I have been struggling to think of something to write about. I figured instead of not writing I would just add some random pictures of the boy and maybe then I'd get some flow and I'd think of something new to add as well.

Cute Mabey grand kids. WW and JJ.
WW and his Papa Mabey at West Edmonton Mall. A good friend of mine told me that kids under two can go on the rides for free... that is probably because there are only 2-3 rides that they are big enough to ride on. WW LOVES it, he'd ride those horses over and over and over. Luckily my dad was a good sport and came along, and joined WW on the rides. BJ and I don't seem to be able to stomach rides anymore.

WW and his Grandma Mabey making cinnamon buns for me. He is an impressive little helper. Love cracking eggs, stirring and using a "spatuala"
WW and Baby JJ in the chariot. JJ was a much better sport about staying in the stroller. My big boy wants to be just that, and walk by himself.

Well my big trip to New York is coming up very quickly and I couldn't be more excited. We leave for New York in just over 18 days. We have lots of fun planned... including seeing Wicked, Billy Elliott, lunch at the American Girl store, the Manhattan Temple... and hopefully lots of shopping and sightseeing. I am absolutely thrilled with who I get to travel with. I have such a great relationship with my sister in laws that I know we will have an amazing time together.

I am really excited for BJ and WW to spend some quality one on one time together. BJ will not only get a sense of what it is to be a stay at home dad, but I think WW will also learn that his Dad is just as capable as his mom. It will be good for them both. All the boys that are left behind have a camping trip planned to Miquelon lake. That makes me a little nervous, but I'm going to be caught up in the excitement of my trip to worry about what is going on at home... I hope!

My photos don't match up with the blurbs in the last post. Sorry. It worked out properly when I wrote it, but I'm not sure I know how to fix it. So I trust that whoever reads this will be able to match the pictures with the words correctly.

Easter

I have taken alot of photos the last little while, so here is a quick update from our Easter weekend. We have been loving the spring weather and trying our hardest to spend time outside. WW got this sidewalk chalk from the Easter Bunny and he is loving drawing pictures out front.



BJ's side of the family lives outside Edmonton on farms. It is one of our favorite things to spend holidays with them. Catching up with BJ's cousins, eating the BEST food and bowling! This year WW was old enough to really figure it out, and it was soo cute to watch him go get a ball, push it down the little frame, watch it hit the pins, and then go get another ball. He played for hours... and had so much fun. He even was taking turns with the other cousins. It is exciting for us to see him learn new things, but it's great to see him figure out cooperation and being able to interact with other kids.

BJ and I put on a little Easter egg hunt for WW on Sunday morning. It was so great to get everything together the night before with BJ, and then to watch WW hunt down the eggs and show us what he got. He opened each egg, took the wrapper off , and then put it in his bucket before moving on. It feels so great as a parent to be able to do those silly little things for your kids that they just love. I felt like a good mom that morning.




SH saves me regularly. Not only is she a dear friend, but she is the one that helps me be crafty, and more importantly keeps me festive on holidays. This year she let me know about the Fort Edmonton Park Easter celebration and so we went as a family and met her and her little girl AH there, as well as my sister in law (her sister) and nephews there as well. It was the most beautiful day and they had all these wonderful things for kids of all ages to do.

Face painting, Egg hunting, treasure hunts, petting zoo, egg dying. We had a great time, and loved being out in the warm spring weather.

I missed out on the Easter basket this year, so we bought WW this little bucket at Michaels on the way to Fort Edmonton. It worked perfectly.

Finger painting. I had this picture on a different camera, so it is from a different post, but it's so fun to watch WW play around with his paints.

Bedtime routines

Anyone that knows WW knows that he has never been a great sleeper. He seems to have developed other qualities that make me willing to keep him around for a while.(just joking) but we have started in the last couple days to develop a little bedtime routine that I can't help writing about.

