Everyone thinks their kids are the cutest and we are no exception. With all the “Daily Style” Shan has been posting lately I decided it was time to start prepping Lexi for her first beauty pageant. Check out her candid interview and the debut of her latest song, “Gnarley”.

Boozle,

And it’s so true. 9 months of you in our lives; watching you grow instead of just feeling you grow, is a whole world of better!

I almost got around to doing an 8 and 1/4 post, or an 8 and 1/2 post, but for some reason February just flew by and here were are into warm, sunny March. Well, what haven’t you been up to the last few months?

8 months brought clapping, bum dancing (where you rock back and forth when music comes on or we start singing), and an obsession with the telephone. For a while there you would nearly launch yourself out of our arms and start grunting the minute we walked by the phone on the wall of if you spotted it from across the room. You had daily one-on-ones with the telephone throughout your entire 8th month where you would just pet it and coo at it like it was the best thing in your world!

You second most favourite thing in the world next to that is pulling hair. You get a seriously sinister thrill out of grabbing on with both hands and shaking and pulling as hard as you can. You squeal and laugh and drool over the poor individuals head as you implement your torture! (We love it!)

Your sense of humour and personality are really starting to show now. You have the most hilarious fake laugh that is low like a drum and totally put on. You love to play games and initiate peek a boo and high fives. You give wet kisses and love to pass a ball back and forth. You started waving and I think you have started to sign for milk. You mimic almost every sound we make and we play back and forth saying sounds to each other. New ones you are making now are “da da”, “ba ba”, “ga ga”, and “ehh”. You are well on your way to mastering the dictionary if you ask me! Those two top teeth finally popped through one right after the other and man, they are the BIGGEST teeth I have ever seen. You totally get them chicklets from your daddy!

As you approached 9 months we watched as you began to grab onto things and pull yourself up onto your knees. You were pivoting on your bum, pushing yourself around backwards and spinning around on your belly so that, although you weren’t crawling yet, you were seriously making tracks. Then, all of a sudden, as Lexi would say, you started crawling just this afternoon. Once you figured out that your hands and knees can in fact propel you forward, there was no looking back. Oh my, as Lexi would say, when am I going to sit down? As proud as I am that you are a “crawler”, I am already (after 4 hours) wondering why I made us all do that demonstration for you the other day? Oh well…

Speaking of Lexi, that girl can make you laugh! You obviously love her to pieces and she can pretty much do anything to you (squish your epic cheeks, throw a towel at your face, laugh at you, burry her head in your belly.) to make you laugh. You have started to chew on the ends of your lambchop just like Lexi chews on her wawa and you just light up when she enters the room. She wasn’t sure she wanted you to crawl because now she has to watch out for all her little toys, but then when she realized that you were that much closer to playing with her for real, she reconsidered. She loves you right back and misses you deeply when she is away from you. She runs into your room when you wake from your naps and is always in your face and snuggling you.

Finally, you visited Dr. Clark yesterday (your eye doctor). He was very encouraged by the progress you have made by wearing your patch and you are now using your left eye. You alternate using either the left of the right to see which is a step in the right direction. Your awesome little glasses are also doing their job and holding your eyes more centered. Dr. Clark thinks it is time to schedule surgery to correct your eyes so that you can use them both at the same time and see the same image from both. Daddy and I agree because we want you to have a chance to develop good eyesight from the beginning instead of trying to train your brain to use them together later on. It is hard as a parent to think about your child having to have surgery (ever) this early on, but we know it is what is best and you will be in and out and back in our arms before you know it!

Spring is just around the corner and it is hard not to think about what the summer is going to bring. It makes me so excited to think about you sitting in the sand at the lake (eating it because you put everything in your mouth) with your rolls hanging out of your bathing suit and your chubby little legs kicking in the water.

BUT, I don’t want to rush anything. This time with you at home is so precious and new, unprecedented time for me. Arriving in June, you gave me the gift of being able to not only take extra time off work so that I don’t go back until you are 15 months, but it also gave me bonus time with Lexi. Having returned to work when Lexi was 8.5 months, I didn’t get the day to day that I have now with the two of you. F-U-N is what we are having and I wouldn’t trade it for anything!

Lovey, love, love you Boozle,

Mommy xo

Our little fashionista strikes again. Today we played swimming pool, hence the bathing suit (I am just happy she is wearing that – she’s liking being nudies lately!). I was the lifeguard to the ever chatty “Vega”. As I was cleaning up the front hall closet, she added this stripy hat to her ensemble and VOILA!

