We had a really awful week of the sickies and it’s only Thursday. Natasha brought home the 24-hour bug and we each took turns going through it. It was awful. Natasha had it Monday through Tuesday, Veronika got it on Wednesday, I had it Wednesday eve and most of Thursday, and Matthew got all the symptoms Thursday afternoon. He’s still sick. It did not even spare my mom who spent 3 hours at our place Tuesday afternoon; it’s extremely contagious. Both girls are feeling better by now and I’m getting better as well; now it’s just Matthew battling it. Sigh. I am tired of cleaning everyone’s vomit.

On a brighter note, Veronika was super excited on Wednesday afternoon when she received her new Dora toddler bedding set. Natasha already had one, but Veronika did not, so being as she’s in a big-girl bed now, she deserved cool new bedding. She LOVES it. She was really upset when she puked all over the pillowcase Wednesday night, but it’s now washed and back on her pillow!

I’ve never been one to care for Valentine’s Day, but when you have small kids and see all the adorable Valentine’s gifts in stores, well it becomes a different story. Buying for your kids is a lot more fun than shopping for yourself.

Natasha has been asking for blue nail polish for a while now. Because pink is boring, right? She also wanted a purple one. I dropped by Claire’s and they had the perfect set! Moreover it’s scented (bubble gum, cotton candy, grape…). Mmmm. She loved it!

While in the same store, I saw these adorable stuffed… raccoons? They light up and make sounds… perfect for my little snuggle bear! She loved it, too.

Now, Matthew and I don’t really exchange Valentines gifts, but I wanted him to have something from the girls. A few days ago (together) we made him this:

Then we made some cupcakes and the girls decorated them with little coloured candy-stars. We also made some with pink icing and fresh blueberries. Then we ate them :P

HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY!

The girls had a wonderful Christmas this year; it was fun watching it through their eyes, and while Veronika took everything as it came, Natasha really understood what Christmas was all about; I think next year Veronika will get into it as well. The family was very generous and the girls got a lot of wonderful toys and clothes. And of course, Santa visited our house while they slept and in the end, they really made out like bandits!

While they visited their family Christmas Eve, Santa dropped by and left them each a gift under the tree – new pj’s and stuffed reindeer!

Natasha then left cookies & milk for Santa, and carrots for his reindeer so he has a snack to grab when he dropped off the presents. Unfortunately, “Santa” ate it all before I could take a pic…….. Santa was good to them!
 

Today Natasha & I had a little outing to a mall. I promised her that each year she and her sister would each get to pick out a new ornament for our tree. Well, being as Veronika is recovering from a cold and it being the last weekend before Christmas, I did not want to drag her to a germy mall with us. Plus, I needed some one-on-one time with Miss. Big Girl.

I was really impressed when Natasha headed straight for the store’s “blue” ornament section; our tree is blue/silver themed so I guess she knew she needed a blue-ish ornament. She found her perfect ornament about five minutes later. She did not like any of the fancy ones, but she LOVED this very shiny and sparkly blue ball one.

Natasha’s ornament- 

She then picked out an ornament for her little sister. This is Veronika’s ornament-

She had a lot of fun looking at all the decorations in the stores. We then picked out some blue and silver “filler ornaments” for our tree to make it a little more interesting. Matthew’s planning on doing a completely different color theme next year, but we’ll see about that.

So I’m a bit sentimental when it comes to saving my girls’ “memories” and little items they create. When they get older, I want them to have a box full of different items that would bring all kinds of memories back from their childhood. Right now all these items are in a large round box, but it looks like I may need a bigger box very soon.

The girls have identical record books that I got them over a year ago. These books are simply beautiful and the illustrations are adorable. They’re not fully up-to-date, I just need to find the right time to sit down and update them.

Link: The Blessing of a Baby: A Baby Record Book

Each girl has a plastic ziploc bag with their name on it. (hopefully I can get prettier bags later on). Right now each bag has their hospital bracelets (and mine!), and Natasha’s bag has her Gymnastics award ribbons she got last year at the end of each term.

Then I kept some small homemade gifts, event invitations & cards, and pictures the girls drawn or painted that I felt were special. I also kept Natasha’s 1st Reward Chart she completed a day ago.

A small jewellery gift box contains their very first set of earrings!

And this is the part where you can call me a hoarder, but I save every greeting card the girls ever received – birth, Baptism, birthdays, Christmas, New Year’s, etc. So if you ever gave them a card, chances are when they’re 18, they will still have it. :p Again, I need prettier baggies for it.

Yep… definitely need a bigger box!

I think this is the first year where Natasha understands the whole Christmas and Santa concept. She’s counting down the days on a calendar to December 24/25 because that is when Santa will bring her presents. Of course, right now it is all about the tree and presents to her, but there isn’t much else to expect from a 3 year old. She’s very excited!

