Spring is here!

Even though we enjoyed a mild winter, it was still just as long as usual and we are all so excited that spring is finally here.

In April, we celebrated Easter with an Easter egg hunt on Saturday and church on Sunday.

 Right around Easter, we got out the trampoline from winter storage and it's always so much fun for the kids when we put up the trampoline, it's like a brand new toy for them.

Another fun thing about spring is finding ladybugs in the yard.

And going to the playground is another spring tradition.

And this last picture has nothing to do with spring, it just makes me laugh.  I put Hudson down for a nap one afternoon and instead of sleeping, he spent two entire hours very quietly coating every inch of his available skin, as well as the top of his dresser with thick and creamy diaper cream.  It was quite a surprise when I went up to wake him from his "nap"!!

Skating Lessons

I often say that there are 3 activities I think it's important for my children to learn how to do.  Not that they need to excel in these things, just be able to do them:  swimming, skiing and skating.  When they were about 4 or 5, I put Connor and Shae in skating lessons and they both learned how to skate without falling down.  It's not that I want them to be figure skaters or hockey players, I just want them to be able to skate.  So now that Maira's 5, I registered her for skating lessons as well.  She was very reluctant, she's only been skating a couple of times and she remembered a lot of falling.  But I insisted and I was delighted that within the first 5 minutes of her first lesson, she was having a fabulous time.  Not that she didn't fall but the first thing they teach you is how to get up once you fall and the teacher was really nice and they played some fun games and she actually got the hang of it really easily.  Now she loves going to skating, it's the highlight of her week!

Cheerleading

 Well, cheer season is finally done (it lasted most of the school year) and I thought I'd add in a few more pictures of Shae's cheer stuff.

Jess went to one of her practices at the school gym and got some pictures of the team practising.  They had 2-3 hour practices after school twice a week from September through to the end of March.

At their final competition, they got second place in their category.  The first place team was much bigger and more experienced and there was really no competing with them so getting second place was like getting first place among the teams at their level so it was a very satisfying outcome and a wonderful accomplishment, I was so proud of her and her team.

Parkview Cheer

Shae's school cheer team performed at their first competition of the season last night. It was at Victoria school, an arts school downtown and the host team generally has the best cheer team in the city. This year was no different but Shae's Parkview team did an excellent job, I was so proud of her. She's the top in the stunt group on the right hand side of the mats in this movie:

Science Centre

We went to the Telus Science Centre a few times this month and I thought I'd post some of the cool pictures Jess took. They've just redesigned the children's play area and it's really fun, the kids love it there.

There's an airport area where there are suitcases that you can run through the x-ray machine before loading them into the back of the airplane. And in the cockpit, the buttons make it sound like you're talking to the tower, taxiing down the runway, taking off, etc. The kids could have played there for hours.

The co-pilots didn't always agree on which buttons to press...

There was also a really fun water play area with all kinds of things to touch and explore. Really fun.

We'll be back again this weekend!

Maira's 5th Birthday

My little baby girl isn't quite so little anymore. Five just seems so much older than 3 or 4 - she's not a toddler or even a preschooler anymore. She's more than ready for kindergarten and can't wait to start in September. She's a funny, kind, smart, friendly little girl who loves to dance like crazy and her list of what she wants to be when she grows up includes being a mermaid, a princess, a candy seller, or a candy taster.

On the morning of her birthday, she woke up to a bed full of balloons, which we always do for our kids on their birthday.

Then we got dressed and I took her to Build a Bear. She'd never been there before and she had a blast picking out a special bear and its outfit. She ended up with a turquoise bear sporting a sparkly red outfit with sparkly red heels. Very...colourful. We both had a lot of fun there.

That evening, we had family over to celebrate her birthday. Her choice for our meal was pizza and she let me choose what kind of cake to bake, as long as it was pretty. I copied (sort of) the cake here, which I found through (of course) Pinterest.

With my sister Jill's family over, we had 9 kids (if you count Shae as a kid) in the house so after supper, we put on Toy Story 3 so we could have a few minutes of peace.

Jess decided to take a picture of me the night before, making the decorations for her pink birthday party. I really enjoy making birthdays special for my kids but yeah, it IS a lot of work...

For her friend party, she wanted to do a Pinkalicious themed party. We got the idea while browsing through Pinterest together. We didn't use just one website but combined ideas from a whole bunch of them. Who knew it would be such a popular theme for a birthday party? But it's one of Maira's favourite books and she does love the colour pink so it was a perfect choice.

Pinkalicious is the story of a little girl who loves pink and one day, she eats so many pink cupcakes that she turns pink - her skin, hair, everything. She's delighted but her mother rushes her to the doctor who proclaims that the only cure for rare and acute pinkititis is a steady diet of green food. So, we took that storyline and ran with it.

For starters, instead of a birthday cake, we had pink cupcakes, of course. And we had a very pink lunch. I even added food colouring to homemade bread and made pink peanut butter and jam sandwiches for the main course. There was also pink lemonade, pink candies, jello jigglers, and strawberry ice cream.

We played pink games like Pass the Pink (hot potato), read a few pinkalicious stories, and they all had their nails painted pink and we applied pink tattooes to their cheeks or hands.

We also did a photo shoot so we could photoshop their pictures and print them off so it looked like they had eaten so much pink at the party that they turned pink too.

We gave each guest a photo of herself, all pinkified, and then I gave them their treat bags, which were green, and were full of green treats, to cure any pinkititis they might have acquired at the party.

And finally, here are a few shots from the photo shoot that don't have to do with the party but are too cute not to put up.

A boy and his dog.

Down Dog.