Niece's Graduation!

Our niece, Sarah, just graduated from Grade 8 at her school. She won a music award and had a great time at her grad. We're so proud of her and we really were sad not to be able to be there to celebrate in person.

Here's a few pics from the big day.

Sarah in her beautiful dress before the ceremony and party.

Sarah and her sister, Amanda, before the ceremony.

Amanda and her boyfriend, Andrew, goofing around with Chris' sister, Karen.

School Pictures

We didn't get a chance to get a Fall portrait of Alex from his last school before our move and his new school doesn't do Spring portraits, so we arranged for the picture on our own.

Here's Alex's Spring photo of him in Senior Kindergarten - it was taken very close to his sixth birthday too.

Water Day at School

ex's school organized a fun water day for the Kindergarten kids. Alex and his friends had an amazing time and Chris was able to go at the last minute as he had a meeting cancelled, so he was able to go watch the fun and help out a bit.

Family Get Together

My sister Kathy is celebrating her 50th birthday soon, so we decided to have a surprise party for her. We had a bit of a mix up when we scheduled it and we found out a week before the party that Sarah (my niece) was going to be away that weekend so it was decided to not have a birthday party. As we still had a bunch of family invited, we decided to go ahead with the party and just have a fun afternoon.

Chris was already in Burlington on business, so Alex and I took the train to Toronto and Kathy and Sarah picked us up. Sarah stayed home from school that day so we could see her before she left for her camping weekend. The kids had so much fun together and May (Jenny's nanny) took the kids to the park that evening and they had an amazing time.

On the day of the party, Grandpa and Aunt Mary took Kian and Alex to the Science Museum for the morning so we could focus on getting things organized for the party.

The party itself was tons of fun and it was so wonderful to see cousins and our Aunt Julie. We were sorry a few people couldn't make it but overall the day was really fun with lots of good food and laughter.

Here's a few pictures from the kids trip to the museum and also one from the party with Alex in a HUGE swing Jenny has at her place.

Birthday Party at Midway!

For Alex's sixth birthday, we arranged to have his party at a place called the Midway Family Fun Park. We had originally planned something else for the party but had to change our plans, so I had to scramble a bit to find another place that had space on relatively short notice.

We were absolutely thrilled with the party at Midway. We had eight kids there and they all had so much fun. The party was really well organized by our own personal "party pro" and everything went like clockwork. The kids got to play in an indoor climbing/sliding/running gym with multiple levels before going outside to slide down a HUGE inflatable slide. They then took a short train ride, got to ride in some cool and fun bumper boats and then rode some ATVs.

After that, they went inside for pizza, hot dogs or pogos and then had cake, opened presents and then got to play in the arcade before being picked up by their parents. It was so much fun to see them all having such a great time and all of the kids were so well behaved and listened really well. I would highly recommend this place to anyone looking for a fun place for kids this age.

I'm trying out a different way to post pics from the birthday party. Please let me know if it doesn't work for you.

 

Birthday Fun

Alex turned six today! Where has the time gone? It's hard to believe that he's already six and about to graduate from Senior Kindergarten.

For Alex's birthday, we had tons of fun. The Kindergarten classes had a special day planned with a fashion show. Kids could pick anything they wanted to wear - costumes, favourite outfits, sports uniforms, PJs, cultural outfits, etc. Alex picked his new soccer uniform (as did a couple of other kids) and he looked absolutely adorable.

The teachers and volunteers did a great job organizing it and the kids all looked so adorable. The parents could then go back to the class to hang out a bit while the kids had their snacks (Alex had brought small cupcakes to share with the class for his birthday). Once that was done, he came home with me and we went to meet Chris for lunch.

Alex picked Lone Star Texas Grill for his birthday lunch, so off we went to feast on fajitas, nachos and salsa. The waiters came over and sang a VERY LOUD song for Alex's birthday and had him wear a very cute and very BIG hat. He also got to play with some of the dough they use to make the tortillas, so it was a fun time.

After Chris finished work, we had reservations for a nice dinner out with Alex for his birthday. We had a party planned for him that weekend, but we'd told him he could pick the place he wanted to go for dinner on his actual birthday, so of course he picked a pretty darned expensive Italian place near us. It was a very yummy dinner and well worth the splurge as it's always great food. It's not the fanciest looking place but the service is great and the food is very good.

Trip to Emergency

Alex made a recent trip to the Emergency Department at the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario. He'd woken up that morning and threw up once and just felt really crappy. Normally, Alex can have a high fever or be really sick, but he's still happy and laughing and eating well.

Not this time.

He didn't want to eat anything and only drank small sips of water and complained that his stomach really hurt. Then the fever hit. He mostly just laid on the couch and slept for most of the day - something he'd never done before.

After a while of this, and watching him cry out in his sleep from his stomach hurting and also having him wake up crying a few times, we decided to go the safe route and take him to emerg. We got him there and got checked in pretty quickly. He was still feeling pukey and he still had a fever (so they added Advil to the Tylenol we'd already given at home) and then we went to wait in the busy waiting room.

And he fell asleep again with all the people around and the bright lights and the noise and the commotion and everything.

I was trying hard not to freak out but both Chris and I were concerned about his appendix.

Thankfully we got streamed into a semi-urgent status and got into our own room very quickly to wait for the doctor. Alex slept in Chris' arms the entire time we walked to the new room and didn't even wake up once he was on the bed and he barely woke for the doctor's exam.

She was concerned about dehydration even though he had only thrown up the one time and said the stomach pain might have actually been caused by the dehydration. So they woke him up to do blood tests and put in an IV.

It was amazing how quickly he perked up once he had some fluids in him and the fever was under control. We stayed for quite a few hours for the IV fluids and he ended up missing three days of school, but he's thankfully all recovered now.

I can't imagine how hard it must be for parents who have kids who are more seriously ill or injured... it must be so hard on everyone.