The Norampac Kids Christmas Party 6:54 AM

This past weekend was my work's Kids Christmas Party. It's always at McCully's Hill Farm Market in St. Marys. There was a light dusting of snow on the ground, and although it was a bit chilly, it was perfect for a Christmas Party.

We started out by hitting the craft area. And since there was painting, my kids were sooo IN!!

Here is Little Miss Serious Face painting her ornament. Really, she did like it. ;)

Ella joining Zo-J to paint her own ornament. It was painted to perfection, of course!

Max, in heaven, painting. (His was so full of paint I could barely pick it up!!!)

Mommy and Zoe colouring, and playing with STICKERS!!

Crazy Zo-J.

Mr. Max all serious, complete with his warthog hat.

Ella-Mae, no doubt listening intently to Daddy explaining how the corn thing worked.

Working the corn thingy. Seriously, no idea what it's called. Go as Rick...

Ahhh...good times. They must have done at least a dozen corn. Who knew child labour could be that much fun?

We went for a horse-drawn wagon ride next, then got to pet the horses!! All the kids loved it. (As did we!)

Max was hesitant, but liked being close. No touching though.

A tractor-wagon ride up to the barn to see the animals!! What fun!!

Ella got to hold a guinea pig. No doubt that will be the next animal on her "want" list. ;)

And last, but not least - SANTA!!!!!!!!!! Ella hopped up there before I even knew she was gone!! I guess she knows what the 'big man' is all about...LOL!

At first Max was hesitant to go see Santa, but all I had to do was whisper in his ear that Santa brings presents, and he ran right up, VERY happy to see Santa!

Zoe didn't like Santa. From far away, it was great - she was all: "Ho Ho Ho!", but up close, she lost it, and it just wasn't worth it. Poor thing! After a nice long drive home, she finally gave in and had a nap. What a beauty!

Lastly, this is my new fav thing to do. Yes, it's a little weird, (Rick just rolls his eyes at me) but it's fun to pack fun lunches!! Of course I had to crack out all the small Christmas cookie cutter set I just got! I hope he likes it today! (It usually comes back practically empty!)

NEW CAMERA PICS! 8:29 AM

FINALLY!! I got to play with the new camera last night! I also got to make my first Planetbox lunch for Max! He has a Goodbyn, which I love, but his Preschool teacher told me that he can't open it himself, and she really wants to teach independence, SO...since I happened to have just bought the Planetbox for Zoe (but made sure I got a gender-neutral one - SMART MOMMY ALERT!) Max got to use it!

It's MUCH more fun to fill...I hope he likes it! He was so excited about it last night, it was so cute! He took all the magnets off, then put them on, then took them off again, and played with them everywhere they would stick. Who knew they were just that exciting?

Here is my creation for my first attempt to fill the Planetbox:


And Ella's Goodbyn: (not quite as exciting, but hold a lot more stuff!)

Now, onto pics of my kiddies! The new camera absolutely ROCKS when you want to take a pic WITHOUT the flash, for more natural light! The other one would just take majorly blurry pics. So I experimented with taking pics with no flash last night...

Rambo-Max
(This morning we saw the moon still up in the sky. Max looked up and said: "Mommy! It's not half anymore!" Funny realization...crazy how they make you appreciate every little thing!)



Zoe was a bear last night. She found the dress up bear ears, and wore them after her bath, until bed. Ahhh..good times. :) I LOVE her curls after the bath, but the disappear by the morning usually :(

My little 'mother' helping out her little bro. Making sure his mask in 'just right'.
We call this: "Karaoke-Welder"

My cute little Zozo!
This weekend (and this past week) she has had a cold. So she figured out how to say: "Nose running!" and come up to me or Rick to get her nose wiped. It's soooo adorable! In the morning she asks for "Cheerio", "Bow" and "Mil" (aka bowl and milk) for breakfast. That one really blew me away! Her vocab is increasing sooo fast. I've been teaching her to call Max - including the "x" part. So she now says it correctly.
When I ask who everyone is, she can name everyone. "Mama, Dada, Ella, Max, Nana, Bopa" and when I point to her, she says: "Zozo" LOVES IT!!!!!!!!!!!!

