You know you're tired when...

Jacqueline is home with me and Natalie from Monday to wednesday and on those days she doesn't nap. Today, after a long walk, she went to the bathroom while I was feeding Natalie. Things were pretty silent for a while so I went to check on her and this is how I found her



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Big stroller or little car?

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Red sky at night...

Beautiful sky after a very odd day of weather. It started with sun showers while Jacqueline and I were walking Natalie on Queen street, followed by a major downpour we got caught in on the way up our street (luckily i had the rain cover for the stroller and an umbrella with me!). it cleared again, hot and sunny, only to be followed by another surprise major downpour around 5:30 pm - so much rain that Hugo wasn't sure that he would be able to make it through the don valley on his bike there was so much standing water. it's not too often we are treated to such a colorful sky at sunset in the city

Coon! Coon!!

according to Jacqueline, anyway.

We found this cute little guy in our neighbor's tree yesterday evening.




Or maybe not so cute.....



Perhaps vicious.....

Oh...wait....no, he's cute:

(Note: he was actually yawning, but those fangs sure make him look evil!)

'ellow

Jacqueline's favorite color at the moment is yellow ('el-low" as she calls it). When it's time to go out, she heads for the coat rack, reaches for this raincoat of Christian's, saying "el-low....el-low." Do you want to wear that?, we ask... "Mm-hmmm"

from Sea Turtle to Salamander

After a few rounds of not-so-successful swimming lessons with Parks and Rec, we decided to enrol Christian in private lessons this time. He was in a class with one other 5 year old boy, and they both did amazingly! In prior classes, he was very timid in the water and unwilling to do most of the activities...No more! I guess the timing was right because this time he eagerly did everything the instructor asked, and was rewarded tonight with his Sea Turtle certificate. Next up, Salamander!

Wooden oven...hmmmm

Guess this place won't be around too long....

Bye Bye Glitter Pie...

On Sunday April 11 we had our last class at our fave institution in The Beach, Glitter Pie.    This was another in a succession of small businesses closing down in the beach, and the loss will be felt greatly by proprietor Tiffany Pratt's most loyal following.  Some pictures from the day....

Last Glitter Pie...

Jacqueline's first and last :( Glitter Pie experience.  Notice the paint on her face - she's already a pro!

Deep in concentration....

What happened to my hand??!!

Christian is right at home....

We will miss you Tiffany!!!!  (Christian's face says it all!)

More glitter pie fun....

Christian's 5th Birthday party
Christian's 4th Birthday Party
Miscellaneous Pie

Future Lifeguard?!

Dolphin Encounters Photo Contest Winner – Melanie Thomson
by Janay on March 15, 2010

Dolphin Encounters Photo Contest Winner – Melanie Thomson

Future Lifeguard on Blue Lagoon Island? He could be. What a creative photo! Thank you to Melanie for sharing this photo with us. We can’t wait to see you again and we want make your time back to Blue Lagoon Island very special. The entire Dolphin Encounters families look forward to seeing this famous little lifeguard! Congratulations!

Christian's first book

We went to an "Escort Your Artist" session at Glitter Pie a couple of weeks ago, and this book was one of the projects. Christian's all about writing sentences these days, although it required some translation on my part :)

Christian's Book

A rare moment...

Sharing a stool, eating their bananas. It's not often I can get a shot of them together...one or the other is usually either moving or making a funny face.

Like this....

Vacation pictures

I've recently had a chance to organize all our vacation photos from our Christmas trip to the Bahamas. Here's links to the photo albums.

We stayed at the Riu Palace, Paradise Island for 10 nights.  The weather was great almost all of the time. (I, of course, wished it were just a little bit hotter).  Food and service were great, and the kids LOVED playing in the sand.  Unfortunately, the waves at the beach were too high for the kids to play by the seashore, but we did have a couple of day trips to islands, with some calmer beaches.  We went for a day to Blue Lagoon Island, and spent the day on their lagoon beach - very calm clear water to play and snorkel in - Christian even snorkeled with Hugo's help - he was very proud of himself!!  

