Last Day of JK!

My boy had his last day of JK...sniff! I was surprised by how emotional I felt about the last day of school. To say I'm surprised that we made it through the first year without any tears or whining about going to school is an understatement. I truly couldn't have asked for a better start to school for Owen and I made sure to express how grateful I was to Owen's teacher for such a fantastic year! I think she was even about to cry as she expressed how much everyone just loves Owen at school, what a great friend he is for his classmates & what a blessing it was having him in her class :) I really hope he has her for his SK teacher (they have split kindergarten classes) & she said she'd really do her best to keep him in her class.

He brought home an incredible amount of stuff, I'm not sure how he fit everything in his backpack! gifts from the teachers, a huge kindergarten memory scrapbook filled with some artwork & photos taken of him throughout the year, birthday boy gifts & ribbons (they celebrate the students birthdays during the year & celebrated the summer birthdays on the last day), framed photo of the class, poetry books & more!

Great report card, meeting all expectations and wonderful, positive comments about him just made my day! I knew he was doing well, but it was nice to see it in writing. We celebrated the end of school & doing his best work with dinner out. Owen chose his favourite restaurant (Boston Pizza) and he also got an early birthday/year end gift, a bigger kiddie pool for the backyard :)

Owen with his JK teacher. She really is the best & oh so cool! she went to the Aerosmith concert the night before & just had to wear her new t-shirt to school the next day :)

My little boy is growing up - on to SK next year!

Way to go Owen! we are so proud of you :)

I know so many parents of boys that cut their kids hair, but I was always too scared to attempt it myself. Noah's curly hair is what scared me the most & I was convinced we'd only end up taking him to the salon to have it fixed :) Gavin finally talked me into letting him cut the kids hair this past weekend & I let him try on Owen. Owen's hair was really easy to do, I think I could even do it myself next time :) Noah's was a bit more work, but it turned out well. Yay! for finding another time & money saver!

he's looking a little timid in this photo, but he was fine with letting daddy cut his hair

funny boy. looks like he could've used a haircut a long time ago.

handsome boy. good job Gavin!

Noah's turn!

another handsome boy! can't even tell that he didn't go to a salon :) 

We are lucky to have a few teacher friends, and recently one of them hooked us up with our very own caterpillars! The kids checked in on the caterpillars daily to see if they had become butterflies, but I think both Hannah and Noah were becoming discouraged at how long the process took. Owen had been learning about the butterfly life cycle at school and came home with a life cycle replica made out of different shaped pasta, he taught the younger kids what metamorphosis was & declared himself the 'butterfly expert' :) he really is so funny & smart too!

One of our caterpillars didn't make it to the chrysalis stage, it was quite a bit smaller than the other one from the beginning. I'm glad we were given two or the kids would have been disappointed that they weren't able to release a butterfly outside. I'm not much of a 'bug' lover but it was pretty cool to see. 

Our two new caterpillars. Owen named one Crystal Chrysalis & the other one  we can't remember what it was named.

Just checking things out

          

anything exciting happening in there?

finally a butterfly! after a couple of days we were able to set it free outside!

the butterfly wanted to stick around, it wasn't interested in flying off .

Here is a short video of the kids releasing the butterfly. We watched the butterfly outside for almost an hour before we headed back in the house. 

What a fun experience for the kids! 

10 Months Old

10 Months old! My littlest one is learning new things every day and is becoming more playful and expressive too :) Just in the last week he's learned how to wave goodbye, nod his head yes, shake his head no, and clap his hands. He's very dramatic with his "no" and moves his whole body from side to side it's really quite cute. He's a crawling machine and getting into everything. His favourite things are non toys of course like the remote control, door stoppers, and pushing the button on the carbon monoxide detector. Those things earn him a stern "no" and he gets stopped quickly, but he's getting fast and tries to get right back into the trouble again. When he's told off he gets a big bottom lip and starts to cry, he really tries everything in his power to get what he wants. 

Grayson still sleeps with us and has been waking a few times a night lately. I think it's his teeth bothering him. He had been waking once a night which was great, but now we are struggling in the sleep dep't. 

He eats three meals a day, two snacks and fed on demand, on average six times over 24 hours. It sounds like he eats a lot but he doesn't really have a big appetite. At his Dr's appointment last week he weighed 16lbs 11oz (5th percentile), was 74cm in length (75th percentile) and his head circumference was 42.5 cm (5th percentile). 

my beautiful boy

He's starting to look older, just look at how much hair he's gotten! It's starting to get a bit curly & the front is quite long, it's starting to get a bit difficult to work with. I'm afraid his bangs are going to be in his eyes soon.

playing with the kids downstairs

he's not always happy. I think he's working on some teeth, he's been whinier and wetter lately :)

he sure loves his ch@@rios

he's cute even covered with drool:)

Only two months until his first birthday! where has the time gone? I can hardly believe I'm thinking about his birthday already.

May Long Weekend

We spent the May long weekend at my brother and sister-in laws house in Ottawa. The weather was fantastic with the temperature reaching mid 30's, we spent most of our time outdoors. We just love spending time with our niece but don't get to very often because they live a little too far away for a weekend visit, so we try and save a long weekend during the year just to hang out with her (and Derek and Kaila too of course) :)

By the time we arrived at their place friday (the traffic was terrible on the way to Ottawa with construction) we settled in, ordered dinner and headed across the street to a park. The boys had fun and kept Uncle Derek running, playing basketball and having fun on the play structures. The following photos are from Saturday evening, we had such fun at the park friday evening we did a repeat the following day.

Noah and his cousin Lexi. Sweet little girl followed Noah all over during their weekend together. She was trying to do everything they were doing.

My little monkey

Noah wanted to walk this like a balance beam. The poor  kid was so nervous he would fall even though the drop wasn't that far. Mommy stayed close by to give him a hand when needed.

Daddy thinking he is still young

The boys loved playing with Uncle Derek

Grandma helping Owen on the "zip line" 

Playing basketball, I'm not sure why Owen is kicking the ball :)

Noah's poor knees! He fell going out the door as we were leaving to go to Derek & Kaila's  and scraped his knees. Then he must've fallen at least three more times over the weekend re-skinning them.  He was banned from wearing his crocs anymore that weekend, I think they are a tiny bit too big for him.

We took a quick walk for ice cream. Mmmmm ice cream in the park - Yummy!

I was impressed that Saturday morning we were all up and ready to go by 10am. We decided to take the kids to Parc Omega and it was soooooo much fun! We waited quite a while in line but the wait was well worth it. We had a quick picnic lunch then we were off to drive through the park. The animals come right up to your car and you can purchase carrots to feed the deer, and pellets to feed the fish. 

There are a few spots in the park that you can get out of your vehicle and feed the animals. 

Noah feeding the deer. He was a bit timid at first but loved it by the end. 

Owen was like an old pro. He wasn't nervous at all.

Grandma watching the boys feed the fish.

Mommy and Grayson

It looks like this black bear is headed right to our car! there was a fence there thank goodness :)

The deer were so big! they'd stick their head right in the car for a carrot and the boys  thought it was hilarious when one of them slobbered on daddy! sooo gross! 

love this photo! Noah was freaked out by the deer being so close.  Afterwards we listened to the park radio and they said to leave the window mostly closed so the animals wouldn't stick their heads right in - oops.

I think Derek was bothered by the closeness of the animals too :)

Our attempt at getting a photo of Grandma with all of her Grandchildren.

We had such a great weekend and look forward to doing it again soon!