Happy Birthday Papa!

Today we celebrated Papa's birthday. This date is always magical. Not only is it Papa's birthday, but 2 years ago we got the news of a lifetime - a baby girl.  We thought today would be the day we would get news about William, but it wasn't meant to be.  Wah!  But life goes on..it's out of our control. I think to cheer us up, Papa went all out on the Christmas decorations at the house.  It made me smile seeing a giant Christmas penguin blowing in the front lawn.  Good job Papa!

Papa picked up Olivia at school. Today was Olivia's last day in the Toddler Program at school, and she starts full days with the Primary class tomorrow.  Goodbye "Pandas"!  Hello "Giraffes"!.   A little bump in the road, but life goes on.  Next year, William be singing a duet with Miss Olivia.  Can't wait.  For now, Papa will just have to contend with his 2 best girls.

And Then There Was The Backyardigans

Move over Elmo...the Backyardigans have taken over the Savard household! (And yes, we did spend on silly souvenirs).

Today we went to Olivia's 2nd show, The Backyardigans.  It was great!  I don't know where this obsession with The Backyardigans came from.  Well... I know where it started. It came from Olivia's BFF (Nalina our neighbour). Whenever we came over to the house, we would see/hear it in the background. Nalina loved it and she would dance around copying the characters.  I have to say it's a great show. The premise being that kids don't need all these toys to entertain them, every adventure can begin in the backyard using your imagination. Love it! It's actually a perfect concept for our Olivia, who would rather spend hours outside than inside.

Anyways, Olivia didn't really care for the show in the beginning. Mind you, she will watch it briefly or listen to it in the background, but to sit through an entire episode is somewhat rare.  What got her going was the day we picked up 2 stuffed characters at a consignment store. That was it. She was hooked. She carried them around, sang to them, talked to them, and even put them in time out!.  We always ask her why they are in timeouts, and it's because "They were running!  No running Tasha!" or "Uniqua hit Tyrone".  Yikes...the things she picks up at school.

Soon after that, I picked up 2 more characters from Ebay. The last one, Pablo, came last week in the mail. He was the only one missing so we couldn't wait till Christmas to give it to her. Now she is complete and carries them everywhere. We have a "discussion" on who she is going to bring to bed EVERYNIGHT. "Just 1 Olivia!" But she loves them, we love the concept. Why not indulge?  :0P

The concert was great. She was a bit unsure in the beginning. She tried the "Peepee in the toilet Maman!" thing right at the beginning of the show (and she had just went). I quickly figured out, she was scared and she wanted out.  Then out came the ADULT-sized backyardigans and the intro song. She was stunned. hahahahha.

She quickly got over her fears and started clapping away. Soon it was "Where's Tasha?  Where's Tyrone?" etc - with her hands out in disbelief.  Then she would start yelling "Hi Tasha!  Hi Uniqua! Hi Tyrone!  Hi Austin!  Hi Pablo!!!!"  It was priceless. She knew every character. We had great seats too.   Close to the front and centre. Great theatre for kids because they offered boosters for the wee ones too. Both Nalina and Olivia were both holding on to their stuffed Tyrones all throughout the show.  Olivia's bought from Ebay for $5 and Nalina's was bought at the show for $15. Crazy.

By the end of the show, Olivia was off her seat dancing away and wishing it wouldn't end.  But it did, and we left to go eat sushi. hahahahah.  Great family night.  Hoping that William will like to watch Backyardigans too and I can reuse these toys when Olivia is out of this phase (maybe not the Uniqua costume)  hahahhaa.  Better yet, they will be the perfect little pair and constantly play in the backyard using their amazing imaginations and come up with their own adventures and not play with these toys.  :0)  We'll just have to wait and see.  Sigh, another wonderful night without William home yet. But there will be more shows, more family nights like this one so i'm not too disappointed.  I wonder which fabulous kid show will we watch next?

Aside:  Yes...sigh. That is a big big bruise on Olivia's cheek.  During the day today she was jumping in the bed and slammed right onto the bedrail wainscotting on the wall.  It immediately swelled up and bruised. Stay tuned to see if a black eye came about. Sigh.  (Pretty sure everyone one was smiling and staring at Olivia at how cute she looked in her Uniqua costume, but i'm pretty sure everyone also glanced at her cheekbone. It was pretty hard to miss).

Marty's take..and it was 2 years ago!!! (well in a few days!)

Hi everyone, as we are getting ready to go back to Korea for Olivia's little brother (really soon Hopefully) , I just realize how time flies by and how things are today.
November 30th 2009 we got the news about our amazing baby girl, 2 years later , the time for her to get a baby brother can't come soon enough..for her own good;-) let's just say that she is not taking all of Papa's good influence! a few pics of those early years!!!!

un clin d"oeuil (wink) for Grand Papa

 Good potty training ( as per Papa mentoring) (and yes this is a triathlete magazine! that she pick on her own!)

