Favorite things

These are my kids' favorite things right now:Owen loves this farm puzzle. It makes noises when you place the animal in the correct spot, and now Owen is very good at making animal sounds. It is just about the cutest thing ever (well, in my opinion anyway).
Caitlin is pretty much obsessed with this book where you have to spot different things (1001 things, to be exact). I am not exaggerating when I say that there are days when she spends hours looking through this book.

(Oh, and do you want to know what my favorite thing is at the moment? Well, it is a box of Purdy's chocolates that I was given for Christmas. I must.stop.eating.purdys.chocolates.)


Hope you all have a fun New Year's Eve!!

Christmas, Part Two: Christmas Day

We had planned to spend Christmas day with my side of the family (the VD's), but with all the snow we were a little nervous about driving up there (our church had even been cancelled because it was so bad). We finally decided around 10 that morning that we were just going to go for it because we heard that the freeways were in good shape. We also knew that once we got into B.C. the main roads would be good because they have lots of plows and even use salt (gasp!) for the roads up there. But before we headed out, we had to open stocking stuffers...check out how Caitlin's hair looks (very typical in the mornings):The drive up there went very well...and no border line-up!! At my parents house we enjoyed some poffertjes for a late breakfast (if you're dutch, you'll know what I'm taking about), and then had some pictures taken. This time Jon made it in the family picture:
Then we had our gift exchange:

Owen with his first train set:Later in the afternoon we headed over to my Uncle and Aunts house for Christmas dinner. They had 3 dogs there, which kept Caitlin entertained the whole time. We spent a nice, relaxing evening there (a big shout-out to Uncle Ed and Aunt Lucy for a delicious dinner and awesome desserts!!). We spent the night at my parents house because we thought it would be better to drive home the next day. But we thought wrong. The next morning the snow started up again. We had planned to stay for a good part of the day at my parents house, but with the snow sticking to the ground, we were on our way home by 10am. The first problem was the border line-up...it took us 90 minutes to get through. Once we finally got through the border and onto the freeway, the road was treacherous. Between the border and B-ham there were 8 cars in the ditch (3 of which were upside-down in the ditch) and of course there were traffic backups by each of the cars. Normally it takes us about an hour to get home from my parents house...this time it took us 4 hours. It was torture at times because Owen was not happy in the back of the van, but he did finally fall asleep 3 hours into it:

Thankfully we made it home safe and sound. What a day!

Christmas, Part One: Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve was spent with the VK family. Before we went over to Jon's parents house, we opened presents together with our little family. But first, we had to get the traditional picture in front of our Christmas tree. Jon's not in the picture...but Binky the doll is, and she's pretty much family:
Owen giving a look:

Caitlin opening her present (I don't even have to tell her to look up at me and say "cheese," she just does it automatically):

After that, we headed over to the VK's house. We spent the evening there enjoying lots of good food and good fun. We also had a gift exchange, and here is Owen opening his gift (with Caitlin's help):

Another day of snow

Yes, the snow and ice are pretty...but I am so done with this cold, snowy weather. It's day #7 of being snowed-in. Yesterday I started to clean out closets and drawers. I came across a shoebox filled with my old photos, which Caitlin got all excited about. She spent quite some time looking through all the pictures, and asking questions about who was in the picture and what they were doing. Here's Caitlin holding up a picture from many years ago when Amy D. and I were trying on our aunts wedding and bridesmaids dresses from the 70's! (Remember that Amy!!)

Lesson of the day: Never leave Owen unattended in the kitchen. He just may get into the box of Trix.

Snow, Snow, Snow

We've been snowed in since Sunday. The snow started Saturday until Sunday, Monday and Tuesday were icy and cold, and today it has been snowing all day. There's a lot of snow out there! I don't drive in the snow, and so we've been home all week.
Caitlin loves to just run in the snow, and make snow angels:

Owen and I prefer to just hang out in the house with a cup of warm milk (or tea, in my case)
Since we've been spending so much time at home, we have had to find lots of different things to do. I pulled out all of the games we have, and Caitlin loves to play them. I have played more rounds of 'old maid' in the last 5 days then most people should play in a lifetime. We have also done some more Christmas baking, read lots of books, and made lots of crafts. Yesterday Caitlin presented me with this drawing:
Of course it begs the question "what is it?" Well, it's a crocodile of course! Is that not the cutest crocodile you ever did see??

Have a great rest of the week :)

Firehall kids party

Each year the fire department, where Jon is a volunteer fire fighter, holds a party for the kids of the members. So that is where we spent the afternoon today.

There were cookies to decorate and "gingerbread" houses to make...

...but Owen just wanted to play with a balloon:

There were games to play like a bean bag toss into the fireman's mouth...

Poor Owen, he got caught in the line of bean-bag fire and got hit in the head:

There was a fire truck pinata:

And of course a visit from Santa:

Owen wasn't too crazy about him: (he just wanted to get off his lap...this was the only picture I got)

To end the party "Santa" always takes the kids on a fire truck and they go for a ride around the block. It started to snow just as they were getting ready to take off on their ride...what a perfect way to end the party!!!

Gingerbread House

Today it was time for our second annual decorating of the Gingerbread house. This year, unlike last, I was determined to give up control and let Caitlin decorate the entire house by herself. To keep Owen busy during the building and decorating, I gave him a cookie with frosting on it to decorate himself.

