Declan has lost his first Tooth!

So, last week Declan was eating dinner and bit down on the fork and immediately started crying saying his loose tooth hurt. This is Daddy checking and telling him that it needs to come out - which took some convincing because unbeknownst to Mommy he had asked me awhile ago if it hurt when teeth come out and I had answered that "yes but only for a little bit". Apparently Daddy thought this was not a good answer to have given him.

This is after he finally agreed to have it pulled out.

This is the shock and pain of it coming out.

This is still the pain and disbelief that his father just yanked his tooth right out of his head.

This is less than a minute later feeling much better and looking foward to the 5 bucks the toothfairy was going to leave!

Gabe's 4th Birthday Party

It finally arrived for Gabe! He had been waiting and waiting and waiting for his birthday. I spent many weeks beforehand telling him "soon buddy". It was a party in the park and his girlfriend's front yard - Alex is 3 days younger and so her mom and I did a combo party because most their friends all live on our street. He had the time of his life! Here are a few photos:

This was their carriage ride to the park.
We played British Bulldog and many relay games which the kids loved doing!

Our barbeque Daddy cooked up some hotdogs for the kids.

Present opening was absolute mass chaos!

Gabe and Alex love playing dinosaurs so their cakes had grass and water and dirt and dinosaurs!!

The BEST part of the party was the pinata (this was a very hard word to say for Gabe and Declan for the entire week before the party - Mommy had to interpret it to many people for them!)

We had a surprise visit from Uncle Tim, Auntie Kim and Gracyn for the party.

Gabe took Alex for an ATV ride after all their guests left.

Lacrosse

Here are a couple pictures of Declan's latest sport - Lacrosse. He seems to be enjoying it and Raph is pretty hands on with him - making him practice everyday and helping to coach during the practices.

The colourful fish adorned on our fence!

Here are the fish that the kids painted. They are on the part of the fence that is close to where the pool gets set up for 5 weeks of the year. I am contemplating a trampoline to take up the space during the other 21 weeks. Perhaps that might help releasing some of Gabe's energy!

The BEST fieldtrip ... EVER!!

Gabe' preschool had a fieldtrip to the Allouette Fish Hatchery today. Faith and Declan had a Pro-D day so they were able to come long too. Gabe has been waiting weeks for this fieldtrip! First, they got to paint wooden fish in the shape of salmon. Faith's came out looking pretty close to the colours of a salmon, Declan's was close but he decided his salmon needed some blue too. Gabe's is very colourful. After painting they sat down with the guide and she told them the life cycle of the salmon.

We then went down to the tanks where they keep the salmon fry and the guide fed them so the kids could see them jumping up at the food. There were two rules: don't put your hands in the water and don't bang the tank and believe it or not Gabe did not break the rules!

Then we walked down to the river where they had a pick up truck with a tank of salmon fry and buckets waiting for the kids to release them into the river. This, of course, was the highlight of the trip!

The kids were told to release the salmon very slowly and close to the water. Declan took this quite literally and had the bucket in the river so that the salmon fry would swim out and then right back in again. It took him a good 10 minutes to finish his first bucket of fish!

Gabe did pretty good, only a few salmon received head injuries from hitting the rocks. I chose not to put his gum boots on as that would only be a licence to go further into the river - however, he was wet up to his knees by the time we left.

We hung their painted wooden fish on our fence in the backyard and they are already looking forward to next year!

Pictures at Allouette Lake

I'm not sure but I think she was trying to catch a fish with her bare hands.

Aftering being told "Gabriel for the tenth time stay out of the water!", he found himself a puddle of clay.

It took two trips down to the lake before Declan figured out to stack smaller rocks so that he could finally conquer the biggest rock on the beach.

This is Gabe and Alex in the water. If you look close enough you can see the water is above his boots.

This is Gabe after being told many, many times to stay out of the water.

Maggie swimming for the first time.

Kate French

This is Katykinz. She is the baby of our group of friends (Keith and Roberta's daughter) but make no mistake ... she can easily keep up with the rest of the kids! Hopefully Roberta doesn't mind that I put her on our blog - but is she not the cutest?