Getting Taller

Emily had her early 9 month check up today as we will be away next week. She is one tall girl, further off the charts for her height at 76.5 cms or just over 30 inches. She weighed in at 20 pounds 8 ounces which places her in the 75th -90th percentile. She is healthy, happy and seems to be developing really well.

Summertime Livin'

We welcomed the first day of Summer this past week. Emily has been enjoying wearing some of her nice warm weather clothes she has been given and lent. She loves spending time outdoors. Here she is out on the deck held by daddy.

In the house she loves spending time on her tummy and getting into everything!

Here is our last shot of Inchworm Emily as she has become quite the quick commando crawler as of late with dissociated, reciprocal arm and leg movements. Most of the time the kids get along great together, but the odd time in the Family Room we hear Andrew say "Ahhhhhh.....get Emily out of here." This is when she makes a beeline for the volume control on the TV which is not popular with anyone!

Matthew has been having fun on our backyard playground climber with friends. Here he is taking a juice break.

We had our soccer windups this week. The boys were thrilled with participation medals, photos and probably best of all the ice cream sandwich treats.

June Fun

Matthew had his Spring Celebration at his school. The children did some singing, dancing, and some short speeches. There was a presentation to all the children graduating and going on to Grade One next year. We all enjoyed some delicious goodies, visiting and playing afterwards.

Later that day we headed over to Heritage Park. Andrew had wanted to ride the "chocolate" horse, and you can see from the photo that he did just that. The boys also had a chance to help with a bit of woodoworking.

Andrew had his last music class last week. He is going to miss playing on the xylophones!

Lucky Andrew was at a friend's birthday party today. The children enjoyed being entertained by Buttons the Clownette and Monkey.

Emily's latest

Here are some of Emily's latest shots. She continues to grow bigger and bigger. Her two bottom teeth are visible in photos when she is smiling. She can sit quite well on her own for long periods of time. On her tummy she can get up onto her hands and knees for a few seconds. She has fun hamming it up with Matthew. He is often imitating her actions, such as grabbing toes in the one photo, or they are making faces and sounds back and forth to each other.

Soccer

Here are a couple of soccer photos. Matthew is a proud member of the Hawks. His favorite positions are defense or being in goal. Andrew is on the green U4 team and is getting the hang of the drills. You can see him here where he has to dribble and then put the body part the coach yells out (right foot this time around) on the ball.

Zoo Day

Matthew only has 3 1/2 weeks of school left. On Friday we went with him on his year end trip to the zoo. It was a lovely hot day. After someone asked us what animals we had seen, and we had a hard time answering. By the time we'd played at the playground, looked around the prehistoric park, admired the floral displays, enjoyed a picnic and popsicle it was time to head for home. As you can see that was enough for Emily who was exhausted!

Of course that was just the start of the weekend. When we got home we packed up, and Bruce took the boys camping in the mountains overnight. Andrew did pretty good on his first tent camping experience, and of course Matthew, like his dad, did not want to come home. Emily stayed home with me and enjoyed the one on one time which she rarely ever gets. With the nice weather we were able to sun on the deck, go for coffee on 17th and do some strolling and shopping.

On Sunday after Andrew's gymnastics class, Matthew and I went biking around the reservoir. Matthew's legs are solid muscle and he is very strong, only having to walk his bike up the steepest hills. Even this frustrates him as he wants to ride it without walking his bike. I assured him the way he bikes he will be able to do that before he knew it. He felt it was his lucky day as we came across a little fair with children's activites. He got to go in a bouncer, play some games, do a coloring sheet, and was given a balloon and stickers. Then to top it all off a little further down the trail we saw a little snake! Instead of going home we met Bruce, Andrew and Emily at Heritage Park. We were lucky to run into a few friends there so Matthew had some people to go on the bigger rides with over and over again. Andrew went on the big Ferris Wheel, Whip and Swings with Bruce. Emily had her first turn on the Carousel. This probably goes without saying, but after the busy weekend everyone fell into bed and slept soundly. It was hard for Matthew to get up for the school bus this morning.

Inchworm Emily

Here is Emily playing with the magnets on the fridge. She is a very determined young girl, and when on the floor is no longer content to pivot and roll around to get to what she wants. She can't quite do a proper crawl yet, but does a move that looks exactly like an inchworm.

One Elephant

Warm weather has finally arrived here so we've been spending most of our time outside, which is why the blog hasn't been updated and few e mails have been returned. We are expecting rain for most of this week, so I imagine I will get caught up.

This is from the weekend before last when Andrew had his music concert. His class did "One elephant went out to play, upon a spider's web one day...." They used drums to accompany the singing and wore elephant hats with spider web tank tops. He is in a really good class and they all did well. This is his music finale as he will be pretty busy with preschool next year. I, however, am not graduating as Emily will be starting her turn in September. She loves going to class with Andrew now and will delight in having her own turn to participate.