Nursery home time

OK, sometimes, just sometimes, I'll admit that the kids can be quite cute, like today on the way out of nursery..

And Dan is wearing the same clothes on the way out as he wore on the way in, for the second day running - good boy!

Let sleeping dogs lie... On new beds

We felt it only fair that given we have moved to a new home, the dogs were entitled to new beds to go with it. What we've found in the past is that we buy a large bed for Mishka, and a smaller bed for Jackson (Jackson's last bed was actually better quality and probably more comfy than Mishka's), but Jackson doesn't respect this idea - he decides which bed he'll sleep on, and it's usually the bigger one. We can tell him to move, and he begrudgingly slopes off to his smaller bed, and Mishka sheepishly creeps onto his bed, but it doesn't last.

So, in order to try and make things fair on Mishka, we've bought them the same, large bed, now that we have enough room to put them down (although not quite enough room to put them next to each other!). 

Both a re a bit wary about lying on them, Mishka initially resorted to dozing on the floor yesterday, which Jackson found the pile of towels we use to wipe their feet after walks more appealing. But I think they'll soon realise that those beds are them and not the kids (who could easily sleep on them too!) and equality will reign.

Dan's potty time

Dan was off nursery for a few days at the end of last week, so we took the opportunity to start him on potty training. Today was a red letter day, as his third day in nursery without diapers, and he's come home wearing the same clothes that we sent him in this morning. So he's heading in the right direction..

New Look Lara

For some time the topic of Lara's hair has been discussed here, with debates on whether to have it cut shorter or not. She has had a couple of trims in the past, but really it's been left to grow to its natural length since she was born.
Today all that changed, and for a good cause. We'd heard about Angel Hair for Kids around Airdrie as some children had donated hair to children who had lost their own through medical conditions or treatment, and the donated hair was made into wigs. So this afternoon Lara went to see Frank, Olga's hairdresser, who also happens to be Lara's piano teacher, and she had at least 30cm taken off, and the result is an older-looking Lara:

Frank put some colour streaks in too, just for fun:

And some before, during and after pics:

Smoke me a kipper

It's a bit smoky here today, as this article in the Calgary Herald explains. It made for a nice sunrise this morning when I was taking Dan to nursery, and I whilst you can't exactly smell the smoke, I did catch myself coughing a little bit, and my eyes got a little watery as I walked the dogs. It's all thanks to forest fires in Washington state and BC.

Tea-time update
OK, now visibility is very reduced, down to a couple of miles from the usual 20-30 miles, and you can definitely tell there's something not too pleasant in the air (cue a Blackadder quote about Baldrick's breath). Normally on the drive to Dan's nursery you'd be able to see Calgary, 15 miles to the south, but today it's a struggle to see the end of the road: