Family Picture

As a very last minute request (Jess's favourite), I asked him if we could do a family picture since our last one was over a year old and H especially has changed a lot. But it was starting to get dark outside so he had to do some tricky lighting stuff to make the lighting look warm and natural (he ended up cutting up a plastic tomato carton, colouring it yellow with a marker, and taping it over his flash and it worked perfectly!)

We asked our 6-year old neighbour who was outside playing to come over and push the button on the camera and play peekaboo with H. C was being a bit of a turkey and refused to smile very much or even look at the camera (he was mad I was making him wear his handsome argyle sweater vest out on our front lawn where all his friends could see him). So, this was our best shot. I was tempted to photoshop his face so he was looking at the camera but we decided perfect wasn't what we were going for anyways.

I haven't decided which colouring I like best yet:

Original:

Faded:

Vintage:

Black and White:

Opinions?

And, here are some funny outtakes:

I love Jess's face in this one (doesn't he look scary?!?)

Pinkalicious and Other Fall Happenings

M's absolute favourite story these days is Pinkalicious, followed closely by the sequel, Purplicious. The girl in the story also loves pink and also has straight brown hair with bangs and M really relates to the character. Well, a few weeks ago, S was asking if she could bake something sweet (she loves to bake, her specialties are chocolate chip cookies and brownies) and M asked if she would bake pink cupcakes, just like in her story, Pinkalicious. S agreed and she even made them from scratch since I didn't have a mix, and they decided that M should dress up as a princess to eat her delicious pink cupcakes. Here are a few pictures from their pink and purple princess pinkalicious cupcake party:

M was so excited to start a new year of playschool. Fixing her hair that morning was a joint effort: she insisted that the turquoise clip on the side was absolutely essential to her outfit...

M carrying her new inside shoes:

Some of the beautiful fall colours in our backyard:

This one isn't from our backyard, this is Family Home Evening at the playground:

As H has gotten older, he's turned into a really great sleeper. If you tuck him in and give him a few stories to read, he's happy to go to sleep.

Where's your nose?

And one morning, when I went into his room to get him up, he was still asleep and this is what he looked like (and yes, he sleeps with a pink blanket - it's one of the hazards of having older sisters):

We decided to buy a 3 month attractions pass at the mall so we've been going there at least twice a week to try and get our money's worth! Here are some pictures from Galaxyland, as well as C at the sea lion show:

We just celebrated Thanksgiving with a delicious dinner at my mom's house and after we were done eating, the kids got into the dressups and Jess got this picture of C impersonating Batman:

Finally, here are a few of the projects I've been working on in September:

I bought this vinyl decal from my cousin Carisa's etsy shop and applied it to a board of wood that I painted a linen colour with black on the edges:

I also pulled out my Grandma White's punch needle embroidery tools and made this sign (although I was really bummed that the glass cracked when I was putting the finished product into the frame - it's an unusual size so it would be hard to find another frame, I'm going to have to get a piece of glass cut for it):

I also sewed this coat for M. I absolutely LOVE this pattern, it's hard to see all the nice details in this picture but it's a fully lined swing style coat. I've already bought fabric to make another one for her but instead of corduroy, I found a good quality thick red wool so it will be warm enough for winter.

And, this is a hat I crocheted - for M, I made it with wool and made it too big and then felted it so it would be nice and snug for the winter. H's is just acrylic and will be good for fall (he really didn't want to model it for me...):

A Sad, Frosty End to my Garden

August and September have been terribly cold, cloudy and wet so my garden went from thriving and flourishing in July to stalled in August. And then last night, there was a killer frost overnight and when I woke up, my garden looked like this:

My pumpkin and cucumbers that I planted had grown like weeds and were almost taking over the backyard but after one night of frost, they just wilted and died. And because there wasn't enough sunlight and heat after July to ripen anything, they had dozens of flowers on them but no fruit. OK, one fruit, a little tiny 2 inch pumpkin:

And my beautiful Roma tomatoes also never had the chance to ripen:

But we did get a lovely harvest of carrots, peas and beets so it wasn't a total write off. And, there's always next year!

And, on another topic, I got all 400 of my I Spy squares back in the mail (I ended up joining 2 swaps this summer) and I've been busy sorting and arranging them into all sorts of fun quilts. Here's a small peek at what I've been up to:

Back to School They Go...

