Spreading Christmas cheer

Although I am always a very proud mom; today was a day that I was floored with pride towards my kind hearted boy. We were sick earlier this week so had to reschedule our good deed from Wednesday until today. Yesterday's act of kindness was "donate toys to Romaro house" We took the day to fill two boxes full of toys that my sweet boy chose to donate. Today we started the day by leaving a thankyou card and candycane for the Garbage man. We then packed up our toys and brought them to Romaro House. It was an amazing experience. The staff were so excited to see Kaiden and what he brought. They took him in and had him show them what he brought. He proudly explained each item and signed his name in their donation book. The lovely ladies gave Avarie and Kaiden ornaments for our Christmas tree as a thank you. They insisted I go out to the car to get a camera to take a photo of Kaiden giving his toys. As we left he said "I want to do that again! How about Christmas eve?" We sure of course! We then headed to a nursing home to help serve donuts to some residents. The staff were very excited to see us and came out to greet us and said "We have been waiting for our helper!" Kaiden handed out donuts to the group and then went room to room handing them out to the bed-ridden residents. Meanwhile Avarie put on a dancing and "singing" show. She was scooped up quickly by some seniors who were quite taken by her! Kaiden then showed everyone how fast he could run and how high he could jump. We were invited to come back and visit anytime :) Here are some photos from our day:

Today is a difficult day as it marks the second anniversary of losing my dear Grandmother who was a best friend and role model to me. We were very close and we lost her unexpectantly which has been very painful for all of us. Although I immediatly struggled with how to live my life without someone who meant the world to me...I have learned that my life must go on and I have to push past the pain to honour her life. She was a woman who loved her family with all of her heart and gave us so many beautiful memories and taught us to love with every part of our being. For this I will always be grateful. I am pained that my children will not know the love that she had down to her very soul however I will do my very best to keep her memory alive and do her justice by passing this love forward. There are still many moments when the pain hits as I reach or the phone only to be hit with the harsh reminder that there is no where I can call to reach her. I struggle with joyful moments when she would have been by my side as she always was. I am so luckily to have been raised by three parents and to have these wonderful happy childhood memories created by my grandmother and parents. There will always be a piece of me that is missing as I am sure she took it with her when she was called home. I will also forever thank her for the amazing impact she had on my remarkable son in the short but wonderful amount of time they had together and the amazing gift of my daughter who I truly believe was a gift from above during such a difficult time.. I know that we will be together again one sweet day and until then I will cherish the signs all around us that remind me that she is constantly by my side

Santa Claus is coming to town

We had Bryn stop by to take our family pics this weekend and we love them as usual! Here is the link to the full portfolio :)

More advent giving back

Over the past few days we have been opening our good deed Advent calendar, excited to read our deed for the day! The past few days we had "put extra change in donation cup" "give five compliments", "pay for the order behind you in the drive thru" and "call someone just to say I love you". Kaiden has been great at completing each deed and seems to be learning about the true meaning behind the holiday season. Hopefully we gave the lady behind us a reason to smile yesterday and hopefully she paid it forward. The lady from Tim Horton's wanted to know if we knew her and we said "no we just ask that you tell her happy holidays and please pay it forward!" This morning Kaiden had a great time calling Daddy, Grandma and Grammy to tell them he loves them (he also asked me to call my daddy, which I did :)

Downey family Christmas tree

We had a busy weekend with Christmas parties and driving to cut down our tree. We piled in the truck and with a quick stop to pick up Grandma heading to Brown's Flat to cut down our tree. We chose the perfect tree for us and Grandma and Papa and loaded them on top of the truck and later that night decorated them. Kaiden was very excited and proudly added the first ornament to the tree. He was an amazing helper and continued until the entire tree was finished. Avarie also helped add her first ornament. Here are some photos from our busy but fun weekend!

Picture Prep

We have pictures booked next weekend with the lovely and talented Bryn Robinson and I have been getting my inner craft on in preparation! Pictures to come but here is what I have made for Avarie to wear in her first Christmas shot:

DIY photo ornament

For Grandma's birthday present we decided to make a photo christmas ornament for her. We printed off a template, chose some photos and glued them into a cube shape. We then added a hook and it was as easy as that!

Day 1 of giving back

Today marked the first of our Christmas of giving back. We opened the first door on our advent calendar to find a treat and our first act of kindness. Here are some photos from this morning :)

We have been busy busy busy but having a great time getting into the Christmas spirit! We have started to decorate and get our Christmas lights up and are getting ready to fill our advent calendar with our good deeds to complete throughout Dec. We took the kids to visit Santa and also to the Santa Claus parade. Kaiden had a great time and Avarie was pretty amazed by all of the Christmas lights and music:

 Mom, Kaiden and I attended a local High School prouction of "The Grinch" last night and really enjoyed ourselves! Kaiden LOVED every minute of it and has not stopped prentending to be the grinch since!

I have started a few projects for Christmas and so far made Avarie a Christmas tutu for our pictures coming up in a few weeks. Here is a picture of the finished product:

Many more exciting and wonderful things to come in the upcoming weeks. We are looking forward to starting some wonderful traditions with our children as well as enjoying those that are already in place. More pictures to come of our holiday events/activities and our daily giving back with our good deed advent calendar

Gearing up for Christmas!

We are getting excited to start getting into the Christmas spirit and with the help of pinterest we have lots of DIY activities planned! We are going to start a tradition of making an ornament for our tree each year and have been searching for some good ideas. So far sounds like something with pictures and clear christmas balls might be the plan :) I recently purchased a wooden Advent calendar and am excited to get it ready for December. We are working on teaching Kaiden the true meaning of Christmas and are going to start by placing a good deed in each door as well as a treat. We will have 25 good deeds and will be completing them each day in December (stay tuned for pictures). Our list includes (in no order as of yet):

1. Call someone just to say "I love you"

2. mail someone a special note

3. bring food to food bank

4. visit a nursing home

5. donate toys to romaro house

6. make donation to empty stocking fund

7. buy gift for Christmas family

8. Give five compliments

9. Bring treat to nurses at the hospital

10. Make someone an ornament

11. deliver treat to neighbour

12. Send a card to a sick child (makeachildsmile.org)

13. Send a thank you note to someone in the military (letssaythanks.com)

14. Do a favour for a stranger (open door, let them ahead of you in line)

15. Donate books to hospital

16. Leave thankyou note for mailman/garbage man)

17. Pick up litter

18. deliver treats to work

19. Write special thank you note to teacher

20. put extra change in donation cup/tray

21. Help a neighbour

22. give someone extra hugs today

23. invite someone for supper

24. draw a special picture and mail to someone

25. Tell someone how much they mean to you

Lest we forget

Remembering the brave men and women who gave us the selfless gift of freedom. Observed 2 minutes of silence with my family today and will continue to honour the memories of fallen soldiers. This week, Kaiden was lucky to have a guest speaker in his preschool class who taught them about remembering soldiers and wearing a poppy with pride. We continue to answer his questions and teach him the importance of remembering and thanking those brave souls.

Trick or Treat!

We had a blast last night trick or treating with the kiddes :) My nephews joined Kaiden and Avarie and the kids had a great time and collected lots of treats! Here are some pictures of their night!

The Adorable Ducky is our Niece Layla :) The pirate is cutie pie Solly and the ninja turtle is sweet Lennon our nephews. Also on a side note I received my ERGO baby carrier in the mail yesterday and I LOVE it!

More Halloween fun!

We have been enjoying lots of crafting for halloween with some fun ideas from pinterest as well as traditional pumpkin carving and making ghosts (my brothers and I loved making these as children!)
Here is Kaiden working on our ghosts and hanging them from our tree

We love carving pumpkins together every year and this year Kaiden chose his own pumpkin and design. He went with a traditional pumpkin face with just one tooth :) Geoff went with the Son's of Anarchy logo and I decided to go with "puss in boots" He is Kaiden hard at work cleaning his pumpkin and our finished pumpkins:

Avarie and I attend a "Mother Goose" song group on Friday's while Kaiden is in preschool. This past week was a halloween theme so here is Av in her Dragonfly costume :)

Kaiden's preschool class tomorrow is a Halloween party so we decided to make a special treat for him to bring. We went with "spiderpops" made with pipecleaners, googly ears and a lollipop :)

Milestone Mania!

I haven't updated in a bit about all of the milestones that Av has been reaching! She has been crawling for about a month now and Friday night pulled herself up to the couch! She has now been attempting to move along the couch while standing there :) She  has tried a lot of new food..some favs include sweet potatoes, carrots, chicken, turkey, applesauce, pears, toast. She is not very impressed with Peas, avocado and raspberry thus far. She loves to feed herself so we put a lot of food on her tray and she has a great time! She has been babbling away mainly with Da Da Da, Ba, Ba, Ba and Pa, Pa, Pa. Yesterday she was dancing up a storm and has been waving and occasionally clapping :) Here is a photo of her new favourite thing to do..stand!

Homemade costume #2

Kaiden asked if I would make him an angry bird costume; so I thought I would give it a try. We recycled some stuff from around the house, starting with an old play tent of Kaiden's. We cut the wire frame out of it to use to from our angry bird.

We then used some leftover under-lay from our carpet to cover the wire and fluff up the costume. We found an old red blanket in our basement for the outside of the bird (the shape suits the yellow angry bird a bit better but we didn't have a yellow blanket so it is sort of a combo bird). We used felt for the mouth and foam paper for the eyes, chin and eyebrows.

All in all it didn't turn out too bad and Kaiden was pleased. Here he is trying it on:

Halloween fun!

Kaiden is loving all the halloween preparations and has been asking daily to add more decorations to the house. Here are some outside decorations and a few more we have added to the inside
Kaiden wanted the house to look haunted so we bought some black bristol board and cut out shapes to make eyes and a carved pumpking and covered the cutout with tissue paper and streamers. Here is our House with Eyes and pumpkin in windows and pumpking light display:

We also decided to make a few costumes as Kaiden has a halloween party at school as well as trick or treating so we started with making him a Road costume and tomorrow are going to tackle an angry bird costume (stay tuned!) Here is the before and after of Kaiden's new Road costume (he ran to Erica and Kevin's wearing it and shouted "the road is here!" lol