The Claggett Cable – Canada Edition

It’s done!  It’s done!  While mostly useful for mailing to my family and friends who don’t frequent Facebook (and so don’t know what we’re up to all the time) – there are some cute pictures of my kids too.

The Claggett Cable 2011

One of those things we’ll laugh about later . . . or not

I haven’t updated this blog as much as I had hoped, but that’s mostly because I want to share pictures, the upload here is terrible, and taking the computer to Starbuck’s or the bookstore to do it is probably just a nice dream. But I don’t have any pictures of today’s “adventure”.

It snowed yesterday. Beautfiul, powdery snow that the girls had a ball playing in. Today we went back out, and Lizzy wanted to take us for a walk in the woods. Everyone seemed excited about the idea, so off we went. Lizzy led the way, dragging a snow shovel behind her to make a “path” for us to follow (this would be very helpful later on). We followed the little path behind the house to where it meets the bigger path. Lizzy wanted to take us to the right and show us how she and Daddy had walked to the highway. I said cautiously, “Don’t you think we should head back?” I was outvoted, and it was so wonderful walking through the magical, snow-covered woods with four happy girls that I said OK. Off to the highway we went.

The first sign of trouble was a few ice-covered puddles in the path. Lizzy and Katherine walked right over and Annabelle was in front of me while I led Charlotte by the hand. My weight caused the ice to crack (but not break) and the sound scared Annabelle. I explained that I was much bigger than her and if her sisters could walk over the puddles she would be fine. I also explained that they weren’t very deep, so if the ice did break I would just get some mud on my shoes. She looked like she wasn’t sure but I said, “Do you want to go back?” and she said no. It was dumb on my part to take her word for it.

A little further down the path, Annabelle was doing alright and keeping to the edge of the path. I asked Lizzy how much further it was and again suggested that we head back. “No, Mommy, it’s not much further!”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I came with Daddy, remember?”

We found a gorgeous spot on the path with the snow glazing the tree branches and the sun shining through and I made the girls just stop and look. Then I took a step forward onto a puddle, cracked right though the ice, and got some mud on my boot. Annabelle went into hysterics. I tried to show her that it was just a little mud (stomping in the puddle to show that it wasn’t very deep) but to no avail. Annabelle’s screaming scared the baby and she started crying, so I told the girls that was it, we had to go home now.

I am not kidding when I tell you that I dragged two screaming, crying children about a half a mile home. It sounded like a horror movie in the woods. I kept hitting my head on low-hanging branches and had snow falling down in my coat. All of a sudden, I realized that I didn’t see Lizzy’s snow shovel path from our trip out. We had missed the path back to the house. So we turned around and just when I started to wonder if we hadn’t missed the path after all, Katherine called out, “There it is!” Attempts to explain to Annabelle that there weren’t any ice puddles on this path were useless, so I just settled for scooping the baby up and walking as fast I could.

So it was half a beautiful walk in the woods with my girls, and half a TOTAL disaster. I’m sure there’s a life metaphor in there somewhere, but all I can think about is how I need a day at the spa.

The Girl Knows What She Wants

Before we left for the “Great White North” an odd, recurring incident had us a little confused.  I started finding curls on the floor.  Not a lot, mind you, but enough to know they were curls of hair.  Only one of my children currently has curls in her hair.  When I asked Annabelle about it, she kind of pretended she didn’t know what I was talking about.  But I made sure to monitor her scissor usage . . .

Then we got to Canada and we’re in a big house and I can’t always see what everyone is doing.  Last night, I found Annabelle had taken some craft supplies up to Katherine’s bedroom (where there’s a little desk) so she could work on something without the baby getting into it.  I was cleaning up pencils and crayons and looking for the lid of the glue stick when I saw them – three beautiful curls on the floor.  I went down and asked Annabelle about it and she said matter-of-factly, “I cut it.”

“Why?”

“Because I want a shortcut.”

OK then.  Since she kept cutting the hair near her face and didn’t cut it very short, her hair didn’t look too bad.  But I figured she’d keep at it until she thought her hair was short enough, so off to the stylist we went!

Before:

During:

And after:

She loves it!

1 week down . . .

And so far so good. DredBen successfully found his way to work, and is learning lots of interesting Canadian tidbits he shares with us over dinner (he works some too.) I have found Walmart, the grocery store, the mall, and the movie theater – so all the necessities are taken care of (well, except a bookstore – but since I brought about 10 books with me I don’t think I’ll need it for a while). The big girls and I went to see Arthur Christmas and enjoyed it very much.

I’m not sure the nice gentleman who owns the house quite trusts us – he shows up every couple of days because he forgot something or he wants to check on something. But as the place is still standing (even with 4 kids!), I think he may be calming down . . .

