Thursday, March 06, 2008

What's Cliona upto nowadays?



Pretend play - in a big way. She still likes to pretend to be Diego or Alicia from her favourite TV show and we usually save a couple of 'animals in trouble' per day. This is her favourite game to play on walks - we get to row in lakes, fly through the jungle on a zip cord and run around rescuing baby animals (they are always babies).
Another favourite is playing monsters. We chase each other around the house or sometimes she is mommy/daddy monster and we are baby monster. Sometimes we play monster hide-and-seek. The spare room is the 'monster' room where the monster has to go and count to 5 before looking for other monsters. A lot of the time when it's my turn to seek, Clio-monster will 'pretend' to be asleep in bed so I have to tip-toe and be quiet. When Stephen gets to seek, Clio and I hide under her blanket on her bed. Once we are found we run around the house, shrieking. She got a dragon-like costume for Christmas and Stephen brought an orange wig home from a hockey game so sometimes these are the monster costumes.
Cliona also likes to play role reversal. She's the Mommy and I'm Clio. She especially likes to play this game when we are in her room, playing with her dolls and kitchen. She organizes the picnic and feeds the dolls, asks me what I want etc. The important part is that I call her Mommy and she calls me Clio (she'll correct me if I forget and call her Clio - it's so cute!).
She still loves reading books, bouncing on the bed, wrestling with her daddy and swinging on her swing-set. Some things just never grow old!

Tuesday, March 04, 2008

Fun February


We have had an unusually warm couple of weeks but have still managed to snowboard most weekends. Stephen started the month off with a guys weekend. Clio and I stayed home and made cookies. She had a great time rolling and cutting but of course the best bit was decorating and sampling. It rained a little so Clio got to go splashing in her wellies. Then it was my turn to take to the hills with the girls. We had a great time boarding and hanging out at the cabin. Stephen took Cliona on a boat trip while I was away so she had her own little adventure.
The next celebration was Goose Day 2008. As usual the craic was ninety! And while Cliona is still a little young for the poetry contest, she danced her little heart out to help her daddy clinch the win in the tie-breaking-dance-off.
Stephen took a quick weekend trip to Mammoth and had a great time boarding in powder.
Then Eoghan and Paul arrived for a week of snowboarding. I headed upto Big Bear with them and got a couple of mid-week days of boarding in. It was so nice to have the mountain to ourselves. The conditions were a bit mushy due to the lovely spring weather but we didn't really notice. Stephen and Clio followed us up for the weekend. We all encouraged each other so by the end of the week we had all gone off jumps (Stephen landed a few 180's) and Eoghan and I had managed to slide on and off (the most important part) a box! I think Cliona must have felt our mojo because she skied all by herself on Sunday! It was great, she was so proud of herself. Of course we still went up on the lift and skied 'fast' together - that never gets old.

PICTURES HERE - video to follow