early february

 Melanie lets Jennifer and Evelyn take turns helping her with her weekly baking.

 Jennifer learned how to answer the phone.

 Melanie sped through a few more books.

A tenant moved in downstairs (in early January actually) in our "suite". Matthew had the honours of shoveling her out after a deep snowfall.

skating

 We had some days of fun on the ice in January.

 After an ice storm and rain the surface was terrible...but then with a respray it was as good as new!

 Zoom!

 Evelyn likes to climb on the snowplow piles.

 Time out during a game of tag.

 Catching someone on a small rink is actually pretty easy!

 But getting away is really hard!

 Tagging back sometimes seems like the only escape!

The last night of hockey...at least, we think so because we've had so much warm weather now!

 The game gets pretty intense...

 best to stay out of the way if you aren't very big!

Inside Activites

 Snooping through Momma's mail when chores are supposed to be done! :o

 Jennifer is all into reading and writing these days.

 Nathan was contemplating lego designs, and didn't seem to appreciate being interrupted.

 Melanie and Matthew have been going through my gorilla and duct tape like mad. I'm not sure whether to blame myself because of our science center membership, or them for their seemingly excessive use.

 Evelyn, a fellow tape waster, is watching on. Her personal favourite is scotch tape.

 Daniel is sewing a sword. Embroidering, really, but still, he's doing a great job! Maybe we've a future tailor in the family. :)

Jennifer is sorely wounded (red marker and scotch tape = bandaids) while doing some finger knitting. I now have 5 short purple finger knitted necklaces gifted to me from her.

having some fun

 Daniel loves playing with his sword, when it hasn't been confiscated!

 Little girls...still figuring out what to play...

 Double trouble!

Another pair of double trouble

 even a jacket can serve as a gun!

 Better run!

 or have a shield.

 Because they asked so sweetly, I gave these two a push

 and another one, and another one...

 Jennifer has been eager to help me make dinner in the kitchen.

 Daniel, not so much. Depends what there is to do.

 Nathan is reading up something off of Wikipedia about the Kon Tiki espedition. Interesting! (His expression has to do with the interruption, not the reading. ;)

A project completed!!

 Long ago there was a doorway (and steps up) to get through this wall into the the next bedroom. It's a bathroom that opens up to Nathan and Daniel's bedroom, and used to open up to the sewing room.

 Philip finished the sink cabinet, so I needed to get my act together and finish off the drywall work and painting. The sink was preserved from the original unit that had been unable to handle the moisture.  The unit is made of cedar wood that was in the garage when we moved in. We are such a green family re-purposing everything. I even reused drywall from a wall I took down downstairs. :p

 It is an imperfect job, but the camera lighting doesn't pick up the unevenness on the wall. :) And yes, I need to keep getting that rust out of the shower...but it takes a lot of elbow grease. I told myself "three tiles every time" I clean the washroom. Eventually it will look good too. Nathan is very pleased with the washroom. All it needs is a small cupboard on the wall for storage.

And in the sewing room, I still have to put up the molding back. I am a bit short actually, and hopefully can find a matching piece and trim it to size from somewhere else in the house.

I was practicing painting so that when we paint the living room we know what we are doing...well, Philip thinks that he may find time to do the patching and mudding after all (so I don't do it. :o)

Niagara Falls Jan 7

 We said goodby to the falls, driving all the way up and turning back again. There was a crowd of photographers snapping pictures of the wreck just upstream of the falls.

 And here the waters go crashing over.

 We popped in to see the whirlpool downriver.  Water is such a powerful force!

 The butterfly conservatory was part of our pass, so we came in for a visit.

 We had butterflies passing us by...this one going was sure big!

 There were plenty of colours and varieties. We noticed a butterfly that didn't seem able to hover, but flapped fast enough to make us think a hummingbird.

 Jennifer and Evelyn didn't find the butterflies that interesting. After half an hour they were more interested in the walkway and the various people who were also there in the conservatory.

 And before we left the area we stopped in a nature area for a walk.

 Quite a steep drop off! Down below Philip and the older kids vanished from sight.

 Evelyn and Jennifer posed before we turned around. Evelyn was cold!

 Trudging back is Evelyn, Jennifer is dashing off in eagerness.

 See the stairs we had to climb down to get to the bottom of the escarpment?

 When the older ones got back from their tour, Melanie and Matthew took me to where they went. The Niagara River.

 If you look at the water you can see how powerful it is -- we are not far downstream from the whirlpool. Swimming is not advised.

 The size of the overhang is easier to tell with kids as measuring sticks. There was some neat looking icicles hanging from them underneath.

And the rocks looked like they'd just tumbled down off the cliff and settled in below. There were even ones (not quite so big as this one) with tree roots going over them! Mighty and rugged beauty!

See how cold it is! Most of my pictures from the walk showed my breath! From here we drove through Niagara-on-the-Lake and headed home again.