Oh boy

I'd better keep this short if I have any hope of getting to bed early enough to get up at the crack of middle-of-the-night to watch the Royal Wedding!

Well Hunter's party was a splashing success! I am wiped - something about a near-3yo and water does that to you! I was so busy keeping AK from drowning that I didn't take one.single.picture. Bummer.

AK and Hunter both refused to go down the waterslide. AK thought it was fun to watch everyone else go down though. I wonder where she gets this scaredy-cat-ness from - oh yeah, probably me. Anyway... we played in the pool, sat in the hot (more like lukewarm) tub, had some food and cake, and played on the seats at the swim-up bar. AK was trying very hard to do everything on her own, but kept slipping and wouldn't wear her water wings so she kept going under the water... over and over and over again.

I'm trying to figure out my strategy for the wedding tonight... coverage starts on BBC at 230am. The couch is pretty comfy, especially with the legs reclined out (the ends of my couches are like La-Z-Boys) so I could get pretty comfortable and doze off on the couch if I wished during the coverage. Might get the kettle ready in case I want a spot of tea... forgot to stop by the store for scones and crumpets though! I forgot to tell AK that a Prince and Princess are getting married soon... wonder what she'll think of that?

TGIF (Thursday is pretending to be Friday)

I know I've mentioned the neighbors upstairs before, but I really do love having them up there. I put my trash outside my door yesterday morning, intending to take it to the garbage cans when we left the apartment. By the time I left, the guy upstairs had taken the trash out for me, and had rinsed the dirt off of Christie and Chris' car. Bonus for them getting such a clean car back!

AK farted in the tub the other night and giggled. That's my girl!

She threw a fit yesterday morning because she wanted to wipe herself after going pee. Even though I phrased it as "getting what she missed", she absolutely didn't want my help. A nice big meltdown followed. Nothing like a tantrum to wake you up fully - coffee's got nothing on a screaming toddler!

I babysat last night. AK and Hunter sat at the coffee table, eating their ham, cheese, crackers and carrots, and are completely mesmerized by Dora. Well, AK ate, Hunter not so much. I don't think he likes my food very much!

We also spent some time outside playing with chalk and had a bath! There were some silly moments in the tub...



Hunter didn't want to put his pyjamas on after his bath so he ran around with just a pullup on. I guess he wanted his Thomas pyjamas but unfortunately for him, his mom had packed his Cars pyjamas. I dunno... I think Cars is WAY cooler than Thomas but how do you explain that to a 3yo?

AK is loving princesses right now, and has a new favorite every few days. Right now it's Princess Jasmine from Aladdin. Every morning, she asks to wear Princess X panties... she is usually disappointed when I don't have said panties as she already wore all pairs of them and they are now dirty...

Today at work will go by quickly at work, I think, then we are off to Hunter's birthday party after work today. We are going to Margaritaville to play on the waterslide there. We can stay out late and party all night as tomorrow is a public holiday again - in honor of the Royal Wedding! How lucky are we? xo

Your royal name

Go to this website and you can generate your royal name. http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/royals/index.html

Mine is Marchioness Paula Prudence Zaplitnyberton of Georgetownbury and AK's is Dame Annabelley Kay Duckworth Zaplitny-Olynikberton of Georgetownshire.

Ha! It's good for a giggle!!!

Easter Monday

How awesome to have another public holiday today. The weekend has been so fun but so busy... I think both AK and I were a bit tired today.

This morning was really chilled out. AK did some yoga and ate some candy. Seems kind of wrong, no? I laid down with AK for the resting pose at the end. AK wriggled her way out from underneath my head (my head was resting on her stomach) and leaned over and kissed my forehead and said "love you, mommy". Way to melt my heart :) We read a bunch of books, had some breakfast, played for a bit, changed the batteries in some toys. We then headed outside and walked down to the pool. What a surprise to see two ducks sunning themselves at the side of the pool! They kept taking drinks out of the water and moving around a little bit but they weren't bothered by us at all. I looked up at the building next to the pool and realized that there was also a duck up on the roof too! How cool that was to see.

