French and Spa Night

Riley once again has shocked us with what she is learning at school...she is able to sing Head and Shoulders in french...it's amazing. She learns french at her Montessori school and is able to say a few words in french. Daddy and Nee Nee also read to her in french at home. If I knew how to download video on her I would post her song for you...I wil try to figure it out...in my spare time:)

Riley and I decided that we were going to have a girls spa night, we had a hot bath, comb hair, cut nails and painted toe nails. I painted Riley's red and she painted mine purple.....the result....

I have until Monday's swimming lessons to try to remove all of the nail polish....wish me luck:)

Easter Part Two

After our Easter Brunch and Memere's 80th birthday celebration we headed to Torono to Jason's grandparents house for another party. The kids had not napped at all yet so we hoped that they would nap in the car....that didn't work out as planned... Riley missed her nap altogether and Simon fell asleep in my arms about 20 minutes before dinner was served. It was a nice visit with everyone, especially with G.G. 2 as he is recovering from an operation.

The kids love Jason's cousins Sara and Melissa and find many excuses to be close to them...this time it was for reading.




Riley and Simon received an Easter treat from Grandma and Grandpa which they called "Tower of Power."

Easter or Christmas????

Happy Easter! We have been having a great morning and it's only 8:00a.m. The Easter bunny found us at Nee Nee's house and it looked a lot like Christmas. The kids followed their Easter trails through the house and found gifts along the way. They found books, skipping ropes, kites, Dora's twins, dinosaurs and ocean animals and lots of chocolates. Nee Nee Easter bunny struck as well with some more chocolate and some summer clothes. We are off to brunch for Memere's 80th birthday and then to Toronto to see Jason's family at G.G. and G.G.2's house.

Egg hunt at the farm

Today Riley, Simon, Nee Nee and I headed out to a farm in Niagara Falls for an Easter Adventure. Jason was in Toronto for a volleyball tournament. It was a great place for the kids, there was a petting zoo with sheep, goats, chicks, lhama, bunnies and a donkey. The kids were able to feed the animals and pet them. There was Easter Egg decorating, pony rides and a horse drawn sleigh ride. The morning at the farm ended with an Easter egg hunt and TONS of candy.


Riley fed the lhama.

Egg painting...or should I say coat painting.


Riding the pony.

4 day old chick

Happy 80th Birthday Memere!!!

Sunday is Amanda's grandma's 80th birthday...the kids call her Memere. When we are down in Welland we try to spend as much time as possible with Memere and Pepere...it is so cool that the kids have 2 set of great grandparents. They love to be with them and love all the treats they get when we visit especially the 'pink milk.'

Butterfly Conservatory

Riley, Simon, Jason, Nee Nee and I headed out today for a wonderful day at the Butterfly Conservatory in Niagara Falls. When we first arrived both kids squealed and were so excited until the butterflies started landing on us a flying right by....Simon kept saying "touch it, please" then he would get close and say "oh oh, I'm scared." Riley loved it too but was unsure about having a butterfly land on her. There was some water dripping from the ceiling and Riley was convinced that the butterflies were peeing on her.




The hit of the Conservatory was the gift shop:) Riley was trying on all of the sunglasses and had daddy hook, line and sinker....she only has 5 or 6 pairs already.




After the butterflies we were tacky Niagara tourists and had lunch at the Flying Sauser. Riley ate her lunch with....her sunglasses on, and is having her nap with them right now.

Priceless

One of the many things that Jason and I have learned since having kids is we will never get these years back...our time with them is priceless. There is no amount of money, no job, or no material objects that could take the place of our time together. Yes, we know that if I worked full time we could go on fancier vacations, get the hot tub etc... but we have the rest of our lives to acquire stuff...and that's all it is stuff. I feel like one of the richest persons in the world...I eat breakfast with my kids everyday, I eat dinner with my kids everyday, I go to every appointment, every activity. We are both so thankful for our careers because of the time it allows us to do be a family, to be together. Here is just one of those priceless moments from today...

Bunny Photos

Every Easter we take the kids to go and get their pictures taken with real bunnies. Here is our favourite shot.


