Month: April 2012

An outing and the final skate of the season

On Thursday, Katrine had a great opportunity.  She skipped school for the day to attend university.  Well, sort of.  She spent the day at the Take Your Child to Work Day with Glenn.  She had a fabulous time.  First she explored Glenn’s work space (as you can see in the diagram below, he works in quite a small space).  Then she walked around with campus security learning about stranger awareness and sitting in their patrol car .  Next it was off to thespider lab for a workshop on spider communication.  Her big learning was that female Black Widow spiders are larger than males.  Who knew?  After a lunch date with Baba (does it get any better?) it was off to the gym to learn about healthy eating and do some circuit training.  The day ended with her favourite event of the day: a visit to the chemistry lab.  They made ice cream using dry ice and got to eat it!!!!! Someone knew what they were doing when they planned that experiment.

Today was our last skating competition of the season.  This means that we no longer have to listen to the Annie medley. :-)   However, it was also the last time that little miss gets to wear the outfit that I put so many hours into.  😥 I suppose that it will soon be time to get started on the next outfit…maybe something in black and gold so it is super shiny.

Anyways, we were at the Ursula Leming Skate in Scarboro.  It was really well organized and we had a lot of fun.  My parents even drove in because they have not been able to make it to any other competitions.  They got a treat.  Katrine decided to finish the season with a bang.  She skated her tush off and brought home a second.  You can see in the photo how proud of herself she is.

Do we get a break from skating now?  Ha!  Her club lessons run until the end of May and then there is a break for June meaning happy mummy before summer camp begins.  Five weeks this year as opposed to last summer’s two.  I am not happy about the driving but I am looking at it as more time for Elspeth.

Princesses everywhere

We survived.  I mean that.  The evening of the party I was in bed asleep at 7:30 and didn’t get up until 7:00 this morning.  Were they evil princesses?  No, just active and loud.

I think that there were a few party highlights:

-nail salon (we had my super awesome and nail artist niece come to do the girls’ nails and they were super excited)

-touchable bubbles (a friends from skating got them for us from Hong Kong and they could not get enough of blowing, holding and tossing them)

-candy (this set of the squeeling)

All of that aside, fun was had.  Katrine was content and it is over for another year.  Any great ideas for fun and easy parties for a 9 year old?

 

How did Elspeth like the party?  Glenn took her to Big Al*’s fish store.  She supposedly was totally enthralled by all of the fish and walked around with huge eyes.  The people at the store gave her a special treat and let her feed their koi.  She came home and told me “EB fish snack. Fish snack yum!”  Guess that was the high point of her outing with dad.

New photos of Baby Elspeth – Part 2

A friend of ours put us in contact with a group in Spain.  They are active in supporting various orphanages and orphans in China and Shangrao CWI is among those they support.  They make yearly visits to Shangrao CWI and take lots of photos.  We were blessed yet again to find more photos of Elspeth among their collection.  We now have proof that she wore split pants (won’t be posting that photo though).

April 2010 so 6 months
Date unknown
Date unknown
February 2011 - We still know that mad/sad face.

 

We have an 8 year old

It is official we have an eight year old.  Took some cookies to the arena today because she is not to old to enjoy sharing her birthday with friends.  Her party is Saturday.  A princessy thing with nail polish, crafts and treasure hunts.  I will post photos after the event.  Fingers crossed that it goes well.  Tonight was a family dinner after skating with cake and gifts.  I think that Katrine was pretty impressed that having a new sister meant an extra gift.  Elspeth though was a bit confused as to why there were only gifts for Katrine (is that a meltdown I see coming on Saturday? ).

Her favourite gifts? Her Angry B*rds t-shirt and super fluffy new pillows.  Yes, she actually asked for new pillows.  You see, Glenn gave me new pillows for my birthday and for the last four months she has been suffering from pillow envy.  Well, no longer.  Tonight she went to sleep with a huge, satisfied sigh.  Love it when gifts are simple, practical and won’t clog up the house.

My favourite part of the day?  The hugs.  Apparently, Katrine still holds firm to the belief that on one’s birthday they must pass on copious amounts of hugs to their mother and who am I to dissuade her.

Didn't Glenn do a great job of decorating the cake? Lots of girly sprinkles made for happy girls.

Thornhill Fun Skate: Day 2

I am so very happy that Katrine got to wear her blue outfit again.  It is just so cute.  Her and her “secret agent” team mate took second for team elements.  It was also much calmer without the side kick.  Two days down, one to go and then we are out of skating competitions and into dance.  Sigh.  At least dance competitions are usually outside.

Thornhill Fun Skate: Day 1

If you have seen Glenn’s status update on facebook you will already know today’s results.  For those of you who haven’t…skip to the photos.  Summary of the day?  Elspeth was exhausted and spent a good deal of time crying.  As a result, Glenn and her will be skipping tomorrow’s event for Father-Daughter bonding without drama.  Katrine was super nervous this morning but calmed down after spending time with her coach (which freed me up to spend time with Glenn, his mom and cranky toddler).  She skated really well.  A few things to work on  before the final competition of the season in two weeks but we are proud of her.  Fingers crossed that tomorrow goes well.

 

She got third!!

 

Meeting the Easter Bunny

We had the joy of introducing Elspeth to the Easter bunny.  Didn’t take much to sell her on the concept. Our bunny brings small toys instead of mounds of candy.

Elspeth:  “Zooble!  Headbum!”  aka I always wanted a zooble and a new headband.  This bunny thing is good.

This year however, Grandpa Bunny had a special contribution to make.  You see, way back on Easter 2005 he was pivotal in the delivery of a giant chocolate egg to a certain little girl celebrating her first Easter.  Of course, a second little girl’s first Easter could not be allowed to pass without a similarly large egg.  That sealed the deal.

Elspeth: “Big.  Easta egg.  Big.”  aka holy cow, you mean I get this all to myself?  Rockin!

Hope that all of you are having a very matzoh Passover or have had a relaxing Easter.

Due to excessive flowers, Easter Sunday service is out, so we try to keep the reason alive in little things.

 

It was a lovely morning so we went for a walk. Looks like we might have a goose nest nearby.

Easter dresses and new necklaces from our Great Uncle Stewart who we adore.

Some Easter fun

It was such a lovely day today that we decided to spend it outside.  So, we packed up and went to the zoo.  It was really busy being Easter weekend combined with the fact that they have clues hidden around the zoo and are giving away chocolate to the kids.  The crowds overwhelmed Elspeth at times but otherwise it was fun.

Katrine had a blast trying to figure out all of the riddles and then watching the otters at play while Elspeth asked to see the “baby” when we got to the polar bears and clapped her hands at the flamingos.  As you can guess, the real highlight was being given a sizeable chocolate egg and then being allowed to eat it in the car on the way home.

 

We finished the day with more playing outside and some easter egg dying.  It is nice to be able to dye them and know that as long as they are hard boiled, they will get eaten.  I figured out that if you crack the shells before you dye them, it gives the eggs a marbled look and the kids feel like they are eating easter eggs.