Christmas Laughter

I love the sound of children laughing. It's one of my favorite sounds, especially when it's my children laughing. My daughter laughs with her whole body and my son has a smirk that turns into a huge smile as he laughs.

Christmas Laughter

Fall Fun

Fall Fun

Little Foodies

I love how different my kids can be. Esspecially when it comes to food. My son tells me most days that he is a meat eater and loves meat anytime. His favourite meal is meat (preferably chicken) and mashed potatoes. My daughter prefers her fruit, veggies and yogurt and is often happy with just those.

Today after church we came home to make lunch. We didn't have any plans, only to use what was already in the fridge.

Jaclyn asked to make her own. She happily put together a bowl of yogurt, grapes, animal crackers and a banana with water to drink. 

David asked for a steak and cheese sandwich (we had leftover steak) and a glass of milk. 

They both have very strong ideas about food and want to start making meals for the family.

Little Foodies

Star Wars Birthday Party

For David's 7th birthday he asked for a Star Wars party. 

Chris and I love planning and throwing our kids birthday parties, and we try to make them into great memory makers for our family. 

David decided that he only wanted a smaller group of kids this year, which turned out to be a good thing for us since we decided the theme would be "Jedi Training" with everyone getting a "lightsaber".

Every "Padawan" (Jedi-in-training) gets hungry after a hard training session. So, of course we had some Star Wars snacks.

Chris had the kids doing different Jedi training. They had to fly an X-Wing and shoot the death star before they could learn to control the force. They were given a makeshift X-Wing built with the leftover duct tape and a two banana boxes. Then they learned to move things with the force (a balloon tied to some dental floss pulley).

Lightsaber training: First the kids worked at keeping a balloon in the air, which was a bit of a trick because of an unexpected breeze. After that, they learned some basic moves, and then got to practice on each other before defeating a dark Jedi (thanks Travis)

For a birthday cake, we decided to go out of our normal comfort zone and do an Ice Cream cake, Han Solo in Carbonite. The outside was chocolate melts mixed to grey, and cookies and cream inside.

 I think it is safe to say that David was happy with his cake, and his whole birthday party.

Star Wars Birthday Party

Summer Movies

This summer will be the third year we have taken our kids to the theatre for a summer movie.

It is such a great memory for us all. The kids still talk about their first time at the movie theatre when we saw the movie Toy Story 3, and then last year when we saw Brave.

Today we saw Despicable Me 2. The kids love the first "Despicable Me" and have watched it multiple time over the years.

One of Jaclyn's favorite parts in the first movie is when the youngest girl Agnes gets a new unicorn and while hugging it says "its so fluffy I'm gonna die". 

Last Christmas my brother and sister-in-law gave Jaclyn a extra large pink unicorn. After she saw it she immediately said "its so fluffy I'm gonna die". She has been sleeping with her unicorn every night since Christmas.

 

Here she is holding her big unicorn and her little one that David got her holding them at a sleepover at Gramma and Grandads. 

We along with David and Jaclyn are looking forward to watching a summer theatre movie together for many summers to come.

Summer Movies

Our Menu Board

Like most moms out there I have struggled with the age old question 'what's for dinner?'

Over the years, I have tried different ideas to plan things out for weekly or monthly dinner, but none of them stuck for longer then a few weeks or months and then I was back to wondering at the last minute what to make for dinner.  Which is not great for eating a healthy, homemade meal, seeing as how nothing is thawed out, and in my experience, we were always 1-2 ingredients short for most meals.

About five months ago, I spent the evening putting together a new menu board.

I used a frame, scrape book paper, a small box, cute little clothespins, stickers and some printed out dinner ideas of meals that we like and a few blanks for anything else we want to add.

So far, we have used it every week.

My kids love helping me put the weekly dinner menu together. Since having this menu I have found our grocery bill has gone down, because we can buy fresh ingredients for the meals of that week and  none go bad in the fridge.

As an added bonus, my kids will look at the menu board and read what's for dinner instead of asking me multiple times a day, plus I don't feel like things are a scramble right before dinner each night.

It may have taken a few tries to find something simple and easy to do that works for our family, but it sure seems to have been worth it.

Our Menu Board

Sweaters passed down

I remember when I was a little girl my great-grandmother would make me and my brothers sweaters. I also remember loving to wear them. There was simply something about the sweaters being made specially for me that made me so excited to wear them. My mother, the wise woman that she is, decided to save all of those sweaters that were made for my brothers and I.
When I had my little girl, she gave me the ones made for me to pass on.  I have had them in her closet for awhile now, and she has worn some over the years, but over the last few months she has really started to gravitate to them and to chose them herself. She loves that she gets to wear something that was mine when I was her age. She also loves that she is wearing a sweater made by her great-great-grandmother, which she actually thinks about.

Here she is modeling one of her favorites, "the puppy sweater" as she calls it.

I think its wonderful to be able to pass down a treasured item from my childhood to my daughter. Thanks Mom for saving them all these years!

Sweaters passed down

Bubbles and Games

It was such a beautiful day today that the kids and I decided to take advantage of it and spent some time playing outside. We played with bubbles a beach ball and some games. 

The kids loved playing different games together. They played What Time is it Mr Wolf, Go-Go Stop, and by Davids request Freeze Tag.

It was such a beautiful and fun afternoon. The kids and I are looking forward to spending more and more time outside this spring.

Bubbles and Games

Aquarium

Last week we went to the Vancouver Aquarium with some wonderful friends. The kids had a wonderful time and have asked regularly to go back

 It is one of those places where the kids have always loved, and as they get older, they find more and more things to be fascinated by. Last time we were there was 3 years ago, and Jaclyn wasn't really old enough to take notice of as much as she did this time, and David was only interested in certain areas last time. This time with a 5 and 6 year old, everywhere we looked was something incredible and new to explore. Jaclyn loved the giant turtle, and the feeling seemed to be mutual as the turtle stared at her for a few minutes from in his tank.

 David was very excited to see some of the animals in the rain forest area, including the alligator. It was great to watch them explore the area and really start to process the different things about each animal and what their lives are like.

While there, we were able to watch some different shows, the first was a dolphin show highlighting training and caring for them and then a beluga whale show highlighting their needs (both of which the kids thoroughly enjoyed). At the end of the beluga show we got splashed because we were in the splash zone. David loved getting splashed and this became one of the highlights for him from the day. Jaclyn, on the other hand, was not as impressed with getting wet and decided she did not like beluga wales anymore. Since that day she has told me that she does like beluga whales but not getting splashed. 

  Jaclyn has told me she is now thinking about working at an aquarium as a trainer. Right now she wants to work with the dolphins so that it would be almost like she has a pet dolphin that she could teach to do tricks.

 Both are so interested in all the different animals there and want to learn more. David has told me that he wants to keep asking questions because he wants to figure out everything...which is a great attitude that both of them share, but definitely forces us to do some quick research sometimes.

Aquarium