Snow Day!

We bundled the kids up this morning and spent some time in our backyard snow! All 3 absolutely loved it. I guess we moved to the right place. :)

David brought out the wading pool and slid down the hill with the kids- they loved it!

Love love love this boy!

Little Eskimo babe

Sweet girl!

Warming up by the fireplace

And enjoying hot cocoa

November Photo Dump

Being that it's almost December, I figured it's time for a quick November photo dump! We've been busy busy busy with our three beautiful kiddos... plus plenty more!
Here are a few pics from the past few weeks...

Mr. Cody... rarely sits still, except to eat! He is enjoying his school and has some great people working with him. We are so thankful.

Caedon Joel is officially on the go! He took his first steps just days after his first birthday and hasn't slowed down since. We love watching him toddle around, and he is really enjoying his new found freedom.

He also scares me constantly- he LOVES to climb on anything and everything, then just laughs as I come running to "save" him. Little stinker.

Here is Kiley, making her own pizza... one of our new favorites @ Munchkin Academy. Kiley is thriving... she can now write her name, knows her letters, numbers, shapes and just loves having friends at our house all day long.

Trying out her new birthday bike!

Happy Birthday Princess!!!

We celebrated Kiley's third birthday on Sunday and oh what fun it was! All her little friends arrived in their princess best and played the afternoon away- games, a pinata, and plenty of little treats. Kiley had a ball. The highlight was probably her new bike, which she jumped on immediately after she opened it!

Kiley actually turns 3 on Wednesday. I can't believe how quickly her first three years have flown by. I absolutely LOVE being her mommy. She is the most precious baby girl and we're so proud of her!

Happy birthday Kiley!

Mommy, Daddy & the princess

Kiley & her princess friends

Princess Jodi
the spread

the cake

blowing out the candles...

Eating cake

Decorating princess crowns

Princess Pinata

Playing "Pin the lips on the Frog prince"- daddy drew the coolest frog for our game!

Opening gifts

A new bike!!!

Little Trick or Treaters

We had a BLAST this year! I think this is the first Halloween since Cody was a baby that David's been able to be with us to dress up & go trick or treating because of work. It was extra special to have him with us this time. Nana came over and handed out candy while we took our two monkeys and little bunny rabbit trick or treating. They LOVED it! And the weather was decent too so we made it through a good chunk of our neighborhood. Such fun & special memories...

All ready to go!

Excited little bunny rabbit

Cody David (5 yrs)

Kiley Michelle (almost 3)

Caedon Joel (1 yr)

Munchkin Academy Halloween Party

Today was party day at Munchkin Academy. The kids all came dressed in their costumes and we played the day away- games, songs, crafts & treats. It is so much fun watching our kids interact with their daycare friends- they have built in friends around 5 days per week!
Here are a few pictures from our little party...

Fall Fun...

We were so excited to find a pumpkin patch just on the outskirts of Calgary. It was always our tradition to go to the pumpkin patch when we lived in Redding, so I was kind of sad to think of losing that. One of our daycare families told us about this one and we made the 40 minute drive there to try it out...
The kids loved the little petting zoo, the cow train, the kid-size maze, the many different little activities, and of course the pumpkin patch.
What fun!

Making of the Train Cake- for Imaya!

I've had a request or two for a blog on the making of Caedon's choo choo train cake. I didn't take pictures as I went because I hadn't planned on blogging about it. But I have to say that it really is a very simple cake to make and I had so much fun doing it.

1. I baked the cakes in 5 meatloaf/bread pans. They turn out to be the perfect shape and size for the box cars. It's fun too because you can pick different cake flavors- we did confetti and vanilla for the engine, chocolate for the second and last box car and confetti again for the middle box car.
2. We bought a large Pine board at Home Depot and covered it with foil. Then we arranged the cakes on the board. With the 5th cake, we cut it in half and stacked it on top of another cake for the engine. (with frosting between the two layers)
3. Next I made a big batch of buttercream frosting and dyed it 4 different colors- one for each section of the train. The colors turned out so nice and bright, which I was happy about. With help from my hubby, we were able to make the frosting that usually looks pink from using red food coloring look more purply. We didn't think a pink box car would work out too well on a baby boy's cake, but thankfully it did look very purple. We frosted the train then decorated!
4. We used Oreo cookies for the wheels and skittles for the engine windows and to outline the top of each boxcar. Then we filled each boxcar with a different candy- red Jube Jubes, Mike n Ikes, and Chocolate Buds. It was David's idea to use black licorice for the train tracks and it looked great. He also came up with the smoke stack idea of using an icecream cone. We frosted it and decorated it with Mike n Ikes and stuck it on the front of the engine with more frosting. Then we used cotton candy for the "smoke".

It really turned out so cute and only took a few hours to make. So there you have it- the making of the cake!