Thursday, May 28, 2015

Nathalieland Update - Outdoors/Movies/Sleep

Enjoying the Outdoors. It's been a funny spring with an unpredictable mix of cold and hot weather. On the Victoria Day long weekend I shopped for and planted a few flowers and herbs in our front garden beds. Unfortunately some of them didn't survive the late frost we had last weekend! The girls have gotten into gardening too, planting "flowers" (weeds) in my garden beds. Last week we also went to a favourite family spot: walking at Lemoine's Point. The chipmunks enjoyed the peanuts we gave them, though they wouldn't come eat them out of our hands (as Jessica wished they would).





First Movie Theatre Experience. We finally took the girls to the movie theatre for the first time last weekend! The funniest part is that we went on Friday, but when we got there an employee in the parking lot said the theatre was temporarily closed (their system was down) and then she gave us free movie passes! The girls were pretty disappointed, but we just went the following day and enjoyed our free show. We saw Home, a movie about an alien and a young girl who become friends. We brought the girls' headphones to cover their ears if it got too loud, which turned out to be a great idea. The girls seemed to enjoy the movie, though they were both really tired by the end. They haven't been raving about their first theatre experience, but I'm guessing we'll be heading there every once in a while now!








Tiiiiiired

Late Bedtime. We're not sure if it's the late sunsets or Emily getting older (or both), but this girl has been going to bed much later than she used to! We still do our bedtime routine around 7pm, but now instead of falling asleep then, Emily comes back downstairs and hangs out with us. I've actually been loving this extra bonding time with Emily -- I feel like I don't get enough (or any) one-on-one time with her. In the evenings she likes looking at pictures on the blog, colouring, playing Legos, and watching me sew. Yesterday we played "copy draw", where she would draw something on the dry erase board and I would have to copy it.



A small part of me is sad that I have a lot less free time in the evenings, but the other part is cherishing these moments with Emily. I know they'll be gone before I know it! Emily is usually in bed around 9-9:30pm, which leaves me with about an hour for reading, blogging, or hanging out with Steve. Speaking of which, good night!

Monday, May 25, 2015

Happy Birthday Jessica!



It sure is easy being four. Jessica had a wonderful day filled with family, love, play, presents, and cake! Here are some snapshots from her special day.

Opening presents


Let there be cake!
(One for Emily too ;))


Cake for breakfast
(though they only ate the icing)

7:49am - Jessica's birth minute
Watching Daddy play her new Wii game

Talking to Grammy on the phone

Emily's lunch note for today

Lunch!

New Lego set!

Outdoor coloring!

Jessica's day also included a bike ride and catching frogs at the pond with Daddy, swinging and outdoor play with Mommy, and lots of sillies and giggling with Emily. The day ended with the traditional height-recording on the growth chart, though Jessi was pretty angry that she wasn't as tall as she wanted to be!



"I want to be THIS tall Mommy!"

Happy birthday baby girl!
We love you more than words can say.
xox

Sunday, May 24, 2015

Party Time

Today was Jessica's 4th birthday party! She had a great time celebrating with Grand-Maman, Grand-Papa, Tante Becca, Uncle Albert, and Lorelei.

Emily was quite the little helper, wrapping all of Jessica's presents the night before:



In the morning we finished all the decorating and baking. The girls were getting bored while we were still preparing things, so I gave them some unused (Dollar Store) plastic table cloths and they got right into their dressmaking!



A lovely creation 

Dining room setup



Baking cupcakes with Daddy

We had a bit of trouble in the kitchen: half our cupcake batter ended up on the floor! Luckily we had enough ingredients to make a new batch. Meanwhile I started to work on my cupcake toppings but didn't get very far -- I got blue Candy Melts stuck on my dress! Quick change then back to work.



Spiderman faces, spiderwebs, and spiders



Living room decor
(Spiderman helmet on the table)

Spiderman came! ;)



Birthday girl's meal of choice: pizza!

Time to open presents

Enjoying her new stuffed dog and school play set


Snuggling with "Willow" the dog
(later renamed "Finn" the dog)

Outdoor play time

Happy birthday to you ♥




Tomorrow my baby girl officially turns 4! Where has the time gone??

Sporting her new earrings from G-M and G-P
(Emerald green -- her birth stone)