What's up with Glenn, Heather, Katrine, and Elspeth
Official countdown sits at two sleeps!!!!
Okay, now that is out of the way we can move on to this post. We are so loving this sunny, warm weather. It brings with it bikes, scooters, time in the backyard and time at the park. Take a look at what our time at parks tends to look like.
Katrine also managed to teach Elspeth that a child can go down a slide on your belly face first. Isn’t she a great big sister.
This is a dress which my grandma sent over from Scotland shortly after we brought Katrine home.
This is Katrine wearing the dress in December 2006 at 2 1/2 years old.
The day started off with….what else? Skating. It was Katrine’s last competition of the season. She skated her solo the best she has thus far this season and she is very proud of herself. It has been a rough season and I have to say that I am glad it is drawing to a close. We are keeping our fingers crossed that the high points of a well skated solo and a newly acquired axel are pointing to a better season to come. That is not to say that this season has not had its positives because it has. Katrine has landed all of her single jumps, she passed Preliminary Dance and at least the first part of Preliminary Freeskate; it is just to say that a season without some sort of health issue (last year’s scarlet fever and this year’s concussion) would be greatly appreciated.
After a lunch at the local mall, it was back home to plant a tree. On Friday, Katrine brought home a sapling from school as part of the Stewards of the Earth program. We were asked to plant said sapling and take photos. Apparently, the class which returns that most photos of saplings being planted will get to meet the mayor. This was an exciting prospect so plant we did.
And yes, that is a little wall around the sapling which the girls built. And, being girls, the sapling has a name – ThornyBushTree (or some such thing).
A delicious steak dinner was followed by a family nature walk. The girls watched frogs and birds…
…and then had the requist “sword” fight. Gotta love my girls.
Yep, we have a nine year old – a tween. 8-OÂ Â She has had a great past few days celebrating her birthday.
Friday:
Katrine woke up to a breakfast muffin complete with candle.
After a day of school and skating, she came home for some outdoor time with her Grammy and sister. There is no one quite like a grandmother to watch you whip up “potions” in your “potion lab” (funny, in our day it was mud pies). Grandmas, ooh and ahh more appreciately than moms. After daddy got home it was time for dinner and pie. Yep, not cake but pie. Lemon meringue to be precise. Complete with candles!
Then it was time for some gifts. You know that you have a tween when she gets excited about clothes and tickets to Cats.
Saturday:
A much calmer day. The cookies for the loot bags arrived this morning. They look delicious! (About half the kids left the party eating the cookies so they must have tasted good too! Iced shortbread which was “melt in your mouth good” according to Katrine. The fact that they came on sticks simply made them that much cooler).
Then it was time to make up the cupcakes with Baba! Because they were gluteny, poor guy had to stand outside in the cold wind to begin the mixing process so that no flour got over the kitchen. What a devouted dad and husband. Once baked, the cupcakes were cooled and iced which was of course the best part as the birthday girl got to eat the leftover candies.
Sunday aka Party Day:
I got a great deal on a zumba party so Katrine was able to have a large party this year. It was a nice excuse to see some of her China sisters as well as school and skating friends. The girls worked hard and made it through 40 minutes of solid cardio before really needing a break and snack. The one really good thing about having a party outside of the house is that there is more time to stand back and take in the smiles and laughter. (Baba is not in these photos as he assumed younger sibling distraction for the majority of the party.)
Now my 9 year old is all curled up in bed dreaming of all of the wonderful things which have happened over the course of her birthday celebrations.
Sometimes in the midst of horrible news we are reminded to cheish the small stuff. Today provided just such an opportunity. Katrine finally landed her axel. A very big deal for our girl as she has been working towards it for quite a while. We chose to celebrate with a family outing for frozen yogurt with multiple toppings. A time to laugh and smile together while marking a success brought about by hard work. To the families affected by this newest batch of horror, my heart goes out to you. To the rest of us, let us remember to treasure the time we have with our families even more.
Today it was back to Thornhill Community Center. This time to cheer on Elspeth. She woke up super excited that it was her day to skate. That excitement lasted until about 10 minutes after she got off the ice. Then she was tired (as you can see in the photos). Once her snack kicked in she was back to her happy self. She was also quite pleased to have a new ribbon for her board…although, she did object to the fact that it was not pink. She also competed in a new skating outfit because she actually grew out of the one that I made for her (see post on Winter Glitters from January). I think that she looks right cute in this dress though.
Our first visit to the competition was Friday for Katrine. So, this is her post. She had a lot of fun and came in fifth. We were very proud of her (as you can see in the photo).
At dinner, she drew a picture of herself skating in her dress for the judges. It was pretty cute.
Back to the arena tomorrow morning for Elspeth’s skate.
Easter Morning:
Easter at the Zoo:
Look! Elspeth in motion!
Here is our Elspeth at 3 and a half standing beside her 14 month old cousin. Hmm, we really are short.
Saturday dawned to two girls ready for another day of fun at their grandparents. My dad is now a Lion and his group had organized a community event in the form of an Easter Egg Hunt. Last year we were unable to attend but this year we were up there, dressed and ready to go. The event did not disappoint. Both girls had an excellent time. As you can see, they not only spent even more time building memories with their grandparents but they got face painted, met the Easter Bunny, hunted for eggs and got a huge chocolate bunny each!
Grandpa and Katrine played a little game of basketball….sorry, eggbag with the eggs.
This year we had the opportunity to spend a chunk of Good Friday helping my dad at the sugar shack. Both girls enthusiastically helped but I think that Katrine’s level of excitement was a bit higher given that she actually understood what they were doing. They are already on me to whip up a batch of GF pancakes so that they can use the maple sirop “that they made”. Let me take you through our afternoon.
1. We arrive at the bush and are greated by rows of tapped trees.
2. Stop in at the sugar shack to get the fire started, take a nice close look at the equipment without the usual layer of steam and collect our buckets.
3. Okay, the troops are ready to go. Off into the bush to check which buckets are full, collect the sap into our pails and the haul it back to the shack. In total we collected about 13 gallons (45 litres) of sap.
4. Then we went to look at the swans, geese and ducks while it was being boiled (not the actual sap we collected but shh don’t tell my girls). By the time we came back there was some sap ready to be poured off. This is the first time that the girls have ever got to see this part of the process. Usually when they visit, Grandpa is boiling water for tour groups so that they can see the process regardless of how the sap has been running. Anyways, they got to see how it is poured through a strainer into a large container and then bottled.
That is my dad filling the sirop bottle.
5. Topped the whole experience off with some hot chocolate and a homemade turkey dinner.
This is Elspeth in the same dress, yesterday at 3 1/2 years. She has gone up a whole pound and now sits at 24.6 pounds. Way to grow.
My dad and two of his girls
He and the other Lions had placed 4, 000 plastic eggs in the field. Within four minutes all of the eggs were claimed! Within those four minutes, there was a lot of smiles and giggles as the kids tried to fill their baskets.
One highlight for Elspeth was finding two “peachy” eggs (That is now her favourite colour. She insists that anything orange is peach and will stand her ground when told that they are orange.)
My two little bunnies
As you can see, Katrine was much happier meeting the Easter Bunny than Elspeth. Elspeth did happily accept the chocolate mini eggs and then promptly asked her dad “Who inside the bunny?”
Katrine tried to do it all by herself but then the red pail got to heavy and then mom had to lug it about while she continued to fill it up.
Katrine took her big sister duties quite seriously. At every stop she would check the various buckets and leave the one with the smallest amount of sap for Elspeth. As you can see, Elspeth still needed help but she gave it her all.