Four pairs of feet

Sharing a few of my favourite maternity pictures we had taken at home this past weekend by my husband's very talented uncle. I had mentioned on Instagram today after posting this first photo, I had an "oh my gosh" moment when I first saw the picture. To see four sets of feet is very unreal to me still. Even though it has only been two short years since Max was born, I am so used to our family of three it is hard to imagine being a family of four. I am so excited though, to see what this little baby boy looks like in comparison to his brother and to learn what his personality will be like. I am also eager to see how Max responds to our growing family. Max is so settled in our home, it is his favourite place to be in the whole world. He is very particular about where things are in our home, instantly noticing when something has been added, so it should be interesting to see his reaction when we add a little babe to our home. It is an exciting time for sure, but at the same time a nerve wracking one :) We have six weeks to go! Although, I do not think my stomach can grow much larger. Yikes!!

 

~ K

Everything Easter

Nerd alert...I truly wish I my job was filling Easter baskets for boys and girls of all ages.. all.. day.. long. I love it. I love choosing new items that he is ready for developmentally, I love picking out fun things that are going to catch his eye and elicit that "I'm so excited" look on his face, and I love arranging the items in the basket just so, so that that everything has a place and can be easily seen. 

Max's 2 year old Easter basket

New kicks! This little boy's feet are growing like weeds and the pair he had last summer/fall are getting a tad snug! ~ from Winners

Minion eggs! You can buy these in the store, but since I had a sharpie, a random stash of googly eyes and some plastic eggs lying around, why not make a few homemade one! If you have the time and resources to do this, the homemade ones are so much cuter :)

A kite!! We are constantly reading books over here and a lot of the books Max is drawn to lately seem to all have kites in the background. here is hoping for one or two perfect windy days this spring/summer so we can go into our back field and test it out. With Max's current obsession being to identify every colour he sees, this one is the perfect fit for him! ~ from Amazon

CHOCOLATE! Max's fav. is Smarties so the Spring tin of individual mini boxes was an easy decision among the mountain of options, and of course every little person needs some sort of choco bunny in their basket :)

I still love the plastic carrots I found last year. I saw them again this year at the bulk barn. A cute variation to the plastic egg. These will be filled with PC whole wheat penguin crackers.  

Sidewalk chalk. This is the first time we will be trying this outside. I think he finally has the patience, or will at least by the summer months to help me create a messy masterpiece on our driveway.

Bubble wand. This is a staple that he will likely find in his basket for the next few years. He loves them.

Melissa and Doug reuseable sticker pad. With five different scenes this book is perfect for my little sticker lover. He can arrange the scenes over and over, and his OCD mama will continue to take the stickers off the scene and put them back on the sticker sheet for him to play again the next day, and the next day, and the next. Max has the vehicle version right now. He received it as a gift at his 2nd birthday. He loved it so much I chose the animal one for his basket. There are a few other versions too so you can choose whatever your little one is interested in!

Stegosaurus umbrella. This is ADORABLE. I can't wait for us to go singing in the rain with this super cute little person umbrella. ~ from Target

Nesting buckets. They are colourful, are numbered and will be perfect for the sandbox that we are (likely) going to buy Max for the summertime ~ from Amazon

I have not purchased this yet as it is not on sale and likely will be in weeks to come, but this may or may not be beside Max's basket Easter morning as well. It is supposed to be a nice weekend weather-wise so we will be sending lots of time outside if that happens. 

This weekend we are gearing up for a small and easy Easter egg hunt, reading our favourite Easter books on repeat, eating fruit in colour coded plastic eggs, and playing many rounds of bunny toss (a game I found on Pinterest and was able to make with leftover felt, a hot glue gun, rice, a large piece of cardboard and black paint) and hopping bunnies, a game Max's super fun Aunt bought for him from the dollarstore. It has also been a very good "mom's getting dinner on the table and I need you to sit still in your booster seat distraction." He loves this little game and there are always a ton of giggles when one of us gets dinged off the head ;)

(image taken from Little Baby Garvin Blog)

Easter crafts have been covered by daycare. Max came home this week with three different festive hand/foot Easter artwork. Here is my fav.

