Our Little Monster's 2nd Birthday

Wow I cannot believe our little girl is two already!!! The night she was born in our bathtub seems so fresh in my memory yet here we are two years later. It kinda makes me sad that my kids are getting so big so fast. I don't want to miss a thing. I want to remember every detail of them from now, from yesterday, from everyday.

Anyways, Kinsley has been talking about her Birthday for at least a week before. We would ask her whose birthday was coming and she would say "Kindley Birfday". We have been practicing singing Happy Birthday to her and I can see it in her face, my girl loves the attention. And now if you ask Kinny how old she is she will put up her hand and try and hold up two fingers and say two. So cute! I think she had a great day with her family and friends. She started it off by having her first skating lessons. She did ok at it but all she wants to do is play hockey lol. We are trying to tell her that she needs to learn to skate first but she just wants to play hockey.

In the afternoon we had her party at the Southland Leisure Center in the Kinder Room. It is basically a private indoor playground with a little room off to the side with a kitchen and bathroom. It was perfect! The kids had so much fun!!!

Here are some pics from the day:





The cupcakes:

The party favor:

Not Just Another Day

Ok so I know pretty brutal that my last post was in April!
What can I say?
I've been busy?
Who isn't? Right?

Well a quick update...
Kelton Knight was born June 13th.
We absolutely love being a family of five.
Life has been crazy since.
Nuff' said. (Told you it would be quick)

So we have a couple of sickies on our hands these past few days. Nothing serious, mostly just bad coughs and runny noses. Although Kinsley has had a fever that we just cannot seem to get rid of.
This is how the kids spent most of Monday. Curled up on the couch watching cartoons.
(Don't let the smiles fool you. I caught them at a good moment. It was actually a really long day)

Kinny hasn't really been interested in much to eat other than apple sauce and she won't drink the Pedialyte or the Pediasure (it's like a meal replacement for kids that supposedly tastes good?) I bought her. When the world gives you a sick child who won't drink fluids and your mom buys you a Zoku for your birthday what do you do? You make Popsicle out of Pedialyte of course! What kid can resist a Popsicle? Not mine thank goodness...
This is the Popsicle after Kinsley ate the majority of it and then said to me "don't like". (I'm thinking "don't like" is code for "all done")
Here's hoping tomorrow my kids wake up "all better"....

Little Of This & A Little of That

I am BIG on every possible occasion to celebrate but I also love all the little moments that make up life. I believe that it is the little moments that make the big moments so much more worthwhile. And thus here are some things that make everything in life worth it to me.

So I absolutely love living in McKenzie Towne! Love it so much! I remember when Jeremy and I first moved here we got a lot of negative comments about how far it is and blah blah blah but I have never regretted our choice. Now with the new baby coming we have been asked if we plan to purchase a larger home but I honestly have no desire to move. I love that our house is directly across the street from a park, I love that we are a corner lot (not really sure why), I love our house and yard and garage. I am not moving! Another thing I love is the new developments that keep coming up. Like we just had a DQ open up which is walking distance! And you can see when you drive down that street that there are many more things to come. The newest addition to our quaint neighborhood is a new coffee shop! I am so (for lack of a better word) excited. No I don’t drink coffee or tea but it is a coffee and play shop so it doesn’t matter!

What that means is that it is a coffee shop meant for parents to come and relax in while the kids play. It is called the Coffee Tot. Relax – Sip – Play

I have yet to have a chance to check it out so hit me up if u wanna meet for a play!

*****

Kinsley’s newest successes are numerous. My favorite right now is all her words! She now says please and thank you in sign language, which is pretty cool. And she says Carter, wow, whoa, Clarke, no, and meow.

Also, if you didn’t know now you know….my girl is fearless!!! We were at this little park outside the leisure center and she wanted to try out the slide. No problem put her at the top and down she goes. Doesn’t want to hold her momma’s hand or anything just let go and let her be. I love the fearlessness as it totally reminds me of me but sometimes it is sad that my baby doesn’t need me. Anyways, she kept going and going and would have I think all day. This lady commented on how crazy she was as her two year old just started going down the slide on her own and I am pretty sure it took Carter way past two to do it on his own. If Kinsley is willing to jump into the pool from way high up and go down slides on her own, what’s next?

