Spring Break is Here

Matthew's class kicked off the start of Spring Break with a field trip to the Science Centre and Creative Kids Museum yesterday. Andrew, Emily and I joined them for part of the day. You can see Andrew making a lightbox masterpiece, and racing HotWheels. Matthew was having a great time racing up the playground climber and sailing down the slide with classmates. Emily of course hung out in her stroller or Baby Bjorn carrier. She loved all the activity and attention from people talking to her so much that she missed her nap which didn't seem to bother her a bit. She did fall fast asleep as soon as she was in the car.

Emily is now filling out her highchair more. She sits up in it without recline and uses the tray. She enjoys eating a wide variety of fruits, vegetables and cereal. It is also a great place to play with her toys. She loves anything that she can grasp and chew on. Toys that squeak or make funny noises always get her biggest smiles and laughs. When on the floor she always rolls over onto her tummy. From her tummy she is starting to pivot herself around a bit, and reach for toys. If on her back she can do quite the "V" crunch with her legs and head/upper back off the floor.

Bruce was away in Toronto for a couple of days this week, but the boys were delighted to see him when they woke up this morning. There have been lots of "tackling", piggy back rides, and other playing that is not as easy to do when there is only one parent here. They have just gone to the park to try out a cool new Dinosaur kite Andrew received as a birthday present. All of our snow from earlier in the week is gone, but evidently more flurries are on the way and the "high" for tomorrow is something like -3!

For anyone who is interested I saw a neat new site written up in the paper, and checked it out. The address is www.indexed.blogspot.com . The lady who does it makes observations on everyday things through Venn diagrams, and graphs that she draws on index cards and scans into the computer. Some of them are quite clever, though as with anything, some are better than others.

On Our Fridge Today

Anyone who has been to our house knows that the fridge is always adorned with lots of artwork proudly displayed by Matthew and Andrew. Here is what we have new today. Matthew did his Calgary Flames hockey picture at school. Andrew did his "abstract" at his preschool program.

Here We Snow Again

This one is for our friends and family in warmer far away places. This is our house today, March 27th, almost a week after spring supposedly arrived. We have had a number of days like this where we wake up to snow, but then it melts almost as quick as it comes. There is still a heavy snowfall warning in effect and we may see up to 10 cms of snow, but it should all be gone in a day or so with temperatures in the midteens later this week.

An' Guess What...

This was the week of "An' guess what..." for Andrew, as this seemed to start every sentence of his, for most of the week. Of course he picked this up from Matthew, but would cutely overuse the phrase when talking about any little thing. He has been enjoying wearing some of his new birthday T shirts, and sunglasses upsidedown, which we joke must be a trend with all the cool preschoolers.

We have had a weekend filled with crafts, science experiments and haircuts for Matthew and Andrew. The weather has been nice so we've been bike riding, kite flying and out to the playground. This afternoon we are off to the pool!

Andrew's 3!!!!

Well we've been joking about the end of the "terrible twos" as anyone who knows Andrew can attest to the fact that he is so easy going his "twos" were anything but terrible. He has been looking forward to his birthday for a long time, and with his size he has looked three for quite some time now too. He had fun on the weekend with some family festivities on St.Patrick's Day, his actual birthday. We opened some gifts, had some cupcakes and prepared for his kids' party the next day. The boys love preparing for a party almost as much as the party itself and enjoyed shopping for food, decorating a table cloth with stickers and putting out balloons. For his party with his friends on the Sunday we had a music theme. I had made a xylophone cake based on one of his favorite instruments. We had a music teacher come to do some music and dancing activities with the children. Then there was time for brunch, cake/icecream, gifts and playing. Everyone took home a goody bag with a music theme, and of course a balloon.

I have to explain the first photo as Matthew got some new street hockey goalie gear this weekend, and was wearing it everywhere. It made helping open gifts a bit more challenging, but did not stop him at all. He has taken the gear to school with him this morning for "show & tell" too.

Emily can now suck on her toes, which she enjoys as much as her thumb! She mastered rolling from her back to her tummy this week. She has still generally been quite stranger anxious, though seems to be a bit of a party girl, as was fine being held by people at Andrew's party.

March fun at our house

Last week I had no photos of Matthew so I made sure to get some for this week. You can see him proudly wearing his Monster Truck shirt from the show he and Bruce went to last week. He is an extremely loving big brother. He and Emily are always up to something. You can see them with their feet in the air together, and helping her practise sitting and tummy time.

Emily turned 5 months old this past week. She continues to be a very smiley young girl. She has recently taken a liking to sucking her thumb. She loves her solids and can eat a really good quantity of carrots and rice cereal.

Andrew was a bit sniffly this past week so we stuck pretty close to home for most the week. You can see him enjoying dessert when we had dinner with friends. As well with the continued warm temps most of the snow melted. We had a pretty good "river" flowing in front of the house for most of the week. There were lots of popsicle stick boats floating down it, and Andrew loved sweeping the puddle of water that would form on our driveway.

Into March

Emily has had 4 nights of sleeping right through the night from about 8:00 at night until 8:00 in the morning. We have been loving this. She is a very aware young girl and loves people, while at the same time can be quite anxious around strangers.

We had a busy, fun weekend and the weather has turned into the positive double digits! Matthew declared the weekend to have started early since he had a Friday afternoon fieldtrip to do a clay project at a nearby Arts Centre. On Saturday Matthew went to the University to be a subject in a little study on how children learn and acquire language. The kids do this from time to time if researchers need a child their age. They love participating as they get to choose a toy at the end for their efforts. At the same time Andrew and Bruce took advantage of the nice weather to take a trip to the zoo. Then in the afternoon there was a neighborhood road hockey game on our driveway. In the evening the boys were lucky to enjoy a friend's fun 3rd birthday party. On Sunday Bruce and I both took turns out running as we do each weekend. In the afternoon while Emily napped Andrew and I sailed popsicle stick boats down the "river" of melted snow flowing in front of our house. Bruce and Matthew did a little guy bonding at the Monster Truck show. They loved it, and Matthew came home with the T-shirt!