Sometimes I feel like we are really hard on Lexi when it comes to being quiet so that Ashlyn can sleep. We are constantly reminding her about using her inside voice and shhhhhhhhh-ing her constantly. That is why this video is so funny. Payback is a B**** and sometimes your sister is going to be too!

Obviously she didn’t get the memo that stripes and dots were SO last season!

Lexi has been disappearing into her room and getting dressed on her own lately. The rule is; when someone does something that makes your life easier, you don’t complain! Some of her outfits are downright hilarious! Thought I would start to share a part of my day that truly makes me smile.

We’ll call this one “jungle stripes”:

This was a favourite this week! The thing is, the girl is really working on matching her outfits! Especially love the high heel shoes! Let’s call this one “don’t ruffle my feathers”:

Dear Lexi,

Last week you turned three. I am finally able to say that you are three and believe it! I was stubbornly holding onto the “two” during the weeks leading up to this event and people were starting to look at me funny!
You have had an amazingly, brilliant year full of laughter and learning.

Your “two” year began with a bad case of the flu. It is really a bummer to puke on your birthday and hopefully, it if ever happens again, it will be because you indulged in too much cake!  Your three year involved an early birthday “party” for you and your buddy Thomas. Daddy and I took you to lunch at Subway, to Build A Bear Workshop, and then to a movie. You and Thomas had so much fun picking out your bears and held hands in the car all the way to the movies! We hosted a cake party for our family later that night and served up chocolate cake (your pick) and cake pops (your pick). Your actual birthday involved a trip to the balloon lady. When we lived in Lorette, daddy started this tradition with you to take you to get a helium balloon whenever you went to the pharmacy. You became good friends with Lianna (the owner) who loved that you always picked out green balloons with green strings. Mommy took you there for a special birthday treat and Lianna gave you a flower with sparkles on it too! For your birthday supper you chose “girl” cheese and mushroom soup.

Girl cheese sandwiches and mushroom soup are two of your favourite things; right up there with perogies, ptoes (potatoes), noodles, popcorn, and cheese slices. You will notice that all of these items are either white or orange. You do eat other foods, but you are a carbohydrate junkie at heart!

I can’t even begin to tally the amount of times we have laughed out loud and shook our head at your antics. I always want to remember the traditions and routines that we have created together and grown to love. From needing to stand up and clap when you finish your whole dinner to the Sunday morning panckaes that we often make (and which you rarely eat). There are the times that you tease Vegas with a bone by making daddy run you around the house with it in your hand and the way you say “alllright” when we are finally done negotiating.  I only wish we had half of the funny things you say written down somewhere!

You are masterful at procrastinating and problem solving. You stood in the bathroom door after you had already been put to bed twice and this is how the conversation went: ‘Mommy, “yes?”  “What is a snoker?” “A snoker” “Yeah” “Um, I don’t know” “Tell me” “Is it a zebra” “Yeah it is a zebra” “Ok, Lexi off to bed now” ”Mommy, what does a pig eat?”…  The problem solving that you naturally do is astounding and something we are rather proud of! However, we really need to check ourselves before we say no to something because if we give you a lame excuse you will ALWAYS solve your way out of it with a more than logical and undeniably workable solution beginning with “but we could [fill in solution here]”

Your sense of humour is as built in as your sense of style. You have developed a love of princesses this year and you love, love, love dressing up. You rarely wear your “regular” clothes and most of the time I have given up on getting you dressed unless we are going out. It makes for much less laundry to let you be Snow White, Astrid, Rapunzel, or Jasmine or all three on any given day. You make sure to correct us if we call you by the wrong name and you also let us know when you have become Lexi again! Your imagination is incredibly creative and always on the go and you assign us a character to play opposite whoever you are at the time. Your imaginary play is largely guided by the movies that you watch (you are a movie buff – just like daddy) and you need only to see a show once to get the jist of it and begin to play that character. I think you love certain movies for the music and songs. You easily learn the songs and sing them yourself and lately you have been making up your own too, just like me!

You also have continued to love to craft. This includes colouring, painting and more recently, cutting and gluing. You sat for most of November and December cutting up paper into strips until you had mastered those scissors and then you fell in love with squeezing white glue out and pasting those strips back onto another piece!

You are S M A R T! You pick up everything and I am constantly hearing things I say to you repeated back to me, your dolls (when you are pretending) and Ashlyn when she is fussing! Lately, when daddy is reading you books before bed he will try to catch you by saying a different word than is in the book. Even if it seems like you are not listening, you stop whatever you are doing and tell him that he read it wrong. You are also asking interesting questions like what “menacing” or “drool” means.

