Winter Wonderland

Although I was raised in Alberta I have become a bit of a cold wimp since moving to Vancouver, so it was a big suprise to me and my boys when the snow just kept coming this winter.

On Christmas Eve we all played out in the snow a bit, there was so much we had to shovel our way around. Lindsay was going to build a snow fort, but instead we made it into a giant slide.

Sammy was just like the kid from "Christmas Story", he just kept falling over in his snowsuit. It was adorable.

But once he got outside it was all worth it.

Tommy admiring the petite snowman we built. The snow was so hard to roll!...it had been rained on a couple of times and was pretty icy.

Sammy wasn't a fan of the mittens while Tommy was a big fan of giant ice chunks.

He told me he was "looking for something"

He might look innocent enough but turn around for one second and he'll throw that ice chunk at your back.


Tommy loved the snow and kept going out in the backyard with literally only his boots on.


I told him he had to dress warmer, this was his solution.

We found the perfect tobogganing hill, Grandma and Grandpa's road, clearly there weren't many cars coming and going - look how much snow we had.

Sammy warmed up to the snow eventually. He wouldn't hold onto the sled so that he kept tipping over.

We also made a slide for the kiddies down Granpa's lawn.

Tommy on top of the mountain formed when we shoveled our sidewalk. I thought I lived in Vancouver?!

Is Tommy Potty Trained?

I am afraid to utter the words out loud, afraid that I might somehow curse the blessed event. But Tommy has not had an accident for a week, NOT ONE! and he slept thru the night last night without a diaper. I am so excited, he pees in the potty at home, at church, at grandmas, at Candise's, at stores...could this be the real thing. I'm pretty sure he only decided to be potty trained because after 7 long months I finally bought a potty-training book, it arrived on Monday. Of course.

At the park

Sammy loves the swings, he was born a thrill-seeker, and has always loved been thrown up or going down slides. It is nice when he is in the swing because I can leave him there while I give Tommy pushes or rescue him from the top of the playground.

Tommy has been able to climb up and over the park's climbing wall ever since he could reach the first handhold

He has so much upper body strength! I need to put him in gymnastics or swimming or something to harness the power.
If I look away for a minute he has climbed up something, he can always get up, but usually needs help getting down

So we totally think we can dance

Some of 'my girls' and I get together to watch 'So You Think You Can Dance' at Candise's house. She tapes Wednesday's episode and then we watch it on Thursday night while she tapes the result show. It ends up being a really long night, but we have so much fun! As you can see we are all wanna-be b-girls, so last night Nikki taught us a sweet stall to add to our repetoir. Ya, this is the stall. If anyone who sees this wants me to be in thier 'crew' I could probs fit it into my sched.
This is Nikki and I in our sychronized stall.
Candise added her skills in helicopter spins to our breakin sesh.

This was us later that night chillin' on our block.

Best Friends

We try to brainwash Tommy and Sammy into thinking they are best friends by saying it all the time. In reality they do have a lot of fun together, it just gets pretty rough sometimes, with a fair amount of crying (from both boys - Sammy scares Tommy) and whenever it is time to go somewhere Tommy suggests we leave Sammy at home. We'll see, hopefully if we keep telling them enough that they are best friends it'll catch on.I didn't think I would want to dress them matchy-matchy, but I can't get enough of it!Now that Sammy started crawling around Tommy thinks it is an invitation to go on a horsie ride. Sammy is a pretty good sport about it all, he just likes any time Tommy plays with him.Sometimes Tommy squeezes a bit too tight.

A touch of Tommy

Tommy is 2 1/2 and I can't believe how fast he is growing up. He speaks really well, so he can tell me exactly what he is thinking, which is often pretty funny. Yesterday in the car he said "I feel sick, I'm gonna frow up" - it turned out it was just a ploy to get me to take him to Old McDonalds (what he calls the restaurant). How can you resist when he is so smart about it?He also has a hilarious sense of humor and makes kids jokes about mommy being a goat and stuff -I think it is pretty funny. Here are some pics of him doing whatever he felt like doing at the time.
He slept in his car seat like this for almost 2 hours. They are so cute when the are sleeping. No, it wasn't raining, and actually we weren't even going outside, he just wanted to wear it.
There was a crusty old chocolate on the floor and Tommy found it and was about to eat it when I said "don't eat that, it looks like poop!" So then, he took off his pants and undies and clenched the chocolate between his cheeks yelling "it's poop!" I told you this kid was funny.
I found him like this - blanket and all - at about 5:00 pm, apparently it was a rough day.

Mr. diaper head
Reading books with Moses Smith. It was about the only time they were together where they appeared to like eachother - but as soon as they were apart he couldn't stop talking about his friend Moses.

Sammy these days

Sammy is 9 1/2 months old and can stand all by himself. It is really cute - when he lets go of things he puts his hands up in the air like he is riding a roller coaster with "no hands!" He is still super smiley and happy and chubby and everyone that meets him loves him instantly. He is a bit more of mommy's boy than Tommy was, which I love! - it's nice to know he likes me.This is him standing all by himself!Such a giggler. This was at Cohen Rhulman's birthday, Tommy hated wearing his hat so Sam got to wear it the whole time.If he is ever sad we just let him grab onto daddy's hair and it makes it all better.