Valentine's Day 2016

There were red shirts, kinder eggs, school parties and we had dessert before supper (chocolate and vanilla ice cream with tons of toppings.) They were happy kiddos. Owen chose Paw Patrol Valentines, Peter's were Avengers and Natalie had a mix of Mickey Mouse and Star Wars for her friends.

Happy Valentine's Day my sweet little Valentines.

Owen, Natalie and Peter each have a long list of big achievements that I'm so very proud of: first steps, first words, first day of preschool and big kid school, learning to swim etc. But I don't just feel incredibly proud of them when they accomplish something major, every single day they do small things that make me swell with pride.

Sometimes it's as simple as when Peter zippers his own jacket, or when Owen counts to 100 while reading his Chicka Chicka 123 book or when Natalie reads a book to the boys. And sometimes it's these seemingly small things that, when examined more closely, turn out to be so important. 

This past November Natalie and I went to a party for one of her school friends who had missed the first of the school year because of cancer treatments. This little boy had only been back at school for a couple of weeks so Natalie (and I) didn't know him or his friends and family very well, but we felt it was important to celebrate with him.  

The party was in the basement hall of a local church. When we arrived there were only a handful of kids running around playing and they all seemed to know each other well. But Natalie's best friends was due to arrive any minute. So we hung back, ate some sushi and chatted at a table facing the dance floor where the kids were chasing balloons while dance music boomed from speakers set up on a DJ's table.

After a while the DJ started playing games and even gave out a few prizes. Natalie was feeling shy and despite my urging she sat waiting patiently for her friend to arrive. After a few minutes I texted her friend's mom and learned that they'd forgotten about the party and weren't coming after all.

We chatted about her friend not coming and I could see the disappointment wash over her face. After a few minutes I could tell she really wanted to get up and play the games, but she was feeling timid. To encourage her I told her that I was shy sometimes as a kid, but I'd learned that if I let it hold me back, I missed out on a lot of fun. It's hard to be brave, but it's worth it.

She hugged her bear close, hopped out of her chair, hugged me and joined the party. I was so proud my heart was bursting and I had tears in my eyes.

I know it won't always be that easy, but hopefully little lessons like these will add up and help them  with the big things life throws their way.

Things I know about my Sweet Pete

Peter, Pete, Petey, Petey B... he has plenty of nicknames, our Sweetie P.  Here are a few of the things I know and love about Pete.

This boy loves to cuddle and snuggle, anywhere and anytime.

When he gets excited he says the funniest things, like "This is AWESOME guys!" "Fumbs Up" and "Sigh Sive."

He could read the Gruffalo over and over and over...

He's feisty but also softhearted.

He loves having someone "scare" him (as long he knows it's coming.)

He tells us that we're all his "best fwends"

He loves to sleep.

After tubby, he tells me he wants to be my baby, so I'll wrap him in a towel and pretend he's a little baby.
 
He could play in the dirt, mud, sand, puddles, water etc ALL day long.

He's my Sweet Pete and I wouldn't change a thing.

Things I know about my Owie Bowie

He calls me Mommya (we're not sure why).

His giggles are infectious and wild.

Thomas the train (and all of his friends) are the coolest things in the world to this boy.

When he sets his mind to something, watch out.

We call him dash - he's that fast.

He loves to sing (itsy bitsy spider, the wheels on the bus. humpty dumpty, BINGO and of course Let it Go.

He can count to ten already (at 2 1/2) and recognizes all of his numbers and most letters.

He has the sweetest voice.

He hates the potty. Loathes it.

He also hates having dirty hands.

He is the sweetest, funniest, happiest little boy and I'm so lucky he's mine.

xo

Things I know about my Natalie

I've been reading the book "Hands Free Mama" lately and it inspired me to write down a few of the things that I know about my sweet, 5-year-old Natalie right now....

