Mermaids and Priates...oh my!

Loralai's birthday this year was mermaids and pirates! It was fitting since she loves mermaids, and well because little boys were also invited, they could have been mermen but I thought that in this case they would think that pirates were so much cooler!...I was right! :) 

Loralai invited 9 friends, and I was so happy that everyone was able to make it!!! We had face painting, pirate ship colouring, walking the plank, and of course a treasure hunt! Mommy had made all the kids mermaid or pirate shirts with their names on them, and then of course some accessories to go with their costumes. I had also taken a refrigerator box and made it into a pirate ship with a flag and everything so that they could take it out to the sea in search of the treasure! Then we ate, had cake, and of course presents. I think that overall even though Mommy was running around like a crazy person, everyone had a blast! 

When they got to the island...looking for the treasure. 

You can sort of see the shirt that I made them all, they had a different mermaid (one to match their hair colour) and their name. The boys had white t'shirts with an anchor and their name.  

Godmother Carrie made her cake (a tradition) is it not the coolest themed fitting cake?! 

What a crazy fun packed day! :) 

and then she was 4!

Once upon a time, June 16th 2008 to be exact, a beautiful little girl named Loralai was born at 8:21 on a sunny morning. She was 7.14lbs, and 20 inches long...she was perfection. 

Now fast forward through 4 fun and crazy years...

Which brings us to the present day...where that beautiful perfect little baby turned 4 years old! 

Mother's always say that they cannot believe how fast the years go, it feels just like a blink of an eye...and you honestly do not really understand that feeling until your standing there looking at your own child, in my case now at 4 years old! Sometimes I wish that I could slow down time a little bit, and savour the moments just a little longer...but I guess that is also why I blog! To live life once in the moment, and then again in retrospect!

If I could describe Loralai it would be:

- Animated
- Fiercely Independent
- Caring
- Compassionate
- A good friend
- (Most of the time) a good rule follower
- Silly
- Willing to try new things
- Amazing long term memory
- Good helper
- Curious
- Sarcastic (I think it is hilarious as I am also very sarcastic, she just gets things...but I also think that I am in trouble as she gets older! Sarcasm comes with a little bit of cheeky attitude!)

Loralai loves (at the moment):

- Colouring/crafts
-  The movies Tangled, The Wizard of Oz, and The Little Mermaid
- Barbies
- Babies (real babies)
- Swimming
- Dancing
- Playing at the park
- Playing dress up

Newest accomplishments:

- Excellent zipper upper
- Finally started to fall asleep by herself, and stay asleep in her own room (family bed philosophy up until just very recently)


Happy 4th Birthday baby girl, Mommy loves you more than words could ever describe! 

School Orientation

Wednesday night was Loralai's school parents only orientation. They went over the curriculum, introduced the full day programming, provided some tips to help get your child ready for September (i.e.: making sure that they can open their lunch containers), and it ended with a tour of the classroom. 

 This Mommy has been having some very mixed feelings, and now they are just more heightened after the orientation! I am so excited and proud that Loralai will be going to school, and mostly that she is definitely ready to go...and on the other hand I am sad that the last 4 years has gone by so quickly! Where did my little baby go? Well I know that the little baby has been replaced by a beautiful, full of life, happy, spunky, little girl! I am so happy and so proud to be her Mom every day! 

During some point of the first two days of school all the new little Jr Kindergardeners will go in for about 20 minutes, to check out the new classroom and get a feel for the lay of the land. Then some point within the next 5 school days, they will stagger everyone's start, this is to prevent the littles becoming too overwhelmed. 

There will be about 26 students in her class, and this is a mixture of Sr. and Jr. Kindergardeners. The program that they have is a play based learning program, which just means that they kids will be essentially playing with purpose. There are two different types of play based learning: structured and unstructured; however, all the games do have a learning outcome that is required in the curriculum. Structured play is where the activity is directed  by the teacher or the RECE (Registered Early Childhood Educator), and is planned. Unstructured play is where the child is self directed or takes all the initiative.  

