Party Time!

Today was a two-party day as Sydney and I celebrated both her friend Allegra and Sophie's birthdays.  We were up bright and early this morning and at Costco the minute the doors opened to get all of the food that we will need for Sydney's party tomorrow.  We cruised through Costco perfectly executing our list of things in under half an hour.  A personal record!


Late this morning we drove down to Granville Island to the False Creek Community Centre to celebrate Sydney's friend Allegra's 4th birthday.  It was a princess and pirate theme so all of the kids came in costume.  I couldn't convince Sydney to wear her princess costume, she insisted that she wanted to wear her Hello Kitty one, so we settled on that.  I was secretly happy that she was getting more wear out of it!

Allegra is one of Sydney's classmates at preschool and it was so fun being at a party with all of her friends from school.  It's nice to visit with the parents and kids outside of the school environment.  Sydney was so thrilled to see lots of her friends there!

I don't think I've ever seen Sydney have so much fun playing anywhere!  She was so incredibly happy, wheeling around on her tricycle, sliding down the slide, bouncing in the bouncy castle and riding around in the wagon with her best friend Emelia.

After playing for an hour the kids all piled into the party room for pizza and treats and a yummy pull-apart cupcake cake!

They also had a pirate ship pinata which was so cool.  The kids took turns trying to break it open and when it finally did burst open, poor Allegra screamed "No, no don't you're breaking it!"  It took some convincing and a bit of candy to let her know that it was okay to break the pinata apart!

We left the party with a sweet bag filled with everything a girl needs to be a princess, a wand, a little tiara, some bracelets, a ring and clip on earrings!  So fun!

Syd and I came home for a little rest before we got changed and freshened and off to our second party of the day for her friend Sophie at Phoenix Gymnastics!  The kids are at the perfect age for a gym environment, they absolutely loved playing on all of the equipment and with the parachute and trampoline!

Sophie's Mom, my brave friend Louise, has been battling breast cancer for the past several months and has only one more round of chemo to go!  So many good things to celebrate today!

Sydney and Sophie and Emma were so cute hanging upside down on the monkey bars!

Sophie is a sweet, sweet girl and was such a gracious host to us all!

Louise sent all of the kids home with the most beautiful hand stitched bags with a full set of crayons tucked into compartments on the outside which were filled with colouring books and stickers!  She had gorgeous pink ones for the girls and Diego ones for the boys, Sydney insisted upon taking a Diego one filled with Cars stuff!

I chuckled that she went from a princess party to Cars theme in a matter of hours!

A couple of our friends who were at Sophie's party today aren't able to make Sydney's party tomorrow, so they brought presents for Sydney today.  She absolutely couldn't wait to open them!

Got a girly pink doctor's kit from her friend Kaden.

And this beautiful wooden flower jewellery set with it's own jewellery box from her buddy Logan.  It was such a hit!

Emma also gave Sydney a Halloween card that she made for her and another card that she painted for her, how fun to get some treats today!

It was a thouroughly exhausting but oh so fun day today!  I am so grateful that we are changing the clocks tonight as I'll get an extra hour of sleep, I can sure use it!

Birthday Girl

Well, it's official!  Sydney is three years old!  What a fantastic day we had celebrating today.  It's so neat that she is old enough now to know that today is her birthday and to be so acutely aware of all the special things that happened today.


Late last night I set up the kitchen table for a very special birthday breakfast with Sydney this morning, complete with our fancy dishes, bouquet of roses, birthday gifts and a Dora balloon that I knew she'd love.  It was wonderful to see the little smile on Syd's face when she walked into the kitchen this morning and found everything all set up for our special time together.

Last year for her ladybug themed birthday party, Grandma and Grandpa got Syd a very special ladybug musical jewellery box from the Bradford Exchange.  I thought it was so fitting this year when I found a ceramic cupcake trinket box for her which I had waiting at the table with a new necklace inside:

Also got her a Hello Kitty book which came complete with a play mat and play figurines.  She loved it, insisted upon playing with it for a while before she ate her breakfast.