We had a light week of schoolwork while we got settled, which included reading Black Ships Before Troy. The girls really liked it, and here is Lizzy’s interpretation:

Sleeping has been a little tricky, as it always is when you move kids out of their own beds. One morning Charlotte was up very early, which basically turned the day into a lazy day as Mommy was exhausted and passed out on the couch most of the morning! And Lizzy manages to find her way down two flights of steps about every other night to “sneak into bed with GB”. Just last night, Charlotte figured out she’s agile enough to climb out of her pack-n-play, so now she has her own little bedroom – our master bedroom closet. We put some foam mattresses down on the floor so she can pretty much be comfortable wherever she finally passes out.

I will post some pictures of our recent visit to Halifax Harbor soon, I’m having some trouble uploading them to Google . . .

Coming up this week, a “normal” week of school – adding in the nice curriculum I picked up on Canadian history, geography, and government. The books are split up by province or territory, so first up is Prince Edward Island to prepare us for our getaway next weekend. It will be a fulfillment of a lifelong dream to visit “Avonlea” – I starting reading Anne of Green Gables to the girls and they love it (of course they do, they’re my daughters)   Interestingly, it’s the first read-aloud that has Daddy and GB listening too.  We are all appreciating LM Montgomery’s sense of humor and storytelling ability.  Yes, I am now definitely enjoying our adventure.

Beginning of an Adventure

DredBen was offered an opportunity to spend 2 months working near Halifax, Nova Scotia.  In December and January.  And we were crazy enough to accept.

I know that we will look back on this and love the memories.  But memories can be exhausting to make.  The prep work had us pretty worn out before we even left our house – finding a place big enough for 7 people that was available for 2 months on short notice (we found 1 option, about a week before we had to leave) and figuring out how to pack 2 months of stuff into our cars (particularly difficult when that 2 months includes Christmas and a birthday).

Then a 1000 mile, 19 hour road trip split over 2 days.  We spent the night in Freeport, ME in a hotel, which DredBen says is sacrilegious, since he only camps in Freeport – I said tough.   On the second day, I got the job of keeping 4 girls packed like sardines in the van happy for an hour while we waited at the border for DredBen’s work visa.  Then the big push to Fall River, a little town north of Halifax.

The house we are renting is huge (about twice as big as ours) and gorgeous.  We are all enjoying the space to spread out, and I am glad the house is rather sparsely furnished – less for me to worry about the girls breaking.  It was a busy weekend unpacking and settling in – discovering several things that we needed to get to make the space work for us.  Particularly in the kitchen, where it was obvious pretty quickly that the owner is not a baker, and we have lots of Christmas baking to do.

Today was pretty stressful as we struggled with suspended bank transfers, wire transfers, and check deposits to make sure our rent check was good – I now know a lot more about what sort of money transfers are possible, and which are not (hint – if you’re willing to pay a fee, they’re much more willing to give you your money).  It’s a good thing we haven’t started our building project yet, because we won’t be seeing any of our “housing allowance” for about 2 weeks.

Then off for a Christmas tree – a small one, much to Lizzy’s dismay.  But I couldn’t bring decorations for a big one, and I certainly couldn’t justify buying that many.  So our Charlie Brown tree will work just fine – and the ornaments we put on it are Charlotte-proof (meaning they are plastic and cheap).   On Christmas Eve, we will add the new ornaments Grandma Naomi and Grandpa Gerry gave the girls at Thanksgiving – the only Christmas decorations that were included in our packing.

Right now I’m so tired, but I think I’m finally done with the stressful stuff.  I think tomorrow will be the first day in quite a while that I can just relax and BE with my kids – not planning, packing, driving, or unpacking.  I think tomorrow I start enjoying our adventure.

Here are some pictures of our trip so far:

Arrival in Canada

Pumpkins!

It’s Halloween tomorrow which means it’s time for decorating pumpkins!!!

The little girls painted pumpkins – Here’s Lizzy’s:

And Annabelle’s:

Katherine had an idea to combine painting and carving so Daddy helped cut out the clouds and she painted the scene:

And here’s what it looks like lit up:

And from the in-house artist, DredBen’s “A Dark and Storm Night” (which is amazing when you consider he was using poster paints and kid paintbrushes):

That left most of the carving up to me.  Looking for something fun but not too difficult, I settled on a current favorite of Annabelle’s – Lightning McQueen!

Now to keep Miss Charlotte from messing them up!  Happy Halloween!

Changes . . .

After years of trying to sell our house, we decided to try to build onto it instead.  So after spending a lot of time not changing things in my house – because “we’re moving and what if the new things don’t work in a new place?” – I’ve starting thinking about my house like I live here again.  First up – we moved the piano my Mom gave us from the garage (in storage until we moved) to the living room (so we can actually play it).  Second on my list – a new bedroom “scheme.”

