Thomas the Train Table

Levi's birthday present this year was a bit of a challenge for us because we weren't entirely sure what to get him. He's a third child, there are already so many toys in the house that have been bought for or given as gifts to his older siblings. He gets all sorts of clothes passed down from his brother, has the hand-me-down tricycle that has been both Mikayla's and Gavin's, there is nothing he really NEEDS.

We got a great idea for his gift about a week before his birthday when we were at Chapters. We mostly go there for the kids to play with the Thomas the Train table they have set up in the children's section, and of course for the Mama to get a Starbucks. Levi had a blast playing at the table as usual, and REALLY didn't want to leave when it was time. Perhaps it was the screaming, or maybe the tears, or possibly even the kicking as we took him out of Chapters, that got us thinking about getting him a Thomas the train table.

But two things were holding us back a bit, first of all they take up so much space and secondly they are rather pricey when they are brand new. So we thought why not look for a second hand train table? But we found that a lot of people were over charging for these used tables, and we still ran into the problem of space. Here's where my brilliant husband said (as he often does) "I could build something better than that", and from there on we were on a mission to build a better Thomas the Train table.

Jan lovingly built a table top that fits on top of the coffee table in our living room. He filled the cracks and sanded it so the kids would have a safe, smooth surface to play on, and gave it a few coats of primer. Then the hardest part of the whole thing was getting the layout just right, it took us much longer than I'm willing to admit to.



After getting the layout down, we traced it in pencil and began painting, and painting, and painting. I added rocks and sand around the "water features", and painted, and painted some more. This night I got only 2 hours of sleep (oh the things we do for our children!)

The finished product is pretty amazing (if I do say so myself)

And needless to say, Levi LOVES it.

After opening it up first thing in the morning on his birthday he all but refused to do anything else, including eating the pancake brunch I made for him, or go down for his nap. I think we made a winner with this present.



My Baby is Not a Baby Anymore

It's Levi's second birthday today. My baby little man is 2, and what an amazing two years it has been. Of course when I say amazing you know that's my mother-amnesia talking. I've selectively blocked out the trying times, you know you have them... the never sleeping, the teething, the fits in the grocery store, an uncanny ability to make the tidiest of rooms look like it's unfit for human habitation, and so on. But how easy it is to block out those trying times, because they are instantly over-written in my minds eye by his sweetest and simplest "Laa youu mama", or "welcome" where thank-you is most warranted, and his chubby little arms choking off my air supply.

As a third child Levi was supposed to be the "easy" one, right? I'd done this pregnancy, birth and baby thing twice, third time should be no sweat... but Levi had other ideas. Shall we take a trip down memory lane, destination 2010.

At some point late in the pregnancy we realized this baby was breech, and was going to do things his own way around. I tried everything I could to turn him the "right" way, but for Levi the other way was right for him. I had two ECV's where the doctor tried to turn him by pushing on my abdomen, but neither of these procedures were successful. So instead of the quick and easy L&D I was expecting he ended up being delivered by c-section. Not something I recommend, the good ole fashion way is waaaaaay easier to recover from. From then on he has refused to be the "easy" third child, and I love him for it. Some may say it's the firery redhead in him, could be, but whatever it may be one thing is for sure, the kid has got spunk!

Levi it has been an honour being your mother for these two short years, I can't wait to see what the future holds for you.

Happy Birthday!

Levi's 2nd Birthday Party

We celebrated Levi's second birthday this past weekend with a big group of our friends, I think there ended up being about 16 adults and 14 children at the event. Just imagine... 14 kids 6 years old and under, yep it was loud and crazy. But in my opinion that's what makes it fun! The party was for both Levi and our friend's little guy Tristan, and I think it's safe to say they both enjoyed themselves. I am eternally grateful to our fantastic friends for letting us crash their house with all our party guests. An at home party is always nice when the kids are young, however you wouldn't be able to cram all those people into our humble home.

The kids got to run wild and play, the adults got to actually have a few adult conversations, and everybody got to have pizza and cake. Fun, fun! It really hit me when I was looking through photos from the party how freakin' cute our friend's kids are, seriously freakin' cute. I didn't get the greatest photos of all those cute little party-goers, a few are blurry, but you get an idea of the fun we all had.

I remember only a few years ago my friends and I talking about how crazy it will be to get all our kids together when we have all of them! And as of right now they're not even all finished having their children (I sure am). We figure that amongst these close friends of mine there likely at least 4 more kids to come, yikes!

Finn McMissile Cake

We officially have started the festivities for Levi's birthday, and it's still almost 2 weeks until his big day. His real birthday is March 30th. In order to have a gathering of all our friends and their kids we decided to roll Levi's 2nd birthday and our friend's son Tristan's 1st birthday into one big ole bash. What  a great idea, it was a fantastic party. This post I'm dedicating solely to the cake I made for this big ole bash. For a couple reasons, first of all I'm very proud of how it turned out (both in look and in taste), and secondly because I have oodles of photos from making the cake and the party itself, and one post is just not enough space to display all the photos I want to show the world.

The story behind the choice of cake stems mainly from Levi's obsession with his Finn McMissile HotWheels car (and in part from Tristan, who is turning one, really not caring what kind of cake I made). Levi has spent the past 5 or 6 weeks quite attached to his Finn McMissile, he calls it "min-micmisso", he has even refused to go to bed without it, and of course has had numerous ownership battles with his brother over "min-micmisso". We have even gone out and bought a few more McMissiles to keep the fighting to a minimum, but for some reason they only seem to want the one that the other already has, hmm funny. Another reason for the cake choice is redemption, I had attempted (key word) to make a dump truck for Gavin's second birthday, which fell apart before it got to the party, and I wanted to prove that I could make a 3D cake of a vehicle.