Wishing everyone a Happy Easter! Have so much fun with your little ones egg hunting and chocolate eating the weekend away!

~ K

Love Day 2016

We have had so much fun celebrating Valentine's day (more like month for us). We kicked off February by making some new artwork to add to our V-Day decorations. It was super easy, I just cut up small pieces of tissue and fastened strips of clear tape across a matte from an old picture frame (you are to use contact paper, but I did not feel like spending the $). 

Max also painted red hearts on a piece of white card stock I had cut into a heart, using a empty toilet paper roll that had been shaped into a heart. I took this idea from Pinterest.. you can easily look it up.  It turned out pretty cute too.

I love having a fun activity or snack set up for Max when he wakes up from his afternoon nap. He is very particular about where everything goes in his environment, like his mama everything has it's place, and so he very quickly notices when anything is new or added in our home. The afternoon I put up our Valentines decorations he must have pointed and said "heart" about fifty times in ten minutes. Too cute.

Friday Max celebrated V-Day at daycare. He wore his festive shirt (see below) and gave strawberry applesauce squeeze packs to his four little friends there. Idea taken from Pinterest.. once again my scalloped paper punch saves the day!

For lunch the day before, because let's be honest we celebrate holidays for more than just the day it falls on, we had heart shaped cucumber, PB & J sandwiches and pink smoothies with festive paper straws.

On Valentine's Day we kicked off our morning with a tray of red fruit for breakfast. Max ate the raspberries and decided he wanted a banana instead so I finished off the watermelon and apple slices.

For his little treat I found a Valentine's monkey from the dollarstore (Max is currently loving Curious George, an Elmo colouring book with stickers, and Valentine's smarties. Let me tell you, he was SO excited for this gift. I put it on the living chair while he was still eating breakfast and as soon as he locked his eyes on it be yelled "out" meaning he wanted our of his booster seat asap. He was pretty pleased with his present, and I'm sure the fact that he got to eat smarties at 8am. It was Valentine's Day after all :)

We ended the day with cupcakes. Likely the highlight of his day. I believe I saw him lick his plate when he had managed to eat every crumb on his plate ;)

 `
I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend and for my fellow Canadians, enjoyed spending Family Day with your loved ones today. My husband had to work so Max and I took a trip to Winners to get out of the house. We scored on adorable new running shoes for Max for the spring and a few new Easter decorations.. I can't help myself :)

~ K

The Cat in the Hat knows a lot about that!

Max is in love with the Cat in the Hat. It is the first thing he asks for each morning when he wakes up, other than his cup of milk. "go go"!? With his eyes squinting from the brightness of the television, thank goodness for on-demand!!

So naturally, Cat in the Hat was the perfect theme for his second birthday party. I did not go as crazy as I did last year with the decorations, which was much less stressful; however, I did make sure there were a few super cute key pieces that would stand out ... because as you all know.. I love a good theme :)

Max's birthday fell in the middle of the week this year. I took the day off work because i could not imagine not being with him on his special day. We celebrated by visiting an indoor playground and having a mini celebration for just the three of us in the evening complete with festive cupcakes and presents. Max opened a Mr. Potato head, a Leap Frog Junior reader and a little motorized fish. He also was successful in "sneaking" a bite of his cupcake before dinner time.

The following Saturday was the big party day.

For the decorations I made a welcome sign that I found from Pinterest for the front door. We had the party at our local YMCA, so this helped everyone know which room we were partying in!

My super talented friend, the one who creates the rock art, created this for us. I had seen this online and thought it would be so fun for the little ones to get pictures behind. To be completely honest, I'm not sure who enjoyed this more... the kids or the parents ;) I have seen many pictures surfaced of the daddy's getting their mug taken as the Cat in the Hat :)

For Balloons, I kept it simple. I found a Cat in the Hat helium balloon online and paired it with a couple of solid red balloons, and then I bought our traditional (well traditional since last year) massive number balloon, which always fills space well. I love being able to bring the balloons home afterwards and having them in our home for a week or so afterwards to remind us (or me at least) of how much fun the party was.

