life {lately} ~ vol. 29

last week was spring break.  minus the spring part.

we had nothing but snow all week.

terrible.  pretty sure that everyones completely finished with winter.

bring on the sun, flowers, bugs, anything but snow.

so instead of playing outside on the grass in the sunshine, we ...

went to the science centre and explored.

bought colourful tulips.

made green pancakes and green cheesy noodles on st. patrick's day.

willed welcomed spring on the chalkboard.

made silly faces, chocolate faces and played with mama's glasses.

got a pink potty for the moo.  just as an introduction.

ordered absinthe tickets for our girls trip to vegas.  mid-april can't come soon enough.

got a new mat for the front door, fits us perfectly.

and built a few lego robots.

it's snowed all day today and feels more like winter than spring.

fingers and toes are crossed that our seemingly never ending winter will end.  

soon.

hope you had a great spring break if you were off.

if not, then hope it was a non-snowy weekend.

eighteen {ish}

averie's eighteen months and beyond.  that means she's almost two ... in five months, so almost.  i clearly remember liam at this age.  wasn't that like just the other day?   i remember things like how it was so much easier than when he was a baby and that he and i slept through the night.  averie's pretty much the same with a more independent streak than him.  she's game to try everything.  and fearless.  like trying to walk down the stairs facing forward without holding on to anything with little legs that don't reach the next step fearless.  and she's utterly, completely, beyond adorable.  even when she's having a fit she's adorable.  she's very warm hearted and empathetic.  whenever liam's in a timeout or he's upset and crying, she'll get him scruffy and jammies and says "mmmm-kay?" to make him feel better.  it's so cute.  and she's amazing and amazes me every moment.  everything is brand new and exciting.  both her and her brother remind me that.  the sense of wonder, fun, emotion and crazy.  all at the same time.

eighteen month averie stats

~  makes animal noises for: cow, horse, sheep, dog, monkey, lion, cat, dinosaur and duck

~  says: juice, na-na (banana), apo (apple), straw-bee (strawberry), me-me (liam), mama, da-dee, hair, hand, shoe, sock, shirt, pretty, sticky (sticker), up, out, down, no, pees (please), ugg (hug), bo-bear, baby, mmm-kay? (asking if you're okay), ba ba (bedtime bottle), car, cheese, orange, ree-ree (averie), jor-ja (her friend at daycare), dye (bye) while waving, night night and jammies.  

~  plays independently.  she's totally good with playing by herself and keeping her self entertained.  

~  love love loves to read.  she frequently goes missing when we're at home and we'll find her in her room in the rocking chair with four or five books on top of her and she's reading.  

~  still loves bo-bear, but baby has recently moved into the picture.  averie carries her around everywhere.  she tries to feed her and change her diaper.

~  loves to pretend.  she's always on a play phone or a calculator talking to "da-dee", "grammie", or "mama".  she also will put on her purse and say "dye", wave and nod yes when you ask her if she's going "shop shop".  

~  wearing twelve to eighteen month, eighteen month, and some eighteen to twenty-four month clothing.  i've kept some of her tank top dresses from last summer and they're fitting her as tops.  those are six to twelve month.  she's a teeny tiny girl.  

~  averie's become a pretty good eater and has started feeding herself with a spoon and fork.  a lot of it ends up on her or the floor but she's still game to do it herself.  love it.  

~  follows liam around like a shadow sometimes.  she wants to do what he does and she gets frustrated when she can't.  

~  one of the best things is that she's started telling us that she's poopy or poop poop.  as far as we can tell she usually does it right after she's peed or when she's about to poop.  this is freaking wicked.  i'm hoping that within the next nine months she'll be potty trained and we'll be a diaper free house!

~  she's completely fascinated obsessed with the moose that have been visiting our backyard.  every time we go to the window or go on the deck she follows asking "moo moo moo?"  it's super adorable and love that she can watch nature at it's best in her own backyard.  

we love you sweet girl

xoxo

life {lately} ~ vol. 28

thank goodness for sunshine and it almost being spring.

things are finally starting to thaw and i swear i can actually see buds on our trees.

maybe its just my imagination. 

or perhaps wishful thinking.

whatever, spring is officially here on the weekend and we couldn't be more excited. 

hanging out on the deck and playing all day in the yard is just mere weeks away.

until then, here's a snip it of what we've been up to.

our artist in residence has been furiously creating abstract art and underwater ocean scenes.

