backyard play

Stephen got some great photos of the kids last night outside that I had to share. Dav thinks he's really something now that he can get up the ladder of the climber and slide down himself. Gotta love those dimples.

Delaney's birthday part 1

I know I haven't put up photos of our trip yet but here's some photos from Delaney's birthday with Stephen's family last week. I bought her some "fancy" stuff like a crown that she decorated and feathery clips for her flip flops and she thought she was all that. :)
Davin had fun too - he got a toy car that he oohed and aahed over.

we're back

I've disappeared from the blog for a while, mostly because we took a trip to Europe for a Mediterranean cruise! LOVED it. We took over 2500 photos so once I've actually looked at all of them I'll post some of the best! :)

smiles

Stephen took these last night before baths. They're growing so fast! (sniff!)

weekend

We had a great time at Destiny and Alwyn's wedding this weekend - what a beautiful couple and a beautiful day! In between the wedding and reception we scooted out to the Sandbanks area for a bit of beach time. I'm looking forward to bringing the kids out there this summer - Davin is going to love it!

18 months

My baby boy turned 18 months yesterday. Here are a few photos of him during the day. He is such a delightful kid!

soccer!

Uncle Jeff took some great photos of Delaney tonight at soccer! Go purple team!

baby robin

I haven't been taking many photos of the baby robins because every time I approached the tree the mother would get so agitated that I felt bad about going near her nest. We've had an interesting time with these robins! One morning we were awakened to a whole bunch of robins making a huge commotion outside our window. It was a squirrel who was in the tree and I ran outside to shoo it away. I guess I can relate to this poor mother trying to protect her babies! Anyway, at one point we had 2 babies hatched and I'm not sure what tragedy befell one of them because we ended up with only one fat little robin in the nest and one egg never hatched. This one was so well fed that the mother could no longer fit in the nest and she just hopped around on the ground nervously guarding the area.

This morning we went out to play and I noticed she wasn't there and she didn't chirp at us to get away. We peeked into the nest and the fat baby is gone. I'm assuming it was big enough to fly away (let's hope!) All that's left is the one poor egg that never hatched.

busy week

Phew! What a busy week we had with all of Delaney's activities. She had dance class, dance recital dress rehearsal, her first soccer game and then the dance recital yesterday. She was so excited that she got to wear lipstick for the big show! :) Her class were dalmatians for their dance and afterwards she got lots of flowers from her two Grandmas and us. Most exciting though was going to Eva's birthday party after the recital (she's been talking about it all week). She had fun at her first soccer game and we're looking forward to watching many more games (I think her highlight is the freezies at half time :)

birthday, continued

We had a picnic Sunday to celebrate Stephen and Jen's birthdays. Delaney was excited to play at the park with her two favourite people, Uncle Bryan and Jen.

Stephen's birthday

It's hard to get a natural smile out of Delaney on camera these days so I'm loving this one of her and Stephen. We had a little party for him before his birthday because our weekend was so busy. Davin enjoyed his cake too. :)

nation's capital, tulip festival and senators victorious

Wow, what a day to visit Ottawa. The sun was shining, the tulips were blooming and the Senators won the series! This was Davin's first real trip to Parliament Hill and he was excited to run around on the grass. I love the feeling of this area in the spring and summer - there are people everywhere, taking pictures, having picnics, sitting in the sun.

Of course I love the story behind the tulip festival. The history of it is as follows:
"The Canadian Tulip Festival has grown into the largest Tulip Festival in the world from a gift of thanks given six decades ago. In the fall of 1945, Princess Juliana of the Netherlands presented Ottawa with 100,000 tulip bulbs. The gift was given in appreciation of the safe haven that members of Holland's exiled royal family received during the Second World War in Ottawa and in recognition of the role which Canadian troops played in the liberation of the Netherlands." While the Netherlands continues to send 20,000 bulbs to Canada each year, today sees nearly 3 million tulips purchased from Dutch and Canadian distributors.

While we were eating dinner at the Outback the hockey game was on and we knew Ottawa had just scored the winning goal because people started yelling! Cars outside were honking their horns, it was fun.

One baby bird

So far one little robin has hatched! Delaney was amazed to see that it was small and pink with only a few feathers!

favourite place

Today was our last day for this session of gymnastics. Delaney LOVED going each week and will really miss it.

thankful for the little things

Today when we were outside a robin swooshed out of one of the trees in our front garden when we walked by. I thought it seemed like a pretty sure sign that there was a nest in there. Sure enough we peeked through the branches and found this! It is low enough that Delaney can see it really well too. It's so amazing that this little bird can build such a sturdy structure, working piece by piece with blades of grass. The eggs are such a bright blue. We'll keep you posted on our little robins. :)

predictions?

The big finale for Amazing Race is this Sunday! I've really enjoyed this show this time around. I was sad to see Oswald and Danny go, and now I'm not sure who to cheer for. Definitely not Charla and Mirna (doesn't it bug you how they talk really loud in fake accents to taxi drivers all the time?) so I'm thinking out of the three left I like the beauty queens the best. They've played pretty smart I think. I'd like an all-girl team to win. I guess we'll see!

copycat

Apparently this is what I looked like as I was reading while sitting at the table. Davin climbed up and promptly copied me. :) It's so funny the things he notices us doing and tries to imitate. I keep finding the cardboard sleeves of Delaney's videotapes in the cupboard with the cardboard recycling. Apparently he has observed that this is where cardboard goes and he is a very earth friendly little boy.

Oh the joys

Oh the joys of having a big sister to do crazy things to you. Davin was in the midst of getting ready for bed when Delaney decided he should be decorated with her stickers. He thought it was quite hilarious... until we had to take them off. :)