BJ works shift work, so when I am left to put WW to bed by myself I tend to be a little less strict than when BJ is home and I'd like to spend some time with him. So last night and tonight have been two nights where BJ is at work. So WW and I take our time before bed, he plays in the tub for a while, we read stories, sing songs, brush his teeth... and then when it's time for him to get to bed he lays down and I try to sneak off to fill his humidifier hoping he will fall asleep without noticing I haven't come back... Not today... he was calling for me so I go back into his room to find him standing up in his crib. The rest of the conversation went like this...

"WW lay down please, it's bedtime."

W- "three blankets?"

"ok, three blankets, but you might get hot"

W- "poops?"

"no Wyatt you were just on the potty."

W- "food? Salad... soo good"

"Wyatt you just had a snack, and you don't like salad"

W- "see daddy?"

"Daddy's at work"

W- "see daddy's white truck"

"daddy's truck is at work too"

W- "kisses?"

"ok, kisses"

W- "sleep mommy's bed?"

"No WW, you have to sleep in WW's bed tonight"

W- "out?"

"Nope"

W-" in?"

"yes"

W-" Play?"

"you can play in the morning it's time for bed"

It's crazy that I just see him sit and think about the next possible request that he thinks I might fall for. And all of his requests seem to make sense to the both of us... What better way to get out of going to sleep than having to use the bathroom, or have a bedtime snack. That little guy is a thinker.

Anyway, after countless requests... he won! I cuddled with him in our bed until he fell asleep, and then moved him into his own room. This little boy is getting way too smart. And he's got quite a sense of humor too, he is always looking to make us laugh, and even when I'm trying to be serious so that he'll eat his dinner instead of be silly, I have a hard time not laughing along. What fun it must be to be a toddler, because I am having so much fun as the mother of a toddler.

Encouraging Creativity

WW and I have been discovering some more of his many talents in the last little while. He is so creative, and I am finding it hard to control my own desire to find new things to introduce him to.

This all started when we went over to my sister in law JF's house for a quick stop in, and she was painting ceramic piggy banks with her kids. WW got to paint his very own mug, and we had a hard time pulling him away to leave. So I went to Michael's to see what I could find for him, and have had a hard time restraining myself since then. Michael's has so many different activities we are just getting started. (Plus with their 40% coupons, you really don't need to restrain too much) We have tried ceramics painting- (a mug for Papa Mabey, and we decorated his dad's splint bowl) we also bought regular crayola washable paint and some watercolors. WW will sit and paint for hours.

WW has also developed a LOVE of play dough. It occupies him in his highchair while I get all my housework

done around him. I took him to Toys-R-Us today and they had buy one play set get one free, so we are set with play dough for quite sometime now. Here are some pictures of him playing today. It has been difficult for me to ignore the mess, the little bits of color all over my floor,

but it's good for me to relax a little and let him enjoy himself. We even did a little finger and feet painting the other day which made for an interesting afternoon.

p.s I survived my ski holiday. I'll post about that with some pictures soon.

Blog block

Not much exciting to report, but WW and I had a little adventure today. He has has these white spots on his tongue and on the inside of his lip for the last few months off and on. I have taken him to his family doctor who didn't know what it was, and I was fairly confident that it wasn't anything serious... but for my own sake we went in to the dentist for a quick check. We see Dr. Scott Bennett downtown, and since I don't enjoy the stress of looking for parking downtown and then rushing through busy streets to get to our appointment... we took the train. What a fun adventure for WW and I. He was such a good boy on the train, looking out the window and doing some people watching. I wish I had taken a picture.

He also did such a good job in the chair. He sat there and let the dentist check his spots (which seem to be from him chewing his lip) No tears!!! He is becoming such a big boy. I think it helped that his aunt HF was the dental assistant and gave him some great treasures before we got started. I was so proud of him though.

BJ and I have a romantic get away planned for tomorrow. We are driving to Banff to stay overnight and then for a day of snowboarding at Sunshine Village. I am really excited because it has been a few years since I've been snowboarding, and it will be good to get away for a quick trip with BJ. I just can't help but have aprehensions of leaving WW, and being so far away if there was any trouble. He will be in wonderfully capable hands (his grandmothers- my mom thursday and overnight, and then BJ's mom friday all day.) I am just an overprotective mother, with a few control issues. This will be really good for me. I are leaving in June for 6 days away to New York. WW will be with his dad, but if I can't leave WW for just over a day, then I'll be in big trouble for New York. It will be a good experience for the both of us.

