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.