Bryan Avenue

Wuv loo

I am the proud owner of an 18 month old today. So crazy. The time really does fly by far too quickly.

The kid has far too many words to count (over 50 and growing every day) and likes to repeat everything we say, including the naughty words. Big C has been working with him on saying "Love you" and his hard work finally paid off the other day when Cohey Bear said "wuv loo". My heart skipped a beat and I of course cried. And now he can't stop saying it. He even told Thomas the Tank Engine "wuv loo" tonight right before he kissed him.

For my friends and family in Canada and the US, have a lovely holiday weekend and know that we wuv loo!
 
 
 
 
I love the look on Big C's face. Pure delight. I scored in the husband department!

Howler monkey

I took little c in for his 18 month check-up yesterday. We were hanging out in the waiting room, watching the fish, colouring on the table because who colours on paper, and climbing up on chairs. Little c's name was called and as he innocently rounded the corner to walk through the door to the exam rooms, he spotted Dr. Rachel's nurse, H, and instantly started screaming like one of those monkeys you see that are being ripped from the jungle and sent to some zoo or lab or somewhere equally horrendous (like Hollywood). Not only was he screeching, he was clawing at me to get away from her. You see, H is in a wheelchair and is the one that gives him his shots. I think he remembered the wheelchair and has figured her out.

Needless to say, it was a tough chore getting his weight and there was no chance of getting his height or head size. But I think it's safe to say he's below average on the height and in the 95%ile for head size, based on how he's tracked all along.

All in all we had a great visit with Dr. Rachel and little c is in fine form and hitting all of the milestones.

 

Pretty in pink

Way back in February I helped my friend with her daughter's teacher's bridal shower (here). She hinted that her daughter's fourth birthday was coming in May and she encouraged me to start thinking of how to pull off a tea party for a bunch of four year old girls.

Seeing as I will probably never have the privilege of planning a daughter's party since I'm destined to have another boy down the road, I took this as my chance to try and pull off a party that I would have for a little girl of my own. There would be loads of pink, doilies, and professionally designed printables.

May came very quickly, but as I had solicited the help of my friend B, owner of a gift and candy boutique in town, we had everything planned and accounted for. And I didn't procrastinate nearly as much as I am known for and it made for such an enjoyable experience. Nor did I have to pull an all-nighter like my crazy cake-decorating sister!

Let me tell you something. Paying someone $15 to design the invitations was the way to go. I knew exactly what I wanted for the invite but also knew I wasn't talented enough or experienced enough in Illustrator. And so I turned to etsy and started looking. It didn't take long to find what I was looking for. A couple of tweaks and the invite was finalized, e-mailed to me, and printed off at home. I used the same designer, who happens to be from the land of tea, England, for all of the other printables at the event, save for the Ella signs. It saved me at least 25 hours of design time, which I clearly don't have. Who does really? Leave it to the professionals I say.

B and I collaborated on the food, favours, activities, and decor and got to work and I must say I was really pleased with the end result.

I don't have anymore parties on my calendar right now, but I'm really looking forward to the next one as I feel like I'm learning so much more with each one. You'd think an event planner would kind of have an idea of how to pull off an event, but when it's a birthday party for 12 four year olds and not an event for 8,000 Asians with a budget of $1.2 million, it's a whole new ball game.

I'd love any constructive comments you might have on how to make it better.
I wasn't content with a plain envelope so out came my doilies and my box of ribbon.

The Ella banner was fun to make once I found the die cuts I wanted at a secret location where you can go and use the die cuts for free.
 
I had to knock back a dozen Starbucks frappuccinos to get the containers but it was well worth the calories.
 
I'd never made marshmallow pops before but they were pretty easy and pretty delicious.
Thank you IKEA for making such appropriate containers. And thank you B for finding them!
 
 
 
 
 
The birthday girl checking out the details before her guests arrived. I forgot to mention the party was held at Baby NeeNee in Park City, a children's boutique with some of the coolest boy clothes I've seen that don't break the bank.
Wishing I'd found a way to hang this behind the food table. You live and learn.
One final shot of the delicious cupcakes on the fabulous paper plate I found online.

