A Shower for Baby Kaylee

My Mom is here visiting us for a week.  It has been so great having her here!  We just got back from a few days in Whistler.  It was Mom's first time there and we enjoyed strolling through the village, playing with Sydney in the pool and the playground and having some great chats together after Sydney had gone to bed for the night.

On the way up to Whistler, we stopped in Squamish to attend a baby shower for my newest second cousin Kaylee.  She is just three weeks old and is the sweetest little pumpkin ever!

The shower was a ton of fun, my Aunt Trish and cousins Melanie and Carmen went to a ton of work to make it a special day for Sharlene and baby Kaylee.  Check out these party favours that my very creative cousin Carmen made, they are baby booties made with paper cups and curling ribbon filled with yummy candy. 

She even made these awesome candy soothers by icing together two white Life Savers with a red jelly bean on top!  So cute!!

My Aunt Trish has always been amazing at making cakes, she didn't disappoint once again and made this awesome book cake with the most delicious whip cream icing.  Sydney loved it, in fact, after we had all had our piece she proceeded to eat the entire letter 'Y' off the bottom of the cake....my girl's got a bit of a sweet tooth to say the least!!

I couldn't decide on one present to get the baby so instead indulged by shopping for many little things for her and made up a basket of little gifts.  She was indeed showered with many, many sweet outfits, she is going to be one well dressed little girl!

It was great to reconnect with family again and to meet and welcome sweet little baby Kaylee into our family!  Am looking forward to the rest of the week visiting with my Mom here!

I'm Lovin' It!

I can honestly say that before I had Sydney, I hadn't been to McDonald's in at least ten years.  Okay, maybe once or twice with my nephews in that time when they were younger, but I never went there to eat on my own.  I didn't actually envision myself frequenting McDonald's with my babe at all....until this summer.

You see, McDonald's had this deal on where you could get any size iced coffee for a dollar.  So I thought that I'd try one, just as a lark, one day, and wouldn't you know it, they are actually delicious.  And at a fraction of the cost of a Frappuccino, I figured I could drink as many as I wanted all summer long.  Which I did.....they were yummy.  So poor Sydney started recognizing those golden arches before I knew it.

Then, of course, there was this little problem of Sydney's love affair with ice cream.  I always felt a little guilty going into McDonald's for my giant-twenty-ounce-loonie iced coffee and leaving without getting a thing for Syd, so one day I bought her an ice cream cone to have.  Oh did she love it.  And remembered it.  The next time I was there for my coffee fix she was pointing to the ice cream machine and begging for a cone.  I had created a monster.

So now I truly do feel like a Mom, peeling my screeching child out of McDonald's promising her that we can get an ice cream the next time we're there!  It's kind of funny actually. 

So this past Friday, Paul and I happened to be in Kerrisdale walking past the McDonald's and we found ourselves under the spell of Sydney and her ever-so-convincing ways and got her yet another ice cream cone.  This time she decided that she didn't want it to go, but would rather sit at a table like a civilized toddler and eat her cone.  Precious!  Paul and I looked at each other and smiled, we really were lovin' it!

All Set for Puddle Jumping

It seems that summer has arrived about two months late in Vancouver.  The temperatures have been in the high 20's for almost a week, it's been amazing!  Funnily enough, during our grey and dismal summer, I spent a lot of time thinking about getting Sydney some rain gear so that we could head outside rain or shine to blow off some steam come winter time. 

I had seen the cutest sets of matching raincoats and boots at Hatley in Whistler and was so pleased to see a number of my favourite stores in town were carrying them this season.  So today Sydney and I went off to buy hers and got this super cute cupcake set at Peekaboo on Dunbar, our local baby store.

Sydney especially loves the rubber boots, at one point today she was wandering around buck naked with just her boots on, so funny!  Once this bout of warm weather is over and the inevitable rain starts to fall, we'll be all ready for puddle jumping.  I wish they made these jackets in adult sizes, wouldn't it be cute to have matching coats? 

A Cool Idea

One of the hallmarks of having a toddler is dealing with a very fussy eater from time to time.  When Sydney was starting to eat solids, one of her favourite foods was yogurt.  For the past six months or so, she will not touch yogurt with a ten foot pole!  Even if I try and trick her to try a little on a spoon she'll spit it right back out! 

I was getting a bit frustrated trying to ensure that she was getting enough calcium, especially given that she also refuses to drink milk.  I had tried sneaking yogurt into smoothies, oatmeal, sauces...anything in a desperate attempt to get her to ingest some.

