My children only have a handful of movies that they can actually sit through and do enjoy, and those include – Finding Nemo, Polar Express, and most recently… Tangled. And I think Tangled has definitely jumped to their #1 favourite film – EVER! In fact, we have never seen them so interested and so obsessed with anything since their exclusive love for Thomas the Tank Engine.

They simply adore Rapunzel. I think she has become their heroine and they admire every aspect of her, including her long, long, long, long hair. The movie has now been watched at least 10 times, the soundtrack plays almost daily, and my children know the words to many of the movie’s songs. And each time they watch the film, they seem to understand it a tad better, and to ask fresh questions about what’s going on. They are reciting lines from the movie by heart and know the names of all the characters as well as their personalities. That’s just part of it.

The other part is that they are constantly re-enacting the scenes through play. And while they currently do not own any Tangled-themed toys, that simply doesn’t stop them. A Thomas & Percy trains can easily transform into Rapunzel & Eugene (“Flynn”); their fleecy blankets attached with clips to their hair quickly become Rapunzel’s long-hair, and you can often catch them walking around with plastic frying pans from their kitchen and pretending to smack random things! And lately, they have discovered that their two My Little Ponies also have incredibly long hair, and that has been the most recent craze to re-enact Rapunzel. Our dining chairs become ‘castles, and when outside at the playground, both are always engaged  in a Tangled pretend-play game.

A couple of weeks ago, Natasha spotted a Rapunzel Barbie at the Superstore and decided she NEEDS it. Yes, my daughter who has never paid any attention whatsoever to dolls, is dreaming daily of owning a Rapunzel Barbie. It’s currently on her birthday wish list and I am planning on buying it for her birthday! Needless to say, all this is incredibly cute and I am curious to see how long this phase would last.

The wait towards our 19-week anatomy scan seemed to drag forever, and then the wait to actually see an ultrasound technician took forever as well. But after a long, 45-minute scan (yeah, the tech made us wait till the last minute to reveal the gender), we were told our 3rd little miracle is a BOY! He wasn’t shy, either, and was bouncing all over the place!

Having a boy after two girls is a quite the change, but we’ve already started picking out potential baby gear (playpen, swing, bouncer, etc.), and shopping in the BLUE department of stores is quite fun! Last night, I picked about 6-7 newborn size sleepers and they are super cute. Afterwards, while out with the family we also picked out a potential coming-home outfit (I had to pack away Natasha & Veronika’s coming-home outfit – they used the same one – into their memory box and that was very bittersweet. Didn’t help that hubby was making fun of me for even saving it, but it’s important to me!), and a cute fleecy snowsuit since baby’s due in December.

The girls are extremely excited about having a little brother and are very curious about all the changes and clothing and talk about it. They won’t stop asking questions and the whole experience is even more interesting to see through their eyes.

Summer is finally here, and well… so is the heat! But given that our summers last around two months before the chilliness returns again, we’re trying not to complain about the heat too much. Last Wednesday Natasha graduated her first year of kindergarten and brought home an outstanding report card, and of course we’re very proud of her and did not expect any less! She’s now happily awaiting September when she’ll begin her second year of kindergarten and also turn five aka “a whole hand!” She has already prepared a whole list of toys & clothes for me with items she’s expecting to get for her birthday.

Veronika is doing great too. She’s happy to have her sister home again in the mornings so she has a buddy to play with. She’s growing like a weed and is a non-stop chatterbox!

Fortunately or unfortunately (I can’t decide which), Natasha’s school is implementing a dress-code next year so I have started buying her appropriate clothing to prepare for an entire school year. Goodbye bright & colourful clothing and welcome white & navy blue!!! This is the first batch of her clothing, although today I bought a second batch so her school-appropriate-wardrobe is growing and hopefully will be ready by early September! Today’s batch included more blouses and decorative shirts so it’s not so formal for every day…

Otherwise, we have been spending our days baking – these Cappuccino Muffins are amazing, by the way! Try, try, try them!  They were moist and filled with that coffee flavour mixed with chocolate chips – yummy goodness. We all loved them and they were gone fast!

And painting! Which the girls LOVE! Especially cute little dollar store figurines.

And last, but not least, we’re also preparing for the arrival of “snowflake”! We’re excitedly awaiting the next ultrasound on July 14th to determine whether “snowflake” is a boy or a girl. We have no preference, but would love to know! I have been feeling him/her “kick” for about a week now and I have forgotten how great those little kicks feel. Hopefully soon the girls will be able to feel him/her as well

This is an outfit Natasha picked out for her baby brother/sister a few weeks back. She LOVED the little trains on this sleeper and we decided to bring it home and save it for the baby. I figure it’s relatively gender neutral to match either a boy or a girl.

It’s hard to believe my little girl is almost done with her first year of kindergarten. She has grown and learned so much in the past year, it was extremely beneficial for her. She started school in September only knowing upper and lower case ABC’s and she is finishing the year by being able to write short sentences and read simple books.

A short time after the school year began, she started bringing home weekend homework – she would bring it on Fridays and it was due on Tuesday. It started simple by having to practice writing lower and upper case letters and more recently, she has had to write words, sentences, and read a book she would bring all on her own; another favourite part was picking a picture from a book to draw in her notebook. And while they don’t yet have any grades, they still get graded with check-marks, stickers, and comments which she looks forward to and strives for.