The program itself is a 2 years, so within Jr. and Sr. Kindergarden they will learn all the essential skills and knowledge they need to know before entering into grade one, this is why all the students are in the same class. Also this year at Loralai's new school is the first year for a full time program, so Loralai will be going 5 days a week full days. Children work better with structure and routine, and this is the premise behind the full time program, instead of having a schedule such as Monday, Wednesday and every other Friday, which for many kids caused confusion and was not very conducive to structure and routine. So studies have found that the children actually thrived more being there full time. 

I think that both programs make a lot of sense, and I am hoping that Loralai will enjoy them as much as I think that she will. I cannot wait to go and start shopping for her start of school clothes and supplies! :) 

Honorary Fire fighter

On Wednesday Auntie Mindy, Loralai, and Mommy packed into the car and headed to Toronto to visit Mindy's boyfriend's fire hall for the morning, and Loralai got to be a honorary fire fighter for the day! 

Steve (Mindy's boyfriend) took us for a tour around the hall, showed us the two different fire trucks they had in the hall that day, which were the pump and the aerial. They also have a rescue truck but this particular truck was working from a different hall that day. It was amazing to be able to have our own special tour, Steve was so great and took the time to explain how everything worked, and was so sweet with Loralai. The pump is the truck that Steve works on, each fire truck has there own specialized use, and therefore has it's own highly trained specialized team. 

Loralai got to sit in the driver's seat, turn on the lights, hold a hose and an axe, investigate the back of the truck, watch Steve slide down the pole, and so much more! We also got to see them go on a call, fortunately is was a false alarm call and they were back in about 15 minutes or so, but it was neat to see them getting all ready in their gear and racing out! 

Loralai of course was a fire fighter at Halloween, she was ready in her costume and pink rubber ("Mommy all the fire fighters wear boots, so I have to wear my rubber boots!")

boots by 7:30am...we weren't leaving until 9:30am! lol needless to say she was super excited! All the guys at the hall got a kick out of her costume! 

After the fire hall we headed to Upper Canada Mall for lunch, and a little window shopping. I asked Loralai if she wanted to take off her costume, but nope she wanted to leave it on...good thing she did since the riding cart was in the shape of a fire truck!! 

I am so in love with the fact that Loralai wants to go out in public dressed up! Last week it was a princess with a tiara, and then this week it was a fire fighter...how adorable are the little ones that dress up? It makes me smile! :) 

What a great day! Thank you Auntie Mindy and Steve! <3

Get Organized with Vinyl!

So I have set out to use my silhouette craft machine a lot more! I have zero idea why I do not use it constantly, honestly if you had one of these machines you would understand my love! 

Anyway, I first saw this on IHeart Organizing, if you have not seen her blog you have been missing out on a whole new way to view your life! Honestly, she has the best ideas for organization and it helps that she shares the same style as I do! 

So in our living-room we have a while cabinet, its pretty but it does gather all the stuff we bring home or use on a daily basis, it is a constant effort to ensure that it stays neat. I feed the fish right before I walk out the door during the week, and since mornings are always busy, I tend to leave the fish food out on the cabinet...well if you have seen a fish food container it does not exactly fit the styleI am going for, so I knew when I found this inexpensive dish from the dollar store, that I had to make it pretty! 

First you take this...

Then add a little bit of this...

And you are left with this...

Is this not cute?! Now our two Betta fishes Tara and Monkey can have there food, and this Momma can have something cute to keep their food in! 

I also did a few more projects today, like this one:

I have been using these tins (purchased from Soultions) to keep the cords, usb's, and headphones organized, but I had to open the tin up to figure out what was inside all-the-time...so I thought why not utilize my silhouette and make these tins from moderately functional to fantastic! <3 

I also finished our birthday balloon wreath and tackled some other silhouette projects...but I will wait until tomorrow to share them with you. The pictures above were taken in the evening...and as you can see there was not enough natural light to do them justice, but I was too excited to wait. 

Dance Recital

Borden Dance Studio Presented...The Toybox Production! 

I am such a proud Momma, Loralai did so great in her very first dance recital! I was a stage mom, so I got to spend my time with Loralai and her little dance friends, help getting them ready, entertained, and safe. Because Loralai's dance studio is on a military base, it is smaller, but this just means that all the students got to dance more than one dance. Loralai's class was the youngest of all the dancers, so they danced 2, and then the older dancers 3-5 dances. 

The first dance I think that most of the girls were just becoming adjusted to being on stage in front of a big crowd, and they all really came into their own on the 2nd dance!