When we moved into our house, my housewarming gift to myself was a bedding set I loved:

I thought its rough texture and the color scheme fit well in our new room with its pine paneling (of which I’m not the biggest fan, but I can live with it).  I got matching curtain panels too – but short ones because our windows are small.

We had this in our room for almost 3 years when an unfortunate incident with Lizzy and a black Sharpie led to me needing a new bedspread.  I brought home a couple of different options and we decided on this:

OK, so maybe a little too much orange, but it was inexpensive, went with the curtains, and we were already thinking that we would move within a few months.

So now that we’ve taken our house off the market (and it was my birthday) I decided I would like a new look in my room:

I looked around for window treatments and decided on this (creatively made from table runners and placemats, if I do say so myself!)

I haven’t managed to talk DredBen into letting me paint the paneling (yet), but really the first thing I would LOVE to do is change my PINK carpet (I have no idea who thought THAT was a good idea!)

I have a lot more ideas, but not much more of a budget – so stay tuned!!!

Accessories

A few months ago, I finished a quilt for my dining room that I had been working on for quite a while (kids being a major distraction in my life).

Since I had some fabric left over, I decided to make some accessories to coordinate:

I started with two short table runners

Here is a close up:

The pattern is called Chinese Coins.  I opted for two short runners because my table is so long and there is usually a baby seat clamped to the end.  But I still had some fabric left over so I made a center medallion

The pattern is Dresden plate with the tips of the petals folder under.  I made it the same width as the table runners so if I really wanted to, I could piece them together to make a long runner like this:

I still had a little left over and had another idea for a center medallion, so I made a second one a bit bigger than the first

Still a Dresden Plate pattern, but with the points left out and the petals made of leftover strips from the Chinese Coin blocks.  This one could sit on the table by itself, maybe with my favorite teapot like this:

I’m very pleased with the way everything came out – though it’s all theoretical right now, of course.  Since Miss Charlotte is very busy and a STINKER, for the near future my table looks like this:

A 4-year Project (sort of . . . )

Four years ago right around this time, we had just decided to take the plunge into the crazy, wonderful world of homeschooling.  Shortly thereafter, I found out we were having a baby (that would be my Annabelle, baby girl #3!)  After THAT, DredBen took Katherine and Elizabeth to Grandma and Grandpa’s house for a few days so I could paint the living room.  The room (trim and all) was that “apartment beige” color – so I spent a week painting the walls a light cream color and painting the trim dark brown – giving our living room a bit of a Tudor look.

When we painted the living room, I took down the grey mini-blinds in the windows.  Well, took down as in removed the blinds, removed the hardware, and dumped it all  in the trash.  My plan was to buy new shades. maybe in a pretty red color to reflect the other decorations in the room.  And then . . .

I don’t know, it got away from me.  I was pregnant, all of a sudden homeschooling, and then we decided that we would sell the house and move once DredBen graduated from grad school and I didn’t think it was the best way to spend our money (that was 3 years ago!)  So my windows have been bare ever since . . . until last night!!

Here’s the window “before”:

I decided on cream colored roller shades, since we’re still thinking the house might sell and frankly if it doesn’t, I’m kind of tired of my decorating scheme after 6 years (plus the 2 years I had it at my last house) so if we stay I’ll probably change some things so I thought it would be better to go neutral.

Then I put my window treatments back up (note the ballerina in my pictures – she thought it was great fun to play behind the couch while I had it pulled out!)

Or I can put the shades up and hardly know they are even there!

Did you notice the wonderful bookshelf above the window?  DredBen put up some shelves to hold the ever-growing book collection and I love how the books are out for display, but away from dirty little fingers.

In the corner of the room, he put up a LOT of bookshelves to hold books, homeschool stuff, videos, toys, and any other junk we can fit on them.  (Pardon the messiness, I’m a homeschooling mother of 4 relatively young children so if I stopped to clean it before the picture I’d never get this post up!)

So there you go – a project 4 years in the completing (well a week and one night with 4 years in between).  There may be more of these forthcoming as we wait (and wait, and wait) for our house to sell!

An Unusual Day

As a homeschooler, I sometimes daydream about all my children sitting around the dining room table, diligently pursuing knowledge and enjoying themselves.  But that doesn’t really happen.  My normal day is much more . . . normal.  Disappointing.  Real – like I have real children and not robots.

But every once in a while . . .

Annabelle immerses herself in a phonics game . . .

While Lizzie works on a geography puzzle . . .

And Katherine reads to us about the Civil War.

Charlotte decided a game of pick-up sticks with the colored pencils was in order . . .

But my sweet girl picked them ALL up and handed them to me.

Sigh.  For one glorious half an hour, all was right with the world.  And I knew where my camera was.  And it had batteries so I could take pictures to prove it happened!  Perhaps there will be more moments like this as my girls get older . . . or maybe not.  Either way, I can now look back at my blog and remember that I had a daydream come true . . . for a little while.