After falling dismally behind in the last few months, I'm going to attempt a quick catch up with a blast of over sized blog entries. Feel free to skip or skim but I'm going to get caught up!
So where were we? The middle of March!
I accompanied Madeline and her class on a field trip to the grocery store.
Here's our little poser.
It's always fun to see behind the scenes at the store!
I went on a girls' trip to Banff on the St. Patrick's Day weekend. It was quite an adventure!
We stayed at this beautiful resort.
The hot tubs were fabulous with a great view!
We explored the town.
Got all dolled up.
And had lots of fun. Happy Birthday Lynelle!
Out on the town. AT NIGHT.
Madeline and I had a neat experience. We signed up to help with a teaching experience for med students at the University of Alberta. We spent one morning there and students in four different groups observed Madeline as an example of a typically developing 5 year old. She had to perform different skills in front of them and answer questions and interact with them. She did a great job and was very brave. She even got a chocolate bunny at the end for a prize!
She and I also spent a fun lunch with our friends at IKEA. She and Taylor played in the fun kids areas while his mom and I did some shopping and we all had lunch together. It was lots of fun.
Ryan took part in his school's Fine Arts Gala and helped to showcase the achievements of his students.
Ryan and I volunteered to sell 50/50 tickets at an Oil Kings playoff game for the Leeridge Park Redevelopment Program committee that I'm on. (I signed him up!) We ended up doing the counting room job and it was a very successful evening. We raised about $9000 for our project!
We had to hang out in the basement for a little while and fooled around pretending that we were heading out on the ice! We were right there!
Ryan had a cool Apple "meeting" where they got to have fun at Galaxyland and do scavenger hunts, etc. They always have such neat themes for their team-building meetings.
Here he is, wearing the lei that would eventually fly off on the Galaxy Orbiter. He even caught that moment on video!
The girls had their spring dance recital entitled "Swan Lake." They did very well. Here are some snapshots from the afternoon.
They had these cute, feathery headbands to wear....but they were very tricky to keep on! This picture was taken after the dancing, when Claire was about to fall asleep.
The prima ballerina.
Claire and her mentor, Mark. He was great!
Our best attempt at a family photo that day. Ta da.
I think Madeline is getting too big for this...
The girls love to dance together in the living room.
Madeline's outfits are unparalleled.
A fun project at school - using the fruits we bought on the grocery store field trip to make crazy faces!
On March 20, our little one turned 5. Since we were having her party on another day, to make the day special I told her that she could do whatever she wanted. She picked her own outfit. She had ice cream for breakfast. We played at the park at the mall. We had Subway for lunch. We played games. We read stories. We watched Harry Potter. It was a pretty fun day. :)
Claire got to sing with some of her classmates at the Grace Martin Open House. She loved it.
We spent a few hours at the mall together and had lots of fun.
Madeline had grown and was tall enough to take on some new rides. This one started out okay, but as we watched, her poor little face started to look more and more anxious. It didn't help that they went around the track about 20 times....ha ha.
She got really into the bumper cars.
Here's our last picture of Claire at Little Bits Horseback Riding.
You'll notice that in the photo she's got a new neck brace. Because she is growing and needing more support, our physiotherapist recommended something with more side to side support so we had a special neck brace fitted at the hospital. Unfortunately, the kind of support that it offered was very restrictive and irksome for Claire, especially coupled with the helmet she's required to wear.
Because of this issue and other concerns, we had to make the hard decision to pull her out of horseback riding. Our choice wasn't made lightly, but was based on our worries that have been building over time and questions about her level of enjoyment. It was hard to say goodbye because it's such a special program and offered some really neat opportunities for Claire, but we're looking forward to the future. She's really enjoying the family yoga program we're in and we have her enrolled in swimming classes this summer.
I found this whole process to be quite difficult because I want her to have as many opportunities as she can. Our options for her involvement in sports and arts are limited, so my heart really hurt when we had to bow out of something that was supposed to be good for her. I think I had become more focussed on the unique nature of the experience, rather than how much she was enjoying it. In the future, my aim is to follow her lead and to allow her to experience things that make her happy.
Speaking of enjoyment, the other day I found a yellow pages on our front step. "Hmm," I said to myself. "I didn't know these still existed." So I brought it inside and put it on Claire's tray, thinking that she might enjoy the yellow colour of the cover. I ran downstairs to switch over the laundry and came up to this. She had torn it apart and was having a blast doing it. It was pretty fun to watch her!
One of Madeline's birthday presents was a new bike! A two wheeler.
She sped around on it in the backyard after we got home.
But then Ryan got down to business and took off those training wheels!
She's almost got it down pat now. I tried helping her once, but apparently Dad does it much better.
Just some pics, playing around on the couch with Madeline's tiara kit.
Even Ryan got in on it.
I love these guys so much. :)
For those who doubt Claire's sleeping abilities....behold! This was a day when she fell asleep at school, in a classroom filled with 6 and 7 year old crazies...then we went out the park so Madeline could play and she slept through that, the walk home and supper. She's a power sleeper, indeed.
