Welcome 2012

Welcome 2012! Who knows what you will have in store for us. Be ware that whatever you throw our way, we will take it in stride and prevail.

We spent the past week up at our Family cottage, relaxing, laughing and having fun. We enjoyed the most picturesque winter wonderland and amazing weather. Everything that winter should be.

I have a love for these signs. No matter what the season, I just love photographing them.

Elly got the hang of the snow pretty quick and loved being outside. Unfortunately some of the days were -25ºC, so certainly not kid friendly for any extended periods of time. She was pretty good about telling us when she was cold and ready to go in.

We bundled up with Babi and had our first crazy carpet tobogganing experience. Given Elly's love for slides, I expected her to enjoy the ride a little more than she did. I think maybe it picked up pace a little too quickly and when I instinctually pulled in the carpet when we went over a bump, I may have pulled it into her face a little. Not enough to hit her, but enough to invade her space.

Elly has a love for flashlights. She has two of her own normally that she can play with whenever she wants. When she somehow discovered the head-lights, she was instantly in love and wanted to wear it the whole time. We finally got it off of her with the promise of her being able to wear it when it got dark out. This promise was at 9am. Imagine our surprise when at 5:30 after her nap, the moment she realized it was dark out, she quickly asked for the head light and continued to wear it for an hour.

She enjoyed using her beach toys in the snow, but had some challenges with the mitten limitations. I should note how impressed I was with how quickly she grasped the concept of keeping her scarf over her face warm. I suppose the cold weather was incentive enough.

She loved her snow wagon rides and was quite content to have me trudge along for quite some time.

Once she went down for her nap, I was quick to take advantage of the snowy tobogganing weather. I went twice a day at least if I could. It didn't matter if I was sliding down the driveway, the neighbours yard onto the lake, or down a rather large hill, across a road and into a ditch. It was amazing and I must say climbing hills is an amazing workout and zooming down head first a wonderful thrill. And thanks to those head lamps we weren't limited in out sledding to just day light hours. Night tobogganing was a blast!

Whoosh!

What a fabulous relaxing finale to the end of one of the most emotionally and physically demanding years of my life. It was so fulfilling to play like a kid again. Not play with kids, but truly play like a kid and let free.

Elly continued to amaze us daily. Her vocabulary surprises us, her grammar is growing, everything is going better than we could have ever imagined. She is a smart, beautiful little girl that continues to remind us daily about how blessed we are to have her in our lives.

And... I should probably take note that this trip was the first trip she managed to do accident free on the commute to and from the cottage. Our trip was 6hrs to get there and 5hrs home and she was great at keeping dry the whole time.