Best Part of Baking is...

LICKING THE BEATERS, OF COURSE!!!

YuMmY!!!

It Just Keeps Going and Going...

Fifty-one...Fifty-two...Fifty-three... Or was it Sixty-three???
I think I might of messed up???
(See why Mommy has to hide the tissue boxes, Papa???)

Watchin' Joshers

Last Friday, we got to babysit Joshua all day! We had soooo much fun!!!

We played, danced, sang and ate together. He was such a good boy.

Here, Josh and I are "sharing" very nicely. He works at the computer with such skill. I wonder how many words he can type per minute?

OK, so Josh didn't see where I was going with this new game. It was called "Let's sit and then lay on Joshers!" Poor Josh! Don't worry right after Mommy put down the silly camera, she ran to save Joshua! Really, Heather he was in good hands all day!

Thanks for spending the day with us! We would love to do it again!!!

A Chucky Cheese B-day!

James spent his real birthday evening at his new favorite place on earth...

Chucky Cheese. Uncle Peter is showing James a few pointers on how to be quick at the draw! Bang! Bang!

Amelia is now in love with all of the cool rides. She enjoyed many rides on Bob the Builder's tractor and Barney's train.


Ah yes! Chucky Cheese Pizza, where only a kid can stomach the food! (Right, Uncle Peter??)

This is our "You Are Special" red plate that we take out every time we have a reason to celebrate!

We hope you had a wonderful 3rd birthday! You are growing up to being such a wonderful little boy! We love you so much!

Thanks again Uncle Peter and Auntie Jeannine for joining us!

Muffin Tin Monday 1/26

Today's theme was Winter. So we shared the book The Biggest Snowman Ever written by: Steven Kroll. We had fun reading about how two mice decided to use teamwork to build the biggest snowman ever!

To go along with the winter theme, we had a "total white-out" lunch.

We had:

"snow"- a cheese stick sliced up

"snow covered shells"- creamy garlic shell pasta

"Snow patches"- peas (as grass) and cauliflower (snow mounds)

"Blankets of snow"- sliced turkey

"snowflakes"- apple slices

of course a "snowman"- marshmallows and goodies

It was "brrr-eat!"

Happy Birthday Grandma Judy!!!

Happy ?? Birthday Grandma Judy!!!

We will be celebrating all of the January birthdays on Super Bowl Sunday!!!

(Pictures will soon follow)

My "Dorothy"

One of my birthday presents was a real goldfish and an awesome new aquarium! This is my very own pet, her name is Dorothy (yes, just like Elmo's goldfish). I luv her with all my heart!

I get to help take care of her by feeding her just a pinch of food at night. I like to feed her at night so I can watch her eat as I fall asleep in bed.

Thanks Uncle Peter and Auntie Jeannie for Dorothy! She's the best!!!

We Have a New President

What a historic day for all Americans, whether you voted democratic or republican, it is surely a day to remember.

This afternoon, we (James, Amelia and I) sat on the couch and watch our 44th president take the presidential oath . Of course the kiddos have no idea what this event meant to so many, but we tried our best to observe history in the making. James kept asking when and where "O Bomber"(this was an improvement from "Bomber") will be coming on TV.

We talked about names of the buildings, monuments and important people that we saw go by on the screen. I explained to James that maybe one day you or Amelia could be President as long as you study hard and help out others. I will always remember sharing this special day with my children, even though they may not remember it tomorrow!

Congratulations and Good Luck to our new President, President Barack Obama!

"Amelia the Builder"

You may be wondering is that "Bob the Builder" you see below???

No, it's "Amelia the Builder!"
The past couple of days, Amelia has been sporting the tool pouch and tape measure suspenders. She loves stashing small toys in the pockets!

"Can she build it?"

"YES SHE CAN!!!"

Muffin Tin Monday 1/19

Today's book is I Will Never Not Ever Eat a Tomato By: Lauren Child.

It is a very cute story about a little sister that is a rather fussy eater and her older brother comes up with a clever way to get her to eat her dinner by renaming the different food with more exciting titles.

So for our lunch we had...

"trees"- broccoli

"golden nuggets"- pineapple chunks

"penguin food"- fish crackers

"ocean nibbles" mermaid food- fish sticks

"marble tiles"- stick of Colby cheese cut into squares

"snowballs"- Mini-marsh mellows

As usual we had empty trays by the end of lunch!

Happy 1st Birthday Joshua!

We had so much fun at Joshers 1st birthday party. Unfortunately, Mommy didn't have any disk space left on her camera to take any pics, but Josh's Mommy sent us these to share. This is my new friend Mason. We had a lot of fun playing together on Josh's new slide.
This was one of many cool presents Josh received. Of course, we had to test it out for him! It is very comfy indeed!
Thanks for letting us share this big day with you!
Happy 1st Birthday!!!

Stop!!! Don't Throw Those Away!

Missing Piece Game

I made a game using 10 Christmas cards with one missing piece. To play, lay out the cards, spread out all of the little square pieces and try to place them in the correct opening.

You can also make puzzles out of your old cards. These will be great for traveling!

