March Break FUN!!

Monday - TOT LOT in Alliston
A friend from church - Sarah Beitz invited me and the ladies to join her and her kidlets up at the tot lot.  The tot lot is a cool idea.  There is one in Alliston and one in Beeton.  It's run by the town at the community/rec centres.  It's free, it's unsupervised, but it's awesome indoor play.  The one in Alliston is on an indoor soccer field, there were two bouncy castles, lots of balls, hula hoops, balls and scoops, a little basketball net, a little slide and a huge area for them to just run.  Kate ran and ran and ran.  It was awesome!  Sadly I didn't bring the camera.

Tuesday - Candyland in Vaughan
Indoor play place in Vaughan + March Break = MADNESS!!  My friend Diane suggested we meet up at Candyland.  I thought it might be busy being March Break and all but Diane thought otherwise because the place is HUGE!  Well it is huge and it was crazy and Diane (sweet, sweet Diane) felt so badly because of the craziness.  The girls had lots of fun anyway.  Kate had a few tears at one point - we should have eaten lunch sooner, but overall we did have lots of fun and Diane and I got to visit a little!

Wednesday - OB appointment and the Grandparents Babysit
I really love my OB but I sit and wait in his office.  I had thought about taking the girls but Mom said she and Dad could come up and watch the girls, so that's what we did.  It worked out perfectly, considering I waited for at least half an hour and wasn't out of the office for almost an hour.  And I think that Grandma and Grandpa had a nice visit with Kate and Alice.

Thursday - Upper Canada Mall to see the EASTER BUNNY!
This was such a momentous occasion that it was worthy of it's own post.  The mall wasn't too crazy, until we rounded the corner of the kids area... and madness!  The "zoo to you" was visiting with lots of cute animals and LOTS of people brought their kids to enjoy it.  Even though there was quite a crowd the girls got up close to lots of animals.  Kate even held a crocodile.  It was fun.  We should have possibly left a little sooner so as to avoid meltdowns... oh well!

Friday - Hanging at Home
Michelle, Marisol and Amelie came to play - yay.  The girls all love each other and had lots of fun playing and Michelle and I had fun chatting.  Before they came over the girls and I decorated eggs, it was over quick which was good, 2 and 4 are still quite little to be playing with cups of dye!

Yay for March Break.  I am thankful for all the time I get to spend with my ladies.  Note to self, next year take more pictures!

Hello Easter Bunny!

Grandpa's 73rd Birthday

We didn't do anything particularly exciting.  Mom made a yummy dinner, Andrew came, the girls were cute, Ken and I were there... but I think Dad felt special and happy!

The blowing out of the candles was FUNNY!  Kate and Dad kept blowing and blowing but they were both so far away from the candles...

After this last attempt Andrew finally just waved his hand and out they went!

I guess it was a pretty fun party... or at least the girls had LOTS of fun with their make-shift slide and their um naked time!  There were many happy squeals. (Not so much from Grandma and Grandpa though, sometimes I think their cute grand-daughters are a little loud for them!)

Happy Birthday Grandpa/Dad, we LOVE YOU!!!

Kate has a baby in her uterus!

The funniest part is when she says the baby is going to be born in (insert number), counts to the number and then POP, the (whatever the toy is) comes out!

Kate Reads a Book

Kate knows a number of books by heart and so from time to time will "read" a book.  Tonight it was different.  This book has lots of silly nonsense words and she really looked at the words, not just the pictures and sounded things out - with help, but she read the book.  The book is called Toddle Waddle and it's by Julia Donaldson.  FUN!

Valentine's Presents from Nana and Papa

There were cards in the mail yesterday - well who knows how long they'd been there, we only check the mail once or twice a week!  Nana and Papa sent the girls Valentine cards and inside was some money, so we went to the mall last night.  We picked out these cute little sesame street character cars and I thought I'd do a little post to show Nana and say thank you!  We took these pictures this morning.  Thank you Nana and Papa for the Valentine cards!

I feel like the pictures need explanation... the first picture, I turned the flash off so it's a little blurry.

Then I used the flash and the silliness started.

I couldn't even get Alice to look at me.

Then when they do look at me they kind of close their eyes - again because of the flash - and they look out of it.

I tell them to open their eyes and like good obedient children they close them tight.

Not ready to give up yet I get all enthusiastic and say open your eyes big and wide... and this is what I get!  

I could NEVER be a children's photographer... EVER!

Alice is TWO!

It's funny the remembering.  She was born at 5:15 am so by dinner time we'd already had a full day of Alice.  It fits her lively personality that she was born first thing in the morning.  I love too that she was born on Family Day - although this is not a good tool for remembering the date as Family Day changes every year.

Alice is two.  She is such an independent lady.  She does ask for help when she needs it but she would do everything herself if she could.  Her most recent interesting new behaviour is not wanting to wear her diaper.  We pulled the froggy potty out of the crawl space and Alice LOVES it.  She even peed in it - once.  She was very proud of herself.  She understands that everyone else in the house goes pee pee in the potty but she doesn't yet know when she's going to pee.  Perhaps this summer we'll tackle toilet training!  Enough about that though... what else.

She loves her family very much.  She loves books.  She loves dolls.  She loves to be involved in whatever Mommy and Daddy are doing.  She loves to sit on the counter while we're cleaning up or cooking.  We love our little Alice!  Oh and one last thing.  "Lala" is evolving.  She's still calling herself Lala, but she's also calling herself Ala.  We'll see how much longer Lala lasts!

Alice's 2nd Birthday Party

When Kate turned two I was going to organize a party for her, but I was pregnant and tired and I just never got around to it... and a tradition is born!  No child in our family will have a 2nd birthday party, a family party yes, but not a friend party to-do.  It wasn't snowing so Grandma and Grandpa ventured from Thornhill up to Tottenham and we celebrated Alice!

Alice loved her presents, she loved her dinner and she loved her cupcake.  She was so happy.  She just bounced around the house enjoying every minute.  She was given some books, an ariel mermaid cup, some wooden fruit that has velcro in the middle and comes with a knife to slice the fruit apart and a doodle board.  Grandma and Grandpa gave her a princess wagon and a little mini-suitcase looking thing that is clear, on wheels and filled with playdough and playdough accessories.  I think the cutest is her singing Happy Birthday to herself.  I need to get this on video.