Dancing, with interference

Day trip in Montreal

Amos, Carolyn, and the kids were going to be in Montreal for a few days, so we decided to take a day trip to see them. Our guys are getting better in the car, although Isaac needs alot of trains waved under his nose when he starts complaining.

We spent most of the visit in my mom's pool. G has suddenly become quite a fish, enjoying being in water as deep as she can get without actually having it touch her face. Once the inevitable splashing happens, she wrinkles up her nose and whines a bit.

Carolyn took a couple of spins with her in the water, as did Amos (sorry Am, no pics - again!).

Isaac has not yet developed a love of the watery stuff. Mark's gentle invitation to join him in the pool turned into cajoling which turned into grabbing him and forcing him in.

Awesome sweetness below.

The Robot Test

You could say he passed with flying colours (nyuck nyuck)...

And then there was Thomas...

Thank you Uncle Jimmy Jam for giving us this humongous tub of Thomas the Tank Engine stuff. We would likely never have bought it ourselves for the extortionist price the stores charge for it and our kids are now busy busy busy building tracks and making ever and ever longer trains. There are so many train cars and pieces of tracks that our kids can actually play together without resort to "sharing," which, let's face it, no one really likes to do anyways.

Monkey behind the wheel

Isaac is officially obsessed with vehicles. This isn't ours but he walked right up to it and let himself in on the driver's side, and started making "vroom vroom" sounds. At what point of his gestation inside me did this become one of his interests??

He's also become quite the character - very playful, making jokes, always laughing (when he's not screeching).

This is a true story

Here are my kids, colouring, side-by-side, on a beautiful summer afternoon. There is photographic proof thereof, so I'm not making it up. It's almost too perfect.

But wait - there's yet another picture below, taken all of 30 seconds later and they're *still* happy, not fighting, not shredding paper, not tearing at each other's hair, not throwing markers, no, none of that kind of childish behaviour. Just colouring. Happily.

And that's where this happy story ends. I stopped taking pictures moments before the robots hit the ground and the marker tug-of-war began.

Shopping

Always looking for a free ride...

Graduation day and the passing of a friend

Well, after a year of hard work slaving over puzzles and making crafts with macaroni and flower petals, Gabrielle can proudly declare herself a graduate of the Westboro Nursery School, the three morning a week school she has been attending since last September. It's been good for her, I think, as they actually have an interesting curriculum, covering everything from planets to bears to rainbows.

The graduation began with a small concert of songs they performed, accompanied by their music teacher, Shannon. It was funny to watch some of the kids' attention spans start to drift, particularly with so many strangers in the room. Most of the kids just stopped singing altogether, G included. No worries - Mark and I kept singing - those music classes we used to take with the kids have made us into real suckers for children's music.

After the concert was a snack reception. Strawberries and melons for the adults, popsicles for the kids. G is right in the middle of the table, sucking a lime green popsicle.

Then came the handing out of the "diplomas." Here are my adorable twins, waiting for G's name to be read out.

And finally the big moment. The teacher read out a few facts about each child, presumably based on some questions she'd asked them ahead of time. The final fact was: When Gabrielle grows up, she wants to be a .... (get ready for this).... (you're not going to believe this)......... ROCK STAR!! Wow - I couldn't believe it. All the other kids had said stuff like circus clown or astronaut. Our daughter wants to be a rock star?? We were never prouder parents...

The graduation also marked the death knell for our camera. During the ceremony, it stopped auto-focussing and the front and sides fell off. Our Canon has taken almost 10,000 photos and videos for us over the last 4 years - farewell old friend...

Elton John and Lady Gaga