January 31

Happy Birthday Hawksley! We went to a birthday party for Sofie's friend tonight. Here's a shot of his garbage cake.

January 30

We had Nick and Erika over for dinner and game night today. Erika was blowing up balloons for the girls. They were going nuts, it was so much fun!

January 29

Sye went out on Friday night so I decided to rent the movie "Whip It". I loved it so much!!

January 28

We tried a new layout for the family room that we are trying out. I think we'll stick with it for a bit :)

January 27

That's a BIG slice of pizza! Sofie's request after swimming tonight.

January 26

Helping mom make pancakes for dinner. Yes. We eat a lot of pancakes in this house. :)

January 25

Typical Sye pose...

January 24

Nothing says rainy afternoon like a bowl of popcorn and a movie.

January 23

We tried to play the board game "Sorry" tonight. Sofie understood that you needed to pick a card, we read the number, and attempted to help her move the spots. Once she realized what the Sorry card was, she kept bumping our pieces off the board. So sweet! This was our first official Family Games Night!

January 22

Sofie decided to put on her dance outfit today and show us some of her cool moves that she has learned in dance.

January 21

Matching shirts. GO CANADA GO! Can't wait for the 2010 Winter Olympics.

January 20

Our babysitter, Micki, is awesome. She does art with the kids on a weekly basis. Here is her latest sponge painting.

January 19

Pancake Dinner-Yum! Sofie gets to eat the Letter "S".

January 18

GO RANGERS GO!! A Kitchener Rangers Donut that Sye bought. Cool!

January 17

The backstory: 2.5 years ago Sye was bouncing with Sofie on our bed. It cracked on the side and has been broken ever since. We FINALLY had it repaired and Sye re-assembled the bed tonight. Or he tried too. We are missing a few pieces so once again we sleep on the floor. Hopefully it won't take another 2.5 years to fix it!

January 16

Sofie and I baked today. She is eagerly awaiting on the cookies to be finished. They are yummy!

January 15th

Sye's in Vegas right now. Here's one of the shots he sent me. Hope he's having fun!

January 14

Nothing says I HATE WINTER like a new raincoat, boots and umbrella!

January 13

Salt. Disgusting. This is a shot outside of Busy Bees. The management company hires a snow removal company and their answer to snow removal this year is salt. The entire outside of my building is coated in a white layer. It is being dragged in by boots, I find flecks of salt all over the place :( Come on people, it's bad for the environment!

January 12

A massage table. Enough said!

January 11

Sye wanted to be a part of the blog so badly he opted to have this dark, hard to see picture taken. haha, here's to you Sye!

January 10

Sofie comparing her baby belly with mine :)
9 Weeks. A little hesitation hitting publish.

January 9

We went to Wyevale today for Olyvia's first birthday party. It was a blast. I had a hard time choosing which picture to post. Gotta love days like that!

January 8

Here is a picture of the track that I've been running on. 2x this week.

January 7

A bus that runs on recycled vegetable oil. I took this when I was teaching in St.Clements today. So cool, I had no idea!

January 6

Sofie had her first solo swimming class tonight. It didn't go so well. Here is daddy comforting Sofie by the pool.

January 5

I received my print advertising in the mail today for Busy Bees. Advertising is so expensive, I don't think people realize it. To give some perspective this ad, which was delivered via Canada Post to all residents in Kitchener and Waterloo cost the business $1400 to put in the flyer. Ouch! I've been fairly successful with the adsave coupon, and receive my money back from it. Apparently that's the goal-to make your money back, not necessarily to make money from it. I think I'm in the wrong field-I should have been in advertising!

January 4

We've been doing Kindermusik for 1.5 years now. Sofie absolutely loves it. She sings the songs by heart, gets to play instruments, and has a wonderful teacher, who is also a close friend of ours. Here is a shot of Mrs.Shaver (Laura) and Sofie. Of course Sofie was acting shy, maybe because it was our first class after the Christmas holidays?

January 3

"Mommy's new Running Machine"

January 2

If you were to zoom in on this picture you would see that the time is almost 10:00pm and Sofie is still up playing, while In the Night Garden is in the background. On days when she naps she does not go to bed until 10, or 11pm. Yikes.

January 1

What a great idea! Blogging a year in the life of me and subsequently the van der Veen family! Here is the first post from New Year's Day.
A girl and her camera