Waiting For The Bus

If you read the French version, you'll notice that I have a long introduction for this post. I try to justify myself because most people don't understand how I can let my 4 year-old daughter take a bus all by herself to go to school. Why don't I just walk with her myself? (They know why I don't drive her :) Well, I blame it on the weather conditions and I don't have to explain that to my English-speaking readers who have all experience at least part of the winter here. 
Anyway... Kelden is not jealous about Julia going to school, but he is jealous that she gets to go outside in the morning to play in the snow. It hasn't been that cold out lately at 8 am (around -10C) so we've been bringing him and he likes it.

Julia showed him how she goes up, and especially goes down, the mountain.

He really enjoyed that.

So he decided to try the mountain too.

But he asked his Dad to help him go down.

I don't know if you've noticed, but Kelden has in his hands a book...about parrots. Yes, we think he's the one who will inherit Simon. He seems to have at least inherited his father's love for pets.

Family Day

Monday was Family Day in Ontario and so I sacrificed my usual Monday cleaning in order to just "relax" with the family.
I even had Keld make spaghetti sauce and we had dinner with James, Ashley and Linda (who did not skip the Monday cleaning and Ashley even cut hair after dinner).
I tried to take pictures of our family, since that's what we were supposed to celebrate that day, and here's my attempt at making a collage with those pictures (I wish I had Allison's talent!)

Vive la famille !!!

Introducing The Fish

I don't need to tell you whose idea it was...
Julia named it Gabrielle, thinking it's a female but it's OK, Gabriel for boys in pronounced the same way anyway.

Let's hope it lasts longer than our snowman...

At least, it shouldn't lay eggs, like Simon did, again, this morning:

Happy Birthday Grandpa Bruce !!!!

Grandpa always says that Sunday is the best day of the week. Maybe this Sunday is the best day of the year because it is his birthday!!
We are usually with Grandpa Bruce to celebrate his birthday, but not this year. It didn't prevent us from having a party anyway. Julia chose cupcakes for the candles (such a messy choice, I'm going to have to eat them all if I don't want to find crumbs all over the table, chairs and floor).
In the picture, my kids are in pyjamas because we started celebrating Saturday evening, meaning Grandpa's birthday "France's time"... it's never too early to celebrate, right?

Here is the traditional song (sorry I'm so loud, I didn't realize I would sound like that because I'm holding the camera, but notice how Kelden says Grandpa Bruce at one point)

And, just for you Grandpa Bruce, here is the traditional dance (sorry for the quality of the videos, I'm not a pro yet).

Happy Birthday to the best Dad and best Grandpa Bruce ever !

Julia's First Report Card

We got Julia's first report card on Wednesday. I was quite impressed by all the details and comments for someone in junior kindergarten. They evaluated her according to 8 subjects (religion, personal and social development, French, mathematics, science and technology, social studies, physical education and health, arts) each divided into subcategories graded 1 to 3. Basically, 1 means she can't do it, 2 that she is learning how to do it and 3 that she can do it.

On the left it explains what they expect and on the right are the comments about Julia. Over two pages long!
She has only 3s in religion, French, maths and social studies (although in social studies they recommend she learned her phone number. She doesn't know her address either by the way. If you ask her where she lives, she proudly answers: Canada!)
She has only 2s in arts. If it has anything to do with heredity, poor girl...She is doing good but needs to practice her writing skills and using scissors and all that..same for technology. Otherwise, her other 2 is in sports (probably hereditary here again :) and in autonomy. She's a lot more independent than at the beginning of the year, so it's coming.
The general comments were that she needs more self-confidence, which is true, and that "her eyes sparkle with enthusiasm" which is also very true!

Tonight was the parent-teacher interview. Her teacher confirmed the progress made. Julia can do a lot more on her own. She better recognizes and writes the letters and numbers they've learnt so far. She told me she was happy to see that Julia now takes a stand instead of following all the time. Apparently some of the older kids are a bit difficult but Julia will now tell them "no" if she doesn't want to participate in their questionable activities.
The teacher also told me that you can tell it's an effort for Julia to go to school and that she is constantly thinking of her mommy. "After school, I'm going to color with my mommy" "After school, I'm going to play hide-and-seek with my mommy" etc. I guess Julia might not have my looks, but she might have some of my personality traits!

Sorry, not the best picture of the two of us, but one of the most recent...
I also went to see her sports teacher who told me that she was doing better but that running was still not her thing. I told him that Julia has been complaining about the fact that she can't hop on one foot. He said not to worry yet, she should be able to do it soon. I guess Julia gets frustrated when she can't do like the others.
I went to see the science and technology teacher as well. I was curious to know what they were learning. They play educational games on the computer and learn to use the mouse. They're not learning to type yet but she says some of the kids in the class already know how to use the keyboard. Times change, I didn't know what a computer was when I was in kindergarten!

Anyway, all this to say that we are very proud of our Julia! Keep it up, girl!
  

Boxes

I guess after putting pictures of Julia, I should balance and put pictures of Kelden :)
Lately, he's into boxes. Any box will do.