• I know that there is nothing my sweet girl likes to do more than play (especially with her mommy). Everything from Anna and Elsa (from the Frozen movie) and "who's the fastest racer" to puppies and princesses.
• I know that she sometimes feels a little shy, but will always be brave and ask a new friend to play, put her face in the water at swimming lessons, or sing in her school Christmas concert.
• I know that Mo Willems is her absolute favourite author, and she plans to write books with him someday.
• She loves her brothers fiercely and is constantly kissing and hugging them. She often tells them they are the best brother ever. It melts my heart.
• She is insanely ticklish under her chin and around her neck and loves to tell us that she's allergic to tickles (they make her pee).
• She loves spending her Friday nights watching a movie and eating popcorn and cupcakes with her mom and dad. (I hope that lasts a really, really long time)
• To Natalie there is nothing tastier in this world than lays plain chips and anything (I mean anything) chocolate.
• She has the best giggle...ever!
• She likes to sleep with a huge gang of barbies, smurfs and assorted snuggies in her bed.
• She has a heart of gold and is always thinking of ways to show her friends and family that she cares. She loves to make cards and drawings to give away and bake cupcakes for friends' birthdays.
• She is a performer at heart. Right now she nows the entire Olaf "In Summer" song and likes to perform it with props. So fun!
• She loves to snuggle, hold hands (we give a double squeeze as code for "I love you" and roughhouse.
•  She is the sweetest girl I know and I love her more than words could ever say.

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February Fun

We are extremely ready for this long, cold, snowy winter to end. But despite some dreary days February has been filled with a lot of fun. Here are some pictures and a few stories.

Of course we celebrated Valentine's Day with plenty of chocolates, a new snuggy for N, heart crafts (including some pom pom love bugs), a family pancake breakfast complete with decorated table and treats....and a surprise cake baked by Natalie and Dan for me! It was the first cake they baked together and it was delicious.

We made our first batch of tea biscuits as a team of four. Peter was fascinated with the flour. He kept brushing it off the counter yelling "look at the dust mama!" It was messy but a lot of fun.

Natalie's theatre class wrapped up this past Saturday and for the last half of the class parents were invited to watch a short performance. Natalie did a fantastic job, and had a lot of fun.

The Olympics also kept us busy this February, we watched skating, skiing, bobsledding and of course hockey! The Canadian womens' and mens' teams won gold medals as we cheered them on.

And we were also treated to a visit from Auntie Amy. It was a short stay but as you can see we enjoyed every second.

Happy February folks. May spring find us all very, very soon.

Our week in pictures

The days are just flying by lately, even with the batch of bad weather we had (including a blizzard last week!) It seems like I blink my eyes and it's Friday again. Here's a snapshot of how we've been filling our days.

Getting outside Every Saturday Natalie has theatre class at Neptune downtown, so we pack everybody up, drop N at her class and then head down to the waterfront. We usually grab a TIBS coffee and then walk over to the park and play for a bit. Last week it was wet and rainy, this week we were almost knee deep in snow.

Speaking of snow, after the blizzard the hill in our backyard is fantastic for sledding. We spent an afternoon back there with the kids this past week (even managed to jam all five of us into the sled for one of our runs).  So fun.

Moving on to new stages Owen and Peter have moved into toddler beds. It's as crazy as you're imagining. Most nights they play for an hour before crashing and falling asleep on the floor. It's crazy cute and just plain crazy at the same time.

Crafting This past week we started thinking about Valentine's Day and decided to give Dan's office door a "heart attack". We cut out hearts and wrote out all the reasons we love him. Natalie was so excited to sneak down and tape the hearts to his door.

Having dates Natalie and I had an after school date this week, first we did some sledding on the hill at her school and then we visited the music store to pick up Dan's guitar and test out the drums, pianos, microphones, guitars... everything.  Dan and I managed to get out for a dinner date thanks to some Christmas gift cards. And we took the boys out for a Tim's and Chapters date during Dan's day off. 

Here are a few pics we grabbed along the way.

Things we find funny

The kids say and do hilarious, sweet and gross (but funny) things every day. Like when Peter licked the toilette brush (yes, that really happened), and when Owen unrolled an entire toilette paper roll and scattered it all over the bathroom, and when Natalie told us she had a big fart in her tummy named Henry.

