Music Cards

Who knew that a music card would be hours of fun? Well, Grace knows. Forget the toys and bring on the music cards! She loves them and bops to the various beats. Luckily I've kept most of them - so on a boring afternoon I can pull out some fun Halloween, Easter, Christmas or Birthday tunes. I'll download a YouTube video of Grace with one of the cards. Quite funny! And this is what she will do for twenty minutes at time!

Note: adorable red shoes we got for $2.75 at our local consignment shop. This is really the only age you can buy used shoes that are still in perfect condition. Grace has an excellent shoe collection!

New Years 2003 vs. New Years 2009

As I was writing the last post some pictures popped up on my screen from New Years at the cottage when Luke was a baby. He would be 8 months then, so a few months younger than Grace is now. He is huge! He was about 26 pounds! I remember making those party hats with Liam. He used to and still does, love making crafty things like that. Check out the rosy cheeks from staying out in the cold a little too long last week.

Happy New Year!

I can't believe a decade has past since our Y2K party at our apartment on Yonge Street. Lots of changes have happened: two houses, three kids, two sister-in-laws, a niece and two nephews, my parents moving to Edmonton and a new teaching career are among the highlights.

For New Years, we spent four quiet days up north where there was lots of snow. Grace mastered climbing the stairs and kept saying "No, no, no" to the fireplace! She is also blowing people kisses which is really cute. Grace is saying so many words these days along with cruising along the furniture and trying to open cupboards. I should write her words down before I forget. Some of them are: baby, book, milk, nose, head, hat, clap, Miam (Liam), Mama, Dadda, up, nap, night-night and NO! And her favourite sentence is "No night-night!" Yes, we are still working on that. She did not enjoy sleeping in the Pack and Play at the cottage. In fact, I am pretty sure she cried each and every time, including for naps. Well, I guess we were bound to have one child who is a difficult sleeper. I keep saying one of the reasons we have 3 kids is because Luke was such an angel baby (Liam was sweet too but Luke really was an angel).

Luke is a different kind of angel now and he sure is funny even when he doesn't realize it. On our long journey home from the cottage (snowstorm) Dan pointed out some wild turkeys at the side of the road. Luke exclaimed "Oh, those are the turkeys that survived Thanksgiving!"

Happy New Year and all the best for 2010!

Merry Christmas!

Here is the Merry Christmas post I started on Christmas! Merry Belated Christmas - as Luke would say...

The boys were super excited and were spoiled as usual. They got a Wii which was really the only item on their minds the last few months. It seems to be less addictive than the D.S. (so far) and we have played lots of family games: bowling, dancing, cycling, archery, ping pong and Toy Story. In fact, with the boys having to "earn" their Wii time by practicing, doing homework and exercising etc. - they actually seem to do more of that with less of a fuss, which is nice for us.

Grace, of course, knew something was different and exciting and had a great time playing with the wrapping paper and with her new toys. She also enjoyed a full turkey dinner with a Christmas cracker crown and all.

Here are some photos. The first one is of Liam doing his Dance Revolution moves with Dad as Luke (chilling out) and Grace watch. It is just like Guitar Hero but with dance moves. Very fun and a pretty good workout for a -20 day when you don't want to go outside for a walk. The bottom photo is of the kids with the beautiful stockings Aunt Kathy made. Luke is putting on a camera face...pretending he is not excited for Santa to come.

Christmas Photo Shoot

Grace modelled one of her three Christmas outfits in a photo shoot this afternoon - despite her red eyes and runny nose (from her most recent cold). She enjoyed rocking along with the music from the snow globe, playing peek-a-boo with the tissue paper and was very cute as she kept calling the nutcracker "baby."

We will attempt to get the three kids in a holiday photo this weekend. I like to use the front porch so no flash is necessary. Here is a sneak peak for any blog readers we may have out there!

Random photos

1. My brother is so funny...
2. Halloween mail!
3. More mail!
4. I love blueberries!
5. Sleeping on the kitchen floor. H1N1 or a tired Grade 1 boy? (Not H1N1...we got the vaccine...Luke was just worn out with a mild fever on a Friday night)

Halloween

We spent Halloween in Beaconsfield, Quebec. The kids went trick-or-treating in Mema's neighbourhood and collected quite a bit of loot considering the houses are much farther apart than in Toronto!

It looks like all the kids followed the red, black and white dress code (Tom snuck in some yellow). Liam did a magic show at school and apparently it was a great success.

Outside pictures

We did manage to spend some time outside at the cottage. Here we have pictures of each of the kids with Buck Lake providing a scenic back drop. I've also included a picture of Liam from Thanksgiving 2002. My how he's changed in seven years.

Disney 2009

What did Dan want for his 38th birthday? To go to Disney World for free dining! Disney has offered free dining the last week of August for the past few years and Dan has been wanting to do this for a long time. Usually I am getting my room ready for school so it isn't really possible. However, since I am on mat-leave it was hard to say no.

Grace hasn't been enjoying her car seat these days so what better to do than take a road trip? After a few trips of crying all the way to and from the cottage and a whiney trip to Montreal it was time for the car seat boot camp!! The drive wasn't too bad except the day Luke was vomitting every hour and the day Grace cried all day! Grace only took two 1.5 hour naps out of 40 hours of driving though she did take some catnaps here and there. I mostly sat in the back with her while Luke was in the front (with the airbag off) and Liam in the third row. Dan mapped out all the Starbucks and Paneras along the way so I had my coffee and nice cool places to nurse Grace. We quickly noticed that Grace is a lot more efficient now when she nurses. In March, our stops were much longer as she would sometimes eat for 40 minutes. Now she is done by the time Dan has the lattes! On the last day of driving, Liam did not leave his seat for 10 hours! Boy did he have to pee when we got home...

Coles Notes version of the trip: the weather was really, really hot; Grace got to meet some princesses - even got kissed by one; Luke lost a tooth and fell in love with water slides; we found a new ride that is even better than Soarin' - Toy Story Mania in Hollywood Studios; the boys tried to eat Mickey ice creams but they melted in less than five minutes, Grace got two teeth; and the boys were super surprised. They thought we were going to Naples to check out Nana and Papa's condo for the upcoming year.

Oh, and did I mention that it was HOT?!

Cottage Pictures

Easter Dress

Grace was adorable in her Easter dress. She's even started the Aunt Kathy head tilt when she smiles...or maybe it's that she doesn't have full neck control yet!

Happy Easter