DPoD December 28th - Part II Goofing around in the Snowcovered Yard

So the indoors has become a little too cabin-like and thus we headed out into the yard. I had to some digging first to make a big path for the 'black train' to get around and to also free up the swings. Big C had a fabulous time in the swings - about half an hour's worth - and Monkey took to the little toboggan hill that I made. Both boys had a super time burning off a little of that energy they have and then we went inside for a little wind down and lunch. We're looking forward to grandma and grandpa W's arrival this afternoon to continue the outdoor fun!

DPoD December 28th - Part I Puzzles and the Sharing Brothers

Big C is having an adventurous day, as is his older brother mind you.

He went right at the puzzles of the vehicles today and went to putting them together. I was blown away by his ability to put all of the front halves of the vehicles with the matching rear halves. Monkey was more than willing to help out, however Big C held his own and made sure that he had a dozen matches. He was particularly adept with the police car, the ambulance and the fire truck - no surprise. Thanks Aunt H and Uncle Big Monkey!

Then we had a little snack before our morning activity. We had a fruit salad of melon, blueberries and blackberries. I was shocked by 2 events. First, Big C went for the melon before the berries. I've never seen that before but will now keep melon stocked in the house on a more regular basis. Second, Big C shared a lot of his blackberries with Monkey. He offered them up of his own free will and shared them with his big brother. He received lots of praise for being a 'good sharer' and a 'wonderful little brother'. Keeping his food issued in mind I was overjoyed when he then went on to finish his fruit and then a good deal of french toast.

What little angels!

DPoD December 27th - It took a few chomocolate chips but...

Big C got a haircut today. He was pretty compliant so long as the train of chomocolate (part of the 'mo' food group) kept flowing in. He certainly was intrigues by the humming noise that kept wrirring around his head. He even let me do a little trimming with the scissors at the end. All in all it was a good experience followed by a shower - where yes, he did try to hide under me the whole time - and a change of clothes for the day. We even made sure that the kair was kissable after the cut.

Grandma, we hope that you're feeling better soon. Get some rest today and relax. We hope that this flu passes quickly for you.

Twas the Night before Christmas (and morning of)

Who wants to make cookies for Santa???

We started to get the boys ready for bed by having them help to make the cookies for Santa. This is something that daddy has wanted to do for a long time and was very excited about. Aunt H and Mommy were in charge of making sure that the boys added the proper amounts of each ingredient. The whole family had a great time pitching in.

Monkey provides a little quality control

You have to try a couple just to make sure that you've followed the recipe correctly. I think that everyone helped out with quality control, even Big C. There was a whole round of handwashing and facewashing to make sure that the house didn't get coated in chocolate.

The final project is complete and left out for Santa

A small plate was assembled and left out for Jolly St. Nick. Monkey and Big C were both off to bed on time so that they could get some sleep for Christmas Day. Monkey was out within half an hour or so, eager to make sure that he followed the poem from school that outlined' Santa only comes when little boys and girls are sleeping'. Thanks JK teacher!

Monkey was absolutely overjoyed the next morning and came out of the kitchen screaming 'Santa was here. I know. He ate all the cookies and drank the milk!!'. That was really heartwarming.

Early Christmas morning, 7 am which isn't too early by our standards, Monkey was up alongside Big C checking out the really big garage and helping grandpa with items under the tree.
He was even in there distributing the gifts and helping people to unwrap them. Monkey was really into Christmas this year and had a very exciting day. We all know that he'll sleep very well tonight.

Big C's clean bill of health

Big C went to see his specialist for what was the last time yesterday. Mommy took him in since daddy was home with the flu and everything went swimmingly. His weight is in the 50th percentile and he's 75% for height. He ate very well for the specialist (blueberries and yogurt, great idea mommy) and was generally in good spirits. We hope that this now becomes a memory for him and for us. Mommy in particular has worked so hard to make sure that this has gone as smoothly as possible for him and we really pray that this is the end.

Here is a quick look back at where he was so many months ago

and where he is now.

DPoD December 19th - Firemonkey!

Monkey suddenly took to being an imaginative little firefighter today. Cousin K would be proud! He put on his fire fighter's hat from the dress-up bin and got into his red 'engine'. He then went around the basement going 'woo woo' doing laps around the climber. He stopped briefly to put a bucket on his head, though he couldn't explain how it would be helpful, then continued on making noises and putting out imaginary fires. It was quite the site to see. Bic C put on his 'cheese' face once he saw that the camera was out.

I'm soooo looking forward to having these 2 home all day come Saturday. They certainly are a barrel of fun right now!

Would someone please buy this kid a garage?

Today while I'm making my lunch Monkey asks me if I can help him with something in the other room. I head into the living room to find that Monkey's imagination has run wild. He's made a little garage out of the baby bumper pads that we had sitting on the back of one of the chairs. He says that he needs the string tied so that he can close the doors. I oblige and told him that this should go on the blog. He responds with 'please don't just put it on our computer, you should put it on everyone's computer'. God bless the internet.
...and by the way, mommy had already acquired the mother of all garages for the boys for Christmas. Good thinking mommy.

DPoD December 17th - Big C's Adventures in his room part II

Big C has been rather taken with his closet recently. Thus, the little lock on the door was installed to keep him out of 'trouble' - please see here .

