Our Little Alarm Clock

It's hard to believe but in just a few weeks Matilda will be a year old! I've started calling her my little alarm clock because every morning without fail she wakes up at 6:30 am. It doesn't matter if she goes to sleep the night before at 8pm or 10pm she will wake at 6:30am. Of course waking up to Matilda is a much nicer sound compared to the blare of an alarm clock!

Here are some pictures I took on her 11 month birthday....I got one picture with her 11 month sticker on before she ripped it off!

Much to the cats dismay Matilda has taken to laying on top of him for cuddles...

Back to School

Today was Anna's first day of Junior Kindergarten! Or as we call it - her big girl school!

Backpack on, Lunch packed - Ready for school!

Alastair went in late to work to walk Anna to school

I've been taking Anna and dropping her off at nursery school for 2 years but this was harder... and it was the first time I've ever had tears leaving her at school. Anna brought this home from her first day of school...looks like it was a bit hard on her too. But she also had lots of fun meeting new friends and playing in the blue kitchen!

Meet our new addition!

Something new has joined the Dundas Family! No... we are not expecting baby #3 (get that thought out of your head)...what we got is big, red and likes to play in the water! No it's not a dog...but a dog would look really fun in our new addition......

We bought our very own canoe!

We took our canoe out for it's first maiden voyage on Sunday. I contemplated calling the Queen to christen our canoe but I heard she was on vacation at Balmoral and the last I checked Prince William and Kate are a bit busy right now.....so it was up to our little princesses to help us prepare for our journey down the Humber River.

Matilda enjoyed this canoe ride A LOT more than our last one...smiling, laughing and loving standing up and looking over the side of the boat (the crackers I kept feeding her helped too!). Of course she still got to the point again where she was so very tired and needed to sleep which once again elicited those looks from people wondering about the crying baby!

Anna of course loved every minute...especially when we pulled up on the beaches of Lake Ontario to have a picnic and play at the beachfront playground!

Captain Dundas!

Anna did get to the point where she needed to run around so Alastair dropped us off and tested the canoe out on his own....which was fine until.....

It appeared the boat was tipping sideways....Of course if it was just Alastair there would have been nothing to worry about. But what almost gave me a heart attack is what you can't see in the photo - Matilda sleeping in the bottom of the canoe! 

Canoe or bust

It was Alastair's birthday this week and Anna gave me very specific instructions on what she wanted to do to celebrate. On the way to art camp she told what candy I had to buy to decorate the cake, that we had to have have balloons....the list went on and on. I might not have gotten everything on her list but she was pretty happy with our decorations!

Alastair's birthday celebration continued into the weekend when we rented a canoe. And not just any canoe...we rented The Prospector - the ultimate wilderness tripping canoe. We picked it up Friday night and Saturday morning we drove to Cherry Beach where we loaded up the girls, put on our lifejackets and set sail to the Toronto Islands!

Some would think we were crazy to go paddling with a 10 month old but Matilda's Canadian eh! Of course she wasn't always happy with her life jacket on...Anna of course loved every minute!

The captain of our boat (and the main paddler since most of my time was spent holding Matilda!)

One of the many ways I held her....

Anna had fun leaving a trail of bubbles on the water...

We parked our canoe on Ward Island and had a picnic

Anna enjoyed throwing rocks in the water and Matilda loved playing in the canoe....until she got tired. Then she had a meltdown...while we were on the water....you could see people looking at us and thinking,"That poor baby is really unhappy". Finally I just laid her down on the bottom of the canoe and we hoped she would fall asleep. Then we got looks from people that said,"Where is that sound of the crying baby coming from?" Finally Matilda was lulled asleep by the rocking motion of the boat...

Sweet sleeping baby.....

Queen of the WILD!

This week Anna has been in art camp...and wow what a camp it was! The theme of the week revolved around the book Where the Wild Things Are. Every day Anna came home chatting away about the book and all the crafts she made. Today was the last day so the class had an art show where the kids took you around and showed off what they made. The teachers also advised bring a box to carry all their crafts home and they weren't kidding - we filled up 2 bags of crafts! 

Here are some of the highlights...

Anna with her wand wearing Max's crown...

Anna and her bottle monster!

Anna in her Wild Things Mask

Monster hands...

Anna holding her Wild Things stuffed sock...but when I asked her what it was she made this face and said "I don't know".

The wild rainstick

Plate Monster!

Monster Feet

Here she is... Anna Monster!...or as Anna said on the drive home, "I'm the Queen of the Wild!"

All her monster crafts including mini dough monsters, a replica of Max's sailboat, a monster hat, symmetrical monster, a monster puppet...oh where will we display it all!?