the shirt says it all

"So happy to be me"

I love this shirt, it suits Leah's personality to a tee (ha!).  Leah very much enjoys life.  Which these days consists of choosing her outfits and accessorizing to the max.  Here are a few of her more recent outfits which include her many necklaces, bracelets, hair accessories, sunglasses and her new favourite shoes with plenty of bling. 

The kids asked me if the shoes had real diamonds...when I told them yes their eyes almost popped out of their heads.  Obviously I've done a bang-up job of accurately portraying our financial standing to my children, they think we can afford to put real diamonds the size of a baby's fist on Leah's shoes.  ha ha ha.  Once I told them the value of the much smaller diamond on my engagement ring they got the joke!

Leah with her best buddy Keira

even fashion divas need to take a nap every now and then

Family Day weekend...art and chocolate!

Family Day weekend really was a great family weekend for us because Jeff had almost caught up on schoolwork which meant lots of family time together.  We started out with sledding and chocolate fondue on Saturday.  Sunday after church we had lunch together then split up for a few hours.  Kyle was invited to join some of his friends from school at his buddy's house for snowball fights and video games (10 year old boy heaven!).  Jeff and I headed to McMichael gallery with the girls to look around, listen to a piano concert, play in the play area (which we had all to ourselves) and do some art projects.  The chocolate fondue had been such a big hit the day before so I continued our chocolate theme with another chocolate dessert...chocolate ice cream topped with chocolate cupcake chunks, chocolate chips and chocolate sauce...you can never have too much chocolate. 

Monday we headed downtown to yet another art gallery, the AGO.  The girls were all on board about 2 art galleries in a row while Kyle was happy to have been able to skip out on one of them for some friend time the day before.  The AGO had been converted to KGO (Kids Gallery of Ontario) in celebration of Family Day.  Art projects galore, music and a dance party.  But the highlight for my children was the spiral staircase.  We had seen it several times and Kyle was dying to climb to the top.  We had said "next time" a few times and it was closed for renovations on our last visit.  This was our chance.  We went up, checked out the view and went back down.  From looking at it I had thought it was shorter that it was, I felt like we were going upstairs forever.  Of course my lower than normal exercise level these days coupled with wearing high heeled boots likely affected my perception of how far we climbed.

a blank canvas for my artiste

I love how involved Leah gets into her artwork

After the AGO we decided to take a short walk downtown to the Eaton Centre for some food.  This is when I realized my kids are definately not downtown kids.  They weren't a fan of the smells..."yuck, what's that smell?" was heard more than once while walking down the street.  Kyle didn't like the large number of people and sounds.  And they wondered where the parking lots were for the Tim Horton's.  While we do enjoy a daytrip downtown we are suburbanites for sure.  Once we stepped into the mall Kyle let out an audible sigh as he commented it now felt like he was somewhere normal.  I'm trying to decide if it's funny, sad, or cute that being inside a mall provides a cocoon of familiarity for my children.  Let's go with funny and cute!

That night we rounded out the chocolate weekend with super chocolate-y milkshakes...a yummy end to a fun weekend.

finally, winter arrived

We woke up to a beautiful winter wonderland this weekend.  I feel like we've hardly had a winter at all this year, especially when I realize we've done very little winter fun things like skating and toboganning.  This snow was too good to resist so out we went with sleds in the back of the van.  The kids had so much fun coming down the hill.  And the most amazing part to me was all 3 kids being able to walk up the hill by themselves...no more baby to pull up the hill, hooray!

No winter outing for our family is complete until the kids have had hot chocolate.  Today I added an extra treat...we had chocolate fondue as well.  You can never have too much chocolate is my motto.  This was super easy to make and the kids loved it.  I melted 1 cup of chocolate chips with 1 tbsp of butter in the microwave until smooth.  Then added 1/4 cup whipping cream to keep it from hardening.  This made for a perfect chocolate dipping sauce.

may the force be with you

Star Wars has been a favourite around our house lately.  When Kyle wanted to give the series to Jeff for Christmas I figured it would be something the 2 of them would enjoy.  Instead it has been a family event to watch the movies.  I've been surprised how interested the girls have been, Jillian in particular.  So it's no surprise when they came across some wrapping paper tubes left over from the holidays, they quickly went into use as lightsabers.  All they needed was a little glue, tissue paper and construction paper.

What do you get when you mix Star Wars and Jillian? 

The first pink lightsaber of course!

My own little princess Leah

And my Jedi knight

The story unfolds...first it's sister agains sister as Princess Leah fights the pink Jedi...

Then the pink Jedi meets her match against a powerful Jedi knight...

And finally, Princess Leah steps in to bring peace to our kingdom.  Once the fighting stopped we were able to sit down and enjoy the first half of the Return of the Jedi.  The kids love the Ewoks!

when I grow up...

This afternoon Leah said to me "When I grow up I want to be a mommy so I can fix things".  It's nice to know I'm not just seen as the person who does meals and laundry.

And what prompted this lovely comment from my daughter?  What made her think Mommies can fix anything?  I replaced the batteries in her Leapster Explorer :-)

Locks of Love

Before

After - all smiles with her new hairstyle!

Today Jillian reached a goal she has been working towards for more than 2 years...she donated her hair to Locks of Love.  In kindergarden Jillian heard about donating hair from her good friend and came home from school insisting she wanted to do it as well.  I looked into the Locks of Love program and told her a bit more about how it works.  I explained she would be growing her hair for a few years to get it long enough, and she was still on board.  And so the growing began. 

Here she is at age 2 and 3.  I waited a very long time before Jillian had enough hair for fun accessories but once I was able to get these little ponies on top of her head they were in her hair all the time.  Then it really started to come and Jillian had the most amazing ringlets that I just loved.  Of course some days were better than others...

one of my favourite pictures of Jillian...when good curls go bad...

ages 4 and 5...the hair is getting longer

I'm so proud of her for wanting to do this and sticking with it for so long.  She's loving the shorter hair do and says she wants to keep it this length for now, she's not planning to grow it out again anytime soon.

Leah got a haircut as well

my girls!

The trip to the hairdresser was only part of our busy day.  It was a PA day so no school for the kids.  We started out with Leah's regular Friday morning gymnastics class.  Then to the dentist where all 3 kids had cleanings.  Kyle needed to have 2 teeth pulled...his grown up molars are coming in while the baby ones are still intact which means they are growing out sideways (not good).  We had 2 pulled today, we'll go back in a few weeks to get another 2 pulled.  He wasn't a fan of the freezing needle (who is?), but he did great.  He made a deal with the tooth fairy to get a new book instead of some money under his pillow.

After the dentist it was over to the school where Leah will start kindergarden in the fall.  Registration started today so we dropped off Leah's forms and she is now all set for September.  Jillian was absolutely thrilled to see her former K teacher while we were there (seriously, she held onto her the whole time we were chatting).  She is a lovely teacher, I'm hoping Leah will have her as well.  It was great to catch up with her and be able to have Leah meet her and see the classroom.

The rest of the day was hairdresser, out for lunch, Chapters to pick up a new book for Kyle, fancy jewelled hairband for Jillian and preschool workbook for Leah.  I also found a nice lapdesk for myself on clearance for when I'm sitting on the couch with my laptop (can't resist 85% off).  And our final stop was the post office to mail Jillian's hair.  Overall a very productive day.  The kids are ending it with a movie night on the couch, watching Star Wars episode IV with Jeff.