He was very serious about the task at hand, placing his candy oh-so-carefully (he was really annoyed with the frosting that was sticking to his fingers):

When I turned around for a split second to help Caitlin, I suddenly heard a big "CRUNCH". I turned around to find Owen taking a big-ole bite of his cookie. I quickly went over there and grabbed it away from him. I didn't think a thick cookie, covered with frosting and topped with chocking-hazard sized candy made for a good mid-morning snack.

This is how he felt about the whole situation:

I had to help Caitlin pipe on the frosting, but other then that she was free to do what she wanted with the decorating:

The finished product:

To my dutch friends and family...

Happy Sinterklaas Day!!!

A train ride

Whenever Jon is out of town for work I usually head up to my parents house for a few days to visit. That is where we have been this week. Yesterday Grandpa and Grandma wanted to take the kids to this garden center where they have a Christmas train ride. Inside the store they also had all sorts of model-G (I think that's what they're called) trains to watch, as well as some tables of the wooden Thomas trains to play with. It was a choo-rrific afternoon!

On the train:

I wanted to get a picture of them both in front of the train. This was the best I could do, folks (Owen is mid-takeoff, with my dad trying to hold him back for the picture):

At least I got a decent picture of Caitlin:

A fun afternoon

It was suppose to be a quiet day at home today. Jon had the day off and we were hoping to get some work done outside the house (like putting up Christmas lights!) but it was just too rainy outside and we couldn't get motivated to go out there. In the morning while I cleaned up, Caitlin worked on decorating the leftover cookies from last night, so now I have a tray full of frosted sugar cookies staring me down every time I walk into the kitchen...not good. Anyway, by 2 in the afternoon we were all starting to feel like the walls were caving in around us and so Jon and I decided to take the kids to a local indoor playground (We wanted to avoid all stores...I'm just not into the whole after-thanksgiving shopping). The kids had SO much fun there - and Jon and I did too. We haven't been there for several months and the last time we were there Caitlin was afraid to go down any of the really big slides (like the 'black hole'). We were a little surprised this time that she had no fear at all when it came to the big slides. In fact, that's all she wanted to do...over and over and over again! Owen enjoyed the little toddler area where he could climb to his hearts content. We certainly wore them out this afternoon, and they were both ready for bed earlier then usual tonight!

Thanksgiving

This year for Thanksgiving a big chunk of the VK family was down in California for a family reunion. Unfortunately not all of us could attend, so those of us left back home decided to take it easy this year and go out to eat. We went to the local all-you-can-eat buffet and we were probably the youngest people there. By like a few decades. But the kids had a lot of fun, we all filled up on food, and it was nice and relaxing. Owen was really working his charm on all of the older ladies there, who were gushing over his smile.
After we ate, we had the privilege of having Caitlin's cousins "M" and "J" over for a visit. Once we got home, guess what Caitlin wanted to make with them??

Yup, a "tent":After all the excitement of playing in the tent, it was time for something a little...calmer. So I got out some crafts.

Check out the concentration:

Later on in the evening we all met up again at Jon's brother and sister-in-law's house for more food and fun. We had more crafts for the kids to do including:

Making ornaments by squirting paint into glass balls and swirling the paint around...

...and decorating cookies...

It was a fun-filled day spent with those whom we are thankful for: our family.

Making tents

Caitlin has really been into making "tents" lately. She gathers a bunch of blankets and uses chairs, tables, pillows, toys and whatever else she can find to create one. Most of the time as she's trying to set it up, Owen is pulling it down, which doesn't go over well with Caitlin. Once it is all finally set up (after I remove Owen from the room), she always sets up a picnic with her play food and invites Owen and myself to join her.

A completed tent:


As you can see, Owen was very excited to be playing in this tent:

A quiet week

It's been a rather quiet week here so there has not been much to write about, thus the lack of posts. I thought I would just post a couple of pictures instead.

So here's a question: Do you think Caitlin needs a hair-cut??

(okay, so this picture was taken mid-jump so it doesn't properly represent what her hair normally looks like...but wow that's a lot of hair!)

Christmas card picture: attempt #1

The other day I thought it was time to try and get a picture for our Christmas card. So I got the kids ready, and out to the backyard we went. I first tried to get a picture of both kids together, but Owen did not want to co-operate (of course). As soon as I'd put him down, he was off and running.

This is one of the better pictures of the two of them because you can actually see Owen's face. And yes, that is Jon in the background racking leaves. Okay, so this wasn't exactly the look I was going for:



So I gave up on trying to get a picture of them together, and started to take individual pictures. Caitlin was easy, as she loves to pose for the camera. Owen was a little more work. I had to try and run ahead of him in the hope that he might actually look up at me while he was running around and smile. Yeah, that didn't happen.

Here is Owen making the "peace" sign. I thought maybe I could write "peace on earth" on the card. No? Too tacky you say? Nevermind.
I did manage a couple of decent shots in the 70 or so that I took. I won't post them here just in case I use them for my card. But I am going to attempt another round of picture-taking soon.

Communication

Owen, at 15 months, can now say more then just "mama" or "dada". Some of the words he likes to use are: "up" "kitty" "duck" "hot" "baa-baa" & "juice". But he really prefers to just grunt, point and shake his head 'no' to communicate.