These things crack us up and I know that in the future when we read them, they'll give us a giggle and remind us of some very fun times. So from time to time I'll try to add some of their latest funny antics. They may be small parts of our day, but if I don't write them down they'll be lost and I want to remember all of their silliness!

Here are a few more:

Peter and Owen call sushi, "soochi"
Natalie has named our minivan "sprinkles"
Natalie doesn't like it when Dan sings "handsome" like the prince from the movie Enchanted
Peter said his name for the first time on July 15 2013 "Peeper"
Owen says Peter's name with a british accent "Peetah" and his own name sounds like "Oown"
From the back of the van, Natalie asked "Mommy can you turn up your voice? I can't hear you."
Peter can climb out of his crib now on Monday Jan 6th he fell asleep face down on his floor, we had to lift him into bed.
The boys call every overpass on the highway a "tunnel" and get super excited when they see one coming. "Here comes a tunnel!"

Lots of fun!

Winter park visits

It's been relatively warm here the past two days so I've been taking the boys to the park after we drop Natalie off at school. It's been so much fun. It's amazing how great you feel after playing outside. We slide, swing, crawl through tunnels and pretend we're trains. Basically act like fools.

These past two days helped me realize how important it is to get out. I'm a bit of a weather wimp, but I'm finding that with the right gear I can actually enjoy my time with the boys instead of focusing on my cold toes. Owen and Peter would stay out all day if I let them. They start asking "Park? Park?" As soon as we get back in the van after dropping Natalie off. 

Hopefully the weather will stay warm and we can continue our little morning routine. 

Less Fear, More Fun

That's my mantra for 2014

I've been away for a while, but it's time to come back. So despite my busy days, lack of design skills and pesky perfectionist tendencies, it's time.  Time to record the fun, the laughter, the challenges, the goals, the accomplishments and even just the regular stuff that makes up our lives. It's important, it's what we're doing with these precious lives we've been given.

So despite the fact that right now it's 10:30 pm, January 6th and my Christmas tree is still standing tall in the living room adorned with ornaments; my two-year old twin boys are climbing in and out of their cribs, giggling at the hilarity of their newfound freedom; my house is in a state of total disaster; and I'm sleepy from a wildly hectic day. I'm also grateful. Grateful for the hour we spent playing with play-doh today, for the nudge my husband gave me to write this post, for the cozy fire warming my toes right now and grateful that I've let go of some fear, taken a leap and opened myself up for some fun. After all, you only live once.

Happy 2014!

Happy Third Birthday Natalie!

Three years old! Where oh where does the time go...

July 1st birthday - means a Canada Day celebration at the park complete with train ride, magic show and horse carriage ride

A new fiddle

A new bike

Visits from family

Happy, Happy Day

Here's our munchkin waking up on the morning of her birthday walking through her birthday streamers (our annual tradition).

It's been so long...

So much has happened since Christmas that I couldn't possibly cover it all in any detail in one blog post. So here's the short version...

We're pregnant!

With Twins!

They're boys!

They're due to arrive September 1st.

I have SO much to get done over the next few weeks that it gets a bit overwhelming at times, but I'm trying to stop and enjoy the calmness of this pre-twins phase. We've had some great weather the past few days so Natalie and I have been enjoying popsicles, playing with water on the back step and of course learning to drive her tricycle. She's such an amazing little kiddo, so happy and sweet!

Here are a couple of pics and a video!

In the Holiday Spirit

Who would have thought that a trip to the grocery story would put us in the Christmas spirit but today's trek out pick up some weekend goodies did just that. There were carollers, elves, and samples of goodies galore. Natalie even met Elmo - she couldn't take her eyes off him, as you can see.

I'm a bit of a Christmas Cheermiester - I thoroughly love the holidays. We've been listening to Christmas music, making Christmas crafts and baking cookies for a couple of weeks now. And while my mom was here last weekend we even donned our silly Christmas hats and strolled around the neighborhood enjoying everyone's decorations. I love having a mom that knows how to enjoy the little things.

