Merry-ness

Made a fort at the end of November...



Big boy reading to his little brother:



Decorating the tree:




Telling Santa some important details:



Making a 3D snowflake for Nana and Bop (Click here for the helpful video we used to make it):




After studying chocolate in class, I made class cupcakes (chocolate chocolate chip cupcakes with white chocolate decorations) for the celebration:



Special pajamas for Christmas eve:



Left out some treats for Santa:



And wouldn't you know it, when we came down stairs the next day...



Got some fresh air in the afternoon:




Dressed for Christmas (see back a few posts for the birthday decorated version... and of course for Halloween, no extra accessories needed... that picture would be back in the Halloween posts in October):



Opening presents and having an excellent dinner at Nana and Bop's house with our family:



Then a day to pack to go visit with more family, and more Christmas celebrations:




Off to Grandma and Grandpa's, where Grandpa had a special surprise: a quinzy he made with all their snow! Inside, he put a heart window... so sweet:






Our big boy loved it so much, he wanted to add to it, so here is the additions he created (with help from Daddy):



Present opening, plus the fun of opening the big present box, with smaller and smaller presents in it... the boys love the wrapping paper:



More fresh air, with snowshoes so it's easier to walk through the fields (I said that instead of a pedometer, it would be more helpful to have a snack-o-meter, that shows you as you wear off each treat eaten during the festivities):



Then a wonderful meal together, and some playing of a classic game that was a gift:



Back home where our big boy continued his dream of wanting a sock monkey, so I started studying websites and online videos of how to make one (click here if you want to see one of the amazing sites I found... I actually found it earlier because I was thinking about making felt letters for our little one who LOVES the alphabet, as I have mentioned in other posts).

I started calling places to try to find "sock monkey socks"... yes, there are "sock monkey socks". Click here to see what I'm talking about. Anyway, I didn't try too hard... I decided if I'm at a store sometime and see them, I will get them... but I showed him a picture of a sock monkey done with a regular wool sock and he thought that was cute, so off we went to get socks and stuffing at a fabric store, then I started to make it last night and made most of it this morning, with both boys enjoying adding some padding to our new craft... he loves it:



Especially with his new hat:



Now our little one is quite interested... he picked these socks at the fabric store yesterday, but wasn't super excited until he saw the results this morning... so now he is waiting for his:



So off I go to make another one! Thanks to Grandma for the sewing machine... makes it a bit faster! :-)

Our big little boy!

Our little one is now 4! Well, since Monday... he had letter cookies in the morning and afternoon for 2 different classes... and had muffins today for being person-of-the-week in his class!

Just now, he was lifting his leg and trying to put it behind his head à la Yoga, and exclaimed 'this is hurting me'!!!

So funny!

What a cutey!

4 year old birthday party (but not actual birthday yet)

Had the aforementioned alphabet birthday party today!

Made the cake that sort of started with an ABC cake that I found online with monkeys on it, but then sort of morphed in my head to a palm type tree like the book CHICKA CHICKA BOOM BOOM by Lois Ehlert, a favourite!



Check out the chocolate letters on the side:



Decorated the skeleton he made in class while we waited for guests:



Sort of a Wanda Koop thing going on in that photo above... just went to see her show at the Winnipeg Art Gallery!

Okay, it's no Wanda Koop... but that made you look at her link and her work a bit! :-)

Opening presents...



Gave these cookies as a loot presents to kids as they left... as well as one cookie with their own first letter of their name, and a helium balloon!



As usual, costumes play a major role at our parties, with such a wonderful collection of costumes from family and friends...

Hey, little guy, what kind of birthday party do you want?

"3-3-5" he says.

And that is all he says. Don't ask me what that means.

Then he says "hairstyle". "But it's going to be O O P Q" - when it's Halloween he says, at his teacher's class.

Not sure what this means either.

Okay, this isn't working.

I describe to him that for his first birthday he had puppy cake.
Then, for his 2nd birthday, he had Diego/Baby Jaguar/Dora cake.
Then for his 3rd birthday, he had Yo Gabba Gabba cupcakes.

Nope... now he shows us counting on his fingers. Then he says "1 2 20 10"... He is mostly just shouting numbers and letters, and then off he goes.

The experiment of asking him what he wants is over.

Kurt thinks we should have letters and alphabet ideas... our little one just totally loves letters and reading.

I completely credit his love for letters to STARFALL: Click HERE To see this incredible site for letter learning, prereading and reading development.

He LOVES letters... he keeps trying to sneak out of his classroom with a book... his teacher laughs and tells him that he could just ask and he could borrow it. He takes books with a letter theme... he is so excited each day... "MOMMY!!!! LOOK!!! I GOT R!!!!" and then he reads each page "ROCK!!!! RED!!!" as if this is a huge and exciting surprise... as if he just got his favourite present for Christmas ever... and in a way, he did. Just lovin' the letters this one.

