Dog Sled Races

Chloe has developed an obsession with sled dogs. I have no idea why, but she is completely taken with them. She is convinced that our dog can be a part of her grand plan of owning her own sled dog team. A few weeks ago I found out that there was to be a large sled dog race in northern Vermont. After looking on the web site I learned that, if they had a helmet, the children of the spectators would be able to ride on a one dog sled. Well, I knew that my Chloe would flip at this opportunity. I set to work tracking down a ski helmet to borrow. Luckily a friend of mine from work had one that her boys had outgrown. We were in business and we had a count down on our calendar to the fateful day. I was a little worried after picking the girls up from their dad's yesterday and finding out he had taken them already (it was a two day event) that they wouldn't still want to go, but they were adamant that they still wanted to go. It was a several hour drive to get there and a lot of layering up, but well worth it. As you can see they were quite taken with the whole thing.

I took a couple of videos that I will try to post as well. I thought I had one of both girls riding on the dog sled, but it turns out I seemed to have turned the camera on and then off for Chloe's. I took a couple of short clips of the dogs starting including one of a dog so excited to start he was jumping up and down. I hope they load OK.

As you can see they also enjoyed the wander through the deep snow too.

Alexa's Song

A Snow Day for the Cold Day

When you live in the north you get use to cold winters. OK so maybe you don't get use to it, but you come accept it as an inevitable thing. Today was a bit extreme with temperatures of -11 registering on my car this morning and -3 at 1:30. It was enough to make you want to stay in bed. When I got up to shower at 5AM and discovered my cold water in the bathroom not working due to frozen pipes, I wished I had stayed in bed. So it was a nice turn of events at 6:20 when the phone rang and I found out that my school was closed today due to school buses not starting. I guess I wasn't the only one that didn't want to get out of bed. So after dropping Chloe off at school (we drove her) Alexa and I settled in to a day at home to wait for the plumber. We had a good day together and were even able to egt the pipes unfrozen all by ourselves. She did a lot of checking on her hamster (now named Cutie) and singing her way through a lot of activities. Here she was when I snuck up on her singing while painting her bird house.

New Pet

Alexa has been saving her allowance for the last four months. She committed herself to buying her own hamster. Anyone who knows me well will know how humorous a thought this is as I have no love of rodents of any kind. However, it is her money and I do see a lot of value in having your own pet to take care of. Last week we went to the pet store to see what a hamster costs. She discovered that she had more than enough money for one, so this afternoon (frigid temperatures and all) she got her hamster.

We set the cage up on her dresser in her room. As you can see she is pretty excited.

Hamsters are quite hard to get a picture of, but after a few attempts I was able to get this one.

She is yet to be named as Alexa hasn't settled on one yet. Although she has reminded us, "It is my decision to make." We do know that it is a female (so they tell me) and two months old. As you can imagine Cabbie is quite interested in her as well.

Winter Fun

Yesterday's weather was 28 and sunny. I know that leaves some southerners shivering at the thought but up here that is prime outdoor play weather. The girls spent the morning stuffing themselves with way too much sugary stuff at a birthday party so I decided we should head over to the park to skate. Chloe was doing really well and really only used her crate for a resting spot. Alexa was a little too interested in the big snow banks to skate much.

Considering this morning we woke up to negative temperatures and frozen water pipes. It is good that we got outside yesterday.

The Encore...

Party Weekend

It was a birthday party weekend for the kids. They attended one yesterday and another one today. Here they are all dressed up today in their nice coats and everything. It was a fairy theme party so Alexa made sure to bring her wings, crown, and wand.


Unfortunately when we got to the party my camera batteries died. It was just as well as I was there to offer my expertise in directing small children towards activities and away from destruction of the home where they party was taking place. I took a few pictures afterwards at home though. The kids decorated fairy houses at the party. The glue didn't work so well so we got out the glue gun when we got home and attached some more pieces.

Chloe was kind enough to pose for a picture before she went up to change so you can see how wonderful she looked all dressed up. Grammie Sharon bought her this dress at an April Cornell clearance sale a few years ago and she is finally big enough to wear it.

Alexa posed too after I begged.

I think that is a pose called annoyed with mommy, but you can see she was cute as a button in her dress too. That was a Christmas gift from Grammie Eva and Alexa says it is her new favorite dress.

Chloe Skating

Adventures in Ice Skating

The girls and I went ice skating today. We wanted to try out one of the outside rinks that the city floods and maintains in the local parks. I had decided to get them some crates to use to balance. They offer this at one of the rinks we have been using. The crates snap together pretty well, but I was really high tech and secured them with twist ties just to be sure they didn't come apart. They offer the kids a place to hold on to and balance as they are getting a feel for the ice.

You can see that they moved away from needing them at all after a bit. I figure pretty soon we will only bring one to carry the skates in and sit on while we switch from boots to skates and back again.

It was pretty cold with the wind off the lake. We were bundled up pretty good. after almost two hours of skating we heade home for some hot chocolate to warm us up.

Oh... Christmas Tree

On January 1, 2011, I had enough of Christmas occupying my living room and felt it was time to bid farewell to our tree. Much like Chloe's poem about what happens to a Christmas tree when Christmas is over; it made its way to the curb. We are fortunate enough that our city will pick the trees up and take them to be chipped up for wood chips. Because we still had a fair sized snow bank at the curb side the tree was stuck into the pile. I always like to do that (although Jason did actual removal) as it gives the appearance of a more tree lined street.

This morning when I woke up we had received a few inches of snow over night. Since our city is not terribly quick in picking up the trees left curbside, the tree is still there. I have to say with a nice coating of snow on it, it looks all the more a permanent fixture on the street.

Well, excepting the fact that it is beginning to tip a bit.

Winter

How big do you grow the icicles at your house? This one was hanging off the roof.

Ice Skating

The girls and I have been going ice skating the quite often the last month. We went over Thanksgiving for the first time and everyone loved it. Always looking for a chance to get them up and doing active things, I kept taking them almost every weekend. They like it so much I decided to buy them their own skates for Christmas. I also received new skates for me from my mom for Christmas as my old ones fell apart. Yesterday we took our new skates to a local rink to get them sharpened and try them out. It was a little bumpy going at first as the rink was really crowded and they only had one learning bar left to rent. Chloe was also really nervous and rather grumpy at first because the skates I purchased her were a bit different than the ones we had been renting for her. However everything worked out just fine and in the end everyone was happily whizzing around the ice and having a good time.


Now that our skates are sharpened we can also got o the local ponds for FREE and skate whenever the weather permits!

New Year's Eve

I have some pictures from the Christmas that the girls and I had together, but since I am late in posting them, it now seems like a better idea to show you our New Year's Eve. We attended First Night. The girls had a blast. There was a lot going on, so we tried our hand at lots of different activities.

They tried out working the pottery wheel...


Alexa wanted to get her face painted; Chloe wasn't interested but she had fun making a wand while she waited for Alexa.


They made some masks with lots of decorations.

Jason was able to come with us which meant that Alexa could take advantage of a nice spot to view the parade complete with complimentary glowing star necklace.

Last on the list were the kid's fireworks at 6PM (instead on midnight) at the Waterfront. From there we headed home to dinner and bed!