isla for the afternoon giving mom such lovely quiet time. When Ailsa woke up from her nap we played upstairs, reading stories on mom's bed (and when mom suggested that beds are for 'sleepy time' Ailsa promptly ran to her room to retrieve her binkies and blanket, which she's only allowed at 'sleepy time' plus she brought an extra binki for mom! Thoughtful girl :). By 4 we were running out of games so 'fingernail stickers' became our new fun. It was a big hit!

One-on-one time with mum

A loves her Tues/wed alone time with I at school. Toys to herself, dogs to herself, mum to herself. We have a great time and it's odd how easy things can be with just one child!!

Our own little Marlin Perkins

So yesterday Isla was up at 630 and begging to go play in the fresh snow by 715. I gave in, dressed her in her gear and sent her outside before 8. She came in looking for a sledge, a box from the recycling and everything else, but by the time I'd gotten Ailsa up and ready I had Isla back in the kitchen 'very concerned.'. Utilising her best 'Nurse Nancy' vocabulary (one of her favourite books), she insisted there was a 'Big emergency' and I needed to go outside right then with her. She was very serious and kept trying to pull me (literally) outside. I got my shoes on and went. Inside the chicken coop and the hen house she'd discovered the black chicken feet up, dead. She was convinced it had gotten 'stuck' and died although I'd definitely say there were some other factors at work...
I think her 'discovery' made her day. We had to head off to the girls quarterly hearing tests in Perth shortly after, and when Isla went in for hers, all I could hear thru the door was her telling the doctor the step-by-step account of her 'find.' Thanks to neighbour Anne, she's got death all figured out ('things go to live with God and Anne's dad and the dinosaurs in heaven where God takes care of them') so she doesn't get at all upset by it and the fact she went in the chickens, snooped around, made the disovery and got to drag me out to see it was 'fab' (her new word lately--she told Grannie the other day she had a 'fab' time when Grannie comes to babysit--"that means 'fabulous you know, which is REALLY good'"....ah, that's our 3 year old!!!!)

Tractor rides

With all the rain we've had the fields are SOAKED. That meant to go get the pregnant ewes off the field and into the shed (where they'll stay for the winter) they needed to use the tractor to pull the trailer. Ailsa was ready for her nap at that point, but never one to give up an adventure with Grannie, Isla headed out in the tractor. At that point the snow was HEAVING down, but it was all good fun for Isla! She didn't remember riding in the tractor in past seasons so thought it was marvellous and was proud of her new 'skill.'

Sheep

Ailsa got excited and decided she wanted to jump the gates and go see the lamb that daddy had in a head holder. Luckily it was pretty calm (daddy was clipping it's bum) and didn't seem bothered by the attention from the 'fish'..

Dangerous fun

Isla's other great fun was something daddy taught her, which is twisting the swing and making yourself dizzy. Ailsa did it so many times I thought she was going to be ill. All great fun though for the girls and luckily, no bloody crashes with the apple tree!

Lessons from school

We wandered around outside while grannie and daddy were clipping lambs bottoms and the girls decided to play on the swing. Isla's learned some great lessons at school about taking turns and sharing and was fantastic about letting Ailsa have more time and pushing her! They had a blast.

Snow angels

Auntie Emily's legacy lives on as Isla's been excited about doing snow angels since we told her it was getting to be winter! We didn't get much snow, but she finally got her chance...new school suit and all.

SNOW!!

Dee!

Ailsa's favourite activity at the farm (besides jumping in puddles) is going to see Dee...her vocabulary is growing by the day but whenever we are at the farm it's 'ba-bas' and 'Dee!'. We had snow last night and the girls loved the magic of being outside in it today. While trying to help Grannie with the sheep in the shed, Ailsa disappeared--I found her up at the kennels...trying to let Dee out.

Our baby

No, it's not THE new baby, but boy did we have fun playing with Ailsa convincing her she was our 'baby.'

Exhausted!

Not usually a girl to sleep outside her bedroom, it was all too much by 4pm for a 1 year old!

Great views

The 5th floor of the National Museum has gorgeous views of the city!

Bad ideas

Someone (who perhaps doesn't have a degree in Early Childhood Education) decided this an appropriate taxidermy choice for the kids' floor at the National Museum...take THAT, Little Red Riding Hood!

Mysterious Blue skies

Isla now declares things she doesn't understand (or can't find) a 'mystery'....her new favourite word. She woke up yesterday though quite distraught that she was only getting coal from Santa because she's been naughty (she tackled her friend Emily the other day on our dog walk and was told off for it)...we tried to tell her we just have to do more good things than bad, but (in a positive light) she was BRILLIANT yesterday, trying to be good--sharing with Ailsa, etc. It was nice.

Rides

The weather was on and off rain and cold all day. But it was still great fun.