averie's decided that ironman frequently requires diaper changes.

we hung a curtain rod in the kitchen.  sadly we don't have curtains.  but we have a rod.

some rad dude went skiing with his dad, he's becoming a little pro.

i got crafty and spray painted some frames.  it was a fail.

meh, that's okay.  you win some and you lose some.  this time i lost.

loving all the fresh colourful flowers.

a pancake, bouncy house playdate with our neighbours.

liam picked out new posters for his room, ironman and ninja turtles made the cut.  

this kid loves his "big boy" room.

chicky cheese and crackers for a school snack.

and a little peek-a-moo.

hope your weekend was warm and sunny.

life {lately} ~ vol. 27

almost a month since i last dumped my phone pics.

it's been super duper cold here.

like minus forty with the wind chill cold.

um, isn't it march??

we're pretty much done with the cold, i could do with some spring.

and although it's been effing freezing, life has continued to be crazy and fun.

coffee, blog reading and cameras.

hunting for new bedding for liam.

finished the mudroom bench cushions, with the exception of the added the velcro.

guess that only makes them mostly, almost, 95% finished.

another family road trip ski weekend.  this time to fernie.

beer time.

completed our first attempt at hanging wallpaper.  more on this later.

canada flag art during the olympics and some olympic hockey watching at work.

new art on the wall in the pantry.

reading stories and putting diapers on baby dolls and bo-bear.

life {lately} ~ vol. 26

life has been really really busy lately.

like stupid busy.

like, we both work out of our home full time, have two kids and feel like pulling our hair out busy.

like, we need to get our shit together and re-prioritize it busy.

like, i don't have time to take a pee busy.

and it doesn't appear it'll slow down anytime soon.

but if we put all that busy aside, life's pretty darn good.  i'm pushing the positivity here.

there's been some pretty good meal makin' and eaten' going on.

a few beers here and there.

valentine's on the chalkboard wall.

finally have one of the mudroom cushions finished and working on the second.

saturday morning cartoons and snuggles with scruffy.

early morning paparazzi shots in the car on the way to the day home. 

(i'll try anything to stop the madness/craziness in the morning)

and moose.  lots and lots of moose.

last sunday night after dinner four of them wandered into our backyard.

best dinner theatre ever.

life {lately} ~ vol. 25

the past week or so has had it's share of ups and downs.

i'm down with a cold right now, rob and averie are coming down with it too.

liam seems to be alright, but i'm sure i've jinxed it now.

hopefully the colds won't last long.

before the plague sniffles hit us we were having a lot of ups.

kitchen painting is almost done, in fact the last coat is going on today.

may have taken us the entire month of january to finish, but it'll be worth it.

tons of snowy mountain pics from our drive to whitefish.

rob and i got some kid-free time to shred the rad on our boards.  together.

we rob built liam's big boy bed.

bye bye toddler bed, hello bed that'll last you until your eighteen.

beer drinking, hot tubbing and valentine creations.

just a week (or so) in the life.

can't believe it's already february.

happy love month.

the moo

it's been awhile since averie's last update.  she's sixteen months now, almost seventeen.  i'd forgotten how much fun this stage is.  she's just go go go, non-stop.  all. the. time.  everything is new.  it's exciting and we're just loving that we get to see the world through her eyes.  she's so exploratory, a big change from the way liam was when he was the same age.  he was a lot more laid back, curious, but nonchalant about it.  speaking of liam, he's also loving averie right now too.  kind of something new around here, just last night he was eating something and started sharing and feeding it to averie.  a couple months ago i'm sure that if we asked him he would've been okay if we just left averie behind in a the grocery store.  now not so much.  not to jinx it or anything, but he's even been known to share his toys with her... sometimes.  what the what?  this is fantastic news.

what's up with our averie girl?

~ current word list: sit, uh-oh, ow, dada, cat, hat, mum mum mum, bo bear, hi, bye bye, up and a ton of babble

~ she makes cow, cat and duck noises

~ she knows where her head, tummy, eyes, nose, mouth and hands are

~ sleeps with bo bear, bunny and lambie and her blankie.  bo bear is quickly becoming the favourite.