It was pretty hot out so we came back in to get our swimsuits on and then spent some time in the pool. The whole time we were in there, the ducks did not move from their spots. They kept an eye on us, and we on them, but it was pretty cool to have them hanging out with us.

After lunch, we headed to the movie theater to see a movie with Molly and Cindy!!! AK was VERY excited for her first movie in a theater! I was not so excited about the prices!!! It was $22.50 alone for AK and I to attend the movie, then another $2 for us to buy the 3D glasses. The wrapper said to recycle them, but I'll keep them for the next movie, thank you very much!

I didn't think AK would put the glasses on but she wanted them on right away!

Pretty fashionable, no?

Getting right into it!

Both girls did so well - AK got antsy about halfway through and moved around for a bit but she wasn't too disruptive to the other patrons. Molly ended up crawling into Cindy's lap and fell asleep! Both girls loved the popcorn and seemed to enjoy the movie as well. AK told her daddy later that she "watched TV with Molly" and that "she saw birds!". Ha. She also told him that the Easter Bunny didn't bring her any chocolate at my house, just poop. What a goof.

Anyway... I discovered some games on the Nickelodeon website tonight for AK to play so I think we'll start looking at those once in a while for something to do together. It is really nice to snuggle up on the couch and read books and look at pictures together. These games will be just another thing we can do. xo

Easter Brunch

AK and I headed off to a decadent brunch at the Westin with some very good friends - part of our "Cayman family"!

AK was all over the Froot Loops. With all those choices, all she wanted was Froot Loops. Sigh. And she LOVED it when Karen put them on chopsticks for her! All Matthew wanted was Cheerios. He got the totally-covered-in-sugar ones (honey nut!). Good thing children under 12 are free.. they certainly wouldn't have eaten their money's worth otherwise!

Check out AK's rock star ponytail, courtesy of the lovely Karen!

Could anything be prettier than Jenni and Baby Grace?

Mommy and AK... stuffed to the gills at this point!

Brunch was quite the affair - we didn't leave until over 2.5 hours after we arrived! AK was a real trooper - she was up far past her usual naptime and didn't start to get grumpy until near the end. She and Matthew did go play in the sand with Matthew's Aunty Melissa, which was a welcome break from sitting at the table. She was sound asleep in the car within minutes and I had to wake her up over 3 hours later to make sure she didn't sleep until the next morning!!!

We headed off to the beach for a wee bit - literally half an hour - we got there just in time to see the sun set. AK and Hunter had a blast playing the water, AK was not so happy about being splashed but she got over it. It was really neat to see a lot of fish jumping out of the water, or swimming just skimming the surface of the water. It almost looked magical combined with the setting sun.

We headed over to the Babbs for a spot of supper - leftovers of a few different things - AK and Hunter sat down to watch some of Hunter's new Thomas videos. We were home late once again but AK went right to bed.


(I'm pretty sure this will be the last of the Easter posts!)

Hoppity hop hop, hoppity hop hop, here comes the Easter Bunny!

So... AK was up before 6am. Anything with a 5 at the beginning of it is WAY TOO EARLY in my books. But the Easter Bunny had come, so how could I say no?

I had scattered some "rabbit poop" to prove that the Easter Bunny had been here (don't you know that the Easter Bunny poops raisins?) and you know what AK said when she saw it and I told her what it was? "Mommy, clean up that mess!". Ha. So here we are cleaning up the rabbit poop before moving on to the good stuff.

Easter basket... chocolate for breakfast!

A new princess book for the little princess

The bucket to put the eggs in during the hunt (I should have hidden the eggs better - the whole hunt took all of 5 mins!)

All dressed up in her Easter dress, with her new Beanie Bandz on her wrist

I think AK's favorite part of the morning was eating candy for breakfast. She did do the yoga video twice before 930am, perhaps to burn off the calories? She is absolutely nuts for that video right now.

Easter dinner

Jenni and Kevin kindly hosted Easter dinner on Saturday night. They cooked the ham and everyone else chipped in to come up with a really wonderful dinner. We also had appetizers, salad, scalloped potatos and a broccoli casserole. Oh, and how could I forget the brownies for dessert?