*****

I love my kids more than anything on a regular day but I think I love them a little extra when I get to watch their relationship together. We were at Costco the other day and they were in the cart together (just another reason to love Costco – two seaters). They were leaning on each other and poking each other and all out bugging each other but they did both love every minute of it and so did I. I love that they play together. Heck I sometimes even love that they fight a bit. I just love that they have each other forever!!! Makes me even more thrilled to add another kidlet to the mix.

*****

Carter has begun soccer and boy is he loving it. It is as though he is a completely different kid from last year. Last year I felt like we spent a lot of our energy trying to convince him to get out on the field and play but this year he is so into it. He gets in there from the minute he steps out of the car to the minute the coaches say times up. He is socializing so well with other teammates and the coaches and is actually trying to play the sport.

Earlier this week at Carter’s game he totally cracked up all of us parents. He was the goalie and he started messing around with the net, which is just a couple of small pylons. First he made his net super big and the coach caught him and had to put it back to the right size a few times. Then he really made us laugh when he made the net about the size of him. No way anyone was going to score on him that way! The whole time I was laughing so hard and we could kind of hear him giggling to himself. He thought he was so funny and I don’t even think he knew that we were all laughing with him. Makes me smile even now when I think about it because he is so his father’s son making me laugh every single day.

I Love Me a Contest!

So the latest contest I entered was from Canadian Family magazine and it is to win one of five copies of Gwyneth Paltrow's new cook book My Father's Daughter: Delicious, Easy Recipes Celebrating Family & Togetherness. To enter the contest I had to share my best family food memory. This is what I sent in...

At first I felt a little down when I was reading the latest Canadian Family because a few pages ahead of this contest Trish Magwood was talking about family recipes that get passed down. It made me sad because I couldn't really think of one single (or even a few) recipes that have been passed down to me from my mother or grandmothers. Then I read about the contest and I realized that I may not have recipes that were passed down to me but I definitely have memories! I think the best family food memory I have from growing up was that my mom was constantly trying new recipes. There were not a lot of repeat recipes because my mom's specialty was finding and trying new ones all the time. The funny thing was that we had to watch what we said when she made these new recipes because if we said we loved it (or even liked it) she would make it over and over again for a few weeks. By the time the novelty of making the new dish wore off the rest of us were so sick and tired of seeing it on our plates. Finally we learned to critique every recipe as "ok". That way mom was sure to move on to the next trial and error in her pile. Although, now that I think of it this may be exactly what has been passed down to me from my mom. I am guilty of trying new recipes all the time but I can see why now that I have my own family. It is fun to try new things!

I guess we will see if I win or not but it is fun to enter either way.

Realizations

Easter weekend has been one filled with family, fun, love and activities. I love weekends, especially ones filled with family and sunshine so this one was awesome.

We spent Saturday morning walking around the zoo and taking part in their Easter Eggstravaganza. We did the scavenger hunt and tried to take part in as many activities as we could. Besides the Easter celebrations we were so happy to have arrived at the zoo first thing at 9am because it was feeding time which equals prime viewing time. Love it! We saw the hippo up close while they snacked on breakfast. The lions were out and about and the gorillas were front and center. Makes me feel like a kid sometimes when we go to the zoo because I get soooo excited!!! Also another highlight for me was the fact that as we left the zoo the place was nuts with all the people trying to get in! One point for us!!! Notice how in the pictures at the zoo the kids have toques and mittens on? Crazy that these pictures are of the same day. Sunday morning we awoke to a house filled abundantly with chocolate! I cannot believe how much chocolate there is. Anyways, Carter woke up to find a letter from the Easter Bunny which he was sure to bring to my bed so I could read it to him pronto. Then we all headed downstairs to see what the Easter bunny had left for us. The kids were excited to see all the brightly colored eggs everywhere and to our amazement Kinny caught on to the concept of the Easter egg hunt very quickly. They both loved it, and we loved watching them! After a yummy breakfast of pancake we all just played around with our/the kids new toys. Carter waited for his play date to come over and visit. The play date was followed by dinner at the Hemmaway's. First of all I must say dinner (like the actual food) at the Hemmaway's is probably high up there as one of my favorite things! It is always so crazy delicious! Anyways, this meal was no exception and the company was awesome too. Love my family! Ok so you are probably wondering about the title of this post “Realizations”…. Well I thought it would be suitable for what I have discovered this weekend.

