Chickadee Manor

LEGOLAND

We told the kids that the next time we were in Ontario we would go to the newly opened LEGOLAND in Vaughn.  With Grandma's birthday hoopla we were in Ontario sooner than we thought we would be and the kids were thrilled with the prospect of LEGOLAND.  Grandma & GrandBarry treated their 7 grandchildren to this special excursion.  A great big THANK YOU to them for all the fun!  There were building stations, rides, a laser maze, 4D movie theatre, an indoor play-space, and a cafe.  

*We have a group photo of all of us somewhere on one of the cameras but it's not one of mine!  I will try to track it down and add it to the post later on.*  

 

This is MiniLand which was a replica of downtown Toronto in LEGO and decorated to be spooky for Halloween.

 

The bathrooms were even decorated with different LEGO characters.

 

Building and racing LEGO cars!

 

Lindsey and I with Bad Cop!

 

Judah's favourite thing in LEGOLAND

 

Emma enjoyed posing with assorted LEGO figures.  

(Emma had just tripped over a giant LEGO flower before this photo was taken, hence the unsure look!)

 

Emma in a child-size LEGO Friends kitchen

 

Ninjas!

 

The magnets have superpowers...

I knew the LEGO superhero magnets we had were strong but when no one could pull them off the fridge I wondered at their extra strength and what seemed to be our sudden weakness. Fridge magnets are low on my priority list at the moment though so I didn't think too much about it. Mystery solved - a certain 3-year old fessed up to gluing the magnets to the fridge. Haha!  I am also 99.7% sure that the same 3-year old knows what happened to Yoda's head as well!

Weekend Away

This past weekend we travelled 2.5 hours to the nearest town to us to take the kids to see The LEGO Movie.  They had been anxious to see it since seeing previews for it and had asked if we could travel to see the movie in theatre 15 hours away (the only previous place they've seen a movie in theatre).  We had told the kids that wouldn't be possible, but then I thought just maybe the little theatre nearby would be playing it.  It was!  Dwayne and I planned the trip about a week in advance but didn't tell the kids until 5 minutes before we were leaving the house Friday afternoon.  The kids were over the moon!  To make it even better, we arranged to stay with friends who happen to have two little girls of similar ages to our eldest two girls and they were thrilled to get to play with them for a whole weekend.  It was one of those delightful conbinations of personalities that allowed the kids to play all weekend without argument (which meant us parents got to relax and enjoy ourselves as well) and the only tears were the ones shed when it was time to leave and when Abby took a bit of tumble.  The girls have agreed to be penpals and have already made a number of cards to send.  The weekend was spent seeing a movie, lots of free playing by the kiddos, dog sled rides from our friends' husky, eating birthday cake made by our lovely hostess, visiting with friends we don't see often, church Sunday morning, lunch at the local diner after church, a visit with Hendrik's former French Immersion teacher, and a fair bit of quoting lines and singing snippets of "Everything is Awesome" from The LEGO Movie.  We have plans to do this again soon - same friends but different activities - we're considering ice fishing next time around! 

{pretty, happy, funny, real}

~ Capturing the context of contentment in everyday life ~ Every Thursday at Like Mother, Like Daughter!

 

{pretty}

My current favourite mug.  It's from Cath Kidston and it has a lot going for it - strawberries, a little bit of blue, it reminds me of England, and it holds a good amount of coffee!  (This is my current favourite coffee.)  

 

{happy}

The dog.  He's not normally allowed on the couch.  Today I asked him to get on the couch as I was trying to measure him and it wasn't working with him standing and squirming.  (Do you see the metre stick on the floor?)  I was trying to work out how big Hobbes is to let the vet 6 hours away know so we could determine if he required large breed dog food or not (he does!).  

 

 

I thought perhaps he was taking it a bit far hauling every toy and thing he chews onto the couch.  Turns out he had help from Abby. :) 

 

The baby.  Pretty much all the time!  Unless he's hungry...then he gets hangry, but then so do I!

 

 

{funny}

You know how kids like to play with the boxes things come in more than the thing itself?  Or that the best toys aren't actually things that aren't intended to be toys?  We've had a similar scenario here the last few days.  I ordered a twin size comforter in flag blue for Emma from L.L.Bean.  It arrived on Monday and has since been the new favourite toy - of EVERYONE.  The kids have been wanting a blue carpet so that they could pretend to sail their LEGO boats in the ocean and Emma has been lobbying each night at bedtime to go to the beach.  The blanket gets spread out on the living room floor as the ocean and two yellow backed blankets of belonging to Hendrik and Riley get used as the sand.  Add four mini laundry baskets for personal boats and you have hours of entertainment.  There has been swimming and sunbathing and sailing and all sort of adventures.  You'd think that after taking forty some odd photos there would be a suitable one for those post, but no!  If I get a good one in the next couple of days I'll add in. 

 

 

{real}

LEGO gifts from Emma.  Sweet Emma got up on Sunday morning and created a little LEGO sculpture each for Dwayne and I.  I was woken by Emma presenting with me this lovely gift.  This is the first time she's made Dwayne or I something on her own.