If you ask her what she wants Santa to bring her, she replies: “big talking choo-choo” (check!) “and panda pyjamas” (check!). We had to get Veronika matching pyjamas because I think otherwise we’ll have some jealousy issues. She’s now looking forward to decorating the tree which we’ll do sometime in early December.

We’ll also be starting a new ‘tradition’ this year where each girl will be allowed to buy one ornament for the tree; they can choose any ornament they want and it will be ‘their ornament’… I hope it can become a yearly tradition they will look forward to every holiday season. And of course, same as last year, they will be allowed to open ONE gift on Christmas Eve and it will be a new set of winter pyjamas (the panda ones!) and a new stuffy to take to bed. On Christmas Eve, Natasha will also be leaving cookies & milk for Santa and carrots for his reindeer . Did I mention she is excited?

Anyhow – we have a family and holiday portrait session scheduled for 12/5, so that should be fun. We have absolutely zero recent family photos and we desperately need some! Hopefully the girls will behave themselves. :)

I haven’t really been in a posting-mood, mainly because the girls have both been sick for a full week now. This is definitely the sick/flu/cold season and it seems that almost everyone and their momma are feeling sick. I think Natasha brought in a bug from her Gymnastics class which Veronika quickly caught, but I’m not certain. In any case, we’ve had leaky noses and some coughing for a week now. I hope they recover by the weekend…

The whole H1N1 craze isn’t helping. Our kids are fully vax’ed but the seasonal flu has never been on my list of vaccines. And the H1N1 strain is so ‘new’ and with the media blowing it out of proportion, it does make you very paranoid. A few mommies I know have decided to vax their family against the H1N1, but just as many (probably more) decided not to. I guess ultimately it comes down to each family and what they are comfortable with. Matthew and I will probably not be vaccinating against any flu… maybe if our kids were in daycare and either of us working with the public each day, we would. But for now, we will just blow up a big bubble and stick our kids inside and they can play in there until winter is over.

Finally. I placed an order from Toys R Us for the girls’ Christmas presents this year from us. It’s been hard because they already have a lot of things, especially Veronika who inherited all of her older sister’s toys and wouldn’t understand what’s going on anyways…. BUT I want Natasha to see her little sister receiving gifts as well. So… Matthew gave me a budget and told me to “go nuts with it” and he doesn’t care what I get, just get it over with. So I did.

For Natasha:

Panda Cub

Thomas & Friends - Railway Rhythms Pop Up Songbook - English Edition

For Veronika:

Musical Inchworm

Activity Board

Teddy Bear Stacker

And for the girls to share:

Interactive Electronic Table

These are all the gifts from Matthew & I, as I am sure they’ll get a ton more stuff from the grandparents and other family.

The girls will not see the toys until Christmas morning when they wake up. The gifts will be hidden and when they go to bed on December 24th, we will place all the wrapped presents under the tree; they will get to unwrap them first thing in the morning. BUT. We’re starting a new tradition this year where each girl will receive a new set of holiday pyjamas and that is the ONLY gift they can open on Christmas Eve. Each girl will go to bed in new jammies (which I already bought)!

Picture of new pyjamas

When they’re a bit older (maybe next year), we will probably do a new set of pyjamas and a new book to take to bed. Also, starting next year, we will take the girls to the store and each will be able to pick out a new ornament for the tree. I want them to have traditions to look forward to each year. I am sure we will have more of them over time, but these are for starters.

 Hope your Halloween is SPOOKtacular!!

We have no plans for this Halloween, as we never do. We're going to buy a bag of candy incase some kids show up, but we doubt they will as we live in an apartment building. I think Matthew came up with the idea to buy candy just so that he can eat it himself.

ANYWAY.... poor Veronika has no costume... I just couldn't find anything cute for her that was in her size. Everything is awfully bulky, which makes sense if you're going trick-or-treating in the cold weather, but since we are not... well it's just not worth it for me. We'll get her a costume next year.

Natasha has a costume someone gave us.... I think it's pretty cute:

 And some Fall pics from yesterday...

Matthew was having an awful day yesterday - pretty much everything went wrong for him, including these two things:

1. First thing in the morning he managed to get stuck in our elevator. The bloody thing won't open its doors and Matthew was riding up & down from the basement to the last floor about a megazillion times... 30 minutes and lots of curse words later he managed to push the doors open. Of course this made him late for work and therefore late coming home in the evening.
   

2. Then, after the girls went to bed, we started watching season 3 finale of LOST. It was exciting... what season finale isn't?! Anyway, about half-an-hour into the episode Matthew's computer screen suddenly froze. No big deal, right? He tried all kinds of things to 'unfreeze' it and finally ended up rebooting the machine. And then what happens??? He gets a lovely black screen with all kinds of messages on it. Long story short - his hard drive died off... burned out... kaput! Poor Matthew (poor computer?) Anyhow, we don't know if he'll even be able to recover the data from the dead hard drive, but in the meantime we ordered a new Dell computer. Should be here within two weeks...
   
   That's 2 LONG WEEKS I don't get to stare at HUNKY SAWYER!