I love my weather station

Current weather: 58F, Sunny

I just cannot keep up with the weather here. Monday it snowed. Today it's warm (well, relatively warm) and sunny. Shaun got a little weather station a couple of years ago, and we never really used it because the weather in Sugar Land was pretty predictable from day-to-day, but I finally dug it out of a box this past weekend. I can't tell you how useful it's been just this week alone. It's so much easier to decide which of the five different weights of outdoor gear to layer the kids in now that I can check the temperature before heading out the door. Just in case you're curious, the five weights of outdoor gear are (1) Sweatshirt, (2) Rain-repellant and fleece-lined jacket and rain boots, (3) Early winter jacket, (4) Heavy winter jacket and gloves, and (5) I don't really know why we bought that because if it's that cold Mommy is not leaving the house (also known as Snowsuit and snow boots). This isn't an exact classification, and believe it or not, there are some days that just don't align properly with one of the five categories. And some days one category of outdoor gear is required at 8:30 when we take Kyle to school and an entirely different category is required when we return to pick him up at noon. Hence, the weather station. Take that, weather!

Just do it!

Current weather: 37F, Partly cloudy

My littlest man is learning to crawl. His new favorite activity is getting up on his hands and knees and trying to figure out exactly how to move them. So far there's a lot of bunny-like hopping going on. Check it out--not bad for a not-quite-7-month-old!

Our first bit of accumulation

Current Weather: 30F, Partly Cloudy

Imagine our surprise as we walked down the stairs this morning and spotted a layer of white, fluffy stuff covering the lawn and vehicles. As I sit here looking out my office window I'd guess there's about a 1/2-inch of snow out there. Not enough to totally cover the grass and not enough to stick to the streets, but enough to count as our first bit of accumulation. Now the kids are impressed! They don't entirely understand why we can't go outside RIGHT NOW and build a snowman. I'm sure they'll be experts by the end of the winter, but as of now they don't realize there's not nearly enough snow out there for a snowman. And I don't think they realize how COLD it is out there, either. But I think I'm going to let them wear their snow boots when we take Kyle to school in a little while. That should satisfy them.

I'm not ready for Christmas!

Well, the kids had an awesome Halloween! Kyle got to wear his Tigger costume to school on Friday, and they had a party, and he came home with enough candy for all of us! Shaun took Kyle and Natalie out trick-or-treating right after dinner on Friday night while I stayed at the house with Brandon to pass out candy. Kyle and Nat didn't go to too many houses before their buckets were full and they were tired, but they had a blast. And I was amazed by the number of trick-or-treaters that came by the house! I didn't realize our neighborhood would have so many kids, so we ran out of candy pretty early, but that was fine since the kids needed to go to bed and the doorbell would have been waking them up anyway.

Yesterday I went to the grocery store first thing in the morning, and then we loaded everyone up for a trip to the mall. Kyle has entirely outgrown all the 3T clothing I bought a couple of months ago, so we went to stock up on 4's. My baby's in big-boy sizes now! Well, we walked into the mall, and there were people everywhere! There were Christmas decorations up! Christmas displays! Christmas ornaments! Newfies seem to love their holidays, and I guess once Halloween is over they move right on to Christmas. I am so not ready for Christmas yet! But I guess I better get ready for Christmas or there's not going to be anything left in the stores by the time I get around to it...

Snow!

Well, it happened. It's not even Halloween yet, but it snowed yesterday afternoon! For about three hours. Luckily, the ground is still way too warm for any of it to stick or accumulate, so it was melting immediately. The kids weren't as impressed as I thought they would be. Kyle's only comment was, "Why is it raining snow, Mom?" Natalie wanted it to get out of her hair. I think once they see it on the ground they'll feel differently about it. Now that we've seen snow I really think it's time to prepare. I mean, a snow shovel might be a good idea. And an ice scraper. We don't have either of those. :) Maybe we should go snow-blower shopping tomorrow...

Skype

Just a little update...