After breakfast we headed off to preschool.  Sydney's teachers made such an effort to make today such a special day for her.  When we arrived, we saw this sign on the door:

Syd's friend Addison ran up to her as soon as she saw her, and gave her this very sweet birthday card that she had coloured for her:

I stayed for a while this morning to help in class and while I was cutting fruit for today's snack, the kids decided that they wanted to help out too, so we gave them all lettuce knives and chopping boards and had them cut the snack for the morning.

I brought in some mini cupcakes to share with the kids today at snack time.  Jen and Carmen lit a candle in one and brought it to Sydney before singing Happy Birthday to her in both English and Hebrew.  I could tell that Sydney was so proud that it was her special day!

This morning her class also had the pleasure of leading the group Shabbat.  Each of the children in the classroom had the chance to sing a special song into the microphone for the group.  Sydney and her buddy Levi sang "ABC's", it was absolutely adorable!  I was so glad that I was there to watch her!

After school we went to Bubbie's house for a quick visit.  Bubbie got Sydney a couple of little gifts for her birthday, a very cool Slinky and a a wooden doll craft package.  Sydney had a great visit with Bubbie and enjoyed her new gifts.

Sydney shares a birthday with her friend Declan, so, for the second year in a row, we went to his house to celebrate his birthday with a fabulous party!  His Mom Rachel did a dinosaur theme in the most amazing way!

She literally transformed the entire basement into the Mesozoic Era, it was incredible!  She had huge painted cardboard cutouts of dinosaurs on the walls, a volcano, a sandbox indoors with dinosaurs buried for the kids to dig up, palm trees and a dinosaur cookie decorating station.

She also made paper mache dinosaur "eggs" with each child's name on them and hid them all over the basement.  Once the kids found their egg, they had to help the dinosaur hatch by smashing the egg with a hammer and finding the baby dinosaur inside.  It was so fun!

Check out this dinosaur nest that she made in the bathtub:

We ended the evening with some delicious dinosaur cake and cupcakes:

Sydney came home with a bucket stuffed to the brim with dinosaur paraphernalia, she absolutely loved it!

The loot bucket also included a homemade mixed CD by DJ Declan with fun dinosaur songs for all!  What a fun treat, we will love listening to this special CD in the car!

It was a fun and fantastic way to end off the day today!  We are so looking forward to Sydney's party with her friends this Sunday.

Happy Birthday to my Big Girl! 

In Awe of the Candy Fairy

Late last night the Candy Fairy paid a visit to our house.  For days before Halloween I had been telling Sydney that she could choose two treats to eat on Halloween night from her bucket of candy and then the candy fairy was going to come and take her candy away and leave a very special toy in it's place.

I wasn't sure if all this Candy Fairy business was going to work or not, but nevertheless, late last night, I gathered up every last wee candy in the house and hid them deep in the most inaccessible cupboard and left a giant Dora doll perched inside Sydney's Hello Kitty bucket on the counter in the kitchen for her to discover when she woke up this morning.

I didn't say a word when we went downstairs for breakfast, just quietly grabbed my camera to witness Sydney discovering her new found doll.  She quietly climbed up on a chair and grabbed her Dora doll and exclaimed: "Thank you Candy Fairy!"

She then hugged and kissed Dora about a dozen times telling me how much she loved Dora.  Dora was holding one little package of Smarties, just as a little treat for today, but Sydney didn't mention a thing about the rest of her candy, just that she was so happy to have some Smarties.

By George, it worked!!

Mom - 1  Toddler - 998

Nice to win something for a change!

After school today, Sydney and I headed home to make some little gifts to give her friends at preschool tomorrow when we are celebrating her birthday.  We made five batches of different colours of playdough:

Then we rolled up balls of each and put a little cookie cutter and the dough inside a clear cellophane bag:

Then we tied them together with a little note that we made:

They looked so great in the end, colourful and fun!  Hoping that the kids love them!  Will be so fun to celebrate Sydney's day with her buddies at preschool tomorrow.

Sydney and I drove back to school tonight for a pizza party that the parent council was hosting.  It was great fun!  Lots of pizza and dancing for the kids. 

I love seeing how comfortable Sydney is there!  She was playing with her friends and dancing up a storm and at one point I found her just sitting on the floor of the auditorium taking it all in!

Tomorrow my baby is turning 3.  Three years....it seems unreal to think how fast they've gone and yet hard to remember what life was like before she came to us.  Will be so fun celebrating with my big girl this weekend!