The kids did their usual running-around-making-a-lot-of-noise thing. Poor Jake kept getting bumped and bruised. Thankfully he's pretty tough and just kept on going!

I think the highlight for most of the kids was the Easter cookies... AK licked the sugar off the top of hers before biting into it.

Baby Gracelyn - 6 months old already!

Big brother Matthew

Story-time! Too bad Hunter is in a compromising position!

Even story time can be a bit chaotic...

I had hoped to put AK down to sleep at the Huys so that I could hang out for a bit longer but AK wasn't interested in that - she very adamantly said "Go home mommy!" so off we went. She crawled right into bed as soon as we walked in the door so she was quite obviously tired from her day! Good thing we were home early... as the next morning started pretty early! xo

Ha!

Guess who is "making yoga" and eating candy at the same time at the tender hour of 8am?

(no, candy is not normally on the menu for breakfast but I neglected to hide it all last night so AK found it and was into it before I could say no).

Easter updates coming later today! xo

Easter Egg Hunt!

Camana Bay held an Easter Egg Hunt today. Should have called it Easter Gong Show!!!

AK and I showed up to cloudy skies which was actually kind of nice as it would have been pretty hot had it been sunny. It sprinkled on and off for the first little while but we didn't get too wet. We had to stand in line to register for the egg hunt... we were pretty close to the front when AK quite urgently let me know that she had to go pee. Sigh... so we relinquished our spots in line and found a washroom. As I didn't know anybody who had been standing in line with us, I was hesitant to ask anyone to hold our spots, and so we ended up back at the end of the line again. Luckily we had some company during the second round - Tricia who is one of the owners of the yoga studio I practice at. She also had an umbrella which came in handy when it began to rain harder :) The Babbs showed up just as I got up to the registration table, which I was grateful for as I don't think Hunter would have been as patient at waiting as AK was.

So then we decided to check out the face painting / tattoo table. We had to... wait for it... wait in line! Ah well. It was a much shorter line and we got a really cool glitter Easter Egg tattoo out of the deal. Let me tell you, I was pretty happy that it didn't wash off in the bath tonight and that we can enjoy it for a few more days!


We walked around for a while, checking things out. There was a line-up to have pictures taken with the Easter Bunny. Thankfully AK didn't really like the looks of him so we were able to avoid that line! Ha! We picked up a strawberry lemon smoothie instead and made our way over to the Crescent. One of the pet stores had a game where you could win a free goldfish (I think the game was rigged so every kid won the fish). We got a coupon to redeem for the fish and a 10% off coupon so I am set to pick up that fish I've been wanting to get for AK for quite some time! The pet store also had baby rabbits for us to cuddle with :) AK loved it and was so gentle with the bunny. I was sad to have to give the bunny back. And yep, I'm still allergic to rabbit fur.


We had to stand in line yet another time for the egg hunt (sense a theme here? This is about the time when I started to wonder why I thought it was such a great idea to come out to Camana Bay today!). I'm glad they had the kids split up by age group as that made it more equal in terms of the abilities of the kids fighting for the eggs. The best strategy was to follow on the heels of the lady who was scattering the eggs and grab them before they hit the ground. AK scored two eggs, mostly because I helped her. Oh well. It was fun.

I wish I could take AK from this picture...

And put her with Molly from this picture.

It was a relief to go home after all that standing in line! It was good fun and AK really enjoyed it.

Sweet moment

Jess spent the night last night with her friend who arrived yesterday (Ben's parents were still here til this morning so their apartment was pretty full!). Hunter and Ben came after dropping the grandparents at the airport for breakfast, and AK and Jess had a sweet moment while preparing for the day...

AK woke me up quite urgently this morning, wanting her yoga mat and video. She was halfway through the alphabet when Jess and her friend woke up. As soon as we got back from the Easter Egg Hunt (next post), AK wanted me to play it again. She loves it and is getting really good to doing it! xo

Happy Birthday Hunter!

The Babbs can throw a great birthday bash! We had a great pasta dinner, watched Hunter tear into his gifts, and wrapped up with a delicious Thomas the Train cake. AK and I didn't get home until almost 9pm!!! It is really neat to think back to the just-over-a-year that we've known Hunter and how much he's grown and learned in that time. We definitely look forward to the next year!

