Princess Birthday Party

Today was Claire's birthday party - she had a special guest come to the party - Princess Ariel!!!

The girls were so excited (the boys - including Claire's 6-year old brother, not so much!). Ariel sang to them (she is a very good singer!), read her story to them, . . .



















. . . played games with them, like pass Ariel (a different version of Musical Chairs) . . .















. . . and did their make-up (Holly chose Snow White).



















Claire's cake was made by her uncle's girlfriend, Lauren, with some help from her Dad, too - what an amazing job they did! I loved the fondant shells, and the sugar sand. The bar has been raised for future home-made birthday cakes!

Warm-Up!

Today Holly participated in her first Terry Fox Run at school! Here she is at home with Daddy, warming up . . .

She jumped so high, she went out of camera range! I hope to join them next year - parents were welcome to come, but I was working.

Meet Cody

Today we went to meet baby Cody . . . . .















It also happens to be his Mom, Mimi's birthday tomorrow. Nikki (Mimi's mom) and Mimi.















All the kids enjoying their cake(s)!















Mackenzie and her little brother, Cody (born September 8th at 7:20am - 8lbs, 13oz).

Art - day 2

Holly brought this home from school today - I had to work, so I saw it when I got home. I thought it was a caterpillar or something like that (a worm maybe?) - but it's a . . . . . wand!


A fairy (or a princess) has to have a wand at all times! She also worked on tracing her own hands.

First school project

I was worried about Holly starting school full time, but she was fine yesterday (only a half day for the first day of school). When I dropped her off today, I said, "Bye Holly, I'll pick you up after school", and she replied, "Ok, bye Mom!". After school we had a quick parent-teacher interview and Holly is doing really well - and she's even playing with some of the other little girls, besides Cassie!

Holly's first little piece of art from school . . . can you tell she loves to write her own name?!

First Day of School - ever!

First day of school for our "little" girl, who woke up this morning and asked me what we were doing today - I said, "you're going to school" and she replied, "I'm going to have great fun at school"!



















We arrived at the school at the same time as Cassie-Anne. She's going to Junior Kindergarten (JK) for the second time because her birthday is in April, so she got to start last year. Her mommy couldn't bring her today because she had to go the hospital this morning - she's in labour with their third baby - a boy whose name is going to be Cody!

Foundation Day!

Today was very exciting for us - pouring concrete for the foundation of our new family room and garage/master suite! (This is the reason Daddy was dressed in his messy "work" clothes in the picture with Holly above!) The concrete pumper was pretty cool - almost as tall as the trees and went right over the roof to the back area where our "great room" will be.

MOA

We went to the UBC Museum of Anthropology today. I haven't been there in many, many years - probably since my UBC days! And Paul says he's never been there. Our purpose for going was to see the temporary exhibit called Tatau: Samoan Tattooing and Global Culture. It was mainly a photo essay - we had hoped to learn more about the tattoos themselves and what each pictogram means, but it was still interesting.

The Great Hall holds a lot of Native totem poles and carvings. I didn't take a picture, but the bent boxes were amazing - made of one sheet of wood, three lines are etched into the wood, which is then steamed and bent to create the 4 sides of a box. They are used for cooking, storage, etc and are made water-tight!



















Any resemblance?















In the Koerner Ceramics Gallery there was a collection of oven tiles and this large ceramic oven - amazing how beautiful it is and at the same time, functional.