The Party

Of course there is so much to catch up on since it's been forever since I updated this blog. I will try and post an occasion every few days until I catch up:)

Let's start with Sofia's party. It was a party for no reason at all - just because. The best kind of party! Really it was because it was the end of the school year and she wanted to have a party with all her friends. Any excuse for a party with that girl:)

It was so much fun, with games and prizes and lots of yummy food. Even Lolly Cake for all you Kiwis out there!! Take no notice of the date on some of the pics - it is wrong :) It was originally going to be outside, but due to rain we just set it up in the living room. A big banquet table in our tiny living room. Oh boy it was a tight squeeze, but still fun! Oh and take notice of the final picture. We finally have a cat! His name is Mittens and he is lovely.











Tune in for the next post...all about fun by the fire!

Skate night

The kids' school rents out the local skate rink twice a year and the school families turn up, pay their money and have a fun time. It doesn't raise a lot of money for the school, but is done more to encourage school spirit. We decided to go for the first time on Thursday night. The kids were soooo excited - it's all we heard about all week! I was pretty excited too - I used to roller skate all the time when I was young, and wasn't too bad at it! I realized that it had been 20 years since I last was on roller skates, but thought it would be like riding a bike. So after spending the entire night at the end of the rink holding onto the rail, and being outskated by all 3 kids, I can safely say it is NOT like riding a bike - you DO indeed forget!! That, and I'm sure my centre of gravity has changed lol!!

We all started off on roller skates, and the kids had a very hard time. Joaquin refused to even put his on - he was literally screaming when I took his shoes off, so we just let him be for the first half. Sofia changed her skates for roller blades, and then she was off! She's never been on them before, but within 5 minutes she was skating round the rink like a pro. Coleman was so sweet. He had such a hard time staying up, but I have never seen a child try so hard. He kept those skates on the whole 2 hours, and stayed on the rink the entire time too. He was down the end with me, going back and forth holding onto the rail. He must have fallen over 100 times, but by the end of the night, he was able to go a few paces without holding on.

We finally convinced Joaquin to give it a go, and he didn't really try too much - he was far more interested in the video games! Uh, do you think he's related to his father??!!
As for me, well I tried, I really did. My feet ached and I sat down a lot. I had even worn a t-shirt in anticipation of being hot from all the laps of the rink I was going to do. I shouldn't have bothered lol! At the end of the night I was about to take my skates off when another mother/friend from school said, "Joanna, have you even been around once??" I said nah, I'll do it next year! She told me that no, I was going to do it now! So thanks to the kindness of a friend, I got up and actually made it around the rink....without even falling over!

What?? You didn't think there'd actually be a photo of ME skating did you??!!

Then there's Roland. We were lucky to even have him there at all! He was on day 2 of the worst gall bladder attack he's had, but he figured he may as well be sore at the skate rink instead of at home. His attack finally ended today, after 3 days, and he now has an appointment for surgery. March 12th. His doctor was going to wait a couple of months, but Roland called today and said uh-uh, I need it sooner than that!!

10 mins after we walked in the door, Grandma called! The kids were still super-hyped up about skating, so it was perfect timing for them to tell her all about it. This is Sofia talking to Grandma, pretending to be mad at me taking a photo of her! And here is Coleman pretending to be mad like Sofia!Today (well yesterday if you go by the date on this post - it's 12.30am right now) were the Valentines parties at school for the kids. I am one of the room Mom's for Coleman's Kindergarten class, so I get to help out at the parties. His was at 1, and Sofia's was at 1.30. Her class is right next door to his, so I went to hers and helped out too. Joaquin is one lucky boy. Since he is just 4, he tags along everywhere with me, and he got to go to both the parties!!
He stuffed his face so full that he didn't have any dinner. It was a fun day. I am so grateful that I can stay home during the day and be involved in things like this with the children.

Christmas!

Santa was tired after putting out all those presents on Christmas Eve so he took a nap...
Well our Christmas day was nice and relaxing, nothing especially strange or abnormal happened, which is always a good thing! The kids woke up at 7, after begging to go to bed the night before (why doesn't that happen every night?!) and we dragged Roland out of bed, and opened presents! First the kids did their stockings and reindeer bags (thanks for the bags Rachel - they LOVED them!)...
... and then we moved onto the presents....











So around 9 we finished. Roland went back to bed (he had horrible stomach pain which kept him in bed all day and night - he didn't even play his playstation, so you KNOW he was sick!) and the kids played with their new toys while I got started on food to take to our friend's place. Since there are a lot of us from church who don't have family anywhere nearby, we get together for a lot of 'family' holidays. We really have become each others family! Plus it makes the cooking load very light on each of us. All I had to make were rolls and a dessert. The rolls were yummy - I did whole wheat with Italian Herbs, which went really well with the turkey/gravy etc provided by others. I had lost my dessert Mojo somewhere inbetween wrapping presents and rushing around for last minute things, so I ended up making Red Velvet cupcakes (from a box!) with pink frosting and marshmallows.

We had a lovely dinner at the Beccaria's home - they had got their kids a Wii for Christmas, so all the kids disappeared to the basement for the day/night and us adults had it pretty easy! The food was so delicious, and I am so grateful for friends who go out of their way to plan these things.I took the tree down the next morning. Christmas was DONE and I needed the space in our tiny living room!

So that's Christmas for another year. Roll on New Years! Today I get to go pick up our snowblower from the repair shop. Just in time for the snow tomorrow. Where was it last week when I needed it for the 2 feet of snow we got???

Ice Storm

New Hampshire is known for getting snow, but something else we get is the beautiful but deadly ice-storm. Last night we got a doozy. Around midnight our power went out and for the next couple of hours, Roland and I laid in bed listening to branches cracking and landing. We thought maybe they were landing on our roof, and even at one point hoping the whole tree would fall on our house - because you know, getting this old house rebuilt and all wouldn't actually bother us too much! Especially when we need a new roof put on in the Spring.

But that plan wasn't to be. However, when we woke up in the morning, we did have some new plant life in our backyard...


Our neighbor has 4 huge pine trees next to the fence, and now we have half a pine tree in our backyard. But the neighbors seem to have the other half also, so fair's fair. We needed some firewood anyway. Now we just need a chainsaw!

I took some photos of the ice on the plants. It really is beautiful...




The power finally came back on at 2pm at our house. Luckily we have gas, so we were still able to have hot water and use our gas stove. It got a little chilly without the heat on, but I just pulled out the turkey carcass from the freezer, saved from Thanksgiving, put on a big pot of water to boil, stuck the carcass in it, along with some peas and corn and spices, and it kept us plenty warm. Best thing about it is that now, at 5pm, we have turkey stew/soup ready for dinner!

We are just grateful that we have power. Some parts of the state, and neighboring ones, won't have power until next week. It is apparantly the worst power outage New Hampshire has ever had, affecting over 400,000 homes and businesses. They have called it unprecedented. You can read about it here if you are so inclined:)

Tomorrow the temperature high will be below freezing. This all sure makes you grateful for electricity. Funny, it didn't seem to phase the kids at all. They just got out all our board games, wrapped themselves in blankets, and were all set! We pretended we were camping and even made Jiffy Pop to make the experience more camp-like. Rachel, tell Ann and Mike we thought of them and that Sofia even wanted a Jiffy-Pop competition ;P