.back to back.

What do you do when you are stuck at home with no car... you go to the park! My lucky girl has had two back to back park days with friends. We are so grateful to have awesome parks and great friends in our hood!

.hello mr. sunshine.

Today was such a beautiful day and we really enjoyed spending it with some of our favorite girls at the park.

 



 

 

 

 

.seventeen months.

Last night as Nyah slept, Jay and I stayed up and talked about the last 17 months and how awesome it has been. We shared stories of special moments we have had with her and we both laughed so hard we cried at some of her silly antics. Both of us could not believe that 17 months had passed but we both agreed it has been the BEST time of our lives.

 

After a busy day at Semiahmoo Family Place and running errands today Nyah ended her day with bath time with Dada. I took this perfect opportunity to snap some pics of my two favs!

 

Bath time = Fun time!

Can I just say that those eyes melt my heart everyday!

 

I'm not too sure who has more fun at bath time!

I know what your thinking ladies.... but luckily he's all mine!... Bahahahaha!

.butterflies and dandelions.

You always hear that it's the small things in life that truly matter and I don't know if I fully understood this until I became a parent.

Today at the park, Nyah tried to chase her first butterfly.  She took a couple steps to try and follow it but it flew away so she just stood still and didn't take her eyes off it until it was out of sight. The amazement and curiosity on her face brought pure joy to my heart.

After a little play time we took a walk through the grass and soaked in the warm sun and all the beautiful flowers and trees. Nyah spotted a dandelion in the grass and took no time to walk over to it and pick it. In that moment, I fondly remembered making dandelion crows as a little girl to wear in my hair and I wondered if one day Nyah will want me to teach her how to make one.

Butterflies and dandelions. Thank you for reminding me it's the small things in life that matter the most.

(Today I left both my phone and camera at home.... on purpose... so thank you Google for the photos).

.life in an instagram.

I woke this morning and realized the month of April is half over! How is that even possible? I swear it was just Christmas and Nyah and I were flying to my parents for a visit. I feel a little guilty for not keeping up on our blog. So many major milestones have happened and I didn't write about any of them or post any pictures! I would like to think it's because I have been present in every single second of every moment but that is still a work in progress. Thankfully, I usually have my i phone pretty handy and get some decent (term used loosely!) photos. Here is a quick review of our life in an instagram. (I'm happy to say in the super important moments, like Nyah taking her first steps at 16 months and one day old I was too busy living in the moment to search for a camera but I will always cherish ever single one of her firsts even if they aren't in the blog).

``

 

Nyah had her first dentist appointment. I took her to see Dr. Tang at Just for Kidz. In all honesty, the appointment was less than 5 minutes! She played with a giant stuffed dog with HUGE teeth and a giant toothbrush with the hygienist then the Dentist came in. We layed Nyah down and the Dentist pryed her mouth open and used the round mirror to take a look at her teeth and that was it! $75 dollars later and we were done! Thank goodness for insurance!

 

 

Miss. Nyah extremely happy with her toy chest pick!



 

Now that Nyah is walking we have been going to a lot of stay and play at the local community center. There are always lots of kids and toys to play with but she always gravitated to these cars. Jay and I thought it would be fun for her to have one of her own. This car has already brought hours and hours of enjoyment. Even on rainy days we bring it up into the living room and she has a great time getting in and out of the door. Her favorite is when we pretend we are going to crash into the dog. It always guarantees lots of giggles!

We also cruise the neighborhood in her ride. This was one of the very first nice days of Spring. There is no better way to start Spring than with your favorite little girl and the first frappe of the year!



 

Unfortunately, my girl came down with a nasty flu bug.... again! For 2 days she was feeling under the weather throwing up. I'm thankful that this time around Jay and I managed to avoid catching it!

 

My sickie snuggling with her dog.