The "food box, " cheap but not sturdy:

The nice "wood box, " made by his Dad, sturdy but small:

And, of course, the "toy box" that should be for toys, not boys:

Anyway, if you think you need lots of money for your kids,  remember: you can save on toys; boxes do just fine.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Keld and and I are not the most romantic people but this year we couldn't forget Valentine's Day as Julia has been talking about it for over a week now. I guess that's what happens when you go to school. You learn how to read a calendar and every event is a good opportunity for crafts and everything else. So, in Julia's class, they made a penguin and a nice wreath with hearts (notice her picture at the top of the wreath). On Friday they even made chocolates! Julia brought home three and I was able to taste one (she ate the other two). It was really good.

The ladybug bag is from their teacher (there was a Kinder chocolate, a rice crispie heart..). Julia had made her a card. Poor girl, she has a hard time drawing hearts and her "friends" (that's how they call each other at school) make fun of her because of it. But, if Julia can't draw hearts, she, at least, has a good one, and she made all these friends (17 in total) two cards each. Two each because she bought them all a card that comes with a candy from the school (funds going to the heart disease foundation) and for their card exchange she made them another one. Well, we bought the cards and she wrote the names on them and decorated them. It's a good practice for her writing but it takes a lot of time. So, even if she made other cards for family and friends, she didn't make one for everyone. Sorry!

She was happy to make and to receive cards, as well as candy, pencils, chocolate, etc. She didn't think I could take a picture of all she got because she said she got 112 000 or maybe 113 000 things!

And at home, did we do anything special for Valentine's day? Well, of course we had to make cookies..

With the chocolate chip cookie recipes I have, the heart shapes disappear when it's baking, but we don't eat the sugar cookies you can shape (because there's no chocolate!). We did make some though, when we knew the missionaries were coming.

And now, to end this post, here's a picture of my Valentine!

How could I choose anyone else? Happy Valentine's Day!

Feb. 13th- -> April 13th = 2 Months To Go...

...maybe less, maybe more...Anyone wants to guess? I'll be first. Here's my prediction:
April 16th, 2.04 pm, girl, 8 pounds 10 ounces, 20 inches and she will look like the other two.

For your information, Julia, 4 days late, was 8 pounds 8 ounces, 19.7 inches and Kelden, 3 days late, was 8 pounds 13 ounces, 20.1 inches.

For your inspiration :) here's a picture Julia took of me today:

  

A business trip to Moosonee

While we were celebrating Candlemas, Keld was in fact gone further North for 2 days to Moosonee, a little town of about 3000 inhabitants (or so they say). For those, who, like me, have a hard time with geography, here is a map.

Keld used to go up there at least once a year with his old job and would travel by plane. Now, however, considering that he uses the money from the City, he has to use cheaper means of travel, like the train. It's cheaper but it's also longer and, as the picture shows, a lot more tiring.

After the train ride, which actually was after a bus ride, he got a tour of Moosonee and Moose Factory. Moose Factory is situated on an island accessible by ice road in the winter. Another map.

Not too many people dare living up there, or maybe Keld didn't see them because they are hibernating with the bears now.

It's a good place if you like cold and white. Everything is white, even more so with the frozen river.

It's too cold to live in a teepee but I like how they somehow keep the traditional style.

Anyway, I'm sure it makes you all want to come live in the North!

Happy Birthday Uncle Dave!

Today is Uncle Dave's birthday, I hope he's not feeling old because I will always be older than him! I met Dave 10 years ago this year and here are some pictures of what he looked like then. I don't know how to zoom in, but I hope you can still see his faces (if not, just click on the pictures to see them bigger).

And that is still how I see Dave; as a funny guy!
Happy Birthday to you (and we did have a treat for you for Family Home Evening)



Groundhog Day or Candlemas?

February 2nd was not only Jordie's birthday, it was also Groundhog Day and Candlemas. I had never heard of Groundhog Day before coming to Canada, but Candlemas is a lot more familiar to me. It's a nice tradition (and yes, by nice I mean it involves food) that people celebrate for religious reasons, or, if they're like me, just for fun. In France, most people celebrate it by making crêpes. There are a series of steps to take to ensure prosperity for your family during the year (like putting the first crêpe on top of a cupboard and leave it all year round, flipping the crêpes with gold in your hands, etc.) I don't do any of that, I just enjoy eating crêpes with my little helpers.

Kelden got to use the mixer to make the dough (he was a bit disappointed that there were no chocolate chips around, but compensated by the Nutella he put on his crêpes later)

Julia wanted to help, but it was a bit hard for 3 people to use the mixer at the same time, so she got to do the dishes:

And no, she's not my slave, she is enjoying herself.  When everything was ready, I flipped the crêpes (or tried to):

I did find a weather connection between Groundhog day and Candlemas. A crêpe is a nice yellow circle:

It symbolizes the return of the sun, which will be sooner or later, depending on what the groundhog has to say...

Happy Birthday Jordie!!!

Well, we wish we were celebrating with Jordie! But we're thinking of him and hope he has a great birthday without us.
Here's Julia's song for you Jordie:

All I have to say is that, for 5 years now, Jordie has been the best nephew ever!!!! Maybe this year will bring some him competition...