Meyer's Christmas

We had the Meyer Christmas party on Sunday, and then right after, the annual Grey Cup party at Nancy and Drew's house.  It was a busy weekend as Saturday was spent shopping for Christmas and then home to get ready for an adult birthday party (with the kids).  We pushed the kids a little hard that day as we didn't get home until after 3pm, straight to nap time for Violet, and then had to wake her up to go to the party at 6:30 pm... yikes.  Good thing they were serving dinner right away... She did great and was generally a real joy at the party as she always seems to be.  We always seem to get comments about how cute she is (and she really is!).  Desmond did well too and wasn't too fussy as he's been lately.  Not sure why, or if his stomach has been upset, but he's been more fussy and wants to be held all the time.

At the Meyer Christmas, we had the annual Christmas caroling by some of the Aunts.  Surprisingly Violet thought it was music to her ears (LOL) and started dancing by herself and then decided that she wanted in on the action and climbed up on stage with them and started dancing in front of everyone -- you know the rules; everyone quite, sit there and watch the Aunts sing out of tune.  You get dirty looks if you happen to want to TALK to your cousins that you see once per year!?  Her dancing is more like bouncing with arms swinging or hands held together swaying, but she was up there in front of everyone doing it.  It was TOO CUTE!!  None of the other kids did this, by the way (I mean dancing to the 'music')...  haha   I think Grandma was proud.  Maybe we'll have a little performer on our hands?  At the end of it, with some prompting from Grandma, I'm sure, she decided that she wanted to sing as well!  So she tried to sing the Raffi song, Baby Beluga that Madison taught her when they were down visiting in the summer.  Now, she doesn't really know all the words, but she likes to sing it occasionally. You couldn't really hear her over Grandma helping her with the words, except for some parts, but it was sweet anyway.  Really shocked Marn and I that she went up there in front of everyone.

Here she is - really bad photo, but it gives you an idea.  I couldn't get video of her singing as she was just too quiet.  If I had gone up to tape her, she surely would have stopped as well.

Anyway, 'tis the season for crazy weekends, and I hope we don't have too many like that again (at least until actual Christmas)....

Edit:  The turnout was a little smaller this year than in past years, but here's a pic of all, or most of, the grandkids that were there.  If you're wondering where Kaiya and Mackenzie were, they didn't come as they were at a baby shower with Lisa.  Just Tony and Kaiden, who had quite a lot of exercise running around with the boys as you can tell from the bright red cheeks!  Darcy and Sue's kids loved Violet as they played all afternoon long, carrying her around like a doll.  It was pretty funny watching as Violet just let them "manhandle" her the whole time, but she had tons of fun. (the girl hugging Violet here, and they other girl above her - sorry, I've forgotten their names, even with the name tags this year -- yes, name tags. lol)

kijiji again!

So, I've been looking for snow tires for the BMW this year on kijiji and other places, including new.  Quotes for new tires and steel rims came in at $1200-1300, installed and balanced total including tax.  Kind of pricey.  You can find some for less, but you usually get crappy Chinese tires.
I've probably emailed at least 12 people selling tires on kijiji up until yesterday when I found some for $325 taken from a 3 series BMW (maybe only 2 people emailed back, and most times, the price was 600+). I inquired and asked how many seasons they've been driven on, and he didn't know, but said the tread measured about 8-9/32".  These tires new come with 12/32" tread.  It's probably safe to say two seasons of use, and have at least 2 more in them.
Needless to say I swung by the guys house after work last night, checked them out and bought them.  For about 1/4 of the price of new, I'll take it!  I was quoted $1255 for these exact tires on winter steel rims (not even nice aluminium rims) from a local tire place.
Hopefully they work out ok!  I'm hoping to get them on the car this week.

Re: Big Girl!!

Spoke too soon and jinxed it!
Yesterday evening Violet was playing in her room and I was in the bathroom, so yelled out and asked if she needed to go potty.  She yelled back and said, yeah.  I said, do you want to come here and sit on the potty then?  She yelled back, no, I went already!  uugh!  Puddle of pee on her room floor, and a not so nice surprise in her underwear!

Then this morning Marn asked her to go to the potty and she did and had a big pee.  Yay!  ...only to poop her pants 5 minutes later. I guess she must have been having fun playing or watching tv and rushed to get back out there before she was done.

 :(

Big Girl!!

Violet has been doing REALLY well the past two weeks with going to the potty.  In the last few days she's telling us when she has to go, and most often doesn't 'refuse' to go sit on it when asked, like she had been doing the past couple of weeks.  If she doesn't want to go, if you remind about the reward, she often then jumps up and goes, or tries.
She's been waking up from naps with a dry diaper, and coming back home from long outings with a dry diaper.... and sometimes even waking up from overnight dry.  Her motivation is "treats".  M&M's lately.  She's getting "TWOOOO" treats for a peep, and "FIIIVE!!!" treats for a poop, and then comes out and proclaims to us (and everyone who might be here at the time, or on the phone) what she did and how many treats she gets, often times with her pants around her ankles still. She does the "pee-pee on the potty" dance and gives high-fives to our cheers. It's too stinking cute, and we're really, really shocked (and happy!) at how well she's been doing the last few days.

Could we be a 1-diaper kid household by Christmas time?!  If things keep going the way they're going, I'd guess yes!  Or very close.  Very exciting!

selling streak continues!

We sold the old bath tub today!! Got a little less than what we were hoping, but met our "minimum", I guess.  We had it up for $1500, lowered it to $1200, sold it for $800.  Awesome!  Yes it's worth a few thousand new, but I think that's still pretty good; a nice little bonus for us anyway.  They offered $500 which we refused and asked to meet us half way at $800 which they agreed (not quite half-way, but I didn't want to scare them off and go back at $900 or more given they offered only $500).
Anyway, we're super happy that it's gone and that we won't have to store it all winter!

Desmond is a growing chub... he's up to over 12 lbs now, eating and sleeping well.  So far so good!  I guess I should upload some pics since I haven't in a while and he's looking very different already.

We went to the K-W Santa Clause Parade this morning.  It was kind of a bust.  There were maybe half the people there than the Thanksgiving parade, which just seems wrong to me, but I think part of the problem is, this one is sponsored by the Lions Club, and the Thanksgiving parade is sponsored by the city.  This morning, it was kind of boring, sadly.  We had a lot of fun at the other one.  Anyway, Violet was happy to see Santa and we had fun as a family regardless.  We didn't bring Echo this time.

Kijiji - forgot

Forgot to add one more item that we sold in the last 2 weeks -- the old clothes dryer that was here when we moved in!

So last night the guy and his wife came to look at the car, and were very interested in it, but couldn't get past the rattling noise that it makes.  If you've ever been near it, you know the noise....  I told him it's been doing that for the last year or more and has never been a problem and that our mechanic has tried to find what was making it, and couldn't.  They drove down from Meaford, which is over 2 hours away to look at it!  (Near Collingwood)  I thought that was very strange because these Caravans are EVERY WHERE.  They couldn't find one closer to them??  Anyway, they wanted it, but they really wanted their mechanic to look at it first to tell them that that noise wasn't going to be a problem like the transmission about to fail.  So they asked if they could take it back to Meaford for their mechanic to look.... I was about to let them as I didn't really know how far Meaford was, but when google maps told me it's about 2.5 hours away, I said I didn't feel comfortable with it.  Marn didn't either.  So I told him I'll have our mechanic have a look to try and determine what the noise is, and while they're at it get an estimate on what it would cost for a safety.  He said that was fine, and told me a few times that they ARE buying a van, because they need one, but it's just a matter of who's, but they wanted one soon.

Well, I feel like we maybe missed an opportunity to get rid of the van, but on the other hand, if we lend them it, what happens if they got in an accident?  Our insurance would pay, and our rates would go up.  Then if they get it up there and don't want it?  They've then put on 400+ km's more. Who's to say that their mechanic knows more than ours?  What if he's a buddy of theirs and he just says that the transmission is going to go soon to get us to lower the price.  The best we can do is either safety it, or get a list of items needed for safety and then go from there.  It's kind of silly for the guy to think that his mechanic could tell him that "something" was going to go soon. "soon" could be 1,000 kms, or it could be 10,000 km.  No one can tell you that.  It's mechanical!  You know it's worn out because of the mileage, but no one can predict when something mechanical is going to fail....