The birthday boy, excited to get into his presents!!!

Deep concentration!

AK trying out the skateboard... yikes!

Blowing out the birthday candle - check out the cake that Grandma Carol made.

Good Friday so far!

Today has been full of love and happiness so far!

I slept in (does 712am count?), had a nice cup of coffee and a fruit smoothie, then headed off to the yoga studio. On the way home, I picked up AK and we did her alphabet yoga CD together. She really enjoyed it and didn't lose interest throughout the whole alphabet! Once she had some lunch (perogies and some salmon salad from the deli for me - yummy!), we watched a bit of a Tinkerbell video and off to nap she went. I could have done without the 20 mins of crying for her sucky... sigh... oh well, it's now 2.5 hours later and she's still sleeping so I guess she recovered fine!

Look at this little braided cutie with her Easter flowers!

Mommy, I'm "playing yoga!"

Doing the choo choo train

Namaste!

I'm not sure which Easter flowers are prettier!

I will wake AK up soon... we are off to a small "family" birthday supper for Hunter. AK will be on Cloud Nine as I believe there will be Thomas the Train cookies and CAKE! I understand Hunter is very excited about his "party cake". Can't wait to celebrate with him!!! xo

Picking up the pieces!

One more story I forgot from last night:

AK helped me make her a snack of cheese and crackers when we got home. She pulled her stepstool right up to the counter so she could get in on the action. Her stool blocked the drawer that all her dishes are in, so I grabbed a regular plate out of the cupboard. AK asked me if it was a "big girl plate" as all her dishes are plastic (therefore non-breakable!) and this one was breakable. AK very carefully carried the plate to the table herself. The crackers were the broken bits from the bottom of the box so when she lifted the plate to put it on the table, she tilted it a little bit and some of the pieces fell on the floor. AK very determinedly set the plate on the table and then picked up every single piece of cracker and ate it :)

Easter weekend is starting to fill out nicely... birthday supper Friday, Easter dinner Saturday (am googling Lent rules to see if I can eat the ham!), church and brunch on Sunday. Monday should be a nice relaxing day off too.

Mid-week visit

I managed to arrange for a second visit on the weeks that I don't have AK so hopefully I will have fresh stories to report every second Monday and Wednesday on the "quiet" weeks!!!

AK is constantly narrating her life. "Mommy, I'm walking! I'm running! I'm jumping! I wanna wash my hands! I want bubbles on my hands! I want to wash the bubbles off of my hands! I'm up high! I'm down low! What's this? What's that?" over and over and over!!!

She said "I have princess panties on" and when I asked "which princess?", she said "I don't know" and showed me. I didn't recognize her either, so we just left it at "princess panties". Later on, we were looking through her princess encyclopedia when, to my surprise, she pointed at one of the princesses and said "Mommy, that's the princess on my panties!". What do you know - she was right! (It was Aurora in case you were wondering) She figured that out all by herself, what a SMART girl!

I had leftover quinoa and chili for supper. AK would not eat it at all. She used her "tweezers" (aka chopsticks) to pick out the chunks of cheese I added and ate only those. I couldn't even get her interested in the kidney beans, even told her they were "jumping beans" in an effort to get her to eat them. I know she'd love them if she'd just TRY THEM!

We played outside with the chalk for a while. AK likes to draw circles with the chalk, and enjoys all the pictures I draw. She likes to tell me what color to use and what to draw. One of the new things we're doing is tracing our hands and feet.

I believe AK has a pyjama party at school tomorrow. I hope we get some photos from the school afterwards. They shared a couple of photos from the water play day last week but AK wasn't in either one of them. Too bad... it looked like a fun time!

One more day of work before my long long weekend... can't wait. I think I may do two yoga classes tomorrow night, sleep in Friday morning and then wait for the madness to start when AK arrives around 5pm :)

Easter Eggs!

Karen was oh-so-kind as to organize an Easter Egg decorating party tonight! It is a special family tradition for her and she was excited to share that tradition with all the kids here.