The marathon cake baking started out Thursday, I stayed up to 3am baking red velvet cakes and making both buttercream and fondant icing. I found a fantastic recipe for red velvet cake that used beets to colour it red instead of dye, and it even tasted pretty great! Friday I worked a 12hour night, so the official cake decorating began after 3ish hours of sleep on Saturday morning. Good thing I started in the afternoon, and not later in the evening (like I usually do), because I realized that I hadn't baked enough cake or made enough icing to have Finn McMissile come out in the right proportions. I am super-unbelievably lucky to have the most supportive husband in the world, he ran to the grocery store for me and even printed up pictures of Finn so I could get the cake just right. And despite his feeling very unwell, he stayed up until 1am Saturday night helping me carve and ice the cake. I wasn't quite so lucky to go to bed that early, I was up until 4am creating my masterpiece, with National Lampoon's Vacation keeping me company/awake while I decorated.

The sleep deprivation was well worth it, Levi loved the cake! When he saw it in the morning he said "mic-misso, mic-misso!" And of course he couldn't keep his fingers off it, he even poked a little hole in the fondant before we left from home.

 Me Putting Together the Layers of the Cake

 Carved But Not Yet Iced, My Amazing Husband Helps, Buttercream Layer Done, Fondant Started

Tired But Happy, Me With a Finished Cake



My Baby Boy and His Cake

As Levi Would Say..."TaDa!"

The Finished Product

Cutting Into the Cake

Mikayla's Birthday Questionnaire

Like most things around our household, this post has been delayed due to the busyness three children seems to bring upon us. Almost two weeks ago now we celebrated Mikayla's 6th birthday, and this is something I've wanted to start doing with each of the kids on their birthdays. I saw something similar pinned on Pinterest, a list of questions to ask your child each year on their birthday. It's a simple way to see how their likes and dislikes change over the years, to see how they grow, how they change, a little glimpse of who they are in their own words. I've actually found it hard to think of what questions I would like to ask in this questionnaire. I've seen a few different lists on line, but couldn't find one that I liked best. I wanted to try to do some of the simple things as well as some of the things that might be more relevant as they get older and are asked these same questions. So, this is what I've come up with, and Mikayla's answers as a 6 year old.

1. Favourite Colour? Pink and Purple
2. Favourite Food/Place to Eat? Popcorn, The mall
3. Favourite thing to do? Play with my brothers
4. Best Friend? Camryn and Danielle
5. Grade/Teacher? Kindergarten, Ms. Pitcher
6. What do you want to be when you grow up? An artist and a mom
7. Favourite Book? Books that we make together
8. Favourite Movie? Gnomeo and Juliet, and family videos
9. Favourite animal? Elephant (this really surprised me)
10. What makes you happy? Playing with my brothers
11. What are you really good at? Helping Mommy and Daddy
12. Where is your favourite place to go? The mall
13. What do you like to do with your brothers? Play hide and seek
14. If you could have a super-power what would it be? Be invisible Batgirl
15. What do Mom and Dad do that makes you happy? Take care of me
16. What is one thing you've done that you are most proud of? My work that I make at school and my letters
17. What do you like best about school? Playing with Mason
18. What would you like to learn to do better this year? Cartwheels
19. What is the scariest thing you've had to do? Well I had a dream that I had to walk a tight rope (she couldn't think of anything scary she has actually done)
20. What is you're biggest achievement/accomplishment to date? Ride my bike without training wheels

Don't Blink, You Might Miss Something

This past week has been HECTIC to say the very least. I have so much to write about! My baby girl turned 6 on Saturday, six! Did you hear me? SIX!!!!! What? When did that happen? When did six years go by?
Seriously, everyone says "it goes by so fast, they grow up before you know it, blah, blah, blah..." but, they are right.

Lets just take a little trip down memory lane to February 2006...

10pm, Feb 23rd. An unsuspecting husband and wife have just finished watching some TV before bed, the wife steps onto the staircase to go up to bed and... GUSH... "honey, I think my water just broke!" Husband replies (in his most loving way) "get off the new carpet!"
Off to the hospital she waddles, because we all know that very pregnant women don't walk, they waddle. No signs of contractions, and this being a first pregnancy, they are sent home to "get some sleep".
2am, Feb 24th. The wife hasn't slept, contractions started as soon as they got into bed. She attempts to waste some time watching episodes of Friends on DVD, (remember this is 2006 the PVR had not yet been invented). The husband feels it is his husbandly duty to write down the time and duration of each and every contraction.
4am, Feb 24th. Back to the hospital, but this time they stay put. The husband sets up cameras (yes, cameraS plural) and they are ready for a LOOOOOOOOOONG day ahead.
Now this is where this story could get awfully boring, so I'll give you the short version. Contractions, walk around, contractions, massage, contractions, shower, contractions, laughing gas, contractions, birthing ball, contractions... and repeat, not necessarily in that order, for 18 hours.
10pm, Feb 24th. The wife gives in and has an epidural, ahhhh sleep. For one glorious hour. Then, time to push!
1:02am, Feb 25th. It's a girl!!!! The new mom and dad can barely see straight from exhaustion, but they can see enough to know that this wrinkly, cone-headed, vernix covered, screaming little girl is the absolute most beautiful sight they have ever laid eyes on.

 And *BLINK* She's one year old

And *BLINK* She's two years old

And *BLINK* She's three years old

And *BLINK* She's four years old

Aaaaaaaand *BLINK* She's five years old

And *BLINK* We're back to present day. Our beautiful little baby, our princess, our pumpkin pie is SIX YEARS OLD!!!!

Happy Birthday Mika-moo, you are beyond loved.