More singing...

I think Katherine has the "singing" gene from her mom...as completely random as it can seem to be...

Ponytails

The other night, Katherine asked for more than just her usual single ponytail...





...and followed it up with a dynamite version of her ABCs...

Play-Doh Boogers Are Hilarious

Now that I have your attention...

It has been a while, but we've been sick for most of February (Katherine still is) so haven't been taking too many pictures and stuff to share.

Anyway, there have been a few, so here you go...

A few shots of the snow situation on the first of February...

...out the back of the house...


...our the front window...I particularly like the snow drift hanging down off the roof...


Katherine is growing out of her kinda-freaky-smile for the camera and is much more of a performer...




...and more to the point indicated in the title of the post, you can now bear witness to the profound influence that a father has on his daughter...



You may also care to know that Laura is doing well, counting down the weeks (days, really) of work left before baby comes...no doubt looking forward to mitigating the "profound influences" of daddy...

Baby's Second Pic

Oh ya, and here are #2s second pictures, taken December 23 (about 5 months along, I think).



Apparently it's growing very well; even dad has been watching/feeling it move around for some time now. We've even got Katherine saying "Hi" and giving a kiss/snuggling baby.

Parliament

For those of you who have yet to visit Ottawa, or just haven't come to see us yet, I thought I would post a few pics of what it actually looks like...every holiday season they have an open house and we went to check it out again this year, mainly to see the refurbished Library of Parliament. My pics didn't turn out great, so you will have to google that part!

The holiday-lit Centre Block from out front, with the Centennial Flame in the foreground.


The House of Commons (taken from as far in as you can get)


The Senate

Holiday Update

With only 24 hours of my holiday vacation left I must acknowledge my gross negligence of this blog over the last two months or so (longer for those who don't know/care about Almost Live).

Along with my profound apologies for preferring my video games recently (NHL '09 hockey in HD is good stuff), here's a brief synopsis of what we (again, mostly Katherine) have been otherwise occupying ourselves with outside of work.

Nana Barb came for a visit back in November...good times were had by all.




We were lucky to come into some tickets for the Senator's game on Dec 6 playing host to Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, and the rest of the Pittsburgh Penguins. Katherine has been to a few games now and has a pretty good time, even after asking to go before the first intermission! I seem to be neglecting my fatherly duties as Laura has done a much better job explaining things to Katherine, who now knows they're skating and trying to put the puck in the net...


I just like this one.


Uncle Jason and Aunt Pam came out from Vancouver (where I think they actually has worse weather!) for 10 days over Christmas. Again, fun was had by all...

After bringing home a tree almost obscenely large for our room and proceeding to trim over a foot from the top and bottom, we finally got it set up and decorated all pretty-like...


Christmas morning Katherine decided she wanted to dress herself in a nice summer dress...


Her dress didn't last long, but the gift seemed to keep on coming...


Milo was just along for the ride...relaxing in the sunlight on the back of the couch...


Katherine got her own Dirt Devil vacuum cleaner...we find her particularly amusing in this clip because she's not a big fan of our canister vacuum, so you can hear her asking Mommy if she's OK and telling her not to be scared...


Another one I just like...


Laura, Katherine, and Pam making sure the turkey was looking good...


The Christmas spread...


Katherine likes to help in the kitchen, so this gift from Granny (I'm pretty sure) was a big hit.


Another of Katherine's gifts was a set of washable bathtub crayons...one of her earliest works on the tub wall was a portrait of daddy...not sure what to make of the red nose!


Milo has a really rough life.



Katherine also got a digital camera for Christmas...here are a few of the first pics...her hands are a little small to consistently reach the button, but she's gettin' there...




And finally, here's a clip of Katherine and Laura working together on some pastry we had leftover from making turkey pot pies with Christmas dinner leftovers...