Madeline Age 1

Impromptu Family Photo

Every once and a while we realize that we don’t have many family photos so we set up the camera at our house and take a few pictures.  Here are a few family shots from this day.

Whose kids are these?

New Year’s Eve

This New Year’s eve we were very happy to spend it with the Carpenter family.  Ryan and Emily are great friends, Madeline and Mia are great friends, Mommy and Daddy are great friends with Emma and Mark.  This made for a …

Christmas 2012

This is probably the first Christmas that Madeline knew what was going on.  She pointed out Santa to me whenever she saw his picture and she also knew about the excitement of all of the gifts.  I think Madeline was so ex…

Pre-Christmas Party

We had a nice pre-Christmas party on the 23rd for some friends.  It was a pot luck dinner and we invited Ella (Ryan’s friend) and her parents over (Peter and Bosun) and Julia (Marcel and Lino’s).  The kids had a blast an…

First Snow!

Madeline has seen the snow before but I really don’t think she remembers it from last year.  We had an unexpected snowfall overnight (we usually have one or two a year maximum!).  You need to act fast in Vancouver in ord…

Hawaii 2012

It was a great vacation.  It wasn’t as relaxing as we might have wanted as both Ryan and Madeline were very restless whenever we were in the room.  The hotel we stayed at had a wonderful pool with a great water slide.  T…

Ryan and Madeline at the playground

There is a really big playground close to Grace’s parents home in LA.  Ryan is asking to go there everyday and finally when we had the chance to go, both kids were very excited.  I get a real kick out of how Ryan teases …

Truck Duck

As I mentioned in an earlier post Ryan can be a good brother.  This is a rare occasion and when he’s being an angel I usual grab the camera.  As you probably already know Ryan is a very strong reader and wants to share h…

Whistler 2012

We have a family tradition where daddy gets invited to teach the high school kids on their fall getaway to Whistler.  It usually ends up being a mini vacation for us because we get to hang out in Whistler and have a nice…

Halloween 2012

This is Madeline’s first Halloween at daycare.  She was very excited to be a ladybug and kept saying “ladybug” all day. At Chuva all the kids dressed up and celebrated Halloween throughout the day.  Madeline was also a t…

Madeline’s first trip to the gym

One of the benefits of living on a huge university campus is the fact that we have such easy access to all of the facilities (swimming, biking, skating, tennis, gym etc..)  On a few evenings each week they have open gym …

Everyone doing Sopa

This title won’t make any sense to anyone and that’s ok.  Grace has been doing a lot of video exercising lately and the kids love it.  They always want to join in.  There are a few different videos that Grace likes – Ins…

First time on the potty

Today was a very important day for Madeline.  She used the potty for the first time!  she was showing us quite a bit of interest but whenever it came time for the ‘business’ she would always back off.  What we figured ou…

Pink Cowboy Boots

Madeline has been very fortunate to have been handed down a lot of Ella’s cute clothes.  Madeline knows which clothes Ella gave to her and is always very happy to show off “Ella’s clothes”.  Madeline is very much a girly…

My big brother can be sweet

Having a big brother can be pretty great at times.  I think that when the kids aren’t fighting they can be pretty sweet.  We have a video of Ryan and Madeline being so sweet to each other.  Ryan watches how mommy and dad…

Madeline is very popular

Madeline is very popular at Ryan’s daycare.  At Little Raven all of the girls think Madeline is the cutest live baby doll.  They all want to hug her, pick her up and play with her.  Madeline loves all of the attention – …

Sliding Madeline

Madeline has been trying to show more independence lately.  She really wants to do things on her own and when we were at the park the other day she insisted on going down the slide by herself.  She is pretty brave!

Madeline loves the garden

Madeline loves to ride on daddy’s bike to the garden.  At the garden she always goes crazy for the strawberries, but she also really likes to pick any of the veggies.  When we were at the garden the other night (it was g…

Barn Raising!

Every year at the start of the the school there is a barn raising party.  We live across from a community centre called the Old Barn and they celebrate their reopening every year by having a barn raising party.  This yea…

Madeline loves slides

Because Madeline has an older brother she wants to do whatever he does.  Madeline seems to want to be independent more so than Ryan did at her age.  I really think she looks up to her older brother.

Hornby Island

This year we had a great chance to take a vacation on Hornby Island (3 ferries from Vancouver).  It is quite a remote island, small and with beautiful beaches.  This island isn’t really far but it is hard to get to becau…

My Carrot!

This video really needs some explaining.  Although this video is of Ryan doing some zip lining on our way to Hornby Island I am posting this on Madeline’s blog because we had such a good laugh at this video.  When I was …

Madeline wants to help pick blueberries

Madeline wants to be just like her big brother.  This year when we went blueberry picking Madeline fell asleep on the way.  We thought she would be left out and not get the chance to pick anything (or eat them!).  Madeli…

Madeline really loved Baba’s visit

Madeline was very excited for Baba’s visit.  She loved dressing up and having someone around that could pay attention to her.  Madeline was very comfortable with Baba from the very start.

Summer is fun

Madeline loves the summer!!  There is so much to do..

Madeline is a dirty eater

I’ve always loved videos of babies eating.  Madeline on one hand is quite the messy eater – you may notice that there are quite a few videos of her eating.  That is partly due to the fact that I can’t believe someone can…

Garden time

Madeline loves going to the garden.At the garden she gets to wear daddy’s sunglasses which makes her feel cool.

Madeline pushes the red car

When Ryan was quite young we bought him this cool red car.  It was a huge hit, not only for Ryan but for all of the kids in the neighborhood.  It was a very popular car!  When the nice weather in Vancouver started I brou…

Madeline goes nuts at play palace

As you probably know when your kid has a birthday it doesn’t just mean their own birthday.  It also means all of their friends will have birthday parties and you will be going to birthday party after birthday party.  Rya…

Mother’s Day

It’s that time of year again.  We need to try and show how much mommy means to all of us in one day.  Ryan decided to make another mug for mommy and painted a picture for her.  Madeline gave mommy a painted hand print.  …

Madeline learns to go down the stairs

One of the fears of living on a two floor apartment is having your child fall down the stairs.  We installed gates on both side of the stairs to make sure Madeline didn’t have the chance to fall.  As Madeline is a very d…

Easter

Easter happened to come on Madeline’s birthday this year so it was a little confusing for us how much time to spend on Easter with her.  We already had lots of plans for her birthday so we just had a small Easter egg hun…

Madeline’s First Birthday!!

It was such a big day for us.  It was Madeline’s birthday, it was Easter, it was Baba’s birthday – it was lots of fun.  Madeline woke up to a small Easter egg hunt and a gift from the Easter bunny.  After that it was bre…