More Halloween goofiness!

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

Corny!

Went to a fall favourite yesterday: A-Maze-In-Corn! Last time we went, our little guy was only 1, so it was fun to go this time and remember the fun! We went with some great friends... such a great day, and such luck with the weather again!

Boo at the Zoo

Our big boy wore his beautiful leopard costume that his grandma made him, and the little one wanted to be a bunny... no, a skeleton... no, a bunny... no, a BEAR! So I put our new AWESOME facepaints on them made by SNAZAROO which has a fantastic website with MANY MANY pictures of different faces you can try. I bought them at Artists Emporium for about $11 which was well worth it, I think! I made brown out of mixing red, yellow and blue... right? I don't know, it worked :-)

A lot of fun was had around the silly mirrors:

Video 2109 to come

Enjoying a ride with Nemo:



Look at the leopard's speedy hands:

Halloween silliness!

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

Actually, just found JibJab's blog site, and found the "making of" for this video... neat how they do that! CLICK HERE TO CHECK OUT THE MAKING OF THE VIDEO!!strong>

Need the info...

Today I asked the little one what he did in school today. His reply was "Something.... or... nothing..." I asked him if that was what he said, to be sure, and he repeated it over and over... yep. That's all I was going to get! I'm out of the 3 year old loop :-)

First day of school and other things

Saw this on the beach at the end of August as we were going back up to the cottage...



The boys room at the lake inspired by Japanese art and other things (which our big boy wanted):




First day of school... yes, our little 3 year old is in school, because our school division has nursery school as part of the school division, and he was born in November, so he's already in school!! Ahhh! Although he was just having a short visit on the first day, but he just loved it! His first full day was the following week, but this was the first actual day where he went in the class and toured around... so cute! He just loves it!



Then back to the beach for our 11th anniversary! We visited the lagoon, which is the boys' favourite because there are snails... no tadpoles this time because it's too late in the season... but found a bird skull which thrilled the big boy, because we had just watched a Nova special about how birds' ancestors are dinosaurs, and particularly showed how the microraptor probably was a flying animal!





Although there are school pics, I took their school picture clothes to the lake, hoping for some nice light for a few pictures on the rock... I think I got them!

More summer...

Went to visit Grandpa several times at the hospital... he patiently let them play "bed goes up, bed goes down" a few times:



...visited the new lion at the zoo... he was sitting up like this until just after I took the pic, and then back asleep... so I was lucky!



... last week's pics are seeing the effects of the wind on the pier:



and the boys making Japanese oriented art for their new room at the beach:

Little one's cherry blossoms that he put on the ink branches I made... I love those blossoms! Good job!



And then our big boy made a dragon using a silk painting technique he learned at school... the technique he did I believe is from India, using gutta as the resist on the silk, but there is a similar technique in Japan called "Yuzen" (click here to read about it) so it still connects to the idea of a Japanese room theme even though we didn't use rice paste for the resist.
He wanted it to look like flames around the dragon... it looked like red and orange, but then when I hung it upside down (or up-smie-down as the little one likes to say) to dry, the red and orange ran, and actually fell into a flame look... very cool:

Some more summer

Click HERE for a link to the beautiful poetry/art book: "If You're Not From the Prairie" by David Bouchard... I was mentioning this book to some recently as we talked about the beautiful prairie skies we were watching this weekend, all at once raining, thundering, sunny with a rainbow... Lovely book.

We've discovered a better way to have ice cream in the car... Dibs:

Before Dibs:



After Dibs:


Funny commercial for the above product:



Climbing trees:





Finding frogs:



Enjoying rainbows:

Some summer stuff...

We went out to the cottage on June 30th, as soon as we could after school ended.

We celebrated Bop's birthday:



Went to the beach events:



Built sandcastles:



Came home in time for a Fringe show:



Went to a family gathering and had some excellent rollkuchen:



and went fishing and our big boy caught his first fish:



and discovered some new friends:

My Grandma...

My Gramma passed away on Monday. She was 99 years old, and a strong woman who loved her husband (she always called him Gorgeous, which was her nickname for him as his name was George... and he called her "Kewp" which was short for Kewpie doll, my mom says). They were active, outdoorsy people with 3 boys. She (and he) went camping with me, knit me mitts and an afghan, and gave me my favourite teddy bear (that is in my room right now). They were always there for me during the special events in my life, and I also loved visiting them in their beautiful home in stunning Cranbrook. Bless you, Gramma and Grampa... Gramma, you are finally with your gorgeous George again... Here is her 99th birthday at the end of May: