first snow day and a wow moment from school

We love how Matthew is willing to try new things. Even though he may be unsure or his facial expressions show he's not interested or excited, he will try. He normally has an "I'm not that impressed" look. Well, we got hit with a small dump of snow and lots and lots of cold days. Extremely cold - minus 20 at times with wind chill!
So before lunch was served, James, Matthew and I bundled up (like A Christmas Story style!), grabbed a garbage bag and headed out the door. Matthew seemed liked he enjoyed walking on the snow as he would lift his leg up to stomp on the higher piles. He definitely enjoyed the "poor man's sleigh rides" where daddy was tugging on the bag as Matthew sat on it and got pulled around.

Okay, so now for the "wow" moment from school. I'm sure this wasn't the very first wow moment but it's definitely one that's worth mentioning. So now that Matthew's okay with me being in and out of the classroom, I'm hanging out a lot more in there. Matthew really enjoys school, especially circle time or any time where songs are sung. On January 18, as usual, Ms. Ly asks the children to "find a circle and sit down". This usually takes a minute or two before all the children are sitting on their own circle and not on each other! And so, they proceed with all the letters they have learned so far since September and then the "new" three letters that are the focus for the week. They go through the sounds of the letters with a song that the teachers have cleverly made up and then an emphasize with objects for the three new letters. For example, Ms.Ly shakes her little bottle of uncooked noodles and emphasizes that she's shaking her "Nosiy" "Noodles". So on and so forth. Then Ms. Ly ends her circle time with one other activity. She has made these picture cards - one side is the picture of the child and the other side is just the print of their name. She pulls out each circle and shows the children the name on it and states what it saids. She does not show the picture side yet. She places each of the names on the floor with one extra of a child that's not in attendance (tricky, tricky, Ms.Ly!) So here's my "wow" moment. Matthew got called first to pick his name out of 8 other names. He gets up off his circle and heads towards all the names. He touches "Myra's" card and then puts it down. He then scans over to the next name and picks it up over his head like he's saying "this one is mine!" And indeed it was! It did say "Matthew"! Oh, man was I proud and I definitely did not hide how proud I was of him as I covered him with kisses! Moments like this is what makes me so happy to be a mommy, and especially Matt Matt's mommy :)

first swim class

We signed Matt Matt up for swim classes in January for Thursdays. Unfortunately, I've only managed to attend one of them as work got in the way, Matt Matt was just recovering from a cold and then James and I got hit by the flu pretty bad. Matthew kindly shared his germs he caught from school with us and it just wiped out the whole family :(

Since mommy and daddy do not have the skills of swimming under their belts, we've decided to send our little one year old to learn! His first swim class went very well. We were unsure of how Matthew would do as the only water experience we've had was either during bath time and just once in the waters in Hawaii (and that we were very, very close to shore). Matthew enjoyed splashing and being on his belly. The only time he rebelled was when he had to be on his back. During another class (that I didn't get to attend :( ), Matthew got dunked into the water and seemed to really enjoy it! Yay for our one year old! He makes us so proud!

christmas just keeps getting "funner"!

Ah, yet another great holiday! Growing up as a kid, I've always enjoyed the holiday season. I couldn't imagine loving this holiday even more until Matthew came along. Last year he was of course too young to care about presents and therefore barely touched any. This year, he's still too young to understand but he's more interested...in the wrapping paper that is! He could careless what's inside! It's the outside that matters to him! He enjoys ripping the wrapping paper as he's been practicing tearing up tissue paper all over the place. The up side, I guess would be that he's building on his fine motor skills! Oh the mess!

This Christmas is by far the best! I used to fill the space under the tree with all the presents I secretly bought for myself. This year was totally different. I even forgot to get myself a "just in case I don't like any of my gifts" gift. Instead, I had only filled it with all these goodies that I found online for Matthew. After all, it's ALL ABOUT HIM NOW!

Matthew was great with the Christmas tree. At first, he barely paid any attention to this "thing" in the living room. As the weeks went on (we put up our tree right after Remembrance Day every year) he started to explore. At first he would poke at the branches, then worked up the courage to grab things from the tree. James was smart and decided to only hang up our homemade decorations made from felt...or was he just being lazy?!?! Matthew really enjoys the Christmas lights on trees and have managed not to tear the tree apart or any other tree that he sees!

I just realized that we hadn't taken many pictures of the holidays :( But here's a couple of the kiddies at our annual Christmas dinner at Allan's.

Merry Christmas to all! Love us!

adventures of matt matt and monkey!

Ms. Ly, one of Matthew's first teachers (the other one is Ms. Mabel Lam) made this beautiful hand-knit monkey for Matthew's first birthday. With Christmas approaching, Ms. Ly encouraged a meaningful, handmade gift from Matthew. She didn't care much for store bought or generic gift. All she wanted was just one picture of Matthew holding the monkey that she had taken her time making for him. So Matthew and I put our heads together and decided to create a whole book from iphotos with our new Mac! With weeks of hard work of posing with Monkey on outings and activities at home, a book was magically created! (Thanks, apple for creating such an easy app for mommy to use!) Here are some pics from this awesome book!

happy second halloween!

Since the weather was nice and we don't know what next year's weather will be, we decided to do the traditional door to door trick-or-treating in my brother's neighbourhood. It was fun watching Clayton and Matthew climb the stairs, knock on the door, and collect their treats. Once the treat drops, they would check to ensure their goodies were safely in their bags. So cute!

Happy first birthday!

Happy first birthday, baby boy! We thank you for the best year ever so far! Can't wait to see what you have in store for us :)

What a difference a year makes...or two!

This new blog definitely confirms exactly my first sentence from my first blog entry; I'm not a blogger! But a special someone has enticed me to blog and these memories will be all for him :) We love you lots, Matt Matt!

Since our wonderful Europe trip - part 2 December 2009 - we now have expanded our family. Our beautiful boy was conceived in Europe (we think it might have been from our stop in London but who knows?!?!). Matthew was born on September 6, 2010. He was adamant on his early arrival (9 days early). My water broke at 11:30pm on September 5. As James had just hit the sack, I woke him up with all the commotion (plus I needed help to get on the toilet!) Then we sanitized (of course!), repacked our overnight hospital bag, planned where we were going to have our last breakfast before the little guy came, took a shower...By 3:00am we were at the hospital! After reading many books, talking to other expert parents, and from our birth trainer, we were expecting about a good 16 hours before we got to meet Matthew. But boy, was he determined to meet us as soon as possible! By the time we were admitted to Emergency, I was 4 centimetres dialated. By the time I got wheel chaired up to our brand new, private Cedar room (equipped with its own toilet and bathtub!) at Women's, I was 9 cms! I was already pushing naturally when I demanded to be given the drugs! I wasn't planning on being a hero! The doctors were quite hesitant to drug me up but they finally gave in. Matthew was born by 6:30am. He would have came earlier, but sorry Matthew, mama needed the drugs!!!

We stayed at the hospital for one night and was quite determined to "get back to reality" so we asked to be checked out. Luckily James was able to get a month off so to spend Matthew's first 30 days together. And luckily for James, he actually slept way more during that first month than ever! Arghhh!!!