Atticus 6th Birthday Photoshoot

This boy has personality. I love his smile, his faces, his desire to help, his love for making things in the kitchen, his love for reading and, really, just everything about him. Despite his fluctuating feelings sometimes that he knows "sooooo much already" he has such a curiosity to learn about the world around him. I love getting to be his teacher. 

I love getting to photograph each of my kids on their birthday and getting that one-on-one time with them. That time with Atticus is always lovely. And it is particularly fun seeing that he is so interested in how the camera works. He wanted to be taking the photos! 

As I was uploading these pictures I quickly realized that the last signs of toddlerhood are very quickly fading away from Atticus. Seeing that Atticus is our oldest, he is the one that we learn many parenting things from first (though the different personality traits of our children provide their own parenting lessons as well) and one of the greatest lessons that I have learned is that I love the journey and every stage for so many different reasons. Being a parent is exciting and awesome. It's also a lot of hard work and often tiring. But Atticus, Milayla and Phineas show as every day just how great this journey is. 

I will write more about his birthday and the great day that we had soon. But for now, here are the birthday photos of this dynamic, smart, thoughtful, helpful, spiritual, hardworking, loveable little boy who is now 6 years old! 

Happy birthday, Atticus!!!! We love you so much!

Father's Day 2015

This guy is loved around here. Like huge, crazy loved. Or as Milayla would put it, "Daddy is love-ed" (emphasis on the second syllable like she is singing it and it is absolutely adorable). 

The kids put their handprints on a tie for Jason before we moved because I had a feeling it was going to take a while to find our bearings after the move (which was accurate) and then made some cards and a banner for him in the days leading up to Father's Day. 

We kicked off the day with cards, the new tie (which was awesome!), and waffles. Waffles are always a favorite around here. 

And then the kids showered this guy in love all day. Literally. All. Day. Actually, I'm not sure that is much different than any other day, but perhaps he got more hugs this day.

Happy Father's Day, Jason. We love you so much. Thanks for all the hard work you put in to being a husband and father. And thanks for your seemingly endless patience. You're awesome. 

And to those great dads/grand dads of ours - HAPPY FATHER'S DAY. We love you and thank you for all the work and love you put in to being fathers!

Mommy's Birthday! (by Jason)

Since Jason and the kiddos were the masterminds behind my birthday celebration, I thought it was fitting that Jason should be the one to write up the post for it. He gladly obliged. It was a lovely day. The kids asked what I would like for my birthday and I really just wanted to spend it with them. They definitely delivered. I've already thanked them each repetitively but for the sake of recording... thank you, again, Jason, Atticus, Milayla and Phineas for a lovely birthday celebration. It was perfect. Loved getting to go for a nice bike ride in nature and I LOVED getting to spend the day with my family.

Enjoy the post!

----------------------------------------------------------------

Happy, happy birthday, Mommy dear! 

Happy days will come to you all year. 

If we had a wish that it would be, 

A happy, happy birthday to you from me (us)!

What a perfect day it was, indeed, to wish Laura a wonderful birthday.  The morning was crisp and bright, with the promise of warmth on the rise.  The kids, particularly Phin - who conveniently happened to wake up an hour early - were a big help as we made Laura crepes a la sarrasin with scrambled eggs and Hollandaise sauce, and coloured a birthday banner. It was a very special breakfast for a very special lady. Positively delissio! Perhaps a bit on the heavy side, but that really didn't matter considering what was planned for the rest of the day.

Once breakfast was cleaned up and everyone was dressed, we piled into the car and headed eastward towards the small city of Granby, which is located just southwest of the Yamaska National Park. We were a little delayed getting there as there appears to have been an accident on the Champlain bridge just before we reached it (big surprise). Fortunately, we were able to turn around a take another bridge, which, I have no doubt, saved us a ton of time in the long run. Still, the kids weren't at all the bored as Laura read to them out of their acclaimed Chronicles of Narnia, which they thought was quite the treat in and of itself.

After we arrived in Granby, we rented a bike and trailer from local shop. Together with our own bike and kid seat we were fully equipped to go on a nice, long bike ride through the national park.  It took a bit to get everything set up with the bikes, including having to put one of the crank arms back on our bike after it fell off! What fun! Anyhow, when all was said and done, the kids were buckled in and we were happy as clams riding the trails and enjoying the breeze and sunshine. The kids were ecstatic, particularly Phineas who had never been on a long bike ride, though it didn't stop him from having a sizeable nap in the trailer.  It was a positively gorgeous day and the scenery was beautiful. 

It was several kilometers of paved pathway from Granby to get to the national park, but once there the trails turned to gravel.  Before getting in too deep, we getting in too deep, we stopped for lunch at a beach that was fully equipped with playgrounds, bathrooms and cafe.  Considering how busy the morning had been, it was a good pit stop for everyone.