Lots of pictures at the links below:

Bahamas trip (kids pics are in here!)

Underwater (snorkeling) photos

Atlantis Aquarium

18 months update

 

At 18 months, Jacqueline...

- knows about 35 signs, favorites being more, milk, mommy/daddy,food/eat, ice cream, pizza, cheese
- is starting to talk, although we don't understand much of what she says yet....most popular are done, bum, on (gone), muh (more), go, and recently buh-puh (apple). She's sure trying though - babbles a mile a minute at times.
- weighs 25 lbs and is about 32 inches tall. (bigger than christian was at this age - he was only 24 1/2 lbs by age 2!)
- loves music and LOVES to dance. Not sure where she got the rhythm from - certainly not mom and dad!
- Has settled in well to the toddler room at daycare, charming all the teachers with her cute ways
- has been walking for nearly two months now, being a late starter at just over 16 months
- loves to give hugs
- LOVES her big brother, who, about 95% of the time is so good to her
- favorite foods are milk, pizza, broccoli, pear, peppers.
- can feed herself with a spoon or fork (although it's debatable whether more yogurt gets IN her or ON her!)
- loves our cat, Scratchy, and out parrot Mojo
- always looking at books or asking us to read her one, she anticipates what is coming on the next page.
- sleeps through the night almost every night
- has 12 teeth, and, as of this past weekend, it appears more are on the way (if buckets of drool are anything to go by!)

It really IS better in the Bahamas!!

 

 

Starting to write!

 

this was the picture Christian drew last night. He's been asking me to spell things for a while now, and then he writes them down. For the past week or so, he's been attempting to spell words all on his own (he wrote "dog" on the bookshelf the other day - thankfully in chalk - didn't know whether to praise or scold him!!). This one says: "Christmas at Bhmus (Bahamas) wth (with) Momy and DDAey (Daddy)" I only helped him with "Christmas" and he did the rest on his own! and then he wrote: "I AM GTB5" - "I am going to be five" - I think he was getting tired of spelling/writing at this point, since he didn't even attempt to write out the whole words...either that or he was texting :)

Today at daycare, he drew a pictureof a dragon, and on the back wrote "th maji drgn" (The Magic Dragon).

I am a little stunned that he's doing this already - and also proud! I don't think that they're at this level in JK yet, as they've just started "Jolly Phonics" in November (basically learning the sounds of the letters by connecting them to songs and actions), but he's in a JK/SK split class, so perhaps he's been absorbing what the teacher is doing with them. He's got a wonderful Preschool program, and his teacher, Miss Kathy, has been doing Jolly Phonics with them since he was about 3 1/2, teaching them to write letters, numbers etc, so a lot of this he already knows. They don't do report cards on the JK kids in the fall, so I haven't really gotten a good idea of what/how he's doing in school other than what he brings home and what he tells me, but I'm looking forward to talking to his teacher in the new year.

Visiting Santa

We made Saturday a "photo day." First stop was to Sears for family photos. Got some nice ones there, but they won't be ready for a couple of weeks (we're not on the ball when it comes to getting these things done in time to send out for Xmas, so Xmas cards will have to be late this year (again)

Next stop was to The Bay on Queen St to see Santa. For the first time, Christian was all for it - last year it took some convincing before he'd go up. Jacqueline, on the other hand, would have nothing to do with it, starting to cry the instant Hugo put her on Santa's knee, hence why she's not in the photo.

Here's my shot:
 

And the "official" shot by the Santa photog.
 

Very serious...not sure what Santa is telling him here
 

Walking!!!

Here's a recent video of Jacqueline Walking
Finally, at just over 16 months. She slowly and steadily has been taking more and more steps, but last weekend, she finally just "got it" and started walking more and more. She has improved amazingly in the past week, and she's moving faster and faster. won't be long before she's running after Christian!

First School Picture

Finally received Christian's school pictures yesterday. How did he get so grown up??!!
 

Danger due to....

zombies?
 

Happy Halloween!