highs and lows for today...

First the lows (which really aren't terribly low at all)
* it was COLD at the playground today with the kids after dinner (but still nice to get them outside)
* my headache
* Cityline is coming tomorrow afternoon to film a segment at my house about the great green challenge (to air in April) and my mainfloor is still a disaster

I was white...you can see Kyle can hardly contain his glee once he got me down to my king and nothing else!

Now the highs!
* listening to Jillian read her french book with such enthusiasm (I love listening to my kids speak french)
* playing chess with Kyle tonight (he took me down...badly...that's what I get for having a 10 year old in the chess club)
* and I saved the best for last, my conversation with Leah at bedtime

"good-night Leah, I love you"
"I love you too mommy" slight pause "like...you are in my heart"
(that little girl melts my heart like nothing else in this world)

our TV debut!

Participating in the Great Green Challenge has some perks, like being on live tv.  This morning (at the very early hour of 5:45am) a tv crew and host arrived at our house to film a few live segments for CP24 breakfast news.  The kids did amazing on camera and we all had a lot of fun.  I was a nervous wreck on the air but managed to get the messages out I wanted to share, along with the key messages from Whirlpool.  The cameraman (Ken) and host (Jamie) were both really nice and easy to chat with in between segments.  We did 4 segments...family introduction, making green lunches with reusable containers, doing laundry with my new energy efficient washing machine and using my double oven to make muffins with Leah.

making our green lunches on camera

 hanging out with the host Jamie in between taping segments

 a few screen captures

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

May your blessings outnumber the shamrocks that grow and may trouble avoid you wherever you go!

my little leprechaun in a t-shirt that combines 2 of my loves...Disney and all things Irish!

on the menu tonight in our house

ETA pictures from dinner...the rainbow fruit (along with marshmallow clouds) was a hit, so were the pancakes but I was disappointed they weren't very green.  The smoothies were also good, although Kyle did say they don't compare to McD's shamrock shakes (I'll actually take that as a compliment since mine are healthy!)

Centre des Sciences de Montreal

We have a membership to the Ontario Science Centre here in Toronto which my kids all love.  And as a bonus the membership is good at 300 other science centres across North America including the one in Montreal.


While there we had fun experimenting with...

bubbles

weights

"you want me to lift how much weight?"

balance

sound

this was pretty cool...the girls were standing at one end with me while Kyle was down at the far end (can you see him waaaay down there?)...they were speaking to each other in normal voice and could clearly hear each other!

mirrors

light and colour

generating electricity with water

Vieux Montreal

After leaving the science centre I thought it would be nice to take a walk around Old Montreal since we were downtown already.  We got as far as across the street and stayed only long enough to take this picture.  Immediately afterwards the whining started.  I decided it just wouldn't be enjoyable pushing 2 kids in the stroller and listening to the older 2 whine.  Note to self, next time I'm in Montreal take a trip downtown all by myself to actually enjoy walking around the old part of the city.

March Break in Montreal

We had a fantastic time in Montreal visiting my sister.  The kids adore spending time with their cousin. Alicia is the sweetest baby, she has such an easy going nature and wakes up with a big smile on her face every morning.  I do think she enjoyed having 3 fun playmates around, especially since she is in that ever so fun stage of throwing things on the floor just to watch you pick them up (it may be my sister who enjoyed having my kids around the most since they were happy to continually pick up Alicia's toys for her!).

Besides hanging out in the condo we also went swimming with Sam and Alicia, took Alicia to the science centre, played at the park and had an oh-so-very-brief walk around Old Montreal.

Alicia enjoyed playing with the duplo lego that was a birthday gift from Kyle, Jillian & Leah

my sister isn't exactly into technology the way we are in our house, but it shouldn't be too hard for us to get Alicia onboard with all the latest tech toys since she has 3 tech-savvy older cousins

I love that Leah gets the experience of having a little cousin since she is the baby in our house and doesn't get to be a big sister.  Feeding Alicia is a favourite activity of both Leah and Jillian.

on the move!

Thanks Aunt Chris for the fun visit!

(and what you can't see in this picture is the ever so slight baby bump on my sister...that's right, Alicia will be a big sister later this year!)

Great Green Challenge!

Have you ever won anything?  I don't usually but recently I was chosen out of hundreds of applicants to be part of Whirlpool's Great Green Challenge!  This means over the next 6 weeks I'll be blogging for Whirlpool on their website...www.greatgreenchallenge.ca.  I'll be writing about the changes our family is making to be greener and make a smaller environmental footprint.  I love the idea of this challenge, I think every family should make an effort to make some changes, no matter how small.  If every family can be just a bit greener (or a lot greener) it can have an impact on our environment.  I know there are other factors, big companies need to make changes too, governments need to make changes...the list goes on and on.  But all of that doesn't change the fact that we can have an impact with one household.  Also, I like the idea of showing my kids I want to make a difference and doing this means more than just talking about it, it means actually doing.

Oh yeah, and I also got 5 awesome new appliances out of the deal!!  I'm loving the new appliances, the fridge is my favourite though because it's big and I never run out of room.  The double oven is a close second because I love the smaller oven on top, and I've even used both at the same time, so cool.

Time change? What time change?

My kids are always quick at adjusting to the time change.  This year was no different.  Kyle who is normally up at 6:30am was up at 6:00.  The girls weren't too far behind at 6:26 am.  Even Alicia got into the early morning action and was ready to play.  She is loving having 3 playmates ready to play at all times.

Everyone is having fun together.  But to do think the grownups will be needing a nap (since we were up until the early hours chatting!).

my 3 sweet girls!