Cutie

You are my cutie pie Lyla! Thank you for making me the happiest mama ever! I love you!

Lyla's 1st Snowman

New Years Eve brought us some lovely fresh snow. Lyla loves snow and she was ever so eager to get outside and enjoy it. It was a mild day and the snow was perfect for making a snow man. Through Caillou book and TV show Lyla was well versed on making a snowman.

The first thing Lyla did when she went outside was work on shovelling the snow. Lyla calls this 'blowing snow' and this is another thing she has a love for. She has been asking me almost daily if we can blow snow and sadly we haven't had any fresh snow to blow. She loves to push her shovel around in the snow. Here is Lyla with her snowball. I have a video of Lyla throwing this snowball right at Daddy. It is hilarious.

Here is some of Daddy's and Lyla's 'snowball fight'. They had a ball...

I love this picture. It is one of my favorites - my 2 loves laughing together, caught in the moment.
Oh boy!! Playing in the snow is so much fun!Daddy made the best snowman for Lyla. We decided to make the snowman outside of the patio glass door so Lyla could look out the window and see her snowman. Here is Lyla checking out her snowman . . .

Here is the finished product with my little snow bunny...

It was so much fun. Unfortunately our snowman has seen better days now and we are eagerly awaiting more snow to assist in making a new snowman.

Lyla's Tent House

Lyla's imagination is growing every day which is so much fun. Once we returned from our Christmas travels we got back into routine. Lyla loves to get into our bed with Ryan and I. She loves to read books and cuddle and joke around. We started to hold the sheets up and she would go under. All the way under, crawl right down to our toes. Then I thought 'Hey - it would be nice for her to have a light under there'. And I brought in this house. She loves to go under with the house. She takes close looks at it and checks it out.

Here she is checking it out...

The one downfall is that my arms get really tired when holding up the house. I am trying to think up a way to keep the blankets up with out my arms.. any suggestions?

Lyla's little cousin - Kayley

Last time we saw Tyler and Claire - it was just the 2 of them awaiting the arrival of their own little girl. On Sunday, January 10th at 9 pm on the dot, Miss Kayley Jessica made her arrival. She made a quick arrival which surprised both Claire and Tyler, but was a good surprise for everyone. She weighed in at 7 pounds 8 ounces.

The new family is doing well and adjusting to a life of lack of sleep and lots of nursing. We are so excited to meet Miss Kayley in March!! Lyla is happy to finally be the 'big' cousin and is looking forward to meeting and playing with Kayley.

Christmas and Grandma and Grandpas

On Christmas Day we hopped in the car and made took the trip to Grandma and Grandpa's house. It was raining - yuck and Lyla has been potty training and needed to use the facilities and everywhere we stopped was closed :( The poor little girl held it from Mississauga to Pickering. Anyways, enough potty talk. The hope was to get to G and G's house in time for Lyla to take her afternoon nap, rather than trying to get her to sleep on the way, which she didn't. Well she didn't nap when we got there. I think it was too exciting, all the people and a new place to explore. So, she came out to the party. Here she is sitting on the window bench checking out Santa and is Reindeer. Now you will see a theme in the pictures from G and G's house. Oscar the cat. He was the hit of the trip. Lyla called him 'My kitty cat'. She loved to play with him. It is a good thing he is deaf as she sure did squeal with excitement when playing with him.

Nana bought Lyla her own Nativity set this year and we have been teaching Lyla about Jesus and that it is his birthday. Here she is checking out Grandma's nativity set and saying 'Happy Birthday Baby Jesus'.

This is one of the only pictures of Lyla and I on our Christmas break.

Sorry Grandpa, I had to post it. Here is Lyla eating lunch and Grandpa the Reindeer keeping her company and trying to check out what she is eating. Lyla thought she was a big shot sitting at this big table in the kitchen.
Here is Lyla talking with Ryan's Aunt Peggy and Granny.

Lyla enjoyed all things Christmas. She loved all of Grandma's decorations. And just like home, all the lights go on when Lyla gets up in the morning. Here she is checking out Grandma's tree.

More Kitty Kat pictures..


Standing over the vent and enjoying 'windy'. When ever our heat comes on and Lyla is by the vent she says 'Windy!'

Here is Lyla with Grandpa enjoying some Salsa. Funny thing - Lyla now calls Grandpa 'Kitty Kat' since we went to visit.

Grandma and Grandpa got Lyla a cleaning set which was a huge hit! I knew she would love this as she is always stealing my dust pan and broom. Now she has her own - Thank You!! Here she is cleaning with Grandma!

And one last picture with 'My Kitty Kat'.