The two centerpieces I made came from pinterest as well. With Christmas just ending I was able to find a lot of the supplies in the Christmas section (box and ribbon). The wooden numbers came from Hobby Lobby.

I bought a package of Cat in the Hat party hats online. There was way more then I needed, so I used a few as part of the decorations. All of the kiddos looked super cute in their hats.  I found themed plates online as well which added to the table nicely.

I totally scored on the favours. I am not going to give away where I found them, but I flipped out when I came across these, and bought the store's entire inventory. I loved that each little person got to leave with a nice little thank you gift.

I was so pleased with the cake. It came from Isn't Life Sweet located in Wyoming. It was half chocolate and half vanilla and was absolutely delicious. I have definitely found my go to local bakery!

For food we kept it simple this year. For the kids I had cheese strings, yogurt tubes, mini muffins, gold fish crackers, veggie sticks, a platter with cucumber, blueberries and strawberries, juice boxes and water and then pizza for the parents and the older kids that came. I think everyone enjoyed the spread.

For the first hour we munched out and sang Happy Birthday to our sweet boy, and for the second hour the kids ran wild in the gym, complete with a bouncy slide and castle. Max was a tad intimidated of these, but in true Max fashion with about 10 minutes left he decided they were not so scary and started having fun on them.

We had a complete blast at Max's 2nd Birthday party and are so appreciative of all who joined us. Celebrating our boy with our family and friends was so special to us.
Until next year!

~ K

Stuffin' the stocking!

Finding little trinkets to fill Max's stocking was so much fun this year. It is SO easy to fill a little one's sock! I tried hard to find items that are perfect for his age so he could have fun with them now and not have to wait until he is older. I thought I would share what Max will be finding in his stocking this Christmas morning in case you are finding it difficult to think of ideas for your little one.

I have felt lately like I am a totally lame bath time mom, as Max always seems bored at bath time. So for Christmas, I tried to find some new and fun activities for Max to do during bath time. Boon has a "Water Bug" game that comes with a cute scoop and three bugs, and Munchkin has bath crayons. Fingers crossed these do not stain our tub. 

Up until now I have just been using water to brush Max's teeth, so I figured it was time for him to have some fun toddler toothpaste. Not cheap, but it will likely last a long time. 

A barrel of Monkeys!!! Rememba these!? I loved mine. I can totally already see Max carefully linking the moneys together as I hold the chain for him. 

Crayola finger paints. I have not taken on the challenge of painting with a toddler yet. Wish me luck. 

Chocolate! Our traditional marshmellow bar that I have received in my stocking since I was a little girl, and a Santa Kinder egg, because the child loves "ho ho" and chocolate. 

Yesterday I went to the One of a Kind Show in Toronto and picked up the cutest hand painted wooden matching game for Max. There are four other matches as well, but these are my favs :)

And there you have it! I can't wait for those cute little hands to dig through his stock and discover his treats. The chocolate will be going at the bottom or else it might be game over once those are discovered ;)

In other festive news, celebrating the holidays has been so fun so far. Max went to his first parade and he loved it! He waved to Santa and was memorized by the lights and sounds of the floats. We put up a few Christmas lights along our porch and brought good old Frosty out of his box :) Max greets him each evening when we get home from work/daycare. We have been watching the old school Frosty the Snowman movie every morning at 6:30 in the bloody morning (yawn) and I also made a felt tree for Max that we can use for years to come. I also made a snowman to attach to a basic grapevine wreath for our front door. I used white denim and found a simple tutorial online explaining how to make fabric roses.

Next weekend we are taking Max to see Santa, and the following week we celebrate Christmas with my family up north. I hope everyone is enjoying their holiday traditions and festivities with their families as much as we are! 

~ K