Here is our Santa photo from the base Christmas party. It was a bit of a bust as Isaac refused to nap all morning. He was an absolute screaming mess when we left the house. We weren’t even going to go to the party, but home wasn’t working as Isaac was crying no matter what we tried. We figured a change of scenery might help, and at the very least a car ride would knock him out. Sure enough he got into his car seat, downed his milk and fell asleep. He was still asleep by the time we got to the base so I went in to sign-in and pick up his gift. By the time I was on my way back to the car he’d woken up so he and Jay came in. Needless to say, Isaac was a little subdued and still very tired, so he wouldn’t go to Santa for the photo. So instead you get an honest (if not perfect) family photo. Jason and I are still wearing our coats. Isaac’s pants are half way up his legs (at least his socks matched!!); it’s actually a miracle we’re all looking at the camera. But here it is our 2009 Santa Photo in all it’s glory.

I decided to make some play silks for Isaac for Christmas.

“Psst. Have you heard about playsilks? Playsilks are one of the most open-ended, imaginative “toys” available.   Our children use playsilks as dresses, scarves, hats, veils, skirts, shirts, belts, baby doll blankets and slings, streamers, flags, stretchers, handcuffs, peek-a-boo blankets, props for dancing, forts, tents and houses.”

I ordered some ‘blanks’ from the Dharma Trading Company. I bought 6 of the white 35″ x 35″, 2 of the 44″ x 44″, and one black 21.5″ x 21.5″ (they were out of stock of the larger sizes in black at the time); all 8mm Habotai scarves. I also got one 8″ x 52″ scarf free with my order as a  new customer bonus.

blank silks

I used this tutorial to dye the silks with wilton cake dye. I bought a four pack of primary colours (sky blue, lemon yellow, christmas red, and brown) as well as a royal blue.

using Wilton icing dye

Above are the sky blue and the christmas red…looks promising doesn’t it. I was really happy with the all of the wilton dye except for the red….it just didn’t work as well as I’d hoped. I was looking for a vibrant red (think superman cape) and after the first dye I got this.

more orange than red...and spotty

It was more orange than anything, and the red dye didn’t dissolve as well as the others so it resulted in blotches. I tried to fix it using red food colouring and got 80s neon pink.

so not superman red

I was pretty disappointed. The next day I stopped on my way home and picked up some cherry kool-aid (three packs) and finally got the colour I wanted.

Finally red (with a few light spots)

I used kool-aid to dye the orange scarf and the second red one (tropical punch this time and only two packs, but it was a smaller scarf). Here is the final result. I dyed the dark green one twice to get a more intense colour. I left the brown light, but if I had another scarf I would have made a second one and dyed it twice for a darker hue.  I am pretty pleased and can’t wait to give them to Isaac at Christmas.

the finished results

We’ve been trying our best to take advantage of this late fall and get outside with Isaac. Here are a couple of pictures from the neighborhood park.

he carefully sits at the top of the slide

I’ve written so many posts in my head this month, but just haven’t taken the time to sit down and write. So here is a jumble of what would have been amazingly witty posts
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This too shall pass…..right?

Isaac is not into supper at all right now. He is usually such a good eater, and he is still eating breakfast and lunch so well we’re at a bit of a loss. It wouldn’t be so bad (since he is eating during the day) but he wakes up hungry in the middle of the night, and that just isn’t fun for any of us. Anyhow, a kid can live on oatmeal, yogurt, rice, plain pasta, and canned green beans right?

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Spring into Fall

We’ve a had a wonderful stretch of fall weather, it’s actually felt more like spring with the sunshine. I seriously can’t believe there is no snow on the ground right now. We took advantage last weekend and took Isaac to the zoo on Saturday, it was gorgeous and I think we all enjoyed it. The number one hit at the zoo was the slide, but he thought the animals were pretty neat too.

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Words

Isaac has some new words. He uses ‘car’ and ‘bailey’ (sounds like bayyee) unprompted. Anything with wheels is a car and any animal with four legs (and even some without) are ‘bailey’.

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For the Love of Dog

Isaac LOVES his dog. Bailey was one of his first words, and it’s usually the first thing he says every morning as he summons his dog into his room. Feeding the dog is one of his ‘chores’ and he knows that he puts his hand straight up into the air and says sit (or his version thereof) to make bailey sit. He insists that bailey follow us upstairs when it’s time for bath so he can wave night night as the dog goes to lay down in our room.

My car is in the shop at the moment and since Jason is duty tech this week he has to go in way too early to do the daycare drop off. Thus, yesterday I was taking the bus into work for the first time.
Since I was going to work, I was dressed in my uniform. This is only the third time I’ve been out and about in uniform (the first two being an ultrasound at one of the local hospitals and the second the clinic to get Isaac’s flu shot) and I swear from the looks and stares that you’d never guess Winnipeg has a military presence. In Kingston people saw the uniform all the time so no one even batted an eye.
Anyhow, yesterday on my long commute to work I received at least five to ten minutes of attention from a curious 3 year old who asked his mom about a million questions about me. A salute, hand shake and pat on the shoulder from a deaf young man. I also encountered a bus driver who refused to let me pay, and who thank-you me for all our work as I thanked him getting off the bus.
I love my job (most of the time) and I’m proud to wear the uniform, but it’s nice to know that people in my city appreciate all the work men and women in uniform do, even if they don’t always agree with the mission.

Isaac humored me and let me take some photos of him in his Halloween costume.

We had our first snow fall of the season so Isaac, Bailey and I went out this morning to play.

Where did my feet go?

Isaac wasn’t to sure what to make of the snow. He had trouble balancing in all his snow gear and needed help to get back up when he fell.

falling

mom, help!

playing in the snow

Shortly after this he was ready to come in.

I had to opportunity to participate in a clothing swap on the weekend and it was awesome!  The woman who hosted just picked a day and time and opened her house to us, it was CRAZY; there were clothes everywhere and I swear it will take her weeks to box up the leftovers, but it was totally worth it. We were invited to bring clothing and accessories for men, women and children. Upon arrival we put our clothes in the appropriate piles, then start searching and sorting to see if there was anything we wanted to take home. I got a few things for T2 (if we knew (or wanted to know) whether baby was a girl, I could have gotten almost everything we needed including fancy Christmas wear) and some great fall/winter clothes for Isaac, I even got some maternity stuff for myself. If you ever have to opportunity I highly suggest participating or hosting one of these events.

Isaac sporting the great coat and toque we got from the swap

Isaac went and had his first hair cut, there still isn’t much on top, but the back was getting pretty wispy so we decided to have it cleaned up.

He did really well, no tears, no fussing

Now he looks like such a little man, no good front shot (it looks the same anyways) but here is a shot of the back.

A couple of us from my course did a little sightseeing this weekend and headed out to Peggy’s Cove. It was a picturesque little fishing village.

The Lighthouse

Pretty Picture

Lobster Traps

Old Fishing Boat

Part of a large mural carved in granite