 

This year Easter was so fun! We meet up with our mom and baby group for Nyah's first Easter egg hunt. We were in charge of bringing the eggs so I filled coloured plastic eggs with macaroni noodles for an awesome sound when shaken for the kiddos and I did some with chocolates for the mamas. I was so impressed that Nyah totally got the concept of picking up the eggs and putting them in her bucket. We had such a great time hunting, doing crafts and enjoying snacks afterwards with our friends. Easter is definitely one of my favorite holidays.

 

 

Stopping to pose mid hunt!

 

 

And just for fun a photo of our new puppy! Haha! This kids loves to dump out the dogs food and play with it. She could spend hours picking it all up, dumping it out and dragging the dish across the tile to create the most annoying LOUD noise!

 

Well I feel a little better now that this post is done and I've let go of the guilt about not blogging about Christmas, Nyah's first steps, etc... Now hopefully the hubs will hurry up and load my new photo shop elements 2 so I can get back to taking photos and keeping our blog up to date. Happy Weekend!

.heart day.



 

I love Valentines Day! Seriously what is not to love... Chocolates, spending time with the ones you love most in the world, hearts.... I mean really... I am the girl who at 14 got a tattoo of a red heart with a yellow flame shooting out of it.... biggest mistake EVER!.... Haha!.... Thank goodness for the art of tattoo cover ups!

 



 

Since I am only working 2 days a week and really trying to stick to a budget I decided the theme for this years Valentines Day was going to be homemade. Nyah and I made a jar of the top 14 reasons we love daddy.... Check out the reason on the top right.... You clean our bums when they are dirty... ok maybe not mommys.... but you will have to when she is really old.... Lucky you babe!

 

 

And you cant have Valentines Day without homemade cupcakes!

 

 

My sweet Valentine and her new dolly! Sorry the pictures are so low quality, I took them on my phone.

 

 

Nyahs gift for Daddy was these cute photos. Let me just say it is not easy to photograph a busy toddler. Kudos to the professionals! I don't know how you do it. I worked up a sweat and barely got anything usable!

 

 

This was the best I could come up with. I was hoping she would hold the I love Dad sign... fat chance.... And I was hoping to catch her pretty smile.... no way.... At least in this one she is not eating the sign and sat still for .5 seconds! 

 

All in all our Valentines Day was pretty awesome. We spent the afternoon with our Mom & Baby group. I love this group.... All the babies are the same age as Nyah and it has been so amazing watching them all grow up together. We feel so lucky to have these super awesome friends in our lives. And we ended the day with a lovely dinner with daddy. BBQ steaks and twice baked potatoes. Yumma!

 

I don't really need Valentines Day to remind me to love my loves.... cause everyday my heart is overflowing with love for my little family. xo



.no pics...just words.

It's been 2 months since Nyah's surgery and tomorrow we have another follow up appointment. She's had to wear a small bandage since the surgery and I'm pretty sure tomorrow she will get it off for good. After looking at her sweet face for 2 months with an ugly bandage on it you'd think I'd be excited to see it come off. But the truth is I have mixed emotions. While laying in bed with her tonight as she fell asleep, I thought about the scar. Many people have said stuff to me to try and make me feel better about it... "scars add character", "It will get smaller as she gets bigger" or my favorite... "She'll be able to use make up". There are no words to make me feel better about it. I remember what it was like growing up. It's hard and kids are cruel. I've felt it myself and seen it first hand.

In elementary school, I had really bad skin (Ughhh... and I still suffer with pimples in my 30's!!) and I can remember girls whispering about me behind my back. I remember getting an invitation to a girl's bat mitzvah and being so excited to take it home and ask my parents if I could go only to overhear the birthday girl say that the only reason I got invited was cause her mom made her invite the whole class. Being in grade 7, this was devastating! I never told my parents about the invitation. I just tried to pretend like it never happened. My pimples being the subject of gossip made me so self conscious.

I never want her to feel the way I did. I never want her to feel not good enough or not pretty enough.

And so I face tomorrow with mixed emotions. When the bandage comes off, the scar comes out for the world to see.

Take this as your warning world.... Be kind to my daughter... She is beautiful. Scar or not... And in case you want to challenge this fact you should know that her mama is pretty tough and will kick your ass if you hurt her.