Loralai,
 It is days like this when you get up and do something that you did all on your own, that I am so very proud to be your Mom!
Love, Mommy

Trampoline Fun!

On Tuesday after getting home at 3:30am, waking up my beautiful daughter...yes I woke her up! I missed her like crazy after all...she didn't even open her eyes, she just smiled and hugged me! So cute! We talked and cuddled for a while, and we finally went back to sleep at around 4:30-5am. 

Later that day Loralai had been going on and on about jumping on a trampoline, she even made a pretend trampoline. So I remembered a place close to our house called Vertical Zone, so I called hoping that they could get us in, and they could! 

It was fun! The owner also let me jump as well, and wow it is a great workout. He got Loralai to run around the outside of the trampolines and stretch first, Loralai was a little bit shy at first, but she had so much fun! We also watched a group of teenage boys do some tricks, they were crazy! 

New York City

Last weekend it was girls weekend, and what a better place to go then to NYC?! So Carrie, Sarah, Chrissy, Rosey, Lissa, Marnie, and I piled onto our trains and planes and met in one of the greatest cities in the world! 

It was fantastic. Our trip started at 11pm when we headed in the car towards Buffalo, our train left at 4:30am, trying to sleep on the train was tricky, but we managed to get a couple of hours. The train ride itself lasted 8 hrs, but honestly it went by fairly quickly. 

We stayed in Midtown Manhattan in the Eventi Hotel. The rooms although not enormous did have two queen (more like double) beds, but finding two queen beds in Manhattan is not an easy feat! For perspective our hotel only had two rooms that offered queen beds on each floor. Our hotel also had a beautiful terrace on the 5th floor, I wish I could have hung out on there more, but seeing and doing everything in NYC in 4 days does not allow for much down time! 

Our room...now do not judge, I should not have taken a picture when we were packing up, but that is when I remembered! I LOVED that shower, now between the city and feeling dirty every time I cam back to the hotel, and the beautiful shower itself, I took quite a few showers! :) The beds were also so comfortable! 

 A couple of views from our terrace, you can see the empire state building, and the new building that is being built on the same location as the twin towers (pic 4).

We also of course visited the 9/11 memorial. I do not think many words are required for these photos...

Here is a little video to commemorate our visit to the 9/11 Memorial. 

We went to central park, Klienfeilds (Say Yes to the Dress) Chrissy tried on some dresses thankfully only to confirm that she does indeed love her dress she has already, Times Square, Carlos Bakery (Cake Boss), 80's Prom Show at Webster Hall ($16 a drink!), and lots and lots and lots of other spots...

So I don't have any pictures of anyone other than Sarah and Carrie...lol...that is because the three of us did most touristy things during the day (since I had never been there before), while the other ladies shopped until they dropped! :) 

Once I get a copy of all of us at the 80's prom show, I will make sure to post it! :) 

On the last day, while Sarah and I were relaxing in the lobby of our hotel since it was pouring raining and we were waiting to leave to catch our train at Penn station, I saw my only celebrity sighting of the trip...Slash was staying at our hotel too! 

My feet were definitely ready for our 8 hour train ride, and 2 hour car ride home! I wish that we had more time, but thank you NYC for the memories, I am sure I will be back again!! 

  

Birthday Theme

Loralai is loving mermaids and Rapunzel ("Mommy my hair is going to be as long as Rapunzel's on my birthday you know?") lately, but Mommy needed a theme for her birthday that would also be little boy friendly as well, so the theme for Loralai's 4th birthday is....drum roll please....

Mermaids and Pirates! :) 

I created the invites this year, and since I always feel that there should be a picture on the invitations, I plopped one from our photo session yesterday, sent them to get printed at Costco, and wala we have birthday invitations!  I also created a treasure hunt game, and a welcome sign...but your going to have to wait until after the party to see those! ;)

Birthday Count Down!

So I am thinking about making a birthday count down, like an advent calender for Loralai! She is continuously asking me lately "is it my birthday yet?" "I want my birthday to be today" "how come my birthday is not today?" phew...I am tried of trying to explain how many more sleeps...which is 33 by the way! 

How amazing is this countdown?  I think that I am going to have to replicate something quite similar for Loralai! What a wonderful tradition this would be!