Elmira Maple Syrup Festival

Meghan here, reporting for Schwindt Blog news.

Today, during the coldest day of spring thus far, we attended the Elmira Maple Syrup Festival. We went by train, my absolute favourite way to travel! I got to meet the conductor but forgot to ask him the engine's name. Since I didn't know it, I decided to call him (the engine) Fluffy.

The two other things I enjoyed about the festival were:
The eats
and Old MacDonald's Farm

Pickle Delight

More pickle fun...

Later she dipped the pickle into the chocolate milk before eating it.

Also, she ignored her ice cream dessert in favour of more pickles.

Apple Surprise

Meghan's latest culinary concoction

Keeping the Leprechauns at Bay

Meghan here for Schwindt Blog News.

It's that time of year again. With the spring thaw and early appearance of Easter treats, it's time once again to think about protecting your treats from Leprechauns. I had forgotten until today.

I was innocently eating my first Easter treat of the season when I caught some movement out of the corner of my eye. I went to investigate and found a trail of shiny shamrocks. I followed it under the couch and around the table. It took me about ten minutes, but I followed the trail all around the kitchen and living room. To my horror, it was a trail that ended at the chocolate bunny I had abandoned. Round one and the head of my bunny went to the Leprechaun!

If you remember, last year Mommy and I made Leprechaun traps. I pulled them out. The problem with the traps though is that they took a couple days to work. Those Leprechauns are tricky! Considering I'd already fallen victim, I wanted a stronger deterrent.

I read that most of the time Leprechauns live in Ireland. I also read that there are no snakes in Ireland. Putting two and two together, I crafted a snake to provide an extra layer of protection for my treats.

Bring it on Leprechauns!

Another Visitor to the Feeders

The bird feeders have been a little quiet lately. Perhaps this has something to do with it?

Memorial

After two days of rain, all of our snow is gone!

Meghan built a blueberry snowman to commemorate the occasion.

Still My Baby

From time to time my big girl needs to take a break from growing up—just for a couple minutes. Perhaps there's a lesson in there for all of us.

Disney on Ice

Today Meghan met Grandma in London and went to see Disney on Ice. By all accounts it was a great show. Thanks Grandma!

Backyard Rink - Day 1

Meghan here reporting live from the Backyard Rink. For the last week, my Daddy, who clearly loves me very much, braved the frigid cold, day after day, to make me a skating rink in our backyard. Today it was ready to be skated on.

At the beginning I spent a lot of time lying on the ice. It was really hard to stay standing up. Also, I wasn't able to get up by myself. I had to wait for Daddy to pick me up.

Once I was able to get my balance, Daddy held my hand while I tried to move. I fell down many more times. Luckily Daddy is really steady on his skates because it would have really hurt (both of us) if I dragged him down with me.

When Daddy let go, I didn't fall down! I grabbed onto the chair to be safe. Daddy told me to try pushing it. For what seemed like forever, I pushed and pushed and pushed. That chair wasn't going anywhere! It seemed like my feet were destined to keep slipping in one place. Then, finally, it budged. I had figured it out and was able to push if from one side of the rink to the other. I was so proud of myself!

Next Daddy convinced me to try walking across the ice without the chair. I fell down a lot, but eventually got the hang of it. At first I was only able to go a couple steps from the chair to Daddy and back. But then, after a few tries, I was able to go the entire width of the rink all by myself! And, when I fell down, I figured out how to get up all by myself!

At that point I was quite sure that I was ready to try dancing on the ice. Daddy thought I should keep practicing walking for a while longer. What do you think happened?

Maybe tomorrow I can teach Mommy how to skate.

For Schwindt blog news, this is Meghan signing off.

Cold Snap = Ice Rink

Warning! No Meghan content...

I know, you all come here to see Meghan, but allow me a quick break from the usual. Neko Case has a new album coming out in March and her label is providing a free download of her first single today and for every blog posting about this they will donate $5 to the "Best Friend's Animal Society". So consider this my civic duty for today.

Oh, and if you're interested, the song's pretty good too!

More info here, download available here.

Meghan the Baker

Wanna Ride?

Questionable Parenting Tip

"Playing" Hide-and-Seek is a great way to get housework done without your little one "helping" or making an even bigger mess behind you.

Meghan Cam

A big thank you to Aunt Ruth for the new Meghan Cam


A few of Meghan's favourites from her point of view ...

Mommy	Daddy
Princess	Jumping on Mommy and Daddy's bed
Toy Trains	Her Blankie

Winter "Fun"

We returned from our annual Christmas trek up to the Soo to find a snow bank where our driveway used to be. The snow was quite literally knee deep. It took David and I over an hour just to clear enough to get the car in the driveway!

