Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Roll it!

In the past week or so, (maybe just this weekend?) Katie has learned to Roll It. Roll it as in the part in "Pat a Cake" where you Roll it. Very cute and caught on video while at Costco, just for you!
(video quality's not that great on this one, not sure why, but it's still cute.)

I also took a little video of Katie when she was playing peek a boo with GG Lill at brunch on Sunday.

That's all for today, hope you enjoy your Wednesday!

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Ben's Birthday - Part 3

(For those of you just joining us...I've got about 4 new posts for you today...start with the first one down below and work your way up for the proper order)(easier posting all the pictures this way)

The birthday boy and his cake! (ice cream, Ben's request...couldn't be better on a hot evening!)Jon and Shelley also dropped by and there was BBQ before cake, but we must have been too busy eating and feeding kids to take proper pictures. But, you've probably had enough pictures haven't you?

Sunday morning we had family brunch to celebrate the birthday. There were grandmas and grandpas and great grandmas.
Katie loves playing with her new giraffe!
And REALLY loved playing peek-a-boo with GG Lill at the breakfast table.
Yesterday morning (see, we're just about caught up now!), we tried putting pigtails in Katie's hair. Mostly with the hair in front, since that's what gets in her eyes. It sort of worked, though I think I need more practice. I see many cute pigtails in our future. =)
Hope everyone else had as great a weekend as we did! Talk to you soon. (remind me not to skip Monday's post...it's hard to blog a week in a day!)

Ben's Birthday - Part 2

Here's C with the spraying Elephant. Coreen and Michael were at the party too.
Chad doesn't usually wear girls hats...I think. =)
We put the three girls in the playpen for a while, really because we didn't want Katie scraping her knees crawling on the patio, and then C and G wanted in too of course. They played very well together!We were all surprised there wasn't more grabbing and yelling while in the playpen.
I think one more post should cover it...Stay tuned!

Ben's Birthday - Part 1

Saturday was the longest day of the year. And also Ben's birthday! This year was the BIG three-oh. Which Ben has no trouble acknowledging. Who cares about being 30 when you've got a beautiful daughter like this? Katie had slept over at Grandma Mary and Papa's Friday night and Sat morning we got up early and I went and picked Katie up. She was sporting a lovely new dress made by Grandma Mary. It's a bit big, but we love it anyway. And we also had a cute new do with the barrette.

On our way home we stopped by Grandma Cheryl's and Grandpa Ken's. The visit was great and Katie was all smiles.
Ben (who was missing all the fun) decided to run over and join us and I forgot to take a picture of the sweaty birthday boy. Pictures (un-sweaty) of him later.

In the afternoon we had some friends over to celebrate the big day. We had bought a fun little pool set since the weather was warm (29C!) and the girls could keep cool.

C wasn't sure about the pool at all.
But Katie and G had lots of fun. There's three parts...an Alligator pool, a Giraffe with water coming out of his neck (to run/crawl under) and an Elephant with water spraying out of his trunk.
That G is such a ham for the camera.
More pool pictures to come in the next post.

Whoa, lazy blogging.

Hello! Lazy me didn't post yesterday...apologies. And I've decided I'm posting lazier today...instead of posting all pictures and commentary in one post, I'm creating a new post for each set of pictures...that way I can spend less time rearranging pictures. (although more time explaining the system, apparently) Onward!

Our week and weekend was lovely. There's a special birthday to mention in a later post, so keep your eyes peeled. Before the birthday weekend, Katie spent some time trying on my slippers. And honestly, I did NOT pose her for these pictures, she got her foot (feet) in all by herself.
Her hair is getting so much longer that I think we're ready for the big ribbon-y barrettes. They work best when you pull her "bangs" back and clip...if you just clip the hair off to the side it slips out. Here I was trying to model and show how cool barrettes are. I think it worked since she wore the barrette most of the day and didn't try and pull it out until much later.
And last week saw the return of Auntie Andrea...where has she been? (I've decided to no longer announce when people are gone, only when they return, so that you aren't tempted to steal anything from their houses while they are gone).
She's been traveling all over Europe (well, France and Italy) with Sheldon who had some holiday time. I hear they had lots of fun. Who wouldn't in a romantic place like Paris?

As much fun as she had on her trip though, she seemed mighty happy to see Miss Katie again.
And an adorable, but very serious, case of bed head. No body in our house gets better bed head that Katie.
Off to write post number 2!