First, on our drive home Sunday night Dave and I were just talking and we began to realize that we have been together for 33 months now. 28 of these months I have been either pregnant or breastfeeding! Ok so not a big deal to the rest of the world but we were thinking that this is a little crazy. And Dave has now decided to use this as his basis for not having any more children. He thinks we should try and spend more time focusing on us. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t disagree…. just not sure if I agree either lol

Another realization for me this weekend is that I need a new camera! I know mine is fairly new but just because its new does not mean it takes great pictures or that it has the ability to get my children to sit still long enough to take a picture. You see the problem I am finding is that it does not have the option on it for continuous shooting mode (the one where you snap a shot and it takes multiple pictures). I just figure if I had that option I would have to eventually get a great shot. Right?

Last one I promise…

I cannot sit!!! I mean I am totally uncomfortable sitting for long periods of time. Nothing new at all, had it with all my pregnancies but most nights I just need to lie in bed cause I need to take the pressure off my ribs. So that’s where I will leave this as I am so done sitting right now.

Happy Easter! Hope you had an amazing weekend!

Love My Life Day

Happy Good Friday Today is I LOVE MY LIFE DAY! I mean everyday I love my life but today is just a good day. You know those days where you feel like nothing can go wrong, nothing will go wrong and even if it does it doesn’t feel wrong.

We had Karlie, Hope and Summer over today to paint Easter eggs and have a play. The kids play so well together so it is so nice to visit with them and actually get to carry on an adult conversation with someone. Kinny was sleeping FYI. She had been having a rough morning so she went for an early nap. Perfect!

So the kids played for a bit while we got the decorating stuff and eggs ready. When we finally called the kids to decorate eggs the girls were so pumped up but Carter on the other hand was not interested in anything to do with what we had planned. It wasn’t a surprise he knew why the girls came over but he just wanted no part of decorating eggs. So a small melt down ensued and I am proud to say we, well I, kept my patience. I asked him to join me in the other room and I got down to his level and talked to him about having company and how we should be kind to our friends. He meanwhile was freaking out on my trying to swat at me and stuff but I gave him the option to have some alone time in his room or to join the girls at the table. After a couple of tears he agreed to sit at the table. We hugged it out and maybe five minutes after sitting at the table watching the girls decorate he was ready to get his hands dirty as well. Success!!! In the end I think all the kids enjoyed themselves although Karlie and I thought the kit that we had kinda sucked. But you know kids. They don’t usually notice or care. After decorating eggs the kids all went out side to play and not long after our guests had to leave so we went inside. Thank goodness for the sunshine today because my kids wanted to go back outside and play! So we did and it was awesome. All I kept thinking was “this is the life”. I love those small moments in life that make you appreciate everything.

Today I was so proud of the way I handled Carter’s meltdown. Although I am certain I can always improve on things I felt so good knowing that we both walked away feeling pretty good. And I think my fav moment today was watching my kids play together! Especially when Kinsley was throwing a bouncy ball around outside and it landed in the grass. She didn’t want to step on the grass (I think because it is uneven and weird to walk on) and Carter offered her his hand to help her over to the ball where he picked it up and handed it to her. Awe makes my heart melt! I love my kids!

Today is I love my life day!

But yesterday was too!

And tomorrow will be as well!

P.S. One thing I forgot to do today was take pics so I have none to share unfortunately

Where to Begin

So I'm new to this whole blogging world and am not sure how to begin. It feels a little intimidating because I have read other peoples blogs and am actually a little addicted to one or two and every other blog I have read is just so well done. What if I can't live up to that (and by that I mean my own expectations). Anyways, I am a little nervous but at the same time very excited to get this going. For now I just want to say HI!