So the other day when I was shopping I saw these Yoplait yogurt in a tube things and thought that I might be able to get her to eat it from a tube, she might think it was cool and forget that she was eating yogurt.  Nope, she didn't want a thing to do with them....in desperation I threw them into the freezer thinking that maybe she would eat one frozen on a hot day and think it was a popsicle.  Wouldn't you know it, it worked like a charm!

She has been eating one a day since I froze them and thinks they are a treat. 

I couldn't be more pleased!  It was a very "cool" idea and so nice that something worked at long last!!

First Day of Preschool

Tomorrow is Sydney's first day of preschool.  I can't believe that it's actually here already!  I went to the parent orientation meeting at the school this week and have to say that I am feeling much more excited about her starting preschool now that I've met the teachers and staff and seen the space where she'll be spending two mornings a week. 

The classroom is very cool, filled with all sorts of different stations for the kids, everything from water and sand tables to a reading corner, puppets, artwork and dress up.  It looks like it will be a ton of fun and I'm sure that Sydney will enjoy herself and the other kids.

This week and next are gradual entry, meaning I get to stay in the classroom with her while she's getting used to everyone and the new environment and after that the goal is to leave her on her own....we'll see how that goes.  Sydney is very much a Mommy's girl, likes to be in my presence pretty much 24 hours a day so it may be a little bit of a challenge to get her comfortable enough to see me go.  Fingers crossed that it goes more smoothly than I'm anticipating!

In preparation for her big transition to preschool I wanted to get Sydney a little backpack to take to school with her.  I hit up my favourite store, Pebble, and unfortunately they had no backpacks in stock!  As I was standing in the store brainstorming about where I would go next to hunt for the perfect little backpack the lady in the shop came up to me and said "I do have this one backpack in the back storage room, it was a demo model from this great company out of New York, you can have it for a discount if you'd like."  I turned around to see the cutest little ladybug backpack I had ever laid eyes on!  In a moment, I knew I was meant to have this backpack, I have been planning Sydney's second birthday now for a number of weeks and we are doing a ladybug theme....it couldn't have been more perfect!

So off I went with my girl's new little backpack.  She has been trying it on all week and walking around the house with it strapped to her back, very cute!  Tonight I packed it up with the list of things that we are supposed to bring tomorrow and in the morning we will head off to school and I will undoubtedly have a few tears in my eyes.  My little girl is growing up fast!! 

Sydney's New Easel

Sydney really loves art.  Anything to do with painting, stickers, stamps, or colouring will hold her interest any time of the day!  I have an ever-growing art basket of supplies for her and had been hunting around for just the right easel to round off her collection. 

I didn't love most of the easels that were available locally, but found this one made by Kidcraft on Amazon.com which I totally loved!  Only problem was, they wouldn't ship it to Canada so I ordered it to the mail pick-up in Point Roberts, Washington and Sydney and I did a little zip across the border a couple of weeks ago to pick it up.

It is fantastic!  It is made with solid wood and is super sturdy.  It has a chalkboard on one side, a white board on the other and a roll of paper on the top for her painting.  The easel came with the paper and paint, chalk and chalk brush, white board marker and eraser and paintbrushes and poster paint along with canisters to hold the paint to make it easy for her to access it all herself! 

Paul and I assembled it late one night and after breakfast the next morning I took Sydney downstairs to see it.  She was so thrilled!  She wanted to paint right away!  She loved the chalkboard too, hadn't ever used one before, so I think the novelty was quite something for her! 

This is her first masterpiece created on her new easel.  I like to call it "Little Yellow Fish".  I will post more in her fall series as they become available. 

 

She is really enjoying being able to do her artwork standing up instead of on her splash mat on the floor.  I look forward to her many artistic creations in the weeks and months to come!

A Day in Steveston Village

What a perfectly beautiful Labour Day it was today!  The weather was amazing, felt more like July than September!  We had a great day together as a family today.  This morning, we headed out to Steveston Village in Richmond to spend some time wandering around and enjoying the weather.  Steveston is such a great place to take kids, there's lots to see and plenty of room for running around, Sydney really enjoyed herself!

We wandered along the docks where local fisherman were selling fresh seafood right off of their boats.  There was an abundance of sockeye salmon today but you could also buy halibut, spot prawns, tuna and shrimp.  There were two giant white swans swimming in the water by the boats, Sydney and I had fun feeding them Cheerios amongst other snacks.  They literally eat anything as we found out today!

We had fun looking at all the little shops there and stopped to get Sydney an ice cream cone before heading to the Richmond Country Club for lunch together.  It was a lovely day and pooped Sydney out as had an almost three hour nap this afternoon when we got home!  All that fresh air seemed to do her a world of good!


This week is the start of preschool for Sydney and all of our regular activities begin a new season as well.  It was lovely to have one last summer-filled weekend before heading back to our routine this fall!