20 posts tagged “jade”

Originally we had planned to visit the Butterflies Go Free event at the Montreal Botanical Gardens, but after being told that we'd had to stand in line for 3 hours (with 3 children under four, two pregnant ladies and my mom) we thought better of it.

Not wanting to waste a Sunday morning and all the work it took to get everyone out of the house, in the van and to the east end, we drove around the block to the Montreal Biodome.

It was lots of fun seeing all the animals in their (artificial) natural habitats. And who doesn't like penguins.

Coincidently this outing impressed on me yet another reason why I have to start taking the boys to church. There was a class from a private girls school / convert (I'm guessing) being chaperoned by a few nuns. One of the nuns offered to take a family photo of us. After I thanked her and she walked away Ethan said that she was the Witch of the Waste from Howl's Moving Castle. From the mouths of babes.

Check out Mozart para bebes y niños

My niece turned two back in March and I have been behind on posting the family photos and videos.

Saturday (before the snow hit) we headed over the Mall because they had a Merry Go Round, car ride and a bouncy castle thing. We met up with my parents, my sister's family and my cousins-in-law family. I think all the boys had a great time because they fell asleep on the car ride home.

I took the day off because Carter had a follow up appointment today and I thought I could get some Christmas shopping in also. Little did I know I was going to have my plans derailed.

Today at daycare was their Christmas day. So everyone was in PJ's, and a play and Santa were also planned. The boys were in Spider-Man PJ's (as you can see).

The doctor says Carts' is fine and on the mend, so that's a relief. After dropping him back at daycare, my mom's car (that we are borrowing while we pass judgement on the fate of the family van, just passed a historic mile stone) refused to start.

It got towed and luckily my father in-law lent me his car so I can get around for today and tomorrow.

Thanks to the afore mentioned generosity of my father in-law I was then able get back to  the daycare and see Santa making the rounds. Though I did get there too late to see ET get his gift. I spent two hours in their classes and it was great to get to know their friends a little bit better and see how good they can be when they want to. I also kind of got roped into doing some face painting on a few kids in ET's class but unfortunately we had to leave before we got to everyone.

My niece Jade is in Carts' class also but she was a little scared of Santa. Ethan was the same his second Christmas. Of course there was a girl in their class that was frea-keen-ing out. She just hid in the back of the class. Hopefully next year she's over her fear of Santa. Kids that small usually haven't made the correlation between Santa and Christmas morning yet.

Another Labour Day has come and gone and we were lucky enough to spend it with friends at the Church's in the eastern townships.

Thanks Linda and Phil for letting us invade your home for a few days.

The kids (Ethan, Carter and Jade) had a great time and really kept themselves busy playing in our tent. It was great to see the boys playing with their little cousin.

We brought Ethan's ATV, unfortunately I misjudged the level of charge on the battery and didn't bring the charger. Next year I'm totally going to be prepared.
Or course we forgot beach toys, luckily the Church's neighbors lent some of the weekend and the kids had fun playing in the sand

And of course it was great to see so many old friends.

This labour day also let me have some time to play around with my camera and get some nice shots. Or at least I think so. Although I'm starting to see the limitations of a $200 digital camera. Thanks Jamie Hynes.
Hopefully next year Carter will get over his need to wake up between 5:30am and 6am and maybe sleep in a bit like his older brother. Of course there will be a dozen kids there next year so the chance of all of them sleeping in is pretty small. All I can say is thank god that the Church's have a microwave.

Check out the collection below to see all the Labour Day photos.

It was quite the busy weekend. Not only did the four of us (Donna, Ethan, Carter and myself) go camping, but my sister Kim and her husband Phil and their daughter Jade and our friends Aaron and Cynthia with their two sons Aidan and Declan also came up.

It's been years since we'll all been up there together. Of course there was hardly any alcohol consumed this time around. But it was still great to have the gang back together for a few hours. Plus the kids are older now and they can for the most part keep each other busy. We just need to keep an eye on them and make sure they don't go over the side of the campsite.

While my sister was trying to get Jade to have a nap my dad and I took the boys for a boat ride. It was a little cold out on the lake. Thank goodness they had hoods on their jackets.

On the way back we stopped off to see my friend Josh and his brother in law Nick who were wrapping up a week of working and recreation at their cottage. The kids downed a blow of corn chippy things and ran around on the balcony. I did have to pull apart Ethan and Aidan apart few times for the usually kid pushing.

Dinner was great but we had way too much food. That's what usually happens when everyone brings something. On the upside there was lots of food. Better more than less I always say. Josh and Nick come over for a bit after dinner and we had a fire more out of necessity than ascetics. The temperature dropped a wee bit this weekend.

Sunday morning was freezing. Luckily my dad had just bought a heater and it upped the temperature in the shelter by 10 degrees C.

My dad and I went off to sailing and I actually won the day, first time this year and probably the last. I finished 1st, 3rd and 2nd with 18 points. There wasn't that much wind, but it was the most I've got to sail in this summer. Everything just flows away when I'm out there, it's the most relaxing / stressful / fun time I can have. All the other photos from this week can be found in the Bark Lake 2007 collection.

Since I'm getting compliments on this photo, I just wanted to show everyone what the original looked like. I took the photo at Ethan's Birthday party. I removed the trees, power lines and a bit of the shed. And Jade will never know, so don't tell her.