Meet your little sister

Aidan, you're going to be having a little sister! She is perfectly healthy and well. Both daddy and mommy are over the moon about this. I was so nervous and excited this morning at the possibility of finding out. The ultrasound took an hour because they had to check/measure all the body parts and make sure it was ok. The ultrasound technician had a bit of trouble because the baby kept moving around which kept her from taking a picture of each part properly. She was poking me and making me turn in all these different positions to get the baby to move into an ideal position. However, when that didn't work she made me touch my toes 50 times in reps of 10 and walk around/stretch in between. By the time I was done I was so out-of-breath! Luckily she was able to get everything she wanted. I even got to see the baby on screen moving around. It was weird seeing all the body parts so developed. She has fingers, cute little feet and huge eyes! Daddy was convinced that we were having another boy that he thought of all these boys names. Now we have to start thinking about a girl. Everyone is so excited for us and I can't wait to meet your little sister in July.

Aidan's sibling

Finding out the sex of baby #2 today at 8:15am. So excited and nervous!

School photo disaster

Oh boy. Talk about a bad photoshoot.
This Wednesday was your daycare photo day. I dressed you in nice clothes and even put gel in your hair. I didn't expect your photos to come back like this. Apparently you cried a lot and this is the best that they could do. Last year I was able to be there when you got your picture taken because I was dropping you off from your doctor's appointment. I don't think we'll be ordering any prints this year. Sigh.

DIY puzzle boxes

Seeing how good you were at putting puzzle pieces together daddy and I bought 3 new (harder) puzzles for you. They came in different-sized cardboard boxes and were quite impractical as they started falling apart once you kept opening/closing them. Daddy mentioned that he wanted to buy some plastic containers to store these puzzles in.

Yesterday, I had to do a few errands and decided to drop by the dollar store (my favourite place for ideas!) to pick up a few plastic containers. Here's how I went from having an idea to executing the final product:

These are the 3 original puzzle boxes. The Cars and Lion King boxes were the same size, but the Bibleman was bigger.
You can already see here that the Lion King box is totally mangled. 

I saw these semi opaque containers at the dollar store with lids. They came with different coloured handles that
were too cute to pass up.

They were $2 each. They are a little bigger than something that I hoped to get, but it's not bad. 

I scanned the boxes of each puzzle box to get the final image once you put the whole puzzle together.
Since these puzzles were more difficult than your first puzzle it was important to have a picture of the final
puzzle as a reference. I sized them in relation to the plastic containers that I bought so that I could stick
it on the box.

I then printed it in a glossy paper and I printed 2 of each puzzle.

The whole time I was doing this DIY project you were sitting beside me and acting as my little helper.

I cut the picture with an exacto knife and a ruler (to get a straight, clean edge) and stuck it on the containers
with double-sided tape. 

You acted as my 'sticker' by sticking the images onto the containers.

Here is the final product!

Family Day

Because of the long weekend this weekend (tomorrow is Family Day), we decided to check out a movie today. We decided to watch The Secret World of Arrietty. It was that or The Adventures of Tin Tin. I was a little unsure of the movie that we chose because it's more of a quiet film and you like something with more singing and more action. The movie started at 12:30pm- a little close to your nap time, but we thought that everything would go smoothly…

Daddy belting you into your car seat. He was telling you, "Aidan, we're going to see a movie." And you repeated,
"We going to see a movie!" So I think you were aware where we were going :-)

Here's the closing caption. An hour into the movie you started getting a little antsy. You were talking aloud in
quite a few quiet scenes. It was a little embarrassing. There was a scene where the cat was in the shot and you
yelled out, "Cat! Meow!" 

Still, you were pretty happy about seeing a movie. Look how you're looking at the big screen.

As soon as we drove away from the theatre you conked out.

Awwwww.

DIY reward chart

I've been thinking about making a reward chart for you for a while now. The idea came to me when we were thinking of ways in how you can potty train in a positive way. I thought a chart that you can fill up with stickers would be something that you would enjoy filling and it would encourage you to act positively. It's especially important now since you are at a terrible 2 stage. I bought a few things at the dollar store yesterday and got working on it today.

I bought several sheets of foam in different colours. I then punched 1" punches in a contrasting colour and stuck
it on the foam sheet. Each round punch is for a sticker. This one is for the potty reward chart.

I bought these sheets of foam letters at the dollar store that I used to label each reward chart.

I bought a box of stickers that you would enjoy- things with cars, airplanes and happy faces that I'm going to be
using as the stickers for the reward charts.

Here's one I made for sleep. I basically made reward charts for things you have a hard time doing. One being
sleeping. I thought creating a chart for you to go to bed without throwing a fit would be something good for you
to have. 

I stuck the chart in your room by your bed. Before bedtime I ask you, "Aidan, do you want a sleep sticker?" You
always say yes. I then explain to you that you can only get it if you go to bed after you stick the sticker on the
chart. And it works like a charm!

I made a potty chart for the washroom. This one is right by your potty.

I'm hoping this will encourage you to go potty so that you can get a reward sticker.

Lastly I made one for your play room. This one is for tidying up. You can see here that you already
got a sticker for doing that.

The chart is hanging right by your kitchen set. It really helps to keep things orderly in your play room.

Aidan hearts Mickey

A couple of weeks ago I discovered The Disney Junior Channel (channel 68). Prior to that you were only watching Treehouse (channel 65). I turned on a few shows for you- The Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Jungle Junction, Handy Manny. Ever since then you've been obsessed with anything Mickey. I decided that I wanted to buy you a Mickey stuffed toy. Luckily daddy found a deal this week where the Disney store had a buy one get one free promo. We immediately rushed to our local Disney store and bought you Mickey and Donald Duck. You were so happy that you held Mickey Mouse the whole time we were at the mall.

Here's a clip of you dancing to the Hot Dog dance. Watch at the end for the funniest moment.

You do not want glasses…

Today, while daddy and I were watching the Super Bowl we happened to catch you when you playing and you had Mr Potato's glasses over your eyes. We burst out laughing because you looked ridiculous. This isn't the first time you've done that, but we always get a chuckle when you put Mr Potato's glasses over your eyes. I guess it's because you always see mommy and daddy sporting glasses at home.

Lately you've been wanting glasses. Just yesterday we were at Pacific Mall and daddy was looking at new glasses for himself. You kept going to all the displays and saying, "I want glasses! I want that one!" All I have to say is, "Boy, you do not want glasses."

Puzzle master

A few weeks ago I decided to open a box of puzzles that our friends Jenn and Ed got for you for Christmas. I wasn't sure how well you would do with the puzzle because I honestly thought you were too young for it. At first you were just watching what I was doing. I kept pointing to the fox to show you the big picture of how the finished puzzle was supposed to look once it was finished and I gave you clues as to how to match pieces together. By the time I did half of the puzzle you were putting pieces together and really enjoyed putting all the pieces together. Let me just say that since then you've become somewhat of a master in puzzles. We literally timed you and you finished this whole puzzle in 10 minutes.

Just today I took the box of puzzles to your Toronto grandparents house to show them how you do the puzzle and they were amazed. They think we should enroll you in those competitions for kids to compete in puzzle contests. I don't want to say that you are so smart because I'm sure most parents think their kids are the smartest/cutest thing in the World, but I honestly think you are special. When I watch you play sometimes I notice how you play differently than other kids. You are very methodical in how you play and when I see other boys your age play I see how rough they are with their toys and how they just bang/throw things around. You, on the other hand, line them up either by colour or by category and you like matching things up. It'll be interesting how you do in school.