It'll be funny one day...

...but right now it's frustrating.  I am on my toes constantly because Alivia wreaks havoc like I have never seen before.  We are trying to train ourselves to shut the toilet lid after flushing, but we are slow to remember sometimes and Alivia capitalizes on every opportunity....

Today I found Jason's nice Gap sweater on the floor covered in toilet water, I pulled a shoe and clean dish cloth out of the garbage.  She took my travel wipes case- I found it on the floor by a heating vent with the wipes pulled out and stuffed them down the heating vent.  She has learned to pull the lids/ covers off and I had to rescue a crayon yesterday.

Toilets are the biggest issue.  Most often when I find her in the act there is toilet water EVERYWHERE and even all over her.  She also happens to be obsessed with face clothes.  Clean or dirty.  She finds them in the laundry, or a drawer.  She will carry it around everywhere and especially likes to wear them on her head.  It is quite cute actually, until I notice it's a dirty one....  every now and then she likes to suck on them... yuck!  They also happen to be her favorite thing to play with in the toilet.  She dangles them in the toilet and whips them around flicking water everywhere!  It's awful and I need this toilet phase to end asap!!

So while it all drives me crazy these days I look forward to the day I can talk about it and laugh!  She is one CRAZY Yiv.

Nenny's Visit

 These pictures are all out of order, oh well.  But let me explain this one, we did a TON of baking while Jenn visited-mostly Pinterest recipes we had been itching to try so needless to say we had to do a Superstore run to get some of the ingredients we'd need to use.  Anyways, while we were at Superstore we went into the Joe clothing section (I LOVE shopping for clothes while I get groceries!!!) So we decided to make up a game/ idea that we had a max of $10 to spend on a pair of pajamas for one another and we had to be secretive and we were NOT allowed to peak at what we were choosing for each other.  I had Jenn, Jenn had Amanda and Amanda had me.  Take a good look at the picture because that is what we ended up with.  We seriously couldn't stop laughing on the way home because Amanda saw me in the check out buying Jenn's and was like, "why did you get her something for a kid?"  I didn't know what she was talking about because in my mind I was a nice sister and got Jenn some nice comfy cute pj's... yeaah, not quite!  Someone had left a kids pack of pj's in the adult section and I grabbed them!!! When I had picked them up they were folded and wrapped nicely with a ribbon so I couldn't exactly get a good look at them. Ooops!  They now belong to Brooklynn.  Jenn, being the sensible one got Amanda the pair in the middle and Amanda being the nutcase that she is bought me that Tribal MooMoo looking thing at the bottom.  We seriously could not stop laughing that night.  Good times :)

A quick snap of my little girl after we arrived home from church.

We sure miss you Auntie Nenny!  Come back soon!!

More of December!

Yes, it's almost the beginning of Spring... Whatever.  I have plenty of more "outdated" photos I had been meaning to post and it's starting to look like they will never make it :(  Oh well, I (try to) do my best!


Here I am opening all of my new camera accessories and literature.  I am loving it but have a lot to learn!

 I round brushed Brooklynn's hair this day- you can kind of tell...  Looks like she still has lunch on her face too.

 Loves her new Tangled activity book.

 Dad (aka The Tickle Monster) and his Big girl!

 The "Yivsta" doing her thing.

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 "Don't even think about taking my apples."

 Uncle Cam and Monster

 We had a few "play days" over the break.  It was nice to have all the cousins together.

Fun with Friends - Long overdue!

Trisha takes the cake for being the most animated!

It might be a toss up between Jason and Mort for who looks the most "femmy"...  Although he is working that party cracker as an earing very nicely.

And I win for being the least exciting. I'll be first to admit that I can be a little shy when put on the spot.  Good thing I married someone who helps me with that. :)

And when I say, "long overdue" it works on two levels...  The first being that I should have uploaded these back in December or January, and the second being; we were long overdue to hang out with these two.  We hope they come move to Calgary soon, or that we somehow get to see more of each other- Miss you guys!

Gymnastics

In January Brooklynn started a toddler gymnastics program at Gymtastics.  Every Friday I (sometimes Jason) would take her for an hour and it was seriously one of the funnest hours I got to spend with her.  Usually Jason would be at home with Alivia (she would nap while he did school work) and I got to bond with my oldest baby.  I know it meant a lot to me and I'm sure it meant just as much to her to have some one on one time with her mom or dad- at home she has some demanding competition :)

We were also lucky to find some friendly faces there each week.  Since leaving the Hamlet we've been lucky to get some play days with the Low's. I'm really happy that we get to see our friends, Jen and Charlotte more often than not.  It's a pretty cool and heart warming thought to know our two little girls started a friendship right from the first weeks of life, and have really grown so much together.  I hope they continue to have a great friendship!

What a cute pair of buddies!

 Our monkey bar pro!