Of course, they’ve covered other subjects such as simple math, science, music, gym, library. She has made friends and tells me almost daily how much she loves learning new things. It’s been a great year for her and she’s looking forward to September when she 1) turns 5 years old, 2) starts Senior Kindergarten, and 3) Starts another year of dance school!

I figured it’s time to update my blog with our big news! This, up above, is our 3rd little bean whom we (okay, me) refer to as “snowflake”. S/he is due in early December and is currently 13 weeks “old” (ultrasound taken at 12 weeks). At the ultrasound, the baby was bouncing all over the place and kept his/her little hands up in the air close to the head – it was super cute and I wished Matthew was there to witness it, but unfortunately he had to work. Oh, well – he is coming to the next one! The baby’s heartbeat was 151.

The girls have known since early April and while Natasha fully gets it, I think Veronika is slightly confused and the first month kept insisting there was a baby in her tummy too! Then, a few weeks later “her baby” came out and she no longer has one in her tummy. =)They constantly ask me questions about the baby and been insisting on watching their own baby photos on Flickr to see how tiny they once were.

And of course – being as we have two girls – everyone and their grandma are convinced this baby is a boy! And us…? Well, we absolutely don’t care – all we want is a healthy little baby, be it a boy or a girl, doesn’t matter! Our girls are our whole world and if this bean is another little girl – perfect, and if it’s a boy – perfect too, as we would absolutely enjoy the experience of raising a son as well (as terrifying as that sounds right now!) My next ultrasound is scheduled for July 14 so hopefully “snowflake” cooperates and reveals its gender – that would be super exciting as I can’t wait to start buying cute little newborn clothes again.

I am excited to enter the second trimester today! So far, this has been the easiest first trimester to date. Unlike the previous two pregnancies, I essentially had no pregnancy symptoms at all which in all honesty worried me, but after seeing the baby and hearing his/her heartbeat, my mind was put at ease. Hopefully the coming trimesters won’t be too overwhelming. We can’t wait for December and to meet our newest addition.

It’s halfway through the month of May and next month Natasha will be finishing her very first year of school and another year of dancing (she is doing a year of acro/jazz/ballet). On June 5th she will participate in her year-end dance recital in a theatre and is very excited to show off what she has been learning all year. She got a super-cute leopard costume and we know she will do fantastic on stage. I just hope she isn’t overwhelmed, but I am optimistic she’ll do great!

Although the prep for the year end rehearsal has been extremely hectic with many rehearsal dates that crowd-up our weekends as the kids all participate in an additional finale-dance that they are learning during those weekend rehearsals. That, on top of photo-day, on top of a DVD we were required to buy as filming during the recital wouldn’t be permitted, and all the rehearsals and stage rehearsals, it’s been very chaotic. I am sure the practice will pay off, but hopefully it wouldn’t be an overload on our little 4.5-year-old. With that being said, we are very excited to watch her perform!

Since Veronika is not allowed to scream at home, I told her to get allll her screaming done at the park today. She didn't have to think twice!

So she screamed...

And she screamed...

"What, you think I am done?!? Nah-uh!"

So she screamed a bit louder...


And even LOUDER...

And LOUDEST!!!

"Okay, I think I feel better now!"

I love taking photos of my girls and capturing all the special moments. And I love my new camera & lens! =) But with modern digital photography, there are so many photographs and it’s simply impossible to print them all, and while we store them in an online gallery, we have also decided to print a yearly 8x8 photo-book from Shutterfly which will include the best photographs from each year, starting in 2006. I have already received my 2006 photo-book and it turned out perfect and my 2007 & 2008 photo-books are currently being shipped! When those are here, I’ll start working on 2009 & 2010 to catch up on those years.

Anyways – yesterday was a beautiful spring day. The girls loved the weather, the park, and the playground – they ran, jumped, played with sand, climbed the slides and had a very fun day. Hopefully we’ll get more of these days in the coming weeks.

The hand-holding was not forced – it was entirely their own idea!

It’s hard to believe we now have a THREE year old and a FOUR year old! Yes, my little girl turned three this weekend and she’s getting to be a really big girl. Over the weekend, she definitely got spoiled silly with presents and outings and I think she had a lot of fun.

She loved the Nemo cake I made her and licked most of the icing off of it. She ate the “eye” first and thought that was pretty funny!

 

She opened presents and was very sweet & allowed Natasha to open some too.

And then she & her sister made stuffed bears at Build-A-Bear Workshop!

She knows she’s “three” and that she’s a “big-girl!”

Today we went to see Thomas the Tank Engine Live show. The girls (particularly Natasha) have been looking forward to the show for months now, and were extremely excited to see their favourite engine on stage. We weren’t too sure as to how Veronika would react being as it was her first theatre show, but she did wonderful – was on her best behaviour, paid attention, listened, and was truly interested in what was going on on stage. And Natasha naturally loved everything. She sang, made choo-choo whistle sounds, and followed all the instructions the actors gave the kids.

And of course, they were selling a ton of Thomas
related items in the theatre – watches, glowing sticks, bags and t-shirts. The girls REALLY wanted the red t-shirts and of course we caved in and got them each a bright red Thomas t-shirt!

Thomas the Tank Engine is still definitely one of their beloved, and most favourite toys. It’s one of those obsessions for them that isn’t a phase, but has been going for years and there isn’t an end in sight! They truly love this train and play with Thomas and “his friends” every single day. It’s pretty exciting to see this through their eyes.