Class Volunteer

Finally! I was able to help volunteer with Owen's class on a recent school outing. He was excited to have mommy finally join his class, as according to him "all of the other mommies can". Talk about making this  mommy feel bad! Last year, there was just no way I could help out and volunteer, Grayson just wouldn't take a bottle and being away from him for any length of time wasn't an option. 

His class trip was to a nearby bowling place and my duty was to help out my little group of five students. I'm not sure how the teachers manage every day, but man it was difficult. When I was first assigned my group we took off in search for shoes! I knew that with 100+ kindergarten kids and everyone wearing close to the same size, finding enough shoes to fit wouldn't be easy. I grabbed all the size 12's I could find and a pair of 11's for a smaller little girl and we were off! 

I had a great time watching my boy play with his friends and interact with his teachers and classmates. It was fun to see him with the people he spends all day with. Plus, it was nice to talk with his teachers and get to know them a bit better. Hopefully next year I'll be able to go on more class outings and volunteer in the class more. I may need to take a few more vacation days during the year, but I think it's important to have that time with my kids. 

Thanks Owen for letting Mommy spend the morning bowling with you and your friends!

4 Years Old!

Always the class clown! at 4 years old Noah thinks he's the funny guy :) He's still so quiet around people he doesn't know well, barely saying a word. I'll have to ask his preschool teacher if he talks to her, because from what I see he's very quiet around her. He certainly isn't quiet at home and has been talking and interacting with the daycare kids more. I see my little boy growing up so quickly! 

Since Christmas Noah has been sick often. At first I thought he was just unlucky, catching more than one stomache flu in a month. Then, he's been sick to his stomache once every week or two since. He just recently had his 4 year wellness check-up so I brought up the vomiting to the Doctor. Apparently, since his two year check-up he's been dropping from his growth curve on the growth chart. He used to be up around the 20th percentile and now he's closer to the 5th. Based on that, and the frequent vomiting, Noah was sent today for blood work. He did great and didn't flinch or cry! I'm so proud of my boy :) hopefully the results from the blood work are fine, I'll call in a few days to find out. The Doctor is suspecting that the vomiting is just a virus taking it's time to work out of his system, but they are just making sure.

We celebrated my boy's birthday this past weekend with family and his friend Hannah. Noah had requested a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Birthday awhile ago, but then the week before tried to change his mind and have a batman birthday party instead. Luckily, he was talked back into his original plan, and I was relieved because I'd already bought some crocheted ninja turtle stuffies :)

We planned on meeting family and friends at the movie theatre. Noah loves watching movies so we thought this would be a great way to spend his birthday :) the theatre has family movies at a discounted rate and that week 'Elmo in Grouchland' was playing. It was a fun morning and I think everyone enjoyed themselves. 

After the movie we went back to our place for pizza lunch, cake and presents.

Enjoying their pizza!

Present time! we played this awesome game a few times over family day weekend. Thanks for the present Hannah & Catherine :) funny enough, I'd bought the same gift for Hannah's upcoming birthday. 

Our gift for Noah- a new hockey net!

More gifts!

Noah sure enjoyed his new scooter from Grandma and Grandpa! 

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Cake! I had to put out a facebook message searching for these Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle toys from McDonalds and drive all over the city picking them up from people. They were perfect for his cake though, so I'm glad I did. Plus, it made for a super easy cake to make :)

Chocolate cake - Noah's favourite!

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle stuffies for the loot bag! made by Custom Beanies by Karly.

On Noah's actual birthday we took him out for dinner. Of course he chose his favourite restaurant - Boston Pizza! 

Happy 4th Birthday to my very sweet boy!

Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day! 

We had a great Valentine's Day! the boys woke up in the morning to find some treats awaiting them at the kitchen table. They loved their kinder eggs and valentine stuffed animal. I put together a quick valentine's lunch to send with Owen to school, see the photo below :) the daycare kids, Noah and Grayson had the same lunch, along with some fruit punch. 

Owen liked his surprise lunch but I think he liked his heart shaped mini chocolate the best :) I don't send treats to school often, only on special days.

On wednesday, Noah had preschool and they handed out valentines to their friends. I was impressed with how well he has been writing his name.

After seeing many cute valentine ideas on pinterest, I decided on these 'love bug' ones for Owen's classmates. He was excited to hand them out & a few of the moms asked me where the idea came from they liked them so much lol. Owen wore his "Hello My name is Heartbreaker" shirt to school in celebration of Valentine's day and apparently received many 'thumbs up' from the teachers, some even checked the label on his shirt to see where it was from. I do have to admit to thinking he is going to be a heartbreaker when he's older. 

I saw a recipe for 'cake mix' cookies on-line. The recipe called for strawberry cake mix, but we don't sell that in Canada, or at least I couldn't find it anywhere. I settled on Cherry Chip cake mix and other than that and adding 1 drop of food colouring, followed the recipe. They looked good - but tasted awful! even the kids only ate one each :)

Gavin and I ended the evening with a nice dinner after the kids went to bed. It was a nice 'date night' at home. So much love for my family! 

Happy Valentine's Day honey!

To:

the super mom to my children,

the heart of our family,

the listener of my rants,

the organizer of my time,

the keeper of our memories,

the beautiful girl in my life,

my best friend.

Happy Valentine's Day honey!