With just a few snips here and there and you can transform your old Christmas cards into new Christmas tags for next year!

Sub-Below, What to Do?

OK, so we have been couped up in our home for the past few days due to the frigid air outside and we are in need of something to do...
So, why not dump out a bunch of puzzles!

Welcome to the Antarctic!

James' Penguin Party!

First, we started by learning a few fun facts about penguins and shared James new penguin book with our guests.

Amelia is sitting pretty in her black and white outfit. Everyone was such a good sport by wearing black and white to the party!

After, we finished discussing what we would be doing next, we headed downstairs to the chilly "Antarctic" where all the penguins live!

There were many things to down there! We practiced carrying penguin eggs (white balloons) between our legs, held baby penguins on our feet just like real Daddy penguins do, played in an igloo, jumped in an iceberg patch, painted penguins, sang and danced!

James was playing with a "penguin egg."

Painting Penguins with Potatoes!

Who's that in the igloo?
It's Joshua!!!

We challenged the older kids to hop from "iceberg" to "iceberg" with a penguin egg between their legs, and they did it with out stepping into the "icy waters!" Nice Job!!!

Addison's mommy was helping her walk with a egg.

Now who is peeking out of the igloo?

It is Addison and Ryan, that's who!!

Later on we sang and danced with our penguin eggs.

Then, it was time for cake (really this was for the evening party, we kiddos had yummy cupcakes!)

Thanks everyone for making James' 3rd birthday a day to remember!

We hope you had fun!!!

A Chilly Playdate

We had a blast playing in our igloo with Lauren and Ryan today!

We think Ryan had fun too!
Thanks for venturing out Artic weather to come place with us!

HAPPY 3rd BIRTHDAY JAMES!!!

Happy Birthday to you!

Happy Birthday to you!

Happy Dear James,

Happy Birthday to you!!!

Birthday party pictures will be posted soon, I just have to get them from Grandma Judy!

Muffin Tin Monday 1/12

OK, Mommy tried her best to make us some fruit showing the following emotions:

Apple- sad

Pear- happy

Kiwi- excited

Orange- surprised

Today, we read How Are You Peeling written by: Saxon Freymann and Joost Elffers for our Muffin Tin Monday lunch. This book uses such a fun way to show examples of feelings by using fruit. We practiced making our faces show different emotions, even Amelia was trying her best to make different faces. The food that was chosen for lunch were items that could be "peeled". We had apples, pears, kiwi, and carrots. Mommy couldn't come up with anything clever for protein so we had turkey slices and pretzels for a yummy treat. I also got to have one of my birthday cupcakes, too!

Another First!

Another Hamilton First!!!

This time it was James' "first" time ice skating!

Papa Bob was helping James get his skates on!

Look out! Here he comes!!!
A very proud Daddy!
Daddy and Papa Bob played many years of hockey, so they were very excited to get James out on the ice!

"Look at me go!"

Happy Birthday!

OK, Mommy finds it weird to blog about her own birthday, but she wanted to share a photo of her very special homemade cake! Daddy surprised Mommy by baking his very first birthday cake ever for her today. Amelia and I go to help decorate it. I picked out a train shape and Amelia picked a little person for Daddy to outline. Then, we got to pick out the sprinkles to fill in the shapes. Mommy loved it!

Hugs and Kisses to my sweet kiddos for making my Birthday so special and thank you Honey (Marcus) for making this birthday a day to remember!
Love you guys!
-Mommy
PS Thanks to everyone for all of the special birthday calls, and Facebook messages, I loved them all!
And just for the record, this was my first anniversary of my 30th birthday!!!

James' Playlist

This month's play list is dedicated to our birthday boy! This new list of songs are very familiar to James. All of the Kindermusik songs are songs that we learned and grew to love from his class. I was very excited to find a handful of them online. The others are from some of the TV shows that he is interested in right now, minus Thomas the Tank Engine theme song (I couldn't find it, bummer!) Also, Teletubbies are not viewed as much lately since we only have one show left of TiVo, but we still enjoy singing the theme song! We hope you enjoy the new play list. I can't wait to show James the updated blog, he will be so thrilled!!!

Muffin Tin Monday

Today, was our first attempt at having a Muffin Tin Monday lunch. Joshua gave us each a muffin tin and some neat books to get us started on having Monday lunches served in a muffin tin. Why a muffin tin you might ask? Well, it is just plain fun to eat out of small cups and having your lunch themed around a book.

For our very first lunch we read the book called "Lunch" written by Denise Fleming. The book is about a mouse that is hungry and eats all sorts of yummy food for lunch. So, Mommy tried to serve us the same kind of food that the mouse ate in the story making a few modifications here and there.
In our muffin tins were:
sliced red apples
green beans (instead of peas)
purple grapes
orange carrots
mini Saltine crackers (instead of watermelon, don't ask!)
macaroni and cheese (instead of corn, same color...kind of!)

We really enjoyed our first Muffin Tin Monday and we can't wait for next Monday's lunch!
Thanks Heather, Eric and Joshua!!!