Brodie's Birthday Party

Brodie's real birthday is not for another month. Clay and I and the kids will be leaving shortly for our big holidays out west and then following that we will be going camping for a week. So, we will not be in Kingston for Brodie's 5th birthday.

Brodie had three friends from school come over to his party. The kids played on the slip and slide, had a water gun fight, and went hot tubbing. Then, we had a treasure hunt for them. They were given clues and had to find little bags of candy around the yard. The bags had all kinds of yummy, chewy, gummy treats inside and two lollipop sticks. The kids put the gummies on the sticks to make candy kabobs. This activity was done while Clay was BBQ'ing supper, so, there may have been a few spoiled appetites. But, once Brodie's Race Car cake was brought out, they all had their appetites back. Here are some photos from Brodie's party.

Our 8th Anniversary

Clay and I celebrated our 8th anniversary yesterday. We actually got family photos done as our anniversary gift as we haven't had a professional photo of our family since Fiona was added to the crew. The pictures will hopefully turn out really well as we took them on Fort Henry Hill over looking Lake Ontario. When we got home, I put my wedding dress on and took a few snaps in it with the kids and Clay too. We didn't do too much more than that. The boys had soccer last night, so by the time that was done, the kids were in bed and dishes completed, it was already past 9 pm. Clay went out and hunted down some gourmet dessert for us and we had wine and yummy dessert at home while catching up on some TV shows. That was about it. Here are a few more photos from our photo shoot that we did at home.

Grace's 3rd Birthday

Grace turned 3 years old on Sunday. We had a big birthday party for her with a few games in our yard. Grace is going through a major Tinkerbell, pink and princess phase, so I made her a Tinkerbell cake. She got lots of awesome gifts that conformed to those "characteristics" and many other cool gifts such as a wooden "Make-your-own-pizza" set and wooden dress up dolls with magnetic clothing. We hosted 26 people, which included 11 kids, at our place which made 32 including all of us and held a BBQ. She had a lots fun and lots of people helped her open her presents. Here are some photos from her birthday party.

We will be hosting Brodie's birthday party on Saturday. We have invited his school friends. It will be just a kid party, so it won't be so hectic, but hopefully just as fun for Brodie.

Fiona - 18 Months Old

Our sweet Fiona is half way between 1 year and 2 years as of yesterday. She amazes us and makes us smile every day and we are so blessed to have yet again, another beaming, happy child. Here are some of the things she can do at 18 months old:

-climb everything
-if she can't climb it, she will find something like a chair that will enable her
-she finally consistently sleeps through the night
-she knows right from wrong and is learning to hug and say sorry when she makes a mistake
-puts her shoes on by herself
-dresses in her own clothes and everyone elses by herself
-uses a booster seat and not a high chair
-doesn't take a bottle anymore
-proficiently uses a spoon with very little mess
-sings Happy Birthday

Fiona loves water and runs to her room to find a swimmer at the slightest hint that might go hot tubbing. She runs to her Daddy and squeals enthusiastically when he comes home from work. Fiona has 16 teeth, is 33 1/2 inches tall and is somewhere around 26 lbs. Her siblings love her but she generally drives them nuts as she breaks everything the build...like legos. She loves to chew everything still,even though she is not teethin. She is the perfect finale to our wonderful family, bright, and happy (most of the time) and tough. So, in honour of her 18 months with us, we took photos of her with Preston, her bear, and with her siblings and their bears.

Gone Skiing

On Sunday, July 5th, we finally got out on the lake and went skiing. It turned out to be quite a nice day. We invited the Taylors to come with us. Thankfully, Al and Colin came along and we had a really good time. Unfortunately, Melissa and Claire had to stay home because Claire wasn't up to it that afternoon. It's also good to have a doctor around just in case something bad happens. Clay, Al, Riley and I all skied. Everyone else, except Fiona, went for a swim. Al hadn't been on skies since he was a teenager. Riley got his first ski in of the season and since last July. He was super psyched for it and skied for at least 10 minutes straight. I was driving the boat and had to tell him he was getting off. He was very brave and kept asking to go faster. In the one picture, you will see him giving the thumbs up to me, which means "go faster" in waterskiing language. I finally got my first ski of the season in. It was tonnes of fun as you can see by the expression on my face as I climb into the boat. As for Clay, unfortuneately, I don't have any hero ski shots of him cutting up the water. Maybe next time.

O Canada

Hi Everyone, yesterday we had a great day at Mary Ann and Derek Gilchrist's place. They hosted a "Redneck Garage Party" for Canada Day. Clay and I dressed in theme but we just put our regular Canada Red shirts on for the kids and gave everyone tattoos. It was a really good time and we had lots of fun. The kids did too. Quote of the day goes to Riley who proclaimed to me before heading over to the party, "Well, I don't know if I've ever been to a garage party before, but it sure sounds like a lot of fun." Here are some photos of us as well as the other guests. Note, not everyone met the theme but they were all allowed to stay.