She is VERY smart, and will answer a yes or no question correctly pretty much every time. She loves nodding her head 'yes' for things. It's crazy how accurate it is too. She understands probably 90% of what I ask her to do the first time. Even long sentences like: "Zoe, can you pick up the ball and go put it in the toy room?"
She'll just say: "Yup!" and go put it away...

My new fav thing she does is yelling "Yeah!" all the time! Max got up too early one morning, so I had to go put him back to bed (luckily it doesn't happen that often), and when I came back upstairs, I heard a muffled "Yeah!" from Zoe's room!!! LOL! Obviously it was a good dream! :)

MY NEW CAMERA IS HERE! Oh, and the Parade... ;) 12:05 PM

FINALLY! We have a new camera! I just may have to take a picture of it. It's really awesome. We can now get rid of the old one (not that my husband WANTS to...he wants to keep it. Oy.), as well as sell the old HUGE Paparazzi lens we have for the old one, because the new camera has a lens that will do the work of BOTH!!! I'm so excited!

...now do I have pics with my new camera to post today? No. (Duh) The few we have taken are nicely at home. ;)

But I do have a few pics from the Ingersoll Santa Clause Parade on Saturday! Did I mention that we were IN it? Dad put a float in for the Tillsonburg Power and Sail Squadron, and drove his riding lawn mower with the dingy attached! Mom and Dad decorated the dingy all up (so cute!) and Ella, Max and Colby rode in it. I walked beside (to make sure no one fell out) and we had a BLAST!
It was funny that my kids were absolutely fine (I was worried they might be nervous?!?), but it ended up being Colby that was freaked out. He told me about 1/2 way through that he didn't like how high it was. So cute! I promised to stay close by his side, so he was a little less nervous afterwards... It was just funny coming from the practically professional dirt bike racer (yes, at 6)!! LOL!

Oh, and even though we have our new fancy camera, Rick used the OLD one to take pics at the parade. He said he was 'saving' the new one...Oh, ONLY my husband!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LMAO!

***Mind you - Rick only took ONE of these pics. The rest are from my dear mother...Luckily her camera has still worked through all of this!!!

Zo-J watching the parade, and CLUTCHING her box of Smarties Daddy bought her! ;)


Here we come!!



And last, but certainly not least, Shay came with Nikki to pick up Colby afterwards (we saw and waved like crazy when we saw her on route!!). Note her new boots? She is VERY excited about them, and would pose for Grandma ONLY because of the boots!!!

How much drama can one camera have? 6:49 AM

I'm still down a camera :(

BUT a brand new one is on it's way!!!!!!! I'm very excited!

So here is our camera drama so far:
1. I dropped our Canon Rebel and broke the flash (oops..!)
2. It will cost a minimum of $230 to send back to Canon to fix (yeah...)
3. Rick bought an external flash from Ebay for $120
4. External flash works - but not when it's attached to our camera! (Hence - our camera is REALLY broken) and now we are stuck with an external flash. :S
5. Rick bought a fancy new camera (that might be here this week!), and upgrade too...
6. We find out that the external flash is for a FILM camera, not digital (the Ebay ad was wrong - whew!)
7. So we are back to our original camera with a broken flash, and the new fancy-smanshy one coming!

OY!
Oh, and here is new new FAB scarf. Yes, I realized the day after I bought it that it does NOT match my coat. So I am now starting a new trend. Join me if you dare. ;)

Hey - wanna buy a camera? It's awesome, as long as you don't need the flash...!!! ;)

Cake Pops 6:20 AM

Yesterday I made pink and blue cake pops. I was inspired by a blog I read: http://www.bakerella.com/
and decided to take a stab at them! They are really easy to make, but very time consuming, I found out. ;)
And let me tell you - having the kids try to help, was um...fun. (?)


So...the next question is: "Why?" Well, let me ask YOU - around June 6 - do you think 'pink' or 'blue'?!? ;)

Halloween! 12:13 PM

Some Halloween pics from last night! It was crazy fun, and I loved it all!

My crew was all Star Wars this year (I figured it's the only year I can get them to coordinate their costumes!! LOL!)

So here is Darth Vader! Dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun... (were you humming the correct tune?!?!)


Ella as Princess Leia, and her friend Chloe (who was a ghost - was there a ghost in Star Wars?!?)


And my little Yoda!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Isn't she adorable??! She LOVED trick-or-treating! She would quietly say: "tic-uh-tee" all the way up to each person's house. *swoon*Hopefully more pics to come! :)