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Sunny Days

Yesterday Katie and I went outside to enjoy our snack and the afternoon sunshine. Blueberries are not her favorite fruit, but once I feed her a couple of halves, she's willing to gobble the rest.
Yum!
After a few minuted in the full sun (with sunscreen on of course) I decided we'd better lounge in the shade.
I had brought out some toys but Katie was more into crawling on the grass and playing with an un-toy...these are always the favorite...wrappers, bags (not plastic...we play safe!), watches and anything that is not actually a toy. Yesterday, it was the empty blueberry dish.
Apologies if these pictures are really all the same, but we didn't do anything else yesterday so I have no other pictures...and I think they're all cute in a slightly different way anyway.
"Look mom...No feet!" Katie does this lots...I have no idea how. She's also doing this (lifting her legs) while we're in the stroller. I plunk her in normally and then seconds later she's got her feet up on the tray part. Comfy and relaxed. Katie's back into a good sleeping groove...I think it's 5 nights in a row now without a peep. And strangely, we also suspect she may be teething...she often has as much of her hand as possible in her mouth, I'm assuming playing with her teeth/gums. I've been looking but though there are some big bumps, nothing has broken through yet.

Yesterday we had this recipe for dinner...Pasta with tuna and arugula (subbed spinach) and it was so good. It's our second time making it and I used a little less oil and used tuna in water and didn't soak it in oil as she recommends. Much better this way. This peppers give a nice bit of heat. And it's SO EASY. You should try this sometime when you've got nothing good for dinner.

Monday, June 16, 2008

Happy Father's Day! (yesterday)

We had a lovely weekend, as usual. Father's day was well celebrated, but those pictures are near the end. Can I say now though, that Ben is an amazing father and does such a wonderful job balancing life things and family and playing with Katie and taking care of her? He's the best!

Mid week last week, we went shopping (well, walking really) at the mall...it was raining a bit outside so we were just looking for an indoor hangout. Ben had Katie in the backpack and we checked out the fountain.
Katie thought it was pretty cool. Too cool for swimming though. (ha ha, I'm so funny) (why are puns so much fun?)
The next day, Katie and I returned to the mall for some secretive pre-father's day shopping. Dad is pretty smart though and I'm not a great liar, so he may have figured out what we were up to. =)
Katie grabbed a receipt and did some fancy twisted origami...she's so talented! (I made sure she wasn't eating it.)
Friday evening we had a great visit at Great Auntie Joan's house...her boys were all in town so it was a good time to visit. She and Katie bonded over some toys.
And here's a picture of the boys...JP, D and M . And how goofy they are when not posing!Saturday, Katie and dad spent some time with the building blocks.
Dad helped a bit but insisted that Katie had actually put a few blocks on herself too. What a cutie.
Sunday we had the grandparents over to celebrate Father's day. Katie showed grandma her music/learning table. Feels like a full house! Grandmas and Katie always have fun!Near the end of dinner, we played a fun game...a version of "Katie says"? Really just demonstrating who really runs this family. And you have no idea how long we played this game...such fun for everyone! Enjoy!

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

She loves the toothpaste!

Well hello there! Nice to see you've come back. A regular picture/chatty post for you today. Because I'm pretty sure you don't come here for the movies, right? =)

On the weekend, we took lots of pictures. Ben was sitting on a clean kitchen counter (not entirely rare, but very entirely nice...the clean kitchen that is) and Katie begged to join him. (we should not be encouraging this kind of behaviour, I know)

Sunday we went shopping...Katie sat in the stroller and played the "round round" (she says) mouse game. (Great Auntie Joan showed her this one and she loves it!).
And dad tried on shoes.
These ones look good, don't you think?
More importantly, Sunday was Grandma Cheryl's Birthday! We went over for dinner and had a lovely time. Katie really loves salmon...she inhaled it and only THEN would she eat her green beans and potatoes.
She's been smiling a lot with her fingers in her mouth these days...not sure what's up with that.

There was cake (that Katie didn't eat) and a scary candle to blow out. When Katie realized there was blowing, she was excited again!
Another thing we did on the weekend was buy Katie some flavoured kid toothpaste. We've been using some baby non fluoride stuff but thought it was time to use real toothpaste. She does NOT like our nice minty stuff at all, so we bought the kids stuff. Funny thing is, she loved them (we bought two flavours, just in case one wasn't good) both even before we left the store...must be colourful packaging or something. We're letting her play with it only until it's open . This one's watermelon and the other is strawberry. We tried the strawberry for brushing and she definitely likes it. I had a taste...Ew...I think it's disgusting...overly sweet, fake strawberry taste. But I suppose to a little girl it's probably better than strong mint.
PS...another funny note...for pictures sometimes, I've started getting her to say "cheese" like people do, and it really works to get smiles. So funny! (and she doesn't seem to be upset afterwards that there actually isn't any real cheese to eat...I was worried about that...she loves cheese!)