I finally got around to downloading Skype onto my computer, and everything appears to be up and running. If anyone's interested in video chatting online for free you can download Skype and sign up at www.skype.com and search for me by name when you're adding your contacts. Just send me an email, and I'll park the kids in front of the computer sometime and we can chat!

Here comes Thanksgiving...

I keep having to remind myself that Thanksgiving is on Monday. Here in Canada they celebrate Thanksgiving in October. Before Halloween! For me, Thanksgiving has always been when you start counting down to Christmas. I'm not ready to start counting down to Christmas yet! I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the fact that it's already October and that I need to find costumes for the kids. At least Natalie has already chosen what she wants to be this year. Check out the picture above. ;) But we may be skipping Thanksgiving for now. I'm just not ready. Maybe I'll break out some turkey and stuffing in November.

Kyle is enjoying preschool. They started the serious business of learning this week. His school has a program where they learn a different letter of the alphabet each week. Guess what this week's letter is? That's right! The letter 'A.' :) But they won't go in order. Next week is 'T,' and the week after that is 'H.' This way they'll be able to start putting small words together more quickly. Kyle is overjoyed that he's going to 'learn to read.' I'm just glad he's having fun and learning, and I'm getting a little quiet time--well, quieter time, anyway.

Natalie and Brandon and I have started going to playgroups here in St. John's. It really makes the day go more quickly, and we're all getting settled and making friends. We have to get out as much as we can now because I'm told that it can start snowing in October, and you better believe I'm not going out in the snow!! :) Not if I can help it. We'll see if I'm singing a different tune in a few weeks... keep checking back...

Yeah for preschool!

Ahhh. Preschool has finally started, and Kyle already loves it! Check out the couple of first day pictures we took above. He goes every weekday, 8:30 to 12. It's been much easier this week running errands with just two kids instead of three, and I can tell Natalie is enjoying having her run of the house while Kyle's at school. Unfortunately, we can't really go to the playground since it's already getting cold here--especially by our Texas standards. The TrailBlazer said it was 37 degrees when we drove Kyle to school this morning. 37! And I don't think it warmed up much from there. We should see a few more nicer days before the cold weather really sets in, but summer is definitely over!

It feels like Halloween should be our next project, but the next holiday here is Thanksgiving on October 13th. How lucky is Shaun that he gets a holiday for his birthday? I'm sure we'll celebrate Thanksgiving in our own quiet way, and then we'll start gearing up for Halloween. The kids haven't yet decided what they want to be this year. We better start thinking about it since it's only a month away!

Getting settled

We're finally in our new house and getting settled! Our shipment arrived last Thursday, and we've been unpacking, organizing, hanging pictures, and putting toys away. The kids were so excited to see the big orange truck drive up, and they were even more excited to see their things being carried into the house. It's really starting to feel more like home now--especially since my new washer and dryer arrived yesterday, and I haven't stopped doing laundry since! :D I'm thinking about doing some painting in the kitchen, dining room, and a few bathrooms, but that's going to have to wait until all the stuff is put away first.

The weather has also been gorgeous, and Kyle and Natalie are really enjoying their new backyard. We took some time this past weekend to do some driving and sightseeing, and it's amazing the way the ocean just sneaks right up on you when you turn a corner in some places here. We're trying to take advantage of the beautiful weather while it lasts!

We're in St. John's... but still waiting for our shipment!

We loaded all of our things onto the 'big orange truck', said good-bye to all of our best friends in Sugar Land, and boarded our flight to St. John's on August 7th as planned! After a prolonged (can I say I never want to see the Newark airport again?) but uneventful trip we checked into our hotel at 4 a.m., managed to get a few hours of sleep, and awoke to the drizzle that has characterized the weather in St. John's since our arrival. We were hoping for our shipment to arrive late last week, but it looks like it'll be later this week sometime instead. We've had three really beautiful days in the last two weeks, however, and the gorgeous days really do make up for the rainy ones! And the people here in St. John's are amazing. Everyone's been incredibly welcoming and friendly. We're all really looking forward to getting out of the hotel and into our new house and starting to make some new friends here in St. John's! Cross your fingers that our stuff gets here soon!