Well, today I tried to change his pants, which is a journey in itself, and had to leave for a moment to flush his little 'gift' for me. When I return I notice that I had indeed left the closet door open. This is what I found:

To make the cute factor increase was the fact that he was singing 'row, row, row your boat' at the time.

What am I going to do with these kids?

DPoD December 16th - Oh the weather outside is frightful

Here's what our street looks like today at noon. Notice that the poeple in this picture are infact wearing skis to go down the sidewalks.

And yes, as a matter of fact I still did take the boys to church in the toboggan today. They had a great time.

DPoD December 15th - What Big C Does now instread of Nap

At first it looks innocent as he quietly plays with one of his Thomas toys along the top of the gate. Then with closer inspection you notice that he has gone into his closet and removed the shelves that contain his diapers and his clothes. Not only has he taken all of the stuff out, but he's conveniently 'reorganized' them on his bedroom floor.

After this game wore out (read daddy put a lock on his closet) and his electric guitar toy was taken away, the afternoon nap has returned with great success. Long live early sleeps as soon as we put him down at night.

DPoD December 12th - Winter Silliness

We had a great time this weekend and I must apologize for not getting things up on the blog sooner. Since Monkey has now recovered from his brief bout with the flu I now have the time to update the blog. Here are some of the shots from the sleigh rides around the neighbourhood. This is a shot of daddy pulling the boys in the toboggan (aka the black train to Big C) to get down to the event. The boys just LOVE travelling around in it and it certainly keeps daddy in excellent shape. I have learned however to avoid excessive running with it as I either dump Big C out of it, much to his chagrin, or overwork a few small muscles right near the hip.

We then went for a good sleigh ride with E-man and his mommy (E-man's daddy didn't make it into the sleigh as they were actually quite small). Here's a shot of the WB's

and a great one of E-man and is his mommy!

DPoD December 8th - Breakfast with Santa

This year marked our 4th outing to visit the local community centre to have a pancake breakfast and sit on Santa's lap. We bundled everyone up and linked up with the B family rather than the usual place for breakfast. The pancakes were a hit with Big C, seen here 'sharing' some of E-man's daddy's pancakes:

Monkey had more of a taking to the icing-covered mini-donuts as he blew kisses to the camera (either that or he's making a silly face)

After finishing off breakfast we went to sit on Santa's lap - which Monkey was all over, but Big C wanted absolutely no part of it. He got near the man in red's lap and started to cling to daddy for dear life. We were able to convince him that making a Christmas tree ornament was much more fun - so here he is very capably putting colour and glue onto the little wooden 'Merry Christmas' ornament which is sure to be hanging from our tree as soon as the glitter glue dries.

All in all it was a great morning, which concluded with E-man coming over to the playground that is our basement for a few hours of horsing around with the boys.

DPoD December 7th - How Big C spends his morning

Big C has woken himself up at about 6 am for the past long good while. He usuallly takes his time to make sure that he gets the most out of his morning. He has 'daddy beakfast' which now contains 1 or 2 little yogurts and then asks 'play..play...play basement'. These requests are always granted usually with daddy in tow to keep an eye out. This morning howeer Monkey was away for a sleepover and Big C was all ours. So immeidiately after getting out of bed and having our yogurts we headed for the basement. He was overjoyed since mommy had joined us and he went straight for the swing. Check him out in his new sleeper (I don't think he's had it off, not even ot wash it)-thank you grandma!

After his time in the swing he decided to help himself to mommy's breakfast by pulling his 'hungry sparrow' approach. It worked like a charm as I think he ate more of mommy's breakfast than mommy did.

DPoD December 5th - Mailbox!

Today we finally finished our letter to Santa and it was time to mail it. We've been working quite hard over the past week or so on the letters and words to put together. Monkey has done a great job of working really, really hard to get the letters put onto paper each day just before quiet time.

Once the letter was done we set off to put it into the mailbox. Here is our journey to the 'Supermailbox' nearby: (I apologize in advance for not getting any of his overjoyed face as he grinned from ear to ear)

Step 1: Here's the properly stamped and addressed letter (there was some family debate over whether or not a stamp is required, but since all the promotional stuff shows it clearly with a stamp we decided that this was the way to go)

Step 2: Showing it off at the front door (with some crazy looking pink snow outside)

Step 3: 'Hurry up daddy, hurry up'

Step 4: 'I can almost reach. I'm eating my nutrients.'

Step 5: And...we're in

DPoD December 3rd - The Snowday

For those of you not in Ontario right now, we're in the midst of a pretty heavy snowfall. Since most of it fell between last night at midnight and well, right now, we're all home with a snowday. Daddy doesn't put his car on the road anymore after we wrote off the Corolla in '02.
So what do we do on a day like today?

We play with the awesome new climber that mommy acquired, that's what.

The boys were all over it for the first 5 hours of the day. Quite literally from 7:30 until 12:30 they did not leave the basement except for diaper changes and a pee.

Here is Big C's first look at it:

Followed by his first run down the slide:
Monkey slept until 7:30, but he was quick to join in on the fun (note that they're literally so excited that they're running circles around it)

Then they both need some snack time (with it still in view of course).

Thanks mommy. You're wonderful!