I think AK was trying to check out what Hunter was doing rather than smile at the camera...

An orange egg!

I am holding my hands back as AK so badly wanted to do it herself and I had a hard time not jumping and taking over.

She did it!

A rainbow of eggs!

Karen also had pita pizzas for supper. Unfortunately we didn't have a chance to stay long enough to eat our pizzas but we were able to get them to go! Karen spoils us all.

I've got my day planned out tomorrow - work, yoga and movie. xo

Weekend upate

It was a great full fun weekend. I think I managed to find the perfect balance of time out and time at home.

Friday night was a girls' night out for supper and to the bar to dance. It was great fun with great girls. There was lots of news to celebrate that night (my key employee and a friend's newly announced pregnancy).

Saturday was a very full day - massage, chiropractor, yoga, errands, visits with friends, cuddles with babies. I took all of my canvases from Cuba to the photography store to get a quote on stretching them. I had promised myself that I would get them all framed if I got key employee and had time to have them on the walls here. It will take about two weeks for me to get them back.

Yesterday was a much more relaxing day... yoga in the morning... time at home in the afternoon... dinner and a church concert at night. The choir concert was so beautiful. First Baptist is blessed with a wonderful choir. I feel like I'm in the spirit of Easter now.

The more I practice yoga, the more my heart opens... I had a wonderful practice yesterday morning and I think the concert in the evening just complemented and completed the experience so well.

Tonight... Easter Egg coloring!!! xo

This one's for you, Grandma!

Happy Birday for you!

(click the sentence above to be redirected to the video)

Blissful start to the weekend!

I didn't wake up until 7am and AK didn't wake up until nearly 8am! I had time to have a cup of coffee and shower before she got up. I should search the blog to figure out when this last happened!

AK is still a bit under the weather but she's in fine spirits otherwise. I think her classroom was going to be tasting grape jelly and crackers today. They do some tasting activities every so often.

My weekend ahead will be full of relaxation and friends. Can't wait for 5pm to arrive! xo

Round three - ding ding ding!

Success!

AK went off to bed tonight without a fuss at all!!! I was worried that she might give me a bit of a hard time as she's got a runny nose and a bit of a cough but I worried for nothing! No need for wine after all!

Pam was delayed 2.5 hours leaving here! She's just landed in TO and has missed her connecting flight. I hope she gets things sorted out quickly. I hope that Johnny was a good baby for Christie and Mack on the flight too.

I'm in the midst of backing up the hard drive on my computer - there are several things going wrong with it right now and I don't want to take the chance of losing any of my pictures. The latest issue is that my computer is making a clanging noise... yep, you read that right. Sounds like a cow bell. I have NO idea what's causing it and Google isn't yielding any results. Cross your fingers that I find the warranty paperwork at work tomorrow as the computer is less than 2 years old.

I asked the Mosers if I could use their car while they are on holidays, so that I can lend my truck to the Babbs while they have company here. While I was describing the arrangements to AK, and told her that we would be using Christie's car, she asked "Mommy's car broken?". Smarty pants - she associates me driving someone else's vehicle with my car being in the shop.

Round Two - let's call it a draw

AK once again went to bed without her sucky... but only after an hour of crying.

Thank goodness Pam and Jess were here to drink wine with me and keep me from giving in! Jess kept telling me that AK would be just fine, and I finally said that it wasn't her I was worried about, it was me!

I went into the bedroom a few times to check on AK and she looked so sad :( but this morning she was quite pleased that she is a big girl, who gave her suckies to Baby Johnny to keep him from crying.

I'm hoping tonight will be easier! If not, wine will be involved again.

Pam is leaving today, it will be quiet without her and we will miss her. She is already planning a trip back next February :) so we'll be seeing her again before we know it!

I downloaded her pictures last night so will share some of those later on today. xo

Who would have thunk?

AK had a sleepover at Christie and Chris' last night (AK wanted to know if the sleepover was "with Emily?") and when she went to bed, Mack asked her if she would give her sucky to Baby Johnny... AND SHE DID!!!

She slept all night without it, Mack said she woke up and cried for a bit, but he told her to go back to sleep and she did. I double-checked at school to make sure she doesn't use a sucky there and her teachers were actually quite surprised to hear that she uses one at home.

