3rd Birthday Party

We had Isaac's 3rd birthday party this morning.  We packed up all the food (and a friend picked up the cake from the grocery store for us).  Our friend arrived early with the cake.  Everyone else started arriving around 10:15am or so.  There were some nets and hockey sticks, a slide, some bikes and a party assistant who helped to do some face painting, setup and cleanup.

We had the food laid out on a couple of tables: croissants, cinnamon buns, cookies, fruit platter, vegetable platter, proscuitto, salami, crackers, veggie chips, juice and water.  Snacking was "buffet style".  Some kids started out having a snack then running around the room for a bit.

We brought 2 bag of books and set them up on the bookshelf.  At first I had everyone take turns picking a book, but it was slow (and we were running out of time).  We served the cake at around 11:15am.  After, I got the parents and kids to pick out more books to bring home.  We came home with one bag of books.  I will see if there are any that Isaac likes.  The rest will be donated to the Animal Protection Society's Thrift Store.

After, lots of people helped us clean up the food.  M. moved everything to the car and we went out to the playground so that Isaac could play there for a bit.  The weather was excellent today (sunny, high 12 celsius, with a mild breeze).  We drove to meet up with one of the friends for lunch by the docks at Pajos for some fish and chips.  Isaac liked looking at the boats, water and sea gulls.

He fell asleep on the way home (2:40pm) and I had a nap when we got home.

Tiny Tots - Holiday Hooray

This morning I took Isaac to a music performance.  It's an educational music series for kids 0-5 to introduce children to musical instruments and singing.  It was a lot of fun.  We got to hear a trumpet, trombone, tuba, bells, a base drum, wooden blocks, and another instrument (which I missed hearing the name of).  They performed holiday sing-along songs and various bits from the Nutcracker.

I asked Isaac which instrument he liked and he said "The big one." :)

We stopped by the Library and I picked up a few children's books from the VPL Book Sale.  I got Isaac a small frog magnet from Bookmark, The Library Store (run by the Friends of the Vancouver Public Library).  The last time we went to the downtown library I picked up other magnets for Isaac, so Froggy will have friends on the fridge.

We stopped for some crepes before heading to the sky train.  Isaac had some bites of my ham and egg crepe, and bits of banana bread we packed for a snack.  I offered him an apple sauce crepe, but he didn't like it at all and refused to eat it after trying a bite.

Isaac napped on the way to the train station.  I picked up some seaweed, tofu and spinach then stopped by Value Village.  I picked up a few more books and a few duplo minifigures.  When we got home and checked the mail, I was happy to discover an envelope from Lego with our missing pieces from the Fire Brigade!

All-in-all we had a great day.

Books

Isaac's current favourite books are by Robert Munsch.  Isaac has been requesting "More Pies" and "Murmel, Murmel, Murmel".  He likes the silly sounds and some of the repetition in the stories.  He was into "Something More" and "Pigs" but has moved on.  At our last library visit, I picked out 7 more books and bought a couple from Value Village.

Toilet reading mostly consists of board books (which I bought from Value Village) and includes:

• A board book set of Curious George First Words About Animals (Includes First Words at the Aquarium, First Words at the Circus, First Words at the Farm, and First Words at the Zoo.  First off, there are not a lot of words in these books, but what Isaac enjoys about them are the pictures.  At first he picked out a few objects on the pages and pointed to ask what they were.  Now he points out objects or even the scene and will say what it is (if he knows what it is) and use words to describe the object (colour, size, temperature, etc) or things you can do with the object (turn, spin, cook, etc).  With 4 books, he can choose what he feels like looking at.  It's a nice variety.
• We have a set of 3 DK Flip the Flap books - Farm animals, Counting, and Things That Go.  He doesn't look at these books as much now, but on occasion he will request to look at Things That Go. These books have nice pictures and the flaps make it more interactive and interesting for him while he sat on the potty (especially when he was a little younger).
• Thomas the Tank Engine's Hidden Surprises is fun for Isaac because he's currently into trains.  I'm not crazy about the Thomas franchise/merchandising but trains in general are things he's been on, played with and can relate to.  We have a couple of Thomas trains/track but I'm not planning to expand our toy collection in this direction unless I happen to find stuff at Value Village.
• Potty Time with Elmo is not a great book, but for $1 from VV it's ok.  Isaac likes to press the buttons and hear the sounds.
• London Drugs advertisements - Isaac loves looking at kitchen gadgets and identifying other household tools and items.

In the last few months, we've moved onto other books but Isaac still loves his Curious George Treasury books (we have the red one and the blue one).  A favourite book The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson is fun to read.  Isaac likes stories about trains, cars and cooking.  We've started reading Lama Lama Misses Mama by Anna Dewdney in preparation of preschool.  Isaac seems to prefer non-fiction books when reading on the potty.  He likes hearing me read a book about "Birds and Chicks", or factual books about tractors or planes.  He went through a few weeks really interested in reading his "Cars" comic book but his interest in that book seems to have faded.  I usually look out for nicely illustrated, not too text-heavy nonfiction books for Issac's toilet reading when I'm at Value Village or the thrift store next door.

Update: June 23, 2012
We've been going to the library at least once a week if not more frequently.  Our recent favourites include a series of books about a dog named Polo by Regis Faller.  It's a comic style picture book with no words.  Isaac has asked to: "zap me in the book" because he wants to have the adventures with Polo too (especially when polo plays with the monkey band).  This morning I woke up and found him "reading" a couple of the books by himself.  We've borrowed: "The Adventures of Polo", "Polo and Lily" and "Polo and the Magic Flute".  I hope the library will add a few more of these books to their collection.  If I ever come across this in VV it's a definite buy. :)

Another fun book to read is "Donut Chef" by Bob Staake.  I think we love rhyming stories in general and this one is pretty cute about two competing donut shops.  Isaac also likes "Hello, Robots" by Bob Staake and find it funny when the robots get all mixed up.

We've gone back to some Dr. Seuss books like "The Sneetches" and "The Lorax".

Easy reader books... Star wars themed books are always a big hit just because he loves spaceships.  He also likes the Lego books, but DH thinks they're just another form of advertising for Lego products (which is quite true - now I've got my eye on looking for a large green lego troll from the Lego Fantasy Era).