You can see by their faces that they were VERY excited...Simon thought those big ears were handles...too funny. Squeals could be heard for miles:)

The good news is this year Simon never tried to eat any poop..in fact there was no bunny poop to be found...success!

"When's Pat coming over?"

Happy St. Patricks Day!!! We had our own little in house party complete with beer, green milk, Irish stew and some cool hats. Riley still wants to know "When is Pat coming over for his party?" She is too cute!

Last day of gymnastics

Today was the kids last day of gymnastics...and the last session for us...for now anyway. Riley has decided that she wants to try dance lessons instead so we have registered the kids for different spring activities. They were both very proud of their certificates and they each gave a rousing "TA DA" when presented.


Simon wasn't into showing his off :)

It wasn't a hot and sunny beach but.....

Well, March Break wasn't spent some place tropical but we had a great time and sure kept busy. After our time away at Nee Nee's and our night in Niagara Falls we headed to Toronto to visit with Jason's Grandparents....the kids call G.G. and G.G. 2 for a little visit and lunch.



The next day we headed off to Horseshoe Valley to take Riley skiing. We live less then 10 minutes from the resort. We headed straight for the magic carpet where I was quickly told "I don't need any help" and she was right. She walked with her skis onto the carpet and got on with no problems. Once we got to the top of the hill she informed me "it's ok to hold my hand" and off we went. We skiied down this way a few times then she became much braver and wanted to do it by herself...once again she did and was great. We are so impressed with her and she loved it...she would have stayed all day if we let her. Simon came with us as well and rode the magic carpet in his boots and walked down the side of hill. He was with Jason for the first part of the morning and was brain washed.....all he kept saying was "I snowboard."






After the action of skiing in the morning, it was mommy's night out:) I got to go see Bon Jovi again thanks to my good friends Kara and Paul. We had a great night out together swooning over Jon.

That takes us to Thursday when we went swimming at a new recreation complex in Barrie. It was us and the rest of the city of Barrie in the pool...it was so busy. On Friday we spent the day outside going for walks and building a snowman.




Saturday we all headed down to Toronto to watch Jason play in a volleyball tournament. It was so cute to hear the kids yelling 'Go, Daddy, Go!" they are his biggest fans.

We had a great week together and are sad that it went by so fast. Riley is very anxious to get back to school, she asked us daily "you remember I go to school, right?" Some of us are not quite as excited to get back at it.....only 35 more days for Amanda until summer vacation...not that we're counting:)

Simon The Great

We are both blown away daily with the amount Simon knows already, he is 20 months old and a small genius:) Let me tell you a little bit about what he says and can do....he is able to sing some songs like head and shoulders, Jingle Bells, Twinkle Twinkle and the Alphabet. He can recognize about 20 letters of the alphabet, he knows his colours and can count to 10. Oh boy, am I a teacher or what!!!!! He is talking in small sentences of 5 plus words....some of our favourite things he says are.... "oh, oh bear coming to bite you, OUCH," "Mommy, I so happy to see you," "May I be excused please" and "Where's my Riley, I love her." We are so proud of him and all of the things he can do.

A night away, swimming, birds, Rainforest Cafe and Sushi Style!!!

Riley, Simon and myself joined our good friends Nancy, Parker and Owen for a night away in Niagara Falls. We had a really nice suite at the Radisson Fallsview Hotel where we spent the evening swimming, jumping and playing chase and hide.




The pool was freezing cold...by our standards anyway so...we swam in the bathtub instead.


Good old tub jumping and hall running.






In the morning Jason joined us and we all headed out to Birds of the Lost Kingdom. The kids loved it running around and looking at all the birds. All we heard form Simon was "look it, look it, look it a bird"...so cute.




All of us had a chance to feed the birds, touch lizards and turtles and Parker even held a HUGE Python.





After the birds we walked up to the Rain forest Cafe for lunch. It was a great night away and all of the kids were super well behaved.



After all that excitment and a long nap Nee, Papa and us headed off for some sushi....or as Riley says...sushi style. Riley loved all the sushi.