Event details:

Venue-Baby NeeNee

Paper printables-Paperspice

Flowers-Anna Fulton

Cakepops, cupcakes, and sugar cookies-Two Queen Bees Confisserie

Paper plates-Modernlola

Styling-Two Queen Bees Confisserie & Kristyn Hancock

A trip down memory lane

I decided to spend some time looking at photos of little c's first month last night. Yes, I teared up just looking at him as a 7 lb 13 oz wonder child.

I just had to post this photo because I still can't believe he came out with that red hair!

Cohenisms

Like almost every toddler, little c has his own words for general day-to-day things. Some words are very clear and fitting, like "cheese" or "elbow", others are not and I try really hard to figure out how the word came about.

I thought I'd share a couple with you to see if maybe you could figure them out for me.

1. Nanoo. These are his soothers, or pacifiers. Every morning we hear a tink, tink, tink as little c throws them out of the crib. When we go into his room to greet him in the morning, we send him under the crib to locate all of the nanoos that he has thrown out.

2. Budgie. His blanket. That boy loves his budgie.

3. This isn't so much a word as a noise. Whenever little c sees a balloon, he makes a noise with his tongue that sort of sounds like blehb-o-blehb-o-blehb-o. The funny thing is he used to say the word balloon, but over the last few months he's changed over to the sound. We'll be driving along and he'll make the noise and sure enough, there's a balloon.

Those are the only ones I can think of for now. But as more develop, I'll most likely post them so I never forget them, because let's face it, who has time to update a baby book!?! 

Like father like toddler

 
Pulling weeds with Daddy.

Easter brunch

So I'm 6 weeks behind in posting. Whatevs.

As I mentioned last week, we had a really great Easter brunch this year. Great friends, excellent food, a successful egg hunt on a perfect Spring day, and mimosas for everyone!

I entered an on-line drawing of sorts on the blog Hello My Sweet  featured in April on the amazing Amy Atlas' blog, right here. The prize was custom Easter printables for the brunch. I had been on the fence about whether to hold the brunch, but then when I received the notification that I won, it was game on and out came the cookbooks to figure out the menu.

The menu included candied bacon, goat cheese frittata, Widmer apple pancake, roasted asparagus, mixed green salad, Grand Marnier french toast, ultimate banana bread, trifle, French macarons, fruit kebobs, mango mimosas, and mocha frappuccinos. It was a feast! And that ultimate banana bread was the best I've ever had. If you want the recipe, leave me a comment and I'll e-mail it to you.

A HUGE thank you to the gang at Hello My Sweet for hooking me up with such great printables. It really pulled the brunch together and they were great to work with. I'll definitely use their services for future fetes. 

 
 
 
 
 

Hoppin' down the bunny trail

One more catch up post.

As I think I mentioned earlier this week, little c enjoyed a couple of Easter egg hunts. The first was at church on the Saturday before Easter. The second was the following weekend in our backyard after we had our Easter feast (post coming on Monday about that event). At both hunts, he found 2 eggs, one for each hand and he was a very happy little boy.
 
 
Keeping them close.
This was at breakfast on Easter morning. He was hands-down the coolest toddler in Finns that day.
After the Easter feast. He was so excited to find these, or rather, have Mommy point them out for him and drag him over to force him to pick them up.
The leftovers that the big kids didn't want.

 

There's nothing to see here!

Every month I receive the monthly newsletter from the daycare and every month there is a write-up on the previous month for each class. They talk about each child and mention something new they might be doing or a characteristic of the child, or a favourite activity. You get the point.

 I opened it up today and spit out my water when I read the part about little c:

"Cohen is our “official climber.” He loves to climb on the table when he thinks that nobody is looking then hurry and get down before he gets caught."

 I'm laughing as I type this because it's so true. He thinks he's being so sneaky and when you catch him, he scurries as fast as he can and runs away and starts playing with something else, as if he was NEVER on the table.

 I see this leading to many more things he "wasn't" doing.
"Not" drawing on Mommy's work that she brought home. This time he wasn't fast enough to scurry away.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Conversations with Cohen

Me: Look Cohen, a bus!!

Cohen: Whoaaaaaa. Buh!!

Me: Oh look Cohen, do you see the big truck?

Cohen: Whoaaaaaa. Brrrrrrrmmmmm.

A few minutes pass by...

Cohen: Boobies!!

And that was our conversation on the way to school today.