So fingers crossed that AK continues to remember that she's given her suckies to Baby Johnny to keep him from crying... he was crying in his crib when I picked up AK this morning, and when he stopped crying, Christie told AK that it was because he was using her sucky... you should have seen how big AK's eyes got when she took that information in!

And last but not least... Happy Birthday Baba! This is the only picture I have of AK and Baba together on my computer at work so enjoy the memory!

Key Employee!

I got the great news this morning that I got my key employee designation granted!

This allows me to continue to work here for two years beyond my initial seven year term... so until December 2013.

I'm not quite ready to leave yet so this is exciting news for me! I am especially impressed that the process didn't take long - 3 weeks ago I handed in my application. I was prepared to wait months for word!

xo

I wish I could take holidays every day!!!

I took the afternoon off work and spent the time at the beach with the Mosers and Pam. It was odd to pack a bag for the beach and not include a swim diaper and water wings, ha! We went to the Hyatt and used the chairs there, which felt very luxurious! No one gave us a hard time about sitting there.

AK had a good poop on the potty tonight and when she flushed, she waved to the poo and said "bye bye" as it went down the toilet. Funny! She is now able to get herself onto the potty by herself and can call just when she needs help wiping. She sures seems to like her privacy when she's pooping. Didn't realize it started this young!

She looked at my armpits while she was brushing her teeth and said they were "dirty and stinky". Thanks, kiddo.

AK wanted to sit next to Pam at the table while we ate our supper and made me sit on the other side of Pam, away from her. Like I said yesterday, I may as well go away!!!

AK is starting to ask about my hearing aids when she sees me put them in. She seems to understand that my ears are broken and can't hear like hers, and that hers work just fine!

xo

Go fly a kite!

We got to Molly's birthday party yesterday and Cindy told us to "go fly a kite"!!! So we did! (I think it's important to note at this point that this may have been the first time in my life that I've actually flown a kite!).

Once down the slide with Ben was enough!!! Too scary and too big of a splash!

Time for cake!

Molly's birthday party was GREAT fun! AK was happy to see all her friends and play at the Doghouse. Molly looked very pretty in her new dress. It is amazing to think that she is three years old already... it seems like just yesterday that Cindy and Brent were new parents!

AK and I were at Camana Bay with Hunter and Ben yesterday morning. We ran into Jorge and Lucas. I told AK to give Lucas a hug hello, and Hunter stepped in between the two of them and said "NO! MY ANNABELLE!!!". He would not let Lucas go anywhere near AK!!! Very protective and very sweet... but he needs to learn to share!

AK was singing Old MacDonald this morning and asked me "what else is there?". It took me a minute to figure out that she wanted me to name other animals for her to imitate.

A lady in the church childcare told me this morning that she was doing something called "wee sing" with some of the kids, where you sing and use finger movements along with the songs (I think loosely based on American Sign Language?) and AK was right into it and very interested. I'm going to check it out - I truly think she's going to be gifted in a very creative music/dance way.

My friend Pam arrived today and after a few shy moments, AK made a new best friend... Mommy might as well go away! Pam has some photos from our beach afternoon and supper out tonight that I'll share with you later. It is lovely how AK loves and enjoys new (and old - Pam has been here twice before) friends so much! xo

Influences of school and home

Yesterday, AK was singing "Old McDonald" which I'm sure she's been singing at school a lot because their theme last month was "farm animals'. However, AK is also currently obsessed with Disney princesses, and has learned how to whoop like Pocahontas. So... instead of making the animal sounds in the song, she would whoop instead. I thought that was pretty creative and fun!

Some pics from school - AK is in the pink shirt all the way to the left (don't forget you can click on any of the pictures to make them bigger and easier to see)

AK's in the pink shirt just left of center

Puppy dog to the right

Off to the right again - looking very contemplative!

I've decorated for Easter and AK is all over the "Hippity Hop" bunny from Hallmark that sings and dances. So far it's not annoying... ask me again in a week. Or ask me if it's still out when Easter gets here. Ha! xo