Gymtastics has a great facility and program for children.  Brooklynn loved all the trampolines, monkey bars, rope swings, ball pits, HUGE slide and of course the fun music and games.  She pushed boundaries and challenged her little body more and more each time, thus making me a pretty proud mommy- way to go my superstar!

Brooklynn

She seriously kills Jay and I sometimes with her funny ways.  Brooklynn is VERY motherly at times and she mimics me to the "T".

But to quickly backtrack for a second... On Tuesday morning I took Brooklynn to get her immunizations.  We had been talking about it off and on during the week leading up to it and I clearly stated that the needle she was going to get (she calls it a noodle) was medicine to keep her healthy and strong, and that she was my big brave girl who was going to get McDonald's after she got her noodle because I was going to be so proud of her for being so brave.
Okay now fast forward to this afternoon as Jason and I were sitting watching a show and in the corner of my eye I saw her playing with one of her dolls.  As she was playing I heard her talking to her dolly and this is what she said, " There you go my BIG brave girl, you did SO good when you got your noodle.  I am SO proud of you!  Now we get to go to Old McDonalds!!"
She was giving her doll big hugs and kisses and then she placed her on a little toy car and "drove" to Old McDonalds for a happy meal.

She has been calling McD's, Old McDonald's for months now and we haven't felt the need to correct her because it's so darn cute. 

Life Lately Post

Sometimes I have to dish it out to keep myself up-to-date and "journal" my/ our family's life for a sec.  I am NOT good at writing in a journal, this is more or less what I use to record life.  I do write some more "personal" things in a journal but again, not often enough.  I enjoy blogging, and I love my blog.  I REALLY need to start publishing it though...

I love that I can punch out a blog post cuddled up on the couch next Brooklynn (she is right beside me at this moment) and Alivia is stomping around eating a snack, while both are very attentively watching Sesame Street :)

It's Saturday morning, and it's one of the laziest we've had in a while. It's 11:30am, Liv just woke up from a nap and we are all still in our jammies :)  I DID clean the kitchen when I woke up, and have good intentions to wash our bedding today but I'm not stressing about right now.

Last Saturday we went to the zoo.  It was really nice to just go out as a family for the morning and lunch.  Jason and I are both pretty busy it seems and we don't get to do fun things as a family on a whim very often.  However, on Sunday we did get to go to his parent's house and watch the Superbowl with Austin and Lisa - very fun!  Lisa and I got creative with the food/ snacks for the evening and I think the guys really appreciated out efforts.

 As for the rest of the week: Monday I had Liliya, Tuesday we had Music Makers, I had a ton of stuff to do around the house and enjoyed my girl's night out at Earls with Jen, Lisa and Amy - something that was a lot of fun and NEEDS to be done more often!  Wednesday I had to get groceries, go to the gym AND had Hot Yoga, Thursday I had my appointment with Dr. Barr and Lindsay watched the girls for me that morning (thanks again Lindsay :)) and Friday we had Brooklynn's gymnastics, and immunizations for Alivia. Brooklynn was a very helpful big sister (normally I dread having to drag both girls to any appointments but this went fine!)  Alivia is doing great, the only things I have to change is to cut back some of her milk.

Our weeks have a lot going on and I love the activities we looks forward to each week.  It's really broken up the winter and we have simply enjoyed the cold months more so than I am used too.

To back track a little with doctor appointments...  I was diagnosed to have a very large ovarian cyst during my pregnancy with Brooklynn.  I even wrote a post not to long after I had her that it had cleared up, to which I believed that a miracle had taken place in my body... not quite.  Anyways, I STILL have a cyst. It was there through my whole pregnancy with Alivia too, and it is huge.  I'm seeing Dr. Barr at the Centre for Urology @ Rockyview.  He is great but I'm about to be referred back to my Ob gyn because what they thought was a urachal cyst, is now what they believe to be a cystic disease of my uterus.  I'm a mystery case, one that continues to mystify the doctors that see me.  I was able to have a look at the images from my CT scan (which deserves a post- such a traumatic experience!!) which were actually a bit graphic for me to look at at first but on the other hand it was amazing to see such a clear view with so much depth of my insides!  This little "hitchhiker" I carry around is taking up approx 70% of my pelvic interior. My Other organs are squished under or around it.  It is HUGE, I want it out and my doctor cannot believe I had two pregnancies without it rupturing.  Oh, and the only reason they thought it had disappeared a couple years ago was because I accidentally emptied my bladder before an ultrasound :S  I tried to drink a ton to fill it back up but there wasn't enough time for it to fill so we thought my cyst was my full bladder... crazy!

So there's some updating for everyone.  I'll be eager to have some news or info regarding surgery.  Until then it's just more of a waiting game :)

Other than that Jason is plugging away at school still and is approaching midterms.  I can't believe we almost have 1 year under our belts.  We just need to find him get a good internship!  If anyone has some connections in the finance or oil & gas world we would love to know :D