Elle

 Our little Jelly Belly turned 2 this week.
We started off the day by singing "Happy Birthday"
and "Bonne Fete" specifically at Sam's request. If he had his way, we would have sang it all day long. Elle loves to be without clothes so we let her run free most of the day except for her cute little shirt. I feel like if she were to wear this to the store, the clerks would be a lot nicer to me by understanding her "sweet" age.  We had pizza for supper and went over to Amy's for ice cream cake because it was SO HOT!!! I can't even tell you how insanely hot it was, but if I were a make-up wearer, it would have melted off my face. I was so happy we opted for the ice cream cake- it was cold and Elle loved it! We love our little dolly. She's so expressive and talkative. She repeats things when asked, this makes for GREAT prayers. Elle loves Special K in the morning, but she loves gremlin-saying special k- it sounds like a gravel truck. She loves to play with her brothers, often throwing herself into the fray. Elle can count to five, help read books, and pass dishes to Max from the dishwasher. She loves to run, and climb and swing. Monkey.

 Elle loves taking care of baby dollies, but she likes sitting in the stroller more. Here, she had singing Annie from Little Einstein's that she absolutely adores. This is the one time she wanted to push her instead of holding her while sitting herself down in the stroller.

 The day after with homemade sidewalk paint. It was CLEARLY more fun to paint herself, not the sidewalk! Painting toes, and not missing her chin!

Birthdays

So, Despite my best efforts, my babies are growing up. Elle is turning two in a couple of weeks, so I wanted to get the boys' birthdays up from this last year. Can you believe our little Sammy turned four in April? We were so happy to have both sets of Grandparents here, and Amy and Tyler's crew as well. We had a yummy BBQ, Sam loves hot dogs! Our little superhero got some mini superheroes, stretchy batman and a bear hat that roars! He still loves it, though it's stopped roaring now. At four, Sam can: eat at least 3 bowls of cereal in the morning; dress himself as Batman; put away the utensils from the dishwasher-sorting them properly is something that we're working on-; jump off just about anything from any height; ride his bike a little with a little help from mom and dad. Sam also wants to run with Mom whenever I go out. He's very active and loves to yell and play Batman.

 Don't mind my gut here, I was trying to push out to show you what not to do while carrying your child's birthday cake as your husband takes the worst picture ever. =)

Our (other) boy genius turned six last -ahem- December....I know I've slacked with the blogging! Anyway, he wanted a robot cake, so a robot cake he had. We had all the cousins to Duffy's Fun Centre, here in Brooks. We enjoyed some delicious pizza, fun games and some novelty cake. Max's favourite part was the candy watch. (Forget the other parts that took me like 3 hours to do!) Max got half a DS from us, he worked for the other half and paid for it himself, some DS games and a sweet RC car that drives up the wall! Grandma and Grandpa Wilson were able to join us for some pizza, too. We loved having everyone there. Max is excited for next year when he can invite friends as well as family to his party.

We still have like, a zillion, points to redeem at Duffy's. Uncle Tyler found the ultimate jackpot game and played it over and over and over. Then he gave all the tickets to Max for his birthday! How nice was that? At six, Max can: read and sound things out on his own; speak fluent french to his dad and teachers; unload the dishwasher by himself; vacuum the living room on his own; walk to and from school without anyone to help him cross the street!

I read a poem the other day by Emily Dickinson- my all time favourite poet, called Forever is Composed of Nows:

Forever – is composed of Nows –

‘Tis not a different time –

Except for Infiniteness –

And Latitude of Home –

From this – experienced Here –

Remove the Dates – to These –

Let Months dissolve in further Months –

And Years – exhale in Years –

Without Debate – or Pause –

Or Celebrated Days –

No different Our Years would be

From Anno Dominies –

To Max and Sam and Elle:

I can't help but feel gratitude to my Father in Heaven for blessing us with the knowledge of eternal families. These little moments of "NOW" will forever be my eternity. I can't think of any better way to explain it, to fully express my love for my little kids, who won't stay little forever. I'll always have my now times to remember infinitely. Happy Birthday, Stinkers.

Love, Mom

At LONG LAST!!!

You know you haven't blogged forever when the format has changed on blogger. Oh boy. Well, after talking to my friend, Lauren, I decided I've slacked too long. I found my camera, found my SD reader on my iMac, loaded all the pictures from Dustin's iPhone, categorized them and -as Max would say, VOILA! (pronounced wa-laa- I learn something new from our little frenchy everyday)

Speaking of our little Frenchy, he graduated from Kindergarten, earning his diploma on the First of June. The School did a ceremony with the whole school ( I think there are 80 kids total) and each child earned an award for something they did well. Max brought home an award for Math and French. The kindergarten kids worked hard on making their caps out of construction paper and the gowns out of garbage bags.
Max explored the halls at the College where they held the ceremony, nearly missing his class march. He especially liked the snacks that evening. They had fruit and crackers and cheese. We took him out to Boston Pizza before the ceremony, where he chose and ordered his favorite- Bugs and Cheese. He's growing up, this little guy!

Along the same line, Sam graduated from his Joyschool group, too! He had lots of fun this year, learning how to write his name, how to count to 20, and colouring in the lines! His favourite part of graduating was the Tim-Bits that Randa brought. He also liked his cap that Rachel made.

I don't want to leave Elle out. She's been busy growing up, getting over e. Coli, and pestering her mother. Jokes, she mostly pesters Max and Sam. She loves jumping on Dustin, and jumping off various things that she climbs. She swings precariously off the Jungle Gym, where no child should swing. Without further ado, I give you Elle:

Elle's finally able to put hair in piggy tales, so I thought you should all see how cute she is. There you have it, I'll try to keep up with this as best as I can.

Oh, to be Young AGAIN!

I was going through my pictures folder today and found some sweet ones from Europe. I thought I would post so I can look back next week (when I'm 28!) and remember how sweet it was to be 27 in Paris! Happy February!

pensive in Luxembourg

Scary at Pirates 3 in 3D
Gaining weight in Lux
Last Night in Paris