End of year gymnastics

With the end of year of school year quickly approaching, with it comes the end of year gymnastics show.  Cara-Li has participated all year long in the school's gymnastics program as well as another gym in the evenings.  Despite all her broken bones this year, she has managed to keep up, if not surpass, others in her group.  She is quite flexible this little girl!

Guelph Visit

As usual, on this long weekend, we make our way west on the 401 and head off to Guelph, Ontario to visit some of Gord's family.  Lately, we have been staying at the Holiday Inn, our new home away from home.  It has a very nice indoor pool and kids eat for free..  What a deal!

We had plenty of time to visit with family, SIL, nieces, nephews and grandparents but we also had the pleasure of attending a wedding reception in honor of our nephew, C, and his lovely new wife, K who married a couple of weeks ago and rushed off to Paris for their honeymoon.  So congrats, C & K.  Have a great life together!



Cottage Visit... Surprise!

Come Spring time, we don't go to the cottage very often.  It is typically not nice, weather-wise and with the bugs and all, there is nothing too attractive about going up there.  But this weekend, we decided to go up for a couple of days since we had nothing else going on in town.  It was going to be a rainy weekend so we decided that we'd spend time in the kitchen cooking.  Always fun to do when you have time :)  We pulled up in our driveway and immediately noticed a strong smell, one of oil or gasoline.  Upon inspection of our cottage, everything seemed to be OK so Gord decided to walk around to our neighbors' properties to see if anything was up.  Within a few minutes, he ran back grabbed a large BBQ pan and ran off agian without so much as uttering a word.  After running after him, I saw what he saw.  A hole in the neighbor's oil tank with the oil making its way into the lack.  Wow! This is soooo bad....  We immediately called the owner of the cottage followed by some frantic calls to the oil company to come and syphon the oil out of the tanks.  Meantime, Gord is catching the spilling oil with BBQ pans and dumping into huge recycle bins while waiting for help.  Yeah.  This went n for hours, well into the night.  Environment Quebec came and started the emergency clean up.  It was quite the weekend.

In the meantime, the girls and I carried on with our kitchen weekend.  We made a huge pot of meat sauce and some fresh pasta.  Yummy!

On to the next stage...

Alexia has graduated to a booster seat.  Finally!  Now this should make things alot easier. 

Funny story.  Last fall, when I came back from Hawaii, Gord asked me if it was a place for us to go as a family.  I explained that it would be best for us to go when Alexia is out of the car seat as there is a lot of in and out of the car when visiting Hawaii.  So, since then, Alexia has been asking about moving into a booster because she wants to go to Hawaii but we kept telling her she needed to eat more to gain more weight (Alexia is really not a big eater).  However, while she doesn't weigh enough to be in a booster, she is definitely tall enough so we moved her.  Guess who thinks she's going to Hawaii  :)

Mother's Day & First Communion

Another Mother's Day, another most glorious day!  I love Mother's Day.  It's my favorite day of the year.  It is the day when I spend the entire day being extremely grateful for the 2 little girls I am so fortunate to be given the oportunity to mother.  Without them, I would be nothing thus being a Mom is the most important job I have ever had.  OK.  Enough with the mushiness! 

Today was also Cara-Li's First Communion.  We have been preparing for this all year, home-schooling her, taking her to monthly retreats at the church and in the last month several practices to prepare for the big day.  It was so sweet to see all 42 children up on the altar.  I remember my First Communion like it was yesterday and trust me, it wasn't yesterday :)  After the ceremony, we had all her invited guests at the house for a luncheon.  It was a beautiful day, so we all got the chance to sit outside and enjoy the day.

Instead of the traditional communion cake, we had a beautiful display of cupcakes.  Cara-Li and I always watch 'Cupcake Wars' together so it was very fitting.  Besides, cupcakes are all the rage!

PS:  The poof Cara-Li is wearing on the back of her head was what I wore on my wedding day  (which I made BTW).  Thought it would be easier to get her to wear it now rather than on her wedding day.

And a First Communion would not be the same if the kids didn't change and run off into yard.  We were privileged to an acrobatics show.  See if you can count 5 kids in this act!

Looks like there is a conspiracy going on here in the fort...

Alexia is going to school!

Alexia is born in late October so technically she is not eligible to go to kindergarten this coming September.  But the girl is ready.  So ready that I cannot see us keeping her back for another year.  So we decided to get her tested by a psychologist (which is required by our province) to see if she would be capable to start a year earlier without being detrimental to her.  So today was the big day and she scored quite high in fact.  In some tests she proved to be the age of a 5 year 1 month old (Alexia is 4 1/2), which is just enough to get her derogation but she also scored as high in other tests as a 6 year 10 month old!  So with this, Alixia is off to kindergarten this coming September!

57 Years!

Today, we celebrated my parent's 57th Wedding Anniversary.  Wow!  That is a LONG time! 

Happy Anniversary Mamma e Papa!

And here's an annual photo of the 3 musketeers, the three little granddaughters!