Wish me luck! I'll post again later when I know how it turns out.

Thoughts

Not much new and exciting has happened to our little family in the last little while. Which can sometimes be a good thing. We have just been enjoying our time together, and have been lucky to have had BJ home quite a bit

these last couple weeks. I was contem

plating what to write about and came up with a few thoughts.

1. I hope I didn't give anyone the wrong impression with my last post. I am feeling great. Very happy lately... I am looking forward to having another baby hopefully in the near future, but I've also been working on being happy with what I've got. There are so many things to be happy about that I'm just choosing to focus on that first and then whenever we are blessed with another baby then I'll definitely focus on the joy of that. It can be difficult to hear about the many other people that are having babies in the

near future, but I'm so excited for them as well.

2. I got my hair done again. Cut like before, but this time I added color. I've always thought that if I was going to dye my hair then I would want to go darker... well I did it. It is so nice to have a hairdresser that I trust and am confident that she knows her stuff. I'm so happy with how it turned out. I"ll add a picture soon. I feels so good to feel like I look good and put together. For example we went to costco the other day... normally I have my hair in a pony tail, sometimes with a headband... wearing sweats... my typical day wear... but this time I had just had my hair done, took time to put on some makeup and just happened to run into a friend of BJ's from work. It felt good to be introduced knowing I felt put together and BJ could be proud to introduce me. A friend put it well, she said it always feels good to go out knowing it doesn't matter who you run into :)

3. BJ and I got our American express bill this month and were surprised at how much money we are spending without really realizing it or having anything to show for it. For example... somehow we spent 800 dollars at costco last month alone. Seems completely impossible, but we do go often and spend over 100 dollars a time. So... now we are on a strict budget. BJ makes enough money for us to live comfortably, but we want to move into a house in the near future (1-3 years) and we want to be able to keep our condo as an investment property too, so we need to keep saving. It has always seemed limiting to be on a budget, but it is actually feeling very liberating. We will be more conscious of what we are buying and if we need it.... but it also feels soo good to have a nice balance in the bank. It's probably none of my business but I'm curious how much other people live on a month... just to see if we are budgeting in a reasonable ballpark for our small family of three.

4. I'm going to NEW YORK!!! My sister-in-laws HF and JF, my niece and nephew IF and EF (photo is of BF and EF... soo cute)and I are going to the big apple in June and I can't wait. We have plans for shopping, hitting up the incredible museums and art galleries, and we have some sweet tickets to see Wicked on BROADWAY... It will be so much fun. BJ and I had been planning

to go on a trip together without WW, but somehow we have ended up planning trips and going separately. He will be going with his dad and brothers to San Fransisco in September to see some professional sports. I'm not only excited for our trip, but I'm excited for BJ to get a sense of being a stay at home dad for 6 days. It will be good for him and WW.

5. WW and I had been going to babynastics wednesdays for the last few months. He had such a good time. Wednesday was the last class this session and we aren't signing up again. (BJ was less of a fan of the strict structure) so I'm looking for some schedualed activities for WWt and I to do. We like having plans for our days... Salto where we were going for babynastics has a drop in program for pre-school

kids tuesday and friday mornings so we'll be doing that.... and SH and I are going to plan on swimming wednesdays at the kinsmen baby pool at 11:30. If anyone wants to meet us, the more the merrier. If anyone has any other summer ideas for childrens activities that they don't mind WW and I tagging along to I'd love to hear about it.

6. I've decided that I'm going to do alot of walking this spring and summer. We've started already, but the weather is so insane that it isn't possible all the time. I just figure that we live close to everything, we aren't ever in a real time crunch... why am I driving? as a good example, my parents live just over a block away... most of the time we drive there.... sometimes we take two cars :( sick!!!

Well those are my thoughts. I love comments. Let me know how you are doing? and what you think of what we are doing.