We had a great trip to G and G's and we were glad to see everyone. Ryan's mom had a dinner party every night - what a lady! I know I couldn't do that! But it was great to see everyone and a great Christmas.

Christmas at Nana and Papa's House

The first stop on our Christmas tour was my parent's place, a.k.a Nana and Papa's house. Lyla loves their house as it is the county that she loves. She loves the fresh air and open spaces. But more than anything, she loves the neighbour's 'neigh-neighs'. She knows what windows she can see these 'neigh-neighs' from. She is always eager to look for them and asks just as eagerly to go and see them. So these are definitely a high light of our trip to Nana and Papa's house. Here are Lyla's 'neigh neighs 'waiting for her to come and visit them. This visit Nana had bought a large bag of carrots that needed to be eaten by the horses. So Lyla was luckily enough to get to feed them carrots from our hands. She loved it! And so did the horses!

To get to and from the 'Neigh-neighs' we used the sleigh. She also loves going for a sleigh rides very much. Daddy gives good sleigh rides..

On the 23rd, my parent's celebrated Christmas. This was exciting for Lyla as she would get to spend time with her cousins. This time Lyla was able to 'run with the pack'. She loves her cousins very much and loves to play with them. Here is Lyla and Jillian looking at Jillian's My little pony toy. We all hope that these girls will be good friends in the future.

Lyla loved her cousin 'Matt-chew'. She loved playing with him. Probably the funnies thing about Christmas dinner was that Lyla had both Matthew and Jillian eating out of her hand - literally. She would put some butter on her finger and they would lick it of.. It was funny!

Christmas Eve gave us more time with the kids. An impromptu trip to The Young's allowed for more play time with the kids, and an emergency operation on the cat Claire !

That night was our Christmas Eve service at the church. I was so looking forward to this, but we ended up not being able to go as Lyla had a cold. We did however go up to the church to check out the donkey at was outside the church by the stable. Again - Lyla loved this!

We went home and got situated again for Santa's arrival. We had story time by the fireplace with Uncle Darren reading some stories for Lyla..
The next morning, Santa arrived again. And he brought Lyla another Train!
Nana and Papa gave Lyla her very own rocking chair, which Lyla loved. It was ironic as Lyla had been pulling out their rocking chair and trying it out the days before she got her own. We are looking forward to Nana and Papa bringing her rocking chair over sometime in January.

We had a quick breakfast and headed back on the road for the 2nd part of our trip - Ryan's parents house. But, we had a great time at my parents and enjoyed our time with everyone.

Santa's trip 2009

What a great Christmas we had this year! Lyla has been so excited about the entire Christmas package this year - Santa Claus, Reindeer, Snowmen, lights, Christmas trees.. The whole thing! Everything has been new and exciting for her and she has just loved everything. We celebrated Santa's arrival early. We arranged for his visit to come a couple nights early because of our travelling schedule and it was such a great idea. Last year Santa came after we returned from our trips to Canada and it wasn't the same hype. Christmas felt over and it was as exciting. This year was great. I could hardly sleep because I was so excited for Lyla to wake up on Christmas morning to see her gifts.

On 'Christmas Eve' we drove around the neighbourhood and looked at the Christmas lights and decorations. Everything was snow covered and really pretty. Oh yeah- I forgot before we went for our drive, Santa himself called Lyla on the phone. We came home and spread out some Reindeer food to guide Santa's reindeer. We then came in and got Santa's milk and cookies ready. Lyla taste tested the cookies and said they were 'yummy'. We also put out some carrots for 'Reindeer food'. We then hung Lyla's stocking by the chimney in hopes that Santa would come that night.

Sure enough, Lyla was a lucky girl and you can see the gifts that Santa left for Lyla under the tree. Lyla was really spoiled as she had been a really good girl this year. Lyla's big gift was a kitchen that she now has in our kitchen and makes 'cakes' while I am making dinner. Here is Lyla opening a gift (actually this picture was taken after our trip, as we didn't get all of our gifts open on our Christmas morning). She was really good at opening gifts. She would open a gift and play with it for a while and then move on to the next gift. It was a really enjoyable Christmas morning.
Here is Lyla enjoying her kitchen.

One of the highlights of the morning was a plush horse stable with 2 horses. Lyla had seen this when we were Christmas shopping and loved it so much. She was so happy to see it on Christmas morning and every day she has played with her 'neigh-neighs'. She also got this train and she plays with this daily as well. It is a wooden train and it has blocks that come off and you rebuild it. Lets just say that her train is very frequently 'brookie', which is broken in Lyla lingo.
Those are just some highlights from Santa's arrival this Christmas. It was a great morning that we all enjoyed very much. Thanks Santa for making a stop for our Lyla!!