My baby, all set for her first day at Junior High...

And C, less excited than he looks, heading off to Grade 1. Out of the two different grade 1 teachers he could have been assigned to, he got the better one so I'm hoping that helps him enjoy this year of school better than his last one.

One of our start-of-the-year traditions: the kids will come home to a classic snack of warm chocolate chip cookies and milk.

M will start another year of playschool next week, and that day can't come fast enough for her, she doesn't like being left out one bit.

Yesterday, I spent the last day of summer in the dentist's office getting my first ever and hopefully last ever root canal. While I was gone, H got into the cereal cupboard and had fun playing with the puffed wheat:

I can't believe the summer is over already, that went by way too fast, we didn't fit everything in that I wanted to do. The passing time reminds me to enjoy every day as it comes and take nothing for granted.

Our Trip to Ontario

When my baby brother David announced he was getting married in Ottawa, we decided that if we're going to go all the way to Ottawa for his wedding then we might as well see a few other sights while we're out there. I grew up in Ottawa and haven't been back since we moved away in 1994 so I was really excited to show some of my favourite sights to my husband and kids. We invited my mom to join us and she agreed so after flying to Toronto (there's no way we wanted to drive that far), we squeezed all seven of us into a minivan and spent 10 days getting lost, eating at McDonalds, telling the children over and over to keep their hands to themselves and please don't whine, and of course, having fun.

Our first day was spent in downtown Toronto. I gave the kids the choice of going up to the top of the CN tower or going to an outdoor amusement park called Ontario Place...and they picked the amusement park (shocking, I know).

Here are C and S driving little electric cars around a driving course:

They were conscientious drivers, I was very proud of them.

There was a large indoor playstructure full of foam balls and lots of cannons for shooting said foam balls. I think C would have been happy playing just there all day.

But we dragged him away to go to the waterpark. There were waterslides and a splashpad.

M finally got up the courage to go down a small waterslide by herself but unfortunately, she turned around partway down, fell onto her back and finished the slide with her head underwater. She wasn't too impressed:

Later, we went to the edge of the water where S desperately wanted to try going inside a WoW ball (Walk on Water). Here she is giving it a try.

And here's H enjoying his lunch: a cinnamon roll as big as his face.

The next day, we drove to Palmyra, New York, to tour the historic sites where Joseph Smith was living when he started translating the Book of Mormon.

This is the printing press where the first editions were printed.

This is the original painting of Christ visiting the Nephites hanging here in the printing press.

After the printing press, we took the kids to the playground at the Palmyra elementary school to burn off some energy before heading over to Joseph Smith's house and the Sacred Grove.

Here they are just outside the visitor centre right beside Joseph Smith's house.

After Palmyra, we went to Niagara Falls. Here are the kids seeing the falls for the first time:

To my great excitement, we got to go for a ride on the Maid of the Mist (I'd been to Niagara Falls before but I hadn't had the chance to go on the boatride so this was a first for me too).

C decided to taste Niagara Falls...

It was really windy and wet once you got up close. As wet as taking a shower. But fun and exhilirating - if I hadn't been stressed out about clinging onto a wiggly toddler dressed in slippery wet plastic, I would have thoroughly enjoyed myself!

After the boatride, H had a snack of blueberries (you can see his hair is still wet from the mist) and he just kept shovelling them into his mouth, handful after handful...

Here are the kids on the bus from the falls to the parking lot. As beautiful and amazing as the falls were, the crowds of tourists everywhere kind of diminished the experience for me. We spent about an hour trying to find a spot to park before we settled on a park and ride at the edge of town.

After the falls, we ate a picnic supper at this lovely park of small islands connected by footbridges. We would have never found this park if Laura's mother hadn't told us about it and we're so glad we did, it was like an oasis in the middle of the crazy gaudiness of the city of Niagara Falls.

Next stop was Sandbanks Provincial Park, on the shore of Lake Ontario. I remembered going here a couple of times as a teenager and thinking it was the nicest beach I'd ever been to. Unfortunately, it took us most of the day to get there and when we did finally arrive in the late afternoon, it started pouring rain. But it was a hot and humid day so it was still warm enough to swim so we got out and swam anyways. But we definitely would have spent a longer time at the beach if it hadn't been raining. The sand was just as soft and white as I had remembered but the water wasn't nearly as clear as it had been - it was full of dark green seaweed near the edge and once you got past that, it seemed clear but you couldn't be sure because the water was so murky. I HATE swimming in lakes where you can't see your feet. But there were beautiful big waves and I think the kids had a fun time so that's good.

