"Though she be but little, she is fierce"

Confession - I still use a baby monitor to watch my 4 1/2 year old daughter fall asleep. The monitor is my security blanket since her last 2 "big" seizures happened at bedtime. The first seizure was on Nov. 4, 2015 and what followed was countless seizures, 4 ER trips, 2 ambulance rides, 6 EEG's, a MRI, 5 different meds, and a 5 day hospital stay when she went into a non convulsive status epilepticus seizure that lasted 36 hours. But as crazy as it all sounds it's also ok because all of those events have led to this one single moment - as of 9:04pm last night Matilda is officially one year seizure free. So today we will celebrate with cake! And wear purple since purple is the color for epilepsy awareness. Purple cake, purple clothes, perhaps some purple streaks in our hair...hmmmm the purple possibilities are endless!

Heart filled Days

One of the best things about having girls is the love they have for hearts and Valentine's Day! here's a small sampling of how we celebrated this year's Valentine's Day! ❤️

Fun Valentine's for our friends...

 Surprise Valentine morning heart messages...

 A love letter from Anna...

 Our annual heart shaped pizza and some conversation heart cookies!

Holiday Highlights

From snow to skiing to holiday baking we kept busy this holiday season. We enjoyed snow filled days...

A night our at Enchant Vancouver - the world's largest light maze...

Skiing the local mountains....

 Our annual Yule Log and Gingerbread Men....

Three years ago I made Anna a light up box with a strand of Christmas lights that only half lit up...

Three years later, another big box and another set of lights that only half worked and we have the Light Up box 2.0!

 Matilda found it to be the perfect place for a mid afternoon snooze....

First Snow

We got our first snow of the season today! It was also the most snow we've seen since moving to North Vancouver. While we get plenty of snow within a 15 minute drive up the hill we have never had as much snow as we did today...we've had dustings of snow BUT today we got almost 5 inches of the white stuff. And it was a good wet perfect for snowman making snow! It was also the first time we've (and by that I mean ME) have had to shovel the drive since living in Toronto. FUN!

BOO!

Happy Halloween! Halloween for us was a real TREAT....why? Mother Nature decided to take pity on us and dry the skies just in time for trick or treating! And since October had only 3 days of no rain we enjoyed every minute of our dry Halloween!

This Halloween we celebrated with chocolate chip spider cookies and meringue cookie ghosts. I actually made the meringue ghost cookies for Anna when she was 3 and she still asks for them! The girl loves a meringue!

A Royal Visit

 A couple of weeks ago the royals were in town! Prince William and Princess Kate visited Vancouver and a friend and I decided to brave the crowds and attempt to get a peek at the royal couple. Anna was very excited to see "a real life Princess" (her words!)...though I did explain to her that the princess would not be in a big ball gown and crown! So with our best tiaras on we hopped on the sea bus to downtown Vancouver and got a peek at the royals! And by peek I mean it really was a peek.....crowds and crowds of people....!

Back to School!

It's the first week of school - back to routines, after school activities, and packing lunches!

One Busy Summer

And with the rain this week we have the end of summer. The kids are back in school next week but before we go back to school here are some of our summer highlights...from camping to summer camps to a trip to Scotland...it was one busy and fun summer!

We started summer with a camping with friends at Golden Ears Provincial Park...where it rained and rained and rained. But it didn't rain out the fun we had!

 Our next adventure was a weekend trip with more friends to Whistler where we canoed the river of golden dreams and the girls learned how to fish (but no fish were caught!).

 Then we were off to Scotland to visit family and celebrate Alastair's birthday!

 Sunny beach days in Scotland!

Then it was time to head home and when we got to Edinburgh airport we realized we left our passports in the car. So we got a flight the next day out of Glasgow. And then that flight was cancelled....so we had some good quality tourist fun at the airports!

The final weeks of summer brought sunshine so it was off to the beach!

And it wouldn't be the summer of 2016 without watching the Olympics...every time swimming was on Matilda would yell, "Go Michael Phelps!"

More fun not pictured - our lemonade stand, splashing in the sprinklers, dancing at the Shipyards, going to the movies, splash pad adventures at the park....

Geared for Fun

 We celebrated the start of summer with a new bike for Anna. Her last bike was getting too small and with all the hills here we thought it would be good for her to try a bike with hand brakes and gears. After a quick bike tune up and lesson from Alastair Anna hit the road! First we practice on the streets....next stop - the mountain trails!

Anna meets Mo!

Anna has always loved books and has a love for reading. If you ask her who her favourite author is she will tell you it is Mo Willems. Mo Willems is the amazing author of the pigeon books and the elephant and piggie books. And last night we went to a book signing to meet him! We were very lucky to get tickets (it sold out in a day) and Vancouver is his only Canadian stop. It was an unbelievable experience. Mo Willems read his last book in the elephant and piggie series and read his yet to be published next book! And then he signed all our books! Wow! 

And to give you an idea of how much Anna loves Mo Willems we had the opportunity to go with Alastair to Jasper National Park this week. I asked Anna what she would rather do - go on a road trip adventure and go camping or go meet Mo Willems. Without hesitation or giving any thought she answered definitively, "I want to meet Mo Willems".

 After the book signing we joined some friends at Jericho Beach for a pizza picnic. Meeting Mo and then playing on the beach....as Anna said on the drive home - It was the best day ever!