Lots of love, Gavin

Tet Party #2

We just can't get enough of the Lunar New year and celebrated with some fellow adoptive families in our area. This party is similar but very low key & we always order in from our favourite local asian food restaurant. Originally, the party was planned for a friday evening but a massive snow fall changed that plan quickly. Unfortunately, it meant that one of the families couldn't make the party on the Sunday evening, but we hope to meet up with them soon :) 

Lion parade! around and around and around. I think all of the kids had to have their turn at being the head of the lion and the tail :)

lion puppets! 

Even Grayson loved the parade. The lantern kept falling off the stick and he'd bring it over to be fixed "broke" he'd tell me and wait patiently until I put it back on :) He looks so much older in this photo!

Thanks Julia for organizing the snake crafts! 

Dragon game - It was similar to hungry hippos, only you had to flip the rings onto the dragons back.

Grayson preferred to paint his highchair

Our attempt at a group photo - not too bad I'd say

Yummy food!

Thanks for bringing the cake Liz! It was beautiful & delicious too!

Another cute group photo!

Happy Lunar New Year!

Tet Party #1

Happy Year of the Snake! Both Gavin & I were born in the year of the snake (1977) so we hope this means a very lucky year for us! However, Gavin told me that in order to bring good luck we were to have our house cleaned top to bottom before midnight of the holiday, so I guess we may not be so lucky this year after all :)

Before the party we tried to get a photo of the boys wearing their Ao Dai's. This was the best we could get! Owen kept looking at his brothers, Grayson kept crying & trying to get off of the couch & Noah always had a silly smile on his face. Oh well, they sure are cute! They didn't last long wearing these outfits, apparently they are quite hot.

Isn't this a cute photo of Gavin and Grayson :) I love it!

Someone made this awesome cake for the party! There were many kids born in the year of the snake that were celebrated. Turning 12 years old already! how does that happen? I remember when we started going to the TET party they all looked so young!

The group of adoptees is quite divided with age, the older kids are all tweens/teens and the younger group is up to age 6. The 'older adoptees' were so great to help out the younger kids this year & the divide wasn't so obvious. Here is E helping Noah with his craft :)It is so nice for our younger adoptees to have these mentors - we really are blessed. 

Finished product- a cute snake craft!

Owen wanted me to take a photo of this golden pig- Owen was born in the year of the pig, more specifically the year of the golden pig. 

Parade time! Now it's mostly the younger group in the parade. The sure do love this part of the party!

Even Grayson joine in :)

Thanks again for hosting such a fabulous party Mary!

Snow Day!

We were hit by a massive snow storm last thursday evening & all day friday. It's hard to believe by the photos, but we had NO snow before this, just some brown grass :) The street was impassable and wasn't plowed until just before noon on Saturday. We had a TET party planned with some friends but obviously had to post pone the party until people could drive & park on our street. I even had to carry one of the daycare kids down to the end of the street to meet her mom! I'm so thankful that Gavin decided to work from home on friday - there was just too much snow to keep up with. Because our driveway is right beside our neighbours driveway we have to pile the snow on one side only! makes for some crazy snow banks, but the kid loved it! 

This photo was friday evening - shoveling round # 4

Saturday -finally the plow came by! see the snow is actually up to the tree branches.

It was beautiful outside and Saturday was so sunny. It was so nice to see neighbours helping each other out too! While the snow was pretty, and the most snow we've seen in the past five years - I sure am looking forward to spring like weather!

18 Months Old

This top photo was actually taken about a week ago - I'm kind of missing his long hair :( it was getting unruly though & hat weather wasn't helping. His new shorter 'do sure makes things easier in the morning & he looks neat & tidy for most of the day. Notice the bump/bruise in the top photo & the cut mark in the bottom photo? yes- this boy is trouble! he's picking up speed and literally running now, meaning that bumps are happening more frequently.

I can't believe how quickly he ages with each passing month. I know that by 18 months it's typical to be speaking 20 words. I wasn't sure Grayson was & then I started thinking about all of the words he says regularly & WOW! my boy is a chatterbox! The words I can think of that he says are : mama, dada, baba, Noah, Hannah, Owen, baby, up, treat, drink, please, thank you, pop, snack, uh oh, ball, teeth, batman, moon, goodnight, bye, soosie, broke, gone, done, book, cat, dog, peek-a-boo, moo, car, truck,cracker, drop, cow, Santa, Grandma (pronounced Gramma) & he's even said crocodile lol. 

He now has a total of six teeth. Four Molars & two top front teeth. He's drooling (again/still) so I think his bottom front are starting to come. 

I LOVE how much he is learning & he's been sooo funny lately, always trying to be the funny guy. If he can get Noah or Owen laughing he will repeat whatever he's doing over & over. Last night we were reading one of Owen's 'read with me books' from school. It was about a bear sleeping and snoring. Grayson would pretend to sleep & start snoring trying to get the boys to laugh at him. It was so cute! He definitely is 'One of the boys' now - never wanting to be left out!

He's eating well & sleeping well (still co-sleeping) Gavin teases me about when we will finally try Grayson in his own room and thinks it will be when Grayson can actually ask to sleep in his own bed :) I will update this post with weight and height stats after Grayson's Dr's appointment next week.

updated with stats: weight- 22lbs (15th percentile), Height - 84 cm (75th percentile), Head Circumference  45.5 cm (10th percentile)

Love you Baby!