Our children keep growing! Claire is seven!

Our flurry of birthdays comes this time each year.  Claire's birthday coincided with our trip to Banff, so luckily my mom did so much to help us organize an event to celebrate Claire!

They decorated her wheelchair tray with this cool jelly letters.  

She loved it!

She demolished them straight away.

Getting glitter everywhere in the process.

But today was about enjoyment, not caring about glitter distribution!

Even Madeline got in on the action.

Claire's casual lean.

Sometimes I can't believe that I've been a mom for 7 years!  This sweet, gangly, complicated little child...we love her so much.

Everyone was there.  It was the party of the century.  ;)

Claire got some really fun presents.

Aunt Natalie made this fabulous blanket for her out the softest wool you've ever felt.

She got a giant teddy bear from Grandma and Grandpa Patterson.

Noah liked the bear too.  :)

They also gave her some new duvets that have kept her very warm and snug!

One other gift that Grandma and Auntie Natalie gave her was a brand new haircut.  I couldn't believe how grown up she looked!

Grandma Patterson came up with the best idea ever - a playdough cake!

She absolutely loved it, even though it was a bit sticky.

Madeline came to the rescue and extinguished the candle because Claire was occupied with other things.

As mentioned earlier, Claire is a bright spot in our family.  This is not to say that life isn't fraught with disappointment, heartache, confrontation, grief, pain and other horrible things, but we love Claire with all we've got and we'll celebrate every thing about her.

She got to be the special birthday girl at school.  She was over the moon when the class sang to her.

Thanks to Grandma Patterson's foresight and creativity, Claire also shared these with her classmates and they were a hit.

It was a very good day.

Banff, again!

Ryan and I took a belated anniversary trip to Banff.  Here are some of our adventures.

We decided to be totally geeky tourists and stopped at a "scenic view" to take pictures on the drive.

We were lucky - despite threats of record snowfalls, the weather wasn't half bad.

Apparently Ryan is from Japan.

Our room was really neat.  A fireplace loft suite.

After checking in, we walked into town and wandered for a little while.

We spent a good deal of time relaxing, but did take in some neat sights.  We did the gondola, although it was a pretty snowy/cloudy view at the top.

All these mini snowballs, rolling down the mountain.  I kept trying to make one of my own, and imagined it rolling all the way to the bottom.

We hiked all the way to the end of the trail, just to say that we did.  It was very serene.

We went and saw the falls.

We tested out some new camera lenses (Thanks Val) and caught some really neat photos of the ice over the water.

We were super nerdy and took photographs of a fancy hotel that we did NOT stay in...ha ha.

We had a nice relaxing evening at the hot springs while it snowed on our heads.

We ate some yummy food (too much, probably!)

I'm going to leave some space now before the next picture, in case anyone is squeamish.  I probably shouldn't have put it next to the yummy food pictures, but that's just how it worked out.  

Okay, here goes.  I have a confession:  Ryan and I are murderers.  On the way home from Banff, we were marvelling at the synchronized motion of a flock of tiny birdies when SMACK.  One of the little ones at the bottom curve of the formation met the grill of our vehicle.  It was seriously stuck in there.  Luckily Ryan is a manly man and could handle the removal....he took a picture of it before though.  Scroll down if you're brave enough...and then this blog post will be over!