The punzel purple flower girl

Last week we traveled to Scotland to attend Alastair's sister Adele's wedding. It was very exciting for Anna because she was going to be a flower girl! We spent many weeks (months?!) getting Anna excited for the wedding...the first excitement came right when we landed....something she's been asking to do for a very long time....go on a bus and on a train!

We traveled from Glasgow Airport to the train station by bus. We were exhausted with having been up all night and having no sleep on the plane but all feelings of tiredness flew out the window at the sight of the bus. Why? Because nothing is better than going on a bus that is purple! And to make it even more fun the bus driver even sang along when Anna started singing the wheels on the bus song!

 Then we got on the train and it was purple too! Nothing could have made our tired purple princess happier! Favorite part of the train ride? Anna pointing out the window and yelling, "Look it's Strong's castle!"('Strong' is what she calls the princess from Disney's Brave)

 We also got Anna excited for the wedding by reading Pinkalicious Flower Girl. It worked too...she was really excited about being in the wedding....but she also decided that she had to have a flower headband just like Pinkalicious. So 2 days before we left I quickly made Anna a purple flower headband. 

She wore it at the wedding rehearsal....

 And while riding on Grampy's tractor!

 Here is the Punzel Purple Flower Girl! Whenever we asked Anna what she was going to be at her Aunt Del's wedding that is what she said....Punzel because Rapunzel wears purple and she was going to wear a purple dress.

 Matilda enjoying her first wedding....

 The other way we got Anna excited for the wedding was by having a dance party where we practiced how we would dance at the wedding. Anna's favorite dance move is the sprinkler!

She danced with her  Grampy...

 She danced her first ceilidh dance...

 And a special dip from daddy!

 Anna really danced the night away and would have danced all night if we let her!

 At the luncheon the next day Anna was still dancing....though she did say her feet hurt!

 After the wedding there was fun to be had riding on shoulders

 Then there was the day Anna found Granny's ribbon drawer and decorated everyone with ribbons ...even Charlie dog!

 A day was spent with her favourite horse Seamus

Matilda didn't ride Seamus but I'm sure is already planning her first horse ride with her Aunt Ruth

 Anna played ball with Grampy...

 While Matilda got cuddles from Granny

It was a great whirlwind trip. We had sunny Scotland weather too! And were amused to find out that it snowed in Toronto while we were gone...happy to have missed that!

You light up my life

Do you remember the Lite Brite? It was one of my favorite toys growing up....the little pegs that you would put into holes to make pictures that would glow...hours of fun! Well yesterday old man winter reminded us that he was still around by giving us a wintry mix mix of snow, ice, and rain so faced with a day indoors Anna and I made our own "Lite Brite" box!

We took a big cardboard box and poked a string of Christmas lights through the top!

Voila! Our light up box!

 It looked even better at night with the lights in the room turned off! Though not hours of fun it was simple, easy and fun to do. I did learn that when putting in the Christmas lights one should follow the same rule of thumb as putting lights on your Christmas tree...check that all the lights work before putting your lights on. Luckily a 3 year old Anna didn't mind that only half the lights were lit up!

A Hoppy Easter

It was busy Easter weekend...hopping from one activity to the next. Our first Easter treat started with a trip to High Park where we fed the llamas..

 and petted the bunnies (if you look close you can see Alastair holding on to Anna by the hood of her coat!). We also fed the capybaras. The animal keeper passed around a box of fruit for the kids to feed the capybaras....Anna enjoyed eating it too!

Our next Easter activity was to dye our eggs

Inspired by our chocolate X's and O's from Valentine's Day we made our own chocolate eggs.....

but they weren't as fun to make as our Easter flower cupcakes....first we made the marshmallow petals....

 We shook the petals in sprinkles for some color....

 

Matilda participated in the shaking too!

Then we very carefully put our marshmallow petals on our cupcakes

Ta Da! The finished cupcake!

 

I wish I could take credit for this cupcake but the idea came from the book Hello Cupcake. The funny part is Hello Cupcake has a free app which I downloaded and then accidently put in Anna's games folder on my Ipad. It turns out Anna is going to be the next master chef because it's her favorite app! It's filled with video tutorials of different cupcakes to make. She's watched it so much that she didn't need her silly old parents telling how to make the cupcakes...she told us what the next steps were!

Finally it was Easter! First we opened cards...

 

Enjoyed our Easter basket treats

Then we were off on to our backyard Easter egg hunt!

And just like last year Anna lined up all her eggs in a row!

We ended our weekend with a trip to the playground where Matilda got her first ride in the swing!



 

 

Halfway to One

Matilda is 6 months old...we're halfway through our first year with this sweet girl. Matilda continues to bring us joy every day. She's growing by leaps and bounds....at her check up this week she weighed in at 14 pounds 8 ounces.....that's half of what Anna weighs! Some of her milestones include:

Rolling over everywhere!

Reaching for everything

Eating solids...sweet potatoes are her favorite....bananas are the least favorite

Smiling and laughing out loud

She's ticklish! Tickling Matilda on her chest always produces a laugh

And the biggest milestone???Sleeping through the night! Or at least she has for the past 2 1/2 weeks...I need to enjoy these nights while we can...every night I worry that this will be the night that it ends...can you see Alastair rolling his eyes at me as I write that!?

 Matilda loves to sit up in her big girl chair

 She's a serious baby

 A full of wonder and thought baby

 An all around happy girl!

 And happy to be able to join us at the table for meals!

It's the first day of SPRING!

Today is the first day of spring...time for warmer temperatures, time for snow to be GONE, time for flowers to emerge and the leaves to grow back on the trees, a time for no more white roads and brown trees, a time to discard all the layers of winter and see SPRING! Oh wait....we live in Canada now.....and unfortunately spring has not sprung here yet. On the first day of spring we did not see any crocuses and snowdrops emerging but instead got more snow.

We took a trip up north over the weekend and did not see any sgns of spring there either....but we did see this...is it a glacier? No it's a frozen Georgian Bay!

We also drove south this weekend to Buffalo where there was also no signs of spring but we did see a frozen Niagara Falls

A surprise bouquet of tulips from Alastair to chase my winter blues away...a welcome sign of spring cheer!

Spring has also brought something to Toronto that can brighten any cold day away...Target has officially opened!

Surprise flowers and a trip to Target!? So far spring is looking good!

Summer, spring, winter or fall....this little girl loves them all!