This picture is actually of Mom & Dad Schwindt's driveway in Exeter. Ours looked quite similar, just a little deeper and minus the snow banks (as we hadn't been home at all to shovel during the storms and there was no snow before we left).

Meghan had never seen so much snow!

A Present From Santa

Last month, David and I got new chairs for our living room (see earlier post for picture). Meghan and Princess (the cat) got the boxes. Unfortunately, when Meghan went to visit with her grandparents, David recycled the boxes. Meghan was less than impressed. To this day, Meghan is still on the look out for "the garbage man" to give him a piece of her mind.

With only days to go before Christmas, someone gave Meghan the idea to ask Santa for a new box. Mommy and Daddy steered her away from this thought as best they could. Especially since Sears had already performed miracles to get in a back-order toy for her only weeks before.

On Christmas morning Meghan opened her "present from Santa" first, excitedly anticipating a BBQ "just like Daddy's" ...

Suddenly she remembered some nonsense about a box ...

Happiness was restored when David opened the box

Because that's just what you do ...

In the spirit of the (somewhat imaginary in our house) rule of "a place for everything and everything in its place", I found Meghan's "cell phone" in the keys-n-things basket this morning. Very Cute!

Making Christmas Presents

One of these could be for you ...

A Future in Acting?

A Visit With Santa

Aunt Ruth is on the Internet

With Meghan off at Grammie and Grandpa Walker's for the past week (and for another week to come) Marcie and I have had time to get some other things done. Such as finally finishing Meghan's book cases that we started sometime in 2006.

Today we assisted my soon to be 83 year old Great Aunt Ruth purchase her first ever computer and get her set up on the internet. The purchasing part was fairly easy - after establishing that she was comfortable working with a laptop we took her to BestBuy (must say that the lack of pushy sales people makes this a nice place to shop.) By the time we'd left we had a laptop, mouse, keyboard, LCD monitor (not sure why, but they bundled this with the laptop for free), a printer and one of the new Bell Internet in a box deals. Once back at her place it took us a couple of hours to get things opened and set-up (there were some initial problems with the "easy-three-step-configuration" of the Bell Internet in a box...) However, by the time we'd left Aunt Ruth had received her first e-mail, conducted a Google search and was comfortable turning the computer on and off. We'll undoubtedly assist her some more in the coming weeks, but it was an exciting first step.

For those interested, her first Google search on her new computer was for "ruth dettmer" which brought up a surprising number of hits, including item number six which was actually about her!

Also for those wishing to send her an e-mail, her address is rdettmer at sympatico dot ca. Be warned that replying to e-mail was something we didn't get a chance to review, so it might be a while before she responds.

I'm A Big Kid Now ...

Christmas Wish Lists

By popular demand, here are links to our Christmas Wish Lists:

Meghan's Wishlist
David's Wishlist
Marcie's Wishlist

I'm still in the process of consolidating all of our wish lists from various sites into this one place. It may take a few days. Thanks for your patience.

Consider making your own list at www.thethingsiwant.com so we know what you would like too.

New Chairs

This morning we raced to Home Depot to take advantage of a 4 day sale on these chairs. When we got there the store had only been open for an hour, and they were already down to their last 2 (there was a rather large pile yesterday).

Happy Halloween

We've been a bit lax in our photography duties as of late. We did go all out with the decorating this Halloween and received many excited compliments. However, we didn't take any pictures.

Meghan had a great time Trick-or-Treating. She even did almost 3/4 of the block. Earlier that day she had been sick (fever and throwing up) but as soon as the first Trick-or-Treater rang our doorbell, she made a miraculous recovery (the fever and everything just vanished!) Funny how that happens sometimes.

David and I attended a Halloween party for the first time in years. It was a lot of fun! Thanks to Mom & Dad Schwindt for taking Meghan so we could attend. By popular request, we've posted the picture above.

Presentation is Everything

Even though we are blessed with a "good-eater", Meghan's list of likes and dislikes often baffles me. During her last visit, my mother told me that, as a child, I would only eat chilli (now one of my favourite foods by the way) if she told me it was "camping chilli". She'd just make a large batch of plain, old, regular chilli and store it in fancy jars. That gave me an idea.

For the last 2 nights, under the guise of "Halloween food", I've gotten Meghan to eat things from her dislikes list. Last night she ate mashed-potato ghosts (shaped with a cookie cutter). Tonight, it was sloppy joes (arranged to look like a snake). Tomorrow, I'm going to try "pumpkin fries" (sweet potatoes shaped by a pumpkin cookie cutter)...

Parade of Costumes

As Halloween approaches, Meghan continues to accumulate costumes. Now we have to figure out how to tell her that she's going out for Trick-or-Treat in last year's (extremely warm) unicorn costume. Wish us luck!

(top: Little Mermaid, bottom: Fairy)

Thanksgiving on the Bruce