Although you haven’t physically grown much this year (you are still sitting at 24 pounds and about 34 inches and wearing all the same clothes you wore last year) you have changed so much. You can get yourself dressed, use the potty, clear your dishes from the table, pump your legs on the swing, climb ladders at the park, and feed your dog. You can decide on what books you want and what snacks you prefer! This year you learned to ride a tricycle and became a big sister all in one summer!

Since Ashlyn was born it has been harder to spend as much time with you as we want, but in turn, you are learning patience and how to entertain yourself. You are the most amazing big sister and still love to tell people who she is and what she likes. You are her biggest advocate and her best giggle getter. She just LOVES to be smacked in the face by your facecloths and she copies you whenever you laugh.

I know I am forgetting so many wonderful moments that we had in your “two” year and it hurts my heart that I didn’t document every single one of them. I hope that if anyone reads this that they will share a special memory or story of their own!

The most important thing is Lexi, that we love you THIIIIIISSSSSSSS much and that my arms will always be spread as far as they can go to show you how much I love you. You make my heart smile everyday and I can’t tell you enough how special you are.

Happy 3rd birthday Goose,

Lovey, love, love,

Mommy xo

Ashlyn,

As you sneak into your seventh month you are doing all kinds of new and incredible things. You are sitting up on your own and love to play out of a bucket of toys that we put in front of you. You continue to love your food and have tried most of the fruits and vegetables. You have started to make the sign for “more” while we are feeding you by holding your two hands together in front of you! You like to drool… a lot and are chewing on everything you can get your hands on to make your two bottom teeth feel better and the ones that are about to pop through on the top! You are making all kinds of new noises including a musical “mum, mum, mum” when you are tired and hungry. Finally, the cutest new thing you are doing is singing youself to sleep. I always hum you our lullabye and now you are joining in as you drift off to slumberland!

We love watching as you grow chubbier and chubbier each month!

Kisses and squeezes to all of your rolly, polly bits!

Lovey, love, love,

Mommy

At the beginning of our Christmas Holidays we went to the Aquatic Centre in Steinbach. Before entering the pool I explained to Lexi that we had to rinse off in the shower before entering the pool. Afterward she informed me that she wanted to have a shower and not a bath before bedtime.

At first I thought she was all talk because this a kid that doesn’t like water on her face. When we go to the splash park she doesn’t take too kindly to being splashed. In the tub when I wash her hair if a drop of water runs down her forehead into, or close to, her eyes she scrambles to sit up like a drowning person.

Regardless we tried the shower that night and much to my surprise she really enjoyed it. One of the great things about our new house is the “boys” bathroom in the basement. It has a great stand up shower with lots of room so Lexi could avoid the full force of the shower and spend some time getting used to the whole idea while drawing pictures in the steam around the glass surround. Eventually she put her hand in and didn’t like the way the water deflected into her eyes. I explained to her that she could put her hand in the water lower down so that it doesn’t splash her and she worked on that technique for a bit. Soon after she backed into it like a slow moving vehicle and even wet the back of her hair.

“See Daddy, I can have a shower.”

This is bad for our water bill but great news for my knees and back. The next couple of nights she couldn’t wait to get in the shower and once we were in there in was a battle for position. We both wanted to be in the water now and because she is weiner height proximity was becoming an issue. If my back was to the water my front was toward her and that wasn’t nice for anyone. The water would run off me, onto her and she would just stand there staring at it and processing. She pointed out that it was happening and I had to assure her it was just water! Then she started this thing where she would make an effort to stay behind me. Like if I turned around she would scrabble to get behind me. She made it a game, “avoid the front bum” as to not hurting my feelings. It’s nothing she has never seen before. I mean, I haven’t been to the bathroom by myself in almost 3 years, but as a father I wondered when that cut-off point would be? It was that moment.

If anyone ever asks you “at what age should a father stop showering with his daughter?” – you can tell them it’s about 12 days before their 3rd birthday at about 6:15pm in the evening. Can that be any more specific? In fact it was Lexi who suggested at the end of that last shower together that I could get out and she could stay in “all by herself”. So that’s what we did. Since then it’s been all her. Each night she hops in the shower and I sit poolside shouting out the occassional instruction. Never thought I would be so proud of her for showering on her own! Next thing you know she will be writing her own name!

We don’t have showers anymore but if there is one thing I hope she never outgrows its that “avoid the front bum game”. Fingers crossed.

Christmas was so special this year with our two little girlies.

