Boo!

We hope you all had a spooky Hallowe'en. Look at those children, out Trick or Treating in Winnipeg with no snowsuits under their costumes! Amazing! Boo!

Bye, bye, baby.

See that lower tooth on the left? The one that looks a little....loose? And wiggly? Like it might FALL OUT if you kept wiggling it? GONE! We are on tenterhooks to see if the you-know-who will come tonight, and what the going rate is for the first baby tooth lost in this house. Maybe it is enough to buy candy?

Tiger Babies

Well, that was a whole lot of cute bang for our 10 bucks. New tiger babies! Giving high fives! And showing their furry tummies! Oh! My heart! I could have stayed there all day, but the poor children were freezing. Why didn't their mother insist they wear a jacket?

five....AND A HALF

The girls celebrated their five-and-a-halfth birthday two weeks ago. Luckily, Grandma's camera was present at the event (a new, frightened for it's future camera is headed our way this week. I will sew it a padded case of protectiveness, and never take it anywhere at all) to record the girls in all their glory. All their glory being a mermaid costume that was found at the curb on "Free at the Curb" day and Fiona's favourite dress of all time (thank you, Auntie Megan) with a couple of shedding feather boas. Happy Half Birthday, you big kids!

Assiniboine Park

The following pictures are brought to you courtesy of Grandma Susan's Camera Lending Centre. One day I will stop dropping our cameras on their lenses and will no longer require this service. I hope.

 Here's our friend Henry and his patented Sniffing Face. To sniff properly one must close one's eyes, put one's lips on the item to be sniffed, and exhale through the nose while saying "mmmmmmmm".

 The ladies LOVED climbing the statues at the Leo Mol statue garden. And then becoming the animals that they climbed.

 Fiona kept tying her hair ribbon around the different statues - deciding to leave it there, and then running back to get it for the next statue.

Ruby, on a hill, near a pond, with a rice cake.

August 31

The end of August always feels like the end of summer to me, even though there are 21 more days of mosquito-free living until it's official. Where are all of those mosquitoes this year, anyway? Waiting to combine their evil wickedness with a Winnipeg winter? Hm.

We've been having great fun these days enjoying parks, museums, pools, thrift stores, and country fairs. Lots still to do to get the house set up (mostly shopping for furniture that can have things put into it), but it will get done (or not) eventually. I had a most enjoyable 5-minute shopping spree at a garage sale in Carmen on the weekend resulting in a mirror for the bathroom. Right now it has an unacceptable fake gold-coloured frame, so a trip to Home Depot to get them to unlock the spray paint section for me is in the works. Will I go with the predictable white? Will it be turquoise, like so many other things I paint? Pink? Brown? Time will tell, my friends. I hope you will all be able to concentrate on the less meaningful parts of your lives as you devote most of your time to wondering and worrying about the future colour of our bathroom mirror.

Now, don't tell me I have been typing all this time and you are just here for photos of the offspring. Not really? Well, here you go:

 The best part of the Winnipeg Zoo - the diggers!

 H won this duck at the Morden Corn and Apple Festival. Then he bit off its beak.

 H enjoying a cherry at East Beach at Birds Hill Provincial Park

Ruby and Fiona enjoying fudgey ice cream bars at the beach

Updating

A rare moment on our 30+ hour drive - three sleeping beauties at the SAME TIME.

Building with driftwood at the amazing Neys Provincial Park.

Ruby got stung by something at Halfway Lake Provincial Park and couldn't open her eye for 3 days. No complaining, though, she's not the type.

Here we are in Winnipeg! Well, here we've been, since July 19. Unpacking, furniture finding, swimming, biking, visiting, ballet in the park, Tinkertown, museums, and popsicle making/eating are taking up most of our time these lovely summer days. Hope you are all well, and, if you are not already in Winnipeg, planning a trip to visit.

Rain Delay! New Hootenanny Date! Ahoy! Ahoy!

The Hootenanny has been postponed due to severe amounts of dampness. I repeat. The Hootenanny has been postponed. Do not come on Saturday, you will get damp. Come on Sunday, when it will be bright and clear with frolicksome ponies and the odd butterfly.

Sunday, June 26, 2-4

Still at LaRoche Park

See you there! Hooray!

Hootenanny Invite

We are going to miss all of our Ottawa folks something fierce when we move to Winnipeg! Please join us for a Hootenanny at Laroche Park next Saturday, June 25 for an afternoon of fun and games. Heck, some of you may even bring your banjos.

SO!

Place: Laroche Park

Time: 2-4 pm, Saturday, June 25 (rain date is Sunday, June 26, we'll post info here if it's pouring on Saturday)

Bring: Yourselves and whatever you'd like to drink. We will have munchies available. You may also like to bring a picnic blanket and a towel - there is a splash pad at the park.

We'd love to get photos of everyone as well - we're making a scrapbook of places and people we love in Ottawa, so please bring your lovliest smiles.

Hope you can make it!
Love,
Grace, Greg, Ruby, Fiona, and Henry

Dramatic Sliding

Henry's Walk

In case you hadn't heard, Henry broke his arm last week. He is doing well, as you can see from this video.

Dance Party

Was That a Close-Up?

I was taking pictures of the kiddies yesterday and Ruby loomed closer and closer while I snapped this one - then she said, "Whoa! Was that a CLOSE-UP?" Yes, dear, yes it was.

Great word coining from Ruby today:

Mama: Wow! You got dressed very fast this morning!

Ruby: Yes, I am a quickpoke.

Mr. Picasso

Scissors, Anyone?

Mermaids and Fairies

The proud makers and players-with of mermaids and fairies, showing them off to you.

Encore! Encore!

The girls had a wonderful time performing at their school's Winter Kindergarten Concert - Fiona is giving Ruby a BIG hug at the end of one of the songs because she could not contain her excitement at it all.

Hats and mittens are being worn to do the "Snowy Pokey".

Cool Shades, My Dears

New Year, New Camera

Happy New Year, everyone!

Our old camera has been dropped, from a height, onto its lens. Poor old thing. Not worth the 300 bucks to fix the damage, it being all of five years old. So in with the new!

In interested speech news around here, Ruby has completely stopped using conjunctions. So, instead of saying, "I don't know.", we get "I do not know." "I cannot find it." "I did not do it." This is very cute, and very strange. I am going to see how long it is before Fiona adopts this little mannerism. I do not know how long it will take.

Happy Day!