Year end dance recital

Eleda loves her dance class.  They do a combination of ballet and tap, and her teacher is quite literally the sweetest lady you've ever met.  Eleda was rather outgoing in all her lessons, but I guess something about having a bunch of her family members and the other girls' family members there freaked her out and she suffered from a little bit of stage fright.

Here she is just before getting started telling me she didn't really want to.

Getting ready to begin, and there are no photos of the ensuing meltdown as I was consoling a very unhappy little girl.

One costume change (and possibly the promise of presents) later, my little ballerina takes the stage.

And a diva is born.

Getting a big hug and flowers from her daddy.

 Here she is with her teacher, Miss Liliane, and (if you ask Eleda) more importantly, her present.

Showing off the beautiful ballerina necklace from Grandma & Grandpa.

A day at the park & soccer

I remembered to bring my camera to the park on this particular day, and took a few cute shots of the kids.

Eleda really loved soccer this year.  Last year was a lot of crying over the kids not "sharing" the ball... but this year she really got in there and even scored a couple goals!

Poor Ashton so desperately wanted in on the action.

We sang If You're Happy and You Know It instead.

Splashing around

I've been away for a while but back with some photos of the kids enjoying the summer and fall :)

Go fly a kite

When we're bored or going a little stir-crazy, our favourite thing to do is to go for a drive.  We end up all kinds of places, but on this lovely May day we ended up in Port Stanley.  We spent some time walking along the beach, and after discovering that neither Alan or I had ever been to Mackie's, decided to go there for lunch.  It was a super windy day, so Alan had the great idea to get a kite.  We took it to the beach and everyone enjoyed it!

May 2-4

We had never taken the kids for fireworks before this weekend, because we inevitably the next day was a work/daycare day and we didn't want to deal with cranky, overtired kids.  But we didn't have to work the next day, so we packed up a blanket and some snacks, and headed to Thamesford for the Calithumpian fireworks display.  The kids had a GREAT time and now we know that they can totally enjoy fireworks.

Oh, and here's a little show our family likes to put on: