Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Auntie Lydia comes to help

After our stay at the farm, Lydia traveled home with us to help me begin the reno clean-up process in the house and in the yard.One big job was the cold storage room downstairs. Being right next to the bathroom, it was a royal mess of drywall dust, sawdust, plumbing pipe bits, lino chunks and such.
We completely emptied the room and Lydia wiped off every single thing that was in there while I took after the shelves and floor with a broom, then the vacuum, then Lyd washed it down with hot soapy water.
Hopey dishing up some salad for Auntie Lydia.
Just being herself.
Lydia got away for a day to Red Deer to take in an MYC conference. When she got back the peaches we bought earlier in the week had ripened so a-canning-we-went. Hopey helped by separating the lids from the rims & jars.
Curious Joy in Hopey's clothes. (Oops - Daddy got a little mixed up when he was dressing them that morning.)
Pitting the lovely fruit. Of the 80 pounds we processed this year I think we only had 2 pits split on us! Amazing. :o)
Being that it was Saturday, and being that the home office was currently being used as a bedroom, Josh set up to do finances on the dining room table. :o)
Joy-Belle checking out the blocks by the window near the dining room table, so she'd be out from underfoot in the busy kitchen.
Josh, sweethheart that he is, took both girls with him to run errands for a few hours, which allowed Lydia and I to dig in and get the hot, sticky work of canning done.
And then we decided to make pies. :o) Gotta love us. :o)
Love the late afternoon sunlight in my kitchen.
"If you're happy and you know it clap your hands." Joy claps her hands now if you say "Can you clap your hands, Joy?" :o) She also waves her arm and says "Hi" or "Hi Dad." Still working on the "Mom" part. And we're trying to teach her signs for "please, thank you, water," and "all done," and such. :o)
Sunday afternoon snack. This was the first time I've worn that dress on Hopey. Just love her in light blue.
Lydia got into this singing this with Hope where Lydia would sing "Hope Al-ber-r-ta" and Hope would answer "Aun-tie Ly-di-a," following whatever rhythm or melody Lydia created. It was pretty fun to listen, and Hope did remarkably well as Lydia would switch up the rhythms and melodies.
My sweet peas - they finally bloomed. And they smell oh-sooo-good! Good thing too, as that's the path to the garbage bins out back. :o)
We took a walk to the park together after everyone had naps. Hopey wanted to "do it self" with this riding toy.

Hopey likes the tunnel way more than the slides.

Heading over to the sand box.
Meanwhile, Lydia takes up the challenge of the spinning coil.
And Josh gives her a good ride. Eeks. I'd last about one rotation in that thing and that's all!
Josh and I sneaked off for a little walk around the park together while Lydia watched the girls.
Games on a warm summer evening.
Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah!!!

Sorry, maybe this shot it too much, but it just cracked me up to see Joy pulling on her own chubby tummy and looking at it with such focus.
Her pose cracked me up. Napping like a teenager or something. :o)

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