The remainder of our ride was beautiful, albeit quite a workout in some areas.  Let's just say that the trail was not in the least bit flat.  The down parts were much more enjoyable than the up parts, especially considering that our three kiddos refuse to stop growing no matter how much we try to persuade them :)

All in all, we biked approximately 40km.  Not bad at all, if we do say so! We were pretty knackered by the time we got back to the car, and everyone was happy to sit in their somewhat more comfortable seats for the journey home. It felt pretty good to have spent so much time in the saddle. We sorely miss biking so much. It was a good trip.

The day was hardly over, though. After we arrived home, dinner was served. Laura had requested Greek salad and classic mashed potatoes with angle food cake, lemon curd and fresh strawberries for dessert.  Nobody walked away from that table hungry!

After that, Mommy got to open her presents, which consisted of some special kid-made birthday cards, a tripod for her camera, and a photography reflector. 

We are so fortunate and blessed to have such an amazing woman in our home. Laura is a hardworking and dedicated mom, who makes sure each person in our family knows how much they are loved by how she spends her time with them. She is constantly working to better herself, and is an incredible example of determination, perseverance, creativity and love.

Thank you for being all that you are, Mommy. We love you! Hope you had a great day.  

Moving Day

We moved last Friday.

Because we were moving within the same city (sort of..), once we had the address of our new home we could have switched over to our new congregation as well. Milayla was quite insistent that we stay until her birthday Sunday and I thought that was something that we could certainly do. She was so excited to finally be the one to get to go up. And I was looking forward to one last week getting to do the music in primary and saying goodbye to all those sweet primary children (though, I will see plenty of them from time to time I am sure). Unfortunately, I woke up sick. I had been fighting it most of the week as we were in the midst of all the moving hoopla but the time had come for me to finally get some rest. Jason took veto power and sent me to bed. Which meant I had to put him in charge of getting some pictures for me. The pictures are a tad out of focus as they were taken on the iphone but you still get to see the kids wonderful teachers, Milayla up front for her birthday, and some of the wonderful primary (not everyone was there that day, and some had already headed home when Jason took the picture). It was a great ward for us to be in. We felt so welcome and loved being able to help out. And we were even surprised with some lovely cards that everyone had signed. Which was great as the kids had also made cards to give. We will definitely miss being there!

When the day of our move finally came, we hit a lull in the morning where we couldn't do much of anything else until we picked up the truck later that day. We had kicked things off with breakfast on the floor in the kitchen at the kids little table.

So we decided to take the kids on a surprise outing and make it a Montreal morning. We hopped on the metro, which would have been a treat/surprise enough for the kids - they LOVE the metro - and headed down to the musical swings. I loved how the kids held on to their hats while we waited on the platform for the metro; they were worried that their hats might blow away when the train came barreling down the track.

Jason and I had been to the musical swings on a date night and when we told the kids about it they were so interested. They are these swings that light up and play music when you swing. If you swing at the same time as the people beside you it plays a song. The notes are all on string instruments and each swing is a dedicated instrument (I remember there was a harp and guitar but I don't remember the third one). It was a hit. The kids loved it. And we could have stopped the morning there. Phineas was quite content with the nap that he got in the stroller. But we had more planned seeing that we needed to get lunch anyhow.

The shadows of the children on the grate beneath them are so interesting to me in this picture. It looks like smaller versions of themselves. Light and all of the facets of light/darkness are so interesting.

From there we walked down to china town with the kids. They picked out some learning chopsticks (they have been wanting to learn to eat with chopsticks for a while) and then we got some stuffed steamed buns and bubble tea for lunch. I don't know why I didn't think to grab a picture in china town. The kids loved it. And Milayla is already working at mastering those chop sticks. We also came across some giant chess pieces.

We took our lunch to Place des Arts to check out a musical fountain thing they had going on. The kids happily soaked themselves in the water, and it was so warm out that it didn't take long for them to dry off. Jason and Phineas conducted a water orchestra and Phineas was so excited, giggly, happy and enthusiastic about it. He loves to wave his hand around to conduct when he hears music. It probably has something to do with all those Sunday's that he sat on Sister Kaufman's lap while I conducted the music in primary. He loves music.

It was a great Montreal morning. While this city can be a little busy and stressful at times, there are so many neat things to do and see. I like it a little bit more every time that we go exploring and find another neat treasure. The morning was just what we needed to brace us for the move ahead.

We started later than we had hoped for moving as, despite having had people saying they were coming, it was just Jason and I loading the truck. In the end we did have some people help but it took some time to figure out just how to make it all fit. In the end it didn't all fit and we had to put a few things (like our winter tires) into our neighbours garage to get another day. The unloading bit was the quickest I have ever seen it happen. I don't think it took any longer than an hour for them to get it all in. That's including removing our doors and figuring out how to get our fridge into our back door since it wouldn't fit in the front. By the time the whole thing was done it was late so we put mattresses on the floor and got everyone to bed. We were all very tired. I think it was somewhat reminiscent of our crazy move TO Montreal in terms on tiredness. But we did it! I seriously don't know what we would have done without all the help. It was awesome. Now it's on to figuring out where everything is actually going to go and how much more we can pass along that we don't actually need. Lots of work ahead, but feeling pretty positive about it all.