We had our tree up early this year and Lexi helped to decorate it by moving all the ornaments around on a daily basis. We have one of those mismash trees with many random ornaments, but some very special ones too. It was fun pulling out the ornaments we bought for Lexi the last couple of years and showing her. One of my favourite parts was to look up and see some of the ornaments hanging there that she painted herself! I look forward to having one of those trees that is adorned with home and school made Christmas decorations like pinecone reindeer, film canister bells, and glittery stars!

Next we tackled the baking. I don’t often bake anything but cookies and muffins, but Christmas is the time when I pull out the old faithful recipes and really stock up! Lexi helped with it this year as we made and decorated a large batch of sugar cookies. She loved to eat them mostly and used her little knife to spread some of the icing on the mini ones. The final touches of sprinkles gave us a good idea for some art and we had some fun crafting with them after the cookies were all finished.

We got invited to a pancake breakfast with Santa by our good friends the Bosaks and it was Ashlyn’s first encounter with the Big White Beard! The little peanut was in AWE of the man and you could tell that she was disappointed when I gathered her up off of his lap so the next children could have a turn. We were a little surprised that she took to him so well! He had a repeat performance a couple of weeks later and it was the same thing with her. We weren’t able to get a picture of her looking at the camera because she was so busy looking up at him or around at all the decorations, but never played shy once.

What is Christmas without a little bit of shopping? I made sure that Lexi was with me for one of the runs to Superstore and had her pick out a few very little gifts for her daddy, Vegas, and Holli Cat. Once we were home she helped me wrap them and put bows that she picked out onto the gifts. She carried them up the stairs and placed them under the tree. Now we just have to work on keeping what is inside the wrapping a secret! She told Tom what she got him as soon as he got home that night! I really thought it was cool that she was able to pick out somethings for others and felt that it was important to begin instilling in her the part of Christmas that is about giving.

Finally Christmas Eve rolled around and we took the girls to Windsor Park Community Club so that Lexi could try out her skating legs. No problems standing on the skates at all and she looked like a natural in her hockey hat with all those golden locks tumbling out the back! She made friends with the ice as we played, slid, and pulled her around.  

The fun really began that evening and it took Tom and I a long time to figure out that Lexi wasn’t doing laps because she was overtired, but because she was beyond excited! We pulled it together to be able to put out cookies and Egg Nok for Santa (that is not a misprint, but how she pronounces it!) and she wanted to hide the treats under the tree! As crazy as she was getting about Christmas, it was incredible to be able to feel the energy of her excitement and more than a little of it rubbed off. Once both the girls were tucked in their beds, Tom and I met downstairs and put together the final touches on their gifts and stockings. I could hardly contain my own excitement at the idea of them waking up in the morning to Santa’s gifts in front of the tree!

We thought Lexi would come to our room first as she does every morning to wake us up, but she tiptoed out to the living room first. It was already 8 o’clock and we were up just waiting for her to wake! Finally we heard her and then came this loud whisper, “Mommy, come look! There’s two toys!”. The excitement in her voice was sweet and truly a new experience for us. Santa brought her a new keyboard with a working microphone that she could sing into and he brought Ashlyn a plush rocking horse. Lexi was beside herself. She kept going back and forth from each new toy trying them out. I swallowed back the lump in my throat and the tears threatening to fall down my cheeks with a smile as big as those little girls. It was like the magic and excitement of Santa Claus was once again mine as it had been when I was small enough to believe. Only this time, the magical part was being surrounded by my very own family.

As the morning carried on, Lexi became our little Elf, handing out a few gifts for all of us. We were all very spoiled and I was incredibly proud to watch as Lexi truly was appreciative of all of the very lovely things that she received. Ashlyn sat by me on the couch and grabbed at the boxes and paper. She expecially loved chewing on the paper and was too young to mind the bows we piled on her head!

Now that the decorations are packed away again and the baking is (almost) all gone (ARGH!) we have settled into a quieter routine again.I sit back and remember the details of how the cluster of ornaments on the bottom of the tree was a true sign that Lexi had been there, or how Ashlyn arched her back to get a better look at Santa, and how weeks later, Lexi found a candy cane she hid in the cupboard for Santa  to find (but Santa was too full from the cookies to eat that too . And although I am still full from the two turkeys, stuffing, and potatoes and all that baking and that sliver of Toll House pie… I am also so full up of love for my two sweet little girls and my loving husband who have given me the best Chrismtas EVER by sharing with me their presence, their snuggles, their belief in magic, their cuteness in new Christmas pajamas, their love of “A Chrismtas Story” and Ralphie and the way they dip their fingers in the icing, “just one more time”! The traditions and memories that we made this year in our new home will last me the whole year through!