...And Then He Turned Two

Once upon a time, I was nervously and excitedly preparing myself for a planned induction. Just over four hours after it began, my husband and I were staring into the face of our 9 pound, 10 ounce bundle of boy.

This little boy has moved so quickly, keen to keep up with big brother. It seems like he went from crawling, to climbing, jumping and kicking a ball in a flash.

Nothing beats hearing him say "mama" and "dada", although his personal current favourite is "NO". His words become more abundant by the day, and in no time he'll be telling us the stories that Levi already seems to understand.

A feisty, and cuddly little Mister whom we love so terribly much. He was practising his candle blowing yesterday, and was so ready for today - Me? Not so much. Time is getting away on me with these little ones.

Happy 2nd Birthday to a very special boy! XOXOXO

Happy Halloween!

Despite the cold, and rain we still had about 40 kids come to our house. It's difficult to judge purely on the treats we began with in our bowl, as many never made it out of our front door.

A colouring, cookie baking, cookie decorating, icing and sprinkle eating, pumpkin carving, sweet munching kind of day.

Printable colouring pages from Crayola.com, Free-Coloring-Pages.com, 

Apples4theteacher.com, and Coloring-Page.net

 This Brown Sugar Cookie recipe is well-loved

Papa Bear getting in on the fun

 "When you said decorate, you meant taste, RIGHT??"

Trying out their treat giving skills on Daddy

Watching and waiting...

Happy Halloween!
XO

Ps. I can legally get totally excited for Christmas now!!

Three Years

I have some catching up to do, post-wise, but I'll get there... This post is a mere 6 weeks overdue!
~

My second week in Alberta was a whirlwind with barely a moment for a breath.

Sunday July 1st was a celebration spanning 93 years of living between my firstborn's 3rd, and my Grandma's 90th birthday. It is a gift in itself that I have seen my 3 year old son get to know his great-grandma, let alone them sharing not just a date but, this year, the actual day.

These years, they astound me. How is it, that 3 years of my firstborn's life have come and gone? When only moments ago I was looking into his sweet little swollen, brand new face in utter disbelief (and with a hint of trauma..)!

His extraordinary birthday party, courtesy of Grandma, was 2 days later. Here is Levi on his actual day, pleased as punch, enjoying his birthday brekky hot chocolate. Makes you want a hot chocolate too, doesn't he?

My baby boy. Happy 3 years. You are so loved.

XOXOXO

A Simple Gift For Daddy

I suppose these things are best blogged about beforehand. You know, to share a helpful, and incredibly simple idea, in a time of need, but I just can't take the chance of my Mr. seeing what I'm up to. Also being one of my biggest supporters, I know he would look. Hey, there is always next year for you to try this one out. It would be a dandy birthday surprise as well!

Levi and Owen coloured on an 8.5x11 piece of card stock.
Owen's orange crayon scratches are just barely visible in behind Levi's marker drawing. Owen had a brief chance with the markers but, I tell ya, he doesn't waste a moment that one. A marker was veering toward his mouth the second he picked it up. He did have a little crayon nibble as well, but not before sharing a teeny bit of his colouring skills for daddy.
Levi get's more into colouring by the day, and I love it! He was incredibly proud, giving this gift.

I glued the card stock to a piece of blue bristol board. Added a recent photo of the bubs. Wrote Happy Father's Day 2012 with a white gel pen onto the blue board, and took this baby into Staples to have it laminated for a fiver.

And there you have the Father's Day Breakfast placemat!

XO

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!

You can find the fabulous recipe for this tasty family tradition HERE. As for recreating the brilliant icing/sprinkle artistry? You're on your own.

xo

My Birthday Boy

Without means to upload my camera for the past few days, nearly made me CRAZY! Finally...

The Birthdays So Far...

Brand New



One Year Old!



And here he is, growing much too quickly...Wow. Two.




The Party...


This photo is a bit blurry - the pilons are from the thrift store @ 50 cents each, and the piece of material is Wheels by Riley Blake. I only had the one bit of fabric left, so I folded it in on the sides for tidy edges, and placed it in the middle as an accent. I still would like to use it for sewing, so I protected it with a vinyl table cloth.





Levi is sharing one of his birthday presents with a napping, unaware Owen.



Prepping for the lemonade...



I used THIS recipe.
I think for every thing we make now, we look up "Best..." on the internet. It has to be the best if you do that, doesn't it?

To avoid it getting too watery, I froze a lemon's worth of slices, and put them in the lemonade along with a bunch of frozen strawberries, and then a few ice cubes as well.

The beverage canister is from Crate & Barrel. Love it.



The materials for his birthday T-shirt are both by Riley Blake. Unfortunately, the '2' barely shows up on the background material, in photographs especially.





I did not make this cake. The bakery at Metro made it. Easy peasy!






..And so begins another year in this busy two year old's life!

Easter Weekend

We had a great Easter weekend with friends and family and WAY too many sweets! The sun came out just in the nick of time on Good Friday, so that we could enjoy watching Levi look for eggs.



I picked up a huge bag of plastic refillable eggs at the thrift store for two bucks a while back. They will be perfect for reusing each year. I plan to purchase a nice basket for each child to put their special Easter treats in every Easter, but I didn't quite get around to it this time around. I like Tonya's idea from Plain and Joyful Living to hide eggs with coins in them. We hesitate to give too many sweets, and Levi has yet to experience chocolate that isn't in the form of a glass of milk. We filled his eggs with Cheddar bunnies, dried cranberries, teddy grahams, and small ginger cookies. He was quite happy chowing down on those goodies throughout the day.


Opening a gift mailed from Grandma and Grandpa


No eggs for this little guy, but it didn't stop him from flashing his sweet little smile several times over!

While uploading, I discovered there were about 30 photos that were not taken by me. I figure these chubby little toes will lead us to the photographer...



Another tasty dinner with family was to be had on Saturday, followed by church on Sunday, and a couple of good long walks which I have been needing for a while. With another week of rain ahead of us, I'm sure glad we were able to squeeze those in.

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend!! Happy Easter xo

Christmas Clean-Up

There is so much to do in the next two months before our second son is born, and I just didn't feel I could move on with organizing until the Christmas clean-up took place.



Generally, I like to hang on as long as possible, and this year was no different. What made it all the more difficult was the face of my little guy every morning when we came downstairs for our breakfast and he would point at the tree and say "Oh!" and "Ooh!" - his little way of asking us to turn on those Christmas lights. I felt very sad taking that away from him, but there were full-on branches falling off on to the floor - it was most definitely time. We will keep our outdoor lights up for a good while longer, so at least he has his evening enjoyment each day as the timer kicks in at dusk.



The balcony is as far as our tree has made it at this point. We plan to just chuck it over as opposed to dragging it down the stairs and through the garage which would make for a pretty serious mess. Should we leave it on the balcony until tree pick up next Friday we may experience a once magnificent fir exploding into a fury of needles all over the street and driveway. Ah well, "LOOK OUT BELOW!".

No matter how much you love it there is always a slight feeling of relief when everything is all put away, don't you find?

Let the (pre-) spring cleaning begin!
xo

Merry Christmas!!

Hope you all had a wonderful day!
XO