This weekend we'll be taking our family Christmas photo, singing some Christmas songs to the music of Dan's guitar and hopefully joining the Halifax Art Gallery for Gingerbread Sunday!

What are you doing to get into the holiday spirit?

Bee-Nastics!

Natalie love, love, loves her gymnatstics class. Here's a little taste of the fun.

Besties

Nap time is always better with friends.

Say that again...?

I was just reading an article on the Canadian Parent website about writing down all the funny things your kids say so you don't forget them and thought it would make a good blog post to share some of Natalie's favorite sayings and mis-sayings.

Ham-ga-burger {hamburger}

The libaby {the library}

"Look mommy, I'm doing something really good."

"Super, calla, fra..gahlish..." {supercalifragilisticexpialidocious - someone loves Mary Poppins right now}

"The yitsy, bitsy, pider"

Yimnastics {gynmastics - she's loving her new gymnastics class}

mommydaddy {all one word, when she's excited}

I'm sure I'll think of more. I'll add them to this post as they trickle into my memory. I know they'll be so much fun to read even just a few months from now. :)

Chocolate chip cookies and a hurricane

High winds, driving rain and ten hours without power - that sums up our first experience weathering a hurricane here on the east coast. Hurrican Earl struck early yesterday morning knocking out power to over 200,000 homes. But other than a few toppled trees in our nearby woods Earl took it fairly easy on the McMahon household. In fact, it was actually a fun day. We watched a few movies on our laptops (hooray for charged batteries), had a BBQ in the garage and sipped some beer by candlight.

And thanks to the power outage our lovely neighbor Karen shared some of her to-die-for potato salad since she wasn't sure it would survive the night in her powerless fridge. Don't you love how a good storm gets the neighbours out and chatting?

So to repay the favour, and appease our craving for chocolate Natalie and I whipped up a batch of Secret Ingredient Chocolate Chip cookies. I found the recipe over at Buns in My Oven - you should check out the site, it's adorable and the recipes are fantastic - especially these cookies. This was Natalie's first time mixing up a batch of cookies and she loved it, especially when she got to dump in the chocolate chips. They're baking in the oven as I type and they smell so yummy.

Here are a couple of recent photos, including one of our hurricane BBQ.

Summah time!

It's been a long time coming but this will be Natalie's first full brace-free summer! And we are stoked... we've definitely been making up for lost time.


Playing at the beach in her best beach bum duds



















Riding in every car or airplane shopping cart we lay our eyes on



















Playing a funky beat for her fans




















Rocking her fairy wings



















Spending more time playing at the beach

And strolling through the "daisy flowers" as N likes to say.

We are definitely loving this summer.

An oldie from the brace days

I found this picture while I was cleaning out my inbox today. It was taken May 24, 2009 - almost a full year ago. What a whirlwind of changes since then. It's hard to see but this was back when Natalie was still wearing her brace (this was her first brace actually). The velcro was so worn out that we used to put duct tape on the straps so it would stay closed. It was a pain in the butt but to be honest it seems like something that happened ten years ago not just one.

I think that's mostly because now she's so busy, running, hopping, climbing, dancing, twirling and lately "flying" as she likes to squeal while running around the kitchen with her arms outstretched.

It was a tough road for sure - but it sure is sweet when you make it to the end of that journey.

Paint!

I took Natalie to a new playgroup this week - in the hopes of meeting some kiddies (for Natalie) and some moms for me. Choosing the group was a bit random, I found it online and thought what the heck let's check it out. And I'm so glad we did - it was fantastic.

There's an open play area, a sandbox, a puzzle station, a train table and..... Natalie's favorite.... a painting station. It's complete with smocks, easels, lots of paint colors and line to hang your paintings to dry.

Now everday when we leave the house she looks at me and says "Paint?" It's so sweet. We'll have to make it a regular part of our week.

It was great for me too, I met two moms and next week Natalie and I have our first official Halifax playdate.