 Never too early to shoot some pucks!

 Just chillin!

 Afternoon Nap..Awesome

 Love rewards..I want more Medaille!

 GO PACKERS! now that's a SuperBowl Party

 LOVE Papa Newton Shoes! RUN RRUN RUN

 Let's get those candy out!

 Much easier to RUN!

 Hummmmmm carb load!

 Still carb loading!

 Recovery!

 Where is Olivia?

 Can you see the Giraffe?

 Men those marshmallow are awesome!

 Olivia is working with Papa

 Jump jump jump

 Silly sillly!

 Yep, that's my kind of car!

Good Mechanics! thank you Newtons!..

Sleeping papa Style!

 Open water Swim Training!

Dry land Swim practice!

Nothing New

I just wanted to have the historic date stamp on this blog. I know it's probably a bit silly, but hey, when the kids look back at this blog they can say it was cool. (well...maybe not, but I do).

Might as well share my newsworthy day today. :0P
Typical Friday at school. There was a Remembrance Day celebrations.
Picked up Miss O, who by the way is toilet trained - not even 2 1/2 months (but that's another blog).
We all went to Costco.
Came home and ate homemade pizza (yum!) - except for Olivia who ate at all the food vendors at Costco and tasted everything from chocolate to crackers to pasta. Sigh...I know it's our fault she didnt' have an appetite for dinner.
Then bath and dodo.

Aside:  Although it looks like a plain ordinary day - something very exciting happened to me during my lunch break.  As I was leaving the mall (because I had to buy my lunch today), I ran into Susie. Her lovely family just came back from Korea about a month ago with a little sister for Benjamin. Isabelle was just adorable!  Happy as can be, and babbling like crazy.  This surprise encounter came at a great time, when I was just at the height of my anxiousness about news about William. I was dying to hear travel news, wondering everyday everyhour how he was doing. I was worried about what I was missing, and how big he was going to be when he came home.  That all went away when I saw Isabelle. She was the cutest little thing - still unsteady on her feet, babbling, curious, and active. I'm sure she was still wearing her size 12 month clothing. hahahhaa.  It was just great to see someone home with their baby. It gave me some hope that we will be there soon. We will soon all be reunited.  It speared me into asking her tons of travel questions, adjustment issues etc.  I am excited again - rather than depressed that we didn't hear anything yet. It was news that I needed to have today.  It has made all the difference, and I know I can wait patiently (not too much more) for our travel call.

Always Choose a Good Book Before Sleep

So, tonight (the day after Halloween) was my turn to put Miss O to bed. Before we were going into the bed, she reached for her usual bedtime story suspects - "Hug", "Brown Bear, Brown Bear", "Mouse's Paint", and "I Went Walking".  Tonight, however I put another book in her hand. I took out Robert Munsch's "MORTIMER".

Good lord, that was a mistake.  First of all, I thought she might be too young to get it. I was wrong. If you don't know the story, it's about a boy who does not want to go to sleep. Instead he sings on the top of his lungs "CLANG, CLANG, RATTLE BING BANG, GOING TO MAKE MY NOISE ALL DAY....".  Olivia really got a kick out of it!  She enjoyed the fact that everyone kept going upstairs to tell him to be quiet, and as soon as they left he would sing louder.  Of course, when I read it I was changing my voice and intonation for the characters - which made it more interesting. So interesting, that we read it 5 times.  Sigh.  Finally I had enough and it was really really time to go to bed.

She decided to bring the book with her into bed and read it in the dark. Not a good sign.  I bargained her out of that, and we lay in the dark trying to sleep. All of a sudden, you hear "CLANG, CLANG, RATTLE BING BANG GOING TO MAKE MY NOISE ALL DAY!.....".  UGHHHHHHH!!!!!!
I literally had to tell her to stop and go to sleep 10 times.  Everytime she would get quieter but still sang it. Did I mention that I clap my thighs in rhythm as I read it?  Yup, she was copying that too.

In the end, I threatened her that I was going to sleep in another room because I was tired and wanted to go to bed.  She quieted down and then it was actually quite for about 2 minutes. Yay!  She got the message. Then she started whispering good night to everyone she could think of.  She knows ALOT of people.   Cute and she was calm.  Then the singing came out.  You would think they were lullaby sleepy songs. Nope.

* See the Little Bunnies - after that she proceeded to hop in the bed
*Five Little Monkeys
*Sur le Pont
*Danse Des Canards (Birdie Dance)

Are you kidding me??? Each song I stopped it 3 seconds in.  It was crazyyyy!
I read dozens of articles about putting your child to sleep, making the most of bedtime.  In those articles, I remember reading to do calming activities with you baby, to soothe them before going to sleep - read a book, no tickling, sing quiet songs.  Man...they didn't tell you specific stories to read to your toddler. So learn from my mistake everyone.  "Mortimer" is a childhood classic to be enjoyed over and over - but not before bed.

    Have you heard of this one?