~ wearing size 12-18 month clothing, some 18 month stuff and a few 18-24 month things

~ loves to walk around in her squeaker shoes and put on any type of hat

~ refuses to wear barrettes or any of her cute headbands
~ has massive stranger danger, clings to us whenever there's someone around that she doesn't know
~ will flirt with anyone, even though she's clinging to me or rob
~ super giggly, fun, and happy
~ loves to play with her princess castle, play kitchen and any type of car
~ has a lot of teeth, haven't counted, but there's a lot
~ she's grown, but we haven't weighed her or anything
~ got her second round of flu vaccination this month, wasn't happy about it
~ she rarely walks would much rather run
~ she's a total snow baby.  screams while we're putting her into her snow suit and screams when it's time to come in.  but when we're playing in the snow ... absolutely happy
~ i'm starting to double words with her, so funny.  i find myself saying things to her like "averie go shop shop?" or "crack crack"

can't wait to see how she changes over the next few months.  it's going to be exponential.  she's not a baby anymore.  she's our toddler girl.  i'm both happy and sad about that.

life {lately} ~ vol. 24

it's been a whirl wind week or so.

averie had her first hair cut ... and liam just got a hair cut.

we had some snowy iPad movie watching on the couch.

some kitchen painting action.  can't wait to share it.

took the kids to their first hockey game ever. 

it was totally awesome.  

has some major family time with gramma's and cousins, uncles and aunts.

and liam hit the slopes again with rob.

all in all not a bad start to the year.

keep the good time rollin'.

life {lately} ~ vol. 23: the most wonderful time of year

first, i just realized that most of these are of averie.

guess i was a little more paparazzi with her than with liam.

and second, the last two weeks have flown by.

christmas came and went, it was both joyful and triumphant.

we said good-bye to hermey and a see ya next year.

liam looked for him on christmas morning and was a little sad that he was gone.

then he realized santa had come and everything was okay.

presents were opened, merry christmas was said, eggnog lattes and mimosas were consumed.

this was of course followed with the playing of toys and the eating of turkey.

we had some sleddin' action and snow angel building.

liam hit the slopes for the first time and rob and i got a couple runs in too.

we said good-bye 2013.

and welcome 2014.

that was our last two, pretty fantastic, weeks.

 in a nut shell.

see ya next year

and with that 2013 is over.

our family had a great year.  

complete with travel, birthday's, fun food, floods, snuggles, smile, happiness and good health.

for 2014 we wish for more of the same

and wish it to you and yours.
thank you to all who read about our little family.

happy new year!

cheers to new beginnings, fun and adventure.

snow much fun

during our christmas holidays (two weeks for me and three for rob) we've been able to take full advantage of mountains of snow that are every where.  seriously.  we haven't had this much snow in december since 1904.  i'm so not complaining.  just means we have more snow to sled on and make snowmen with.  precisely what we've been doing.  and we've been doing it almost everyday, even when it was -20.  the kids are troopers.  we also got liam out for his first ski day yesterday.  it was a total success, kept asking to go again and again.  absolutely zero complaints of sore/cold feet.  and to top the day off, rob and i were even able to get a couple runs in.  just the two of us.  but more on our ski adventures later.  back to sledding and snow people.

liam rocked the old school gt snow racer like a champ. circa 1990's.

only reason he wanted to go inside was because "mommy i'm frozen!"  and he was.

averie got towed around the snow by her big cousin and was perfectly happy having her valet do so.

the rest of us took turns using the blue circle of death (think chevy chase in christmas vacation)

and the other various sledding choices.  

zero children or adults were harmed during the making of our snow fun.

inside for hot chocolate and beers, followed by some good 'ol hanging out by the christmas tree.

weather got warmer here just after christmas.

we tried to go sledding again but it was more like a sheet of ice. 

so we built a snowman snow angel, with her own set of antlers.

her face is a little questionable.

 kids had a blast making it and being tossed in the snow.

and really, that's the only thing that matters.

oh ya and when did averie stop looking like my baby girl?  

when did she turn into that little girl in these photos?

baby averie no more.  hello toddler-hood.

sugar cookies

'tis the season to eat, drink and be merry.  so in keeping with that was better way to celebrate then making a ton of cookies.  some of which will be eaten, most of which will remain in our freezer until may.  these sugar cookies are one of the easiest cookies to make and are totally pre-school helper friendly.  other than the mountain of flour that ended up everywhere, liam and i had high fives all around as we bake our christmas cookies.  i think liam's favourite part about the whole cookie baking thing is decorating them.  mostly i think it's because he puts icing on the cookie and then into his mouth.  repeat.

it's almost christmas.

we're spending the next couple days tobogganing, eating, wrapping, light seeing

 and hanging out with family.

merry merry.