Next stop was Ottawa. We went to Parliament Hill even though I knew the younger kids would be completely bored. But Jess had never been and S was old enough to appreciate and remember it. We went on a tour but after about 20 minutes, H was fed up with gothic architecture and Canadian history so Jess took him outside and he had a ball chasing the very tame rabbits that live on the front lawn of Parliament Hill.

One of the stained glass windows in the House of Commons:

The Reading Room where caucus meetings take place:

The Library, with a statue of Queen Victoria.

Another day in Ottawa was spent at Calypso Park, an outdoor waterpark between Ottawa and Montreal. It had very long lineups for the big slides but there were plenty of smaller slides and a fun wavepool and river ride so we still had lots of fun (and only a couple of us got minor sunburns).

Another day, we went to the Museum of Science and Technology, mainly because I have fond memories of going there when I was young. It hasn't changed too much, it was fun to see it all again. Although of course, it seems much smaller now. One of my favourite spots was the Crazy Kitchen and S and C had lots of fun in there (but the lighting was terrible so the picture doesn't do it justice). It's an old-fashioned kitchen with a slanted floor and the angles in the room make it nearly impossible to walk across the room without losing your balance.

The night before the wedding, we went to the church for a rehearsal. Here is the minister giving C and M some instructions.

It was decided that since the church has a rule against dropping flower petals that it would be cute if M handed out candy kisses from her basket to the people on the edges of the aisle. She was too scared to walk down the aisle by herself so we decided that C would walk beside her instead of after the bridesmaids.

The morning of the wedding, we decided to take the kids to the playground to try and get lots of their wiggles out ahead of time.

C has grown up with a dad who loves to take pictures of him all the time so he has become really good at hamming it up for the camera:

The time for the wedding finally arrived. And we made it there on time, thank goodness. The traffic in Ottawa was terrible, it seemed like everywhere we went, we were late because we were constantly either lost or stuck in a traffic jam or both.

M and C looking a little nervous before their walk down the aisle:

And here's a video of their walk. I asked C to make sure M handed out about 5 candies (I was worried she either just hand out one or hand out one to every single person she passed) and you can see he took his job of guiding her very seriously...

While the plan to have M hand out candy as she walked down the aisle may have slowed the ceremony down somewhat, it was a brilliant way to keep our kids quiet while the vows were exchanged. They sat happily peeling Hershey kisses and stuffing their faces. In our rush to get back from the playground that morning and get everyone ready, we hadn't had time for a proper lunch and so they were pretty hungry. So I just let them eat as many as they wanted...

Here's H, after an hour inside an un-airconditioned church, still eating more candy kisses:

C was feeling just slightly hyper after the ceremony was done...

Our family, along with David and Laura, my brother Jared, my mom, and my mom's brother Rick and his wife Jennie, who came from Utah to attend.

The reception was, no doubt, the absolute funnest reception I've ever been to. David and Laura met at a swing dance club while they were both attending Queen's University in Kingston. I might add here, as I usually do, that I was the one who taught David some basic swing dance moves when I was in high school and needed a dance partner to practise with and so it might just have been my influence that pushed him to attend that first fateful swing dance club meeting. But anyways, it was a love for dancing that brought David and Laura together and there were a bunch of their swing dance club friends at the reception who really livened things up. When the bride and groom entered the reception, they started things off with a steal jam where they start off dancing with each other but other people are invited to cut in and take a turn dancing with them.

This was followed with a bunch of dance numbers prepared by different groups of friends and relatives. Here are just a couple:

Throughout the dinner, instead of clinking your class with your fork, David and Laura asked that people get up and sing a song if they wanted to see them kiss. After M was finished eating, she got up and started dancing to the different songs people were singing. I call this one her interpretive dance and if you don't want to watch the whole thing, at least watch the last 15 seconds, they're sure to make you laugh:

We had such a fun time, it was hard to leave but we had to be up early for our flight home the next morning so after some more food and some more dancing, we said good-bye and headed home.