Missed opportunities...

I knew that having a toddler who is turning into a preschooler before our eyes was going to be busy but little did I know how busy we would be!! My well organized and ordered life is no longer, I now am forgetting to pay bills and just keeping up with the laundry is a challenge. I am not complaining though, far from it. I love my life with my brilliant, beautiful and charming child. Her sense of humour is amazing and she has us all laughing every day. Annie is a little bossy though but I guess that comes with the territory - her Mom is a little bossy too!!!
Anyway, I am missing opportunities to write about the precious moments that are happening in our daily life. To many, they may seem pedantic but to us, they are family memories we want to cherish.
For instance, today we had a special fondue dessert because it is a special day. I had the chocolate out on the counter and Annie was busy unwrapping it, asking me what it was. I told her it was the chocolate for our dessert and she said "Oh, dat makes sense, dat makes sense, dis is chocolate, mnnnnnn". It was hilarious and because I laughed, she said it over and over again. She also insisted on being the one to cook it all by her "selse" but we were able to negotiate to a truce where I was able to help her with the recipe!!
Another activity which is related to cooking is Annie's love of having a "birthday party" with all of her babies and I mean ALL of her dollies. Luckily, we have kept the dolls down to only around ten. So Annie prepares the M.ellissa and D.oug birthday cake toy that we gave her for Christmas. As an aside, if you have a preschooler THIS is the toy to buy!! After the cake preparation, all the babies who are still in their beds (all around the living room floor) with their covers and their respective animals, have plates of cake served to them. When they are eating their cake, the tea set is then set up (on a little box WITH a tablecloth I might add) and they are all given some "berry" tea while Mommie reads them poetry (my favorite part). The first five times we played this game, I thought is was cute, now, well, it is not so novel but Annie came up with this all on her own, sets EVERYTHING up and plays away using her imagination. THAT is the part I love. She gives each of us presents (imaginary ones) which are sometimes VERY big and heavy according to Annie, which we open and show our joy at the gift she has chosen for us. We then give her a gift and she is just as thrilled with it. We also play the "message" game where we use her toy cell phone and leave "messages" for friends and family. Annie loves the train sets that she plays with at different stores so she decided that our living room rug was a train track and built a hill using a handtowel with stickers. We were then required to chug-a-choo around the rug and go over the hill. It was hilarious!!! Annie is also into "playing games" so we play dominoes as a family and we have a matching card game that she loves. So much fun.
Now that I start to write these little stories down, more come flooding into my brain. Annie as most children her age, is into stickers and colouring. I pick up so many stickers off the floor it is crazy but she loves them and sits for some time, focusing on where the next sticker should go. Annie "knows" they are to go on paper but for some reason, her Dad ends up at work with stickers on his pants!!! Too funny.
Annie talks a mile a minute (like her Mom) and some of her expressions are priceless but for the life of me, I can't remember any right now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That will be the next post...

Happy New Year... a little late!!!

I keep meaning to post but life has just been sooo busy over the holiday season. We had a wonderful Christmas and Open House. Annie is now a firm believer in Santa Claus and is playing happily with all of the neat toys that he brought. She can actually tell us who gave her what which is very neat!!! I think what helped was going through her toys and taking the nicer ones she doesn't play with anymore, to the food bank before Christmas. Annie and I went through the toys together and anything that she didn't want to send, we didn't. I am happy to report we had a good size shopping bag full of toys to give. We are hoping that they made other children very happy this Christmas. I just feel we have so much and it is so important to teach Annie to give to others. She is growing so fast that we might do this more regularly however I do know it will be harder as she gets older and becomes more attached to her things.

So, in a nutshell, we are settled in the new house, we had a wonderful Christmas and we are looking forward to getting outside and using our new backyard very soon. We had the windows open and cleaned the deck yesterday as the weather was great!!! Annie is loving the idea of the sandbox that was a wonderful re gift from Auntie Colleen, Uncle Bob and the boys. Unfortunately, the sand was out in the rain so we have to wait for a nice day to put it into the sandbox to dry :( Oh well. Those lovely days are coming soon and we are eagerly waiting for our flowers to come up through the earth!!! Can't wait to start gardening again!!!!!!!!!

Enough of that, here are some photos.

Blogger won't let me add more photos and the divine one is calling for attention so... will try more later!!!