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.

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!

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!

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!

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.

It appears spring temperatures are finally here and the girls are definitely enjoying the warmer weather; March Break is about to end and I think Natasha is really missing school and excited to return there on Monday. Thursday, we spent an hour at the playground while this warmer weather lasts and both girls have really missed the playground!

And this morning we headed to Toys R Us so Veronika could pick herself a new toy to celebrate a completion of a reward chart, and Natasha… well Natasha is 4½ today so she got a toy just because! =) We also picked something for daddy for his upcoming 30th birthday but it’s a secret… shhh..!

If you know my oldest daughter well, then you would know she loves Thomas the Tank Engine. And using the word ‘love’ to describe her feelings towards this particular train is probably somewhat of an understatement… it’s simply not cutting it. Looking back, I think her fondness for Thomas began well before her first birthday and she is currently 4½. And during these years her collection of Thomas trains and merchandise grew and grew… and while she enjoys other characters such as Wiggles or Curious George or Dora, it’s not quite comparable to her love for Thomas.

And today’s incident involving her beloved train was incredibly bittersweet. Yesterday afternoon after returning home from shopping, I spotted a large Thomas train laying outside our building. From a distance it looked intact and resembled the two identical Thomas trains my daughters already have; they are battery operated, shine, and make puffing sounds. I didn’t bother picking it up because I figured that if it was in good shape, someone else would have already taken it. This is one of the more expensive trains out there.

Fast forward to this morning, we were heading out and Natasha spotted the train laying in the mud. Immediately her “mommy-mode” switched on and she wanted to take Thomas home. She just couldn’t understand why a large, nice-looking Thomas would be laying in the grass all alone. We explained to her that Thomas probably belonged to another child who will come looking for it, and that taking someone else’s train would make that child sad. And she seemed to have accepted that. We also told her that if by night-time the train was still there, she could at least look at it.

Well needless to say, the train was still there by 7:30pm this night. As promised, I allowed her to go and take a look, and sure enough the train was indeed broken. A large part of it was hanging loose and 3-4 wires were sticking out in all directions. Natasha was devastated. She offered to take it home and ‘adopt’ it and play hospital and make it all better; sadly, this train was beyond repairs. We reminded her that she owns two identical Thomas trains at home, and this brought enough comfort to go home, but not enough to soothe her sad little heart.

And even once at home, she gently stroked her two existing trains and told them she would never break them, drop them, or cause them any damage so that they won’t have to suffer the fate of the sad Thomas train outside. She said all of this with tears glistening in her beautiful brown eyes. Her teacher wrote on her most recent report card – “Natasha loves to play with trains!” Yes, yes she does. More than I can possibly describe and I love her personality to no end.

The weather has recently warmed up, which is a little surprising for mid-February, but warmer weather evidently also brings more rain with it. It’s been extremely wet, not just from the snow/rain but also from the melting snow that was already on the ground.

A few days ago, I took the girls out to splash in some puddles – they had a blast!

On Friday afternoon, the girls enjoyed a good two hours of baking and decorating holiday cookies. I think it’s one of their favourite things to do, and they had a lot of fun being little helpers. We found a great sugar-cookie recipe and a homemade icing recipe, both of which are not super sweet and we found that everyone here enjoys them! (even Natasha & Matthew who are super cookie-picky).

We rolled out the dough & the girls cut out the heart-shaped cookies

While the first batch baked, they enjoyed playing with the leftover dough – eating some and making a big, big mess from the rest. Eh, the playtime is worse the mess!

Then, once they cooled off and pink & white icing was made, they went to town decorating.

And after all their hard work, they were ready. Yum!