sam lost his first tooth

To kick off March Break Sam lost his first tooth. It had been loose for awhile, and he said that all of a sudden he was playing with it, and it popped out! He saved it for a week to show his friends at school, and just the other night he cashed in for tooth fairy money.

Up until this point, our family has been surprisingly healthy. We got our flu shots in October, and other than Henry missing one day in October, and Anna being sick on a snow day, we've really done well. That caught up with us over March Break and both Sam and Henry were very sick. Days of fevers, combined with low energy, and a bad cough at night. That meant lots of puzzles, movies and slower days in general. Here is Sam placing his 1000th piece in his first big puzzle attempt with Stew - it was a good one, a map of Canada.

dress as your favourite book character

Anna as Pippi Longstocking

Sam as Tintin (a French reporter)

Henry as 'Sam I am'

Henry has learned to write his name!

Friends, it has been a long time, and I'm back with some fun pictures. This school year seems to be on fast forward, and we are inching closer to the 100th day of school already. 

We are currently enjoying the school read-a-thon. I have a special place in my heart for this event, because our Librarian that organizes it is just incredible. First up was dress up as your favourite book character day - the kids came up with all their own ideas and most of this we had on hand in our tickle trunk downstairs. Henry and I found Sam's blue shirt at Value Village and Anna sewed on her own patches to a pair of overalls she'd mostly outgrown. Henry's costume I made last year for Sam but it didn't get used, so that was a huge bonus. 

Tomorrow they are wearing sweaters and will celebrate this book by Roch Carrier, so fun!

Henry's class has also been working on Raffi and Robert Munsch stories - the drawings and work he is bringing home are showing more detail, it's incredible to see his improvement.

henry turns 4 and sam turns 6

With these guys having their birthdays a few weeks ago, we know summer is drawing to a close and school is around the corner. Nine days between them on birthdays makes it easy to celebrate them together, however in our house with so many people wanting to have specific one-on-one time, we always try and celebrate each of them as individuals.

We have a few traditions here - on your birthday you get to pick your birthday meal, your cake, we get out your photo album and we tell them all about their birth story. Stew writes them a special poem, we talk about what time they were born, what happened the days following, and what they were like as a baby. And when it comes to these brothers they are so very different - Sam is sensitive, gentle and very focused on building projects, animals and design. Henry on the other hand gets very frustrated with building, is more vocal and has very specific and set ways on which he likes to play. In other words they disagree, argue, are very vocal on their opinions and often have lots of trouble playing together. Board games need adult supervision, they can't seem to agree on train track designs, Sam doesn't enjoy colouring, painting or dressing up as much, where Henry loves doing these things. Henry loves emergency vehicles, he tells us he wants to be a firefighter and a farmer when he grows up, Henry is an interesting mix of both Anna and Sam. As he heads into school Stew and I are very interested in learning how he will behave and what areas he will enjoy. We suspect activities around gross motor skills will be what he enjoys the most - he's very balanced on his bike, on the playground and with balls and bats.

They are an interesting mix these two, they get the benefit of a more experienced parent and a big sister paving the way as a positive role model (and where we learned from our mistakes!) - Happy Birthday number 4 and 6 guys, we love you!

our time in killbear

We have arrived home from another great camping trip. Anna has been away at Camp Quin-Mo-Lac, so this was a trip for me and the boys. We try and plan every summer to meet up with a few of my university roommates, they all love camping, and with our kids the same age it makes for a great group experience with lots of time for catching up and hearing about what everyone is up to. We stayed at a different group site this year - 1501, down by the rocks in the group camping area. With the fire ban, it made for some nice nights looking at the stars and playing with glow sticks.

We saw lots of wildlife on this trip - a huge highlight for everyone. Here is an American Toad, found one more on the rocks.

This is their reaction after it peed on Stew.

Lots of deer, I think we saw at least 10 or 12. Including a few fawns.

We rented a canoe and paddled around the tip of Killbear.

The park is so dry many of the leaves have fallen off the trees near the rocks. Here we found a gartner snake on our way into the woods from the point.

Lighthouse selfie!

The nature centre at Killbear is amazing. They have a snake talk daily with Charlie the Foxsnake, they show real displays of what campsites look like after bears with coolers and water jugs punctured with tooth marks and scratches. There had been no bear sightings the week we were there.

Here we are checking out a rock island with lots of seagulls, they were not happy with us!

Gosh, Henry looks so grown up to me in this picture. He got another haircut due to the heat, and it makes him look a lot older than 4.

Sam found a few of the nights hard, he was really missing Anna, in fact we all were. But as you can see below, she is back from QML - filled with funny stories, a rain soaked sleeping bag and a new camp sweatshirt and friendship bracelets. She is loving it there and we are hoping Sam might tag along next year with her.