Spring Break Projects

This past week was Spring Break for me which meant a week of no work! Yeah! My parents were here visiting which was such a nats around the city that Kaley would enjoy. When Kaley went down for her nap, that is when I was able to concentrate on some projects around the house that I've been wanting to tackle for some time. Luckily, dad and mom wanted to help so I got twice the amount of work done that I wanted to!

Project #1 (Biggest project) Playroom for Kaley
I understand the importance of playtime for a toddler, so I wanted to create an area where Kaley could freely play with whatever she was interested in, and could leave her things out without having to have it picked up. The best place was in the basement, so the first thing was to clean out the main room in the basement, then organize her toys and then put it all together.

The old t.v. cabinet that is now where Kaley's toys are kept.

Some of her toys in the cabinet.

Her big girl play toys.

The music corner for our little musician! (The piano is the one that I usually practice on, but Kaley has quickly adopted it as hers when I'm not using it!)

Kaley's craft corner

Project #2 - My Craft Room
I have tried three different ideas for my craft room. If first tried a storage room, then tried to make it portable and then tried it up in our bedroom. None of which worked very well at all. So, when we were designing Kaley's playroom, we were able to put all of my craft items in a corner of the playroom. Now we can both be creative and play together in one place!



Project #3- A Storage place for winter coats
As we've found in the last two years, we have more and more things that are needed for a two year old. One of the things that seemed to be growing faster than we could keep up with, is the coats, jackets, snowsuits, etc. So, after some moving around and cleaning out of some areas, dad was able to put up a board in the storage area beneath the stairs to put all her things! It works perfect!



There were other little projects that we got done, but these were the biggest ones, and it is so nice that they are done. Thanks dad and mom for your help, you were a blessing!

Kaley's Birthday Celebration

We had a lot of fun celebrating Kaley's birthday tonight. The celebration started by going out to Burger Street for dinner. Kaley had her favourite foods: chocolate milk, pickles, french fries, cucumbers and black olives. Quite the birthday dinner!







Then after that we headed over to Retro Planet for some fun playing the arcade games. Her favourite game is the Skeeball game. This is where we spent most of our time.







After that, daddy took her over to the basketball game where she played against daddy to see who would get the most baskets. She was quite the basketball player!









The cars found her attention next and I must say, she had it mastered! She was shifting and steering and beeping the horn like an old pro. It was really cute. Then she saw the truck driving game and had to try that too.













Then we headed home to open her gifts. We figured that since she was already tired, that we would save the cupcakes until tomorrow. She was very excited about her guitar and her very special birthday card from daddy that had Elmo singing "Happy Birthday", and had a great time playing with them. She also got some clothes, which failed in comparison to the ultimate guitar. Now to get it tuned and get a strap for her.








It was a great evening spent together celebrating Kaley's birthday. She enjoyed herself and we had just as much fun with her! Happy birthday sweetheart.

Happy Birthday Sweet Kaley!!!

Our "baby" turned the monumental 2 today! It is hard to believe that it has already been two years that she became a part of our family. I can still remember the day like it was yesterday. Kaley is such a sweet, loving, vivacious, energetic and happy little girl. She lights up our lives with her sense of humor, her unique look on life and her quest to learn more and do more. We are so proud of the little person that she has become in the short two years of her life so far. Happy birthday sweetheart!!! Daddy and mommy love you so very much:-)

"I Skate! I Skate!"

Tonight we had our church's family fun night event which was skating at the Barrie City hall outdoor rink. This was Kaley's first encounter with ice and she had so much fun. We thought that we would bring the sled and have Grandma pull her around in the sled around the outside. Ha ha, that happened for all of two seconds. The minute we got to the skating rink, out she came from the sled and right onto the rink boots and all and didn't look back. She had so much fun! She had no idea that she didn't have skates on her feet, she just ran around in circles saying "I skate! I skate!" We finally got a video of her saying it and I must say that it is really cute:-). She did start off with all of the proper winter clothes in order to keep her warm, but halfway through she pulled off her scarf, mittens, coat and had started on her hat and snowpants when we had to stop the removal of clothing! It was a lot of fun and afterwards we headed to Second Cup to get a cup of hot chocolate to warm us up. Very fun family night indeed! Now it is time for mommy's legs to get soar from all of the exercise she did tonight (yep I'm REALLY out of shape)!

Having fun in the snow

We got fresh snow tonight and had to go out to get the mail, so we thought we'd have a little fun. I think Baracus makes quite the good chauffeur!:-) We had fun and Kaley enjoyed her sledding fun.

Our Cooking Experience

On Wednesday night, we were making open faced sandwiches for supper. The best thing about this dinner is, of course, the homemade mashed potatoes. So, Kaley and I took on this portion of the dinner. We try and include her whenever we can in preparing dinner because of the natural learning experience that cooking is. She was such a good helper. She washed the potatoes, helped mommy peel them, and then needed her own peeler (the spoon) to do it herself! She then filled the pan with water herself and added some salt with mommy's help. She had to take a break when the potatoes were getting cut up and then whipped but only because I don't want her to know how to cut with a knife or a blender yet. I'm afraid that there might be some grave outcomes if Kaley comes across one. Who knows what she would do (Baracus look out!). She did make a great tester though! Hopefully she will gain the most of her cooking skills from her daddy, but at least I can teach her the basics:-)

Last day in Calgary

On Monday, we had to head back to Ontario after a week of fun times spent with each other. Our day had to start early by being packed and ready to head out the door at 10:30 a.m.! It was interesting how it seemed that Kaley knew that is was the day to travel home, because after she woke up, she just walked around the house looking at things, not really playing with any of them. She made sure that she had all of her things in the right place (just like her daddy) and that she was going home with the things that were important to her. We had a fun time and enjoyed our time in Calgary and had an uneventful plane ride home. When Kaley came into the house, the first thing she said was "Baracus?," but of course he wasn't home yet. She did, however, go around and look at all her toys and special things at home. She was excited to see that they were still here exactly how she remembered them. Great trip and great time.