Jayna riding a 2 wheeler!

Jayna has been pretty nervous to try and ride her bike without training wheels. We convinced/forced her to try it a few weeks ago, and she was so nervous and wouldn't even give it a real try. But after we took the training wheels off her bike, we just never put them back on. She even went back to riding her strider bike a few times, which was really funny to watch with her long legs! Jayna is definitely our cautious child and likes to be sure she can do something before she gives it a chance. So in true Jayna style she just decided to ride her bike today. She actually said to me on Sunday "Mom, I have a feeling. I'm going to start riding a 2 wheeler now!" I didn't really think much of it, but today when we went outside to ride bikes she did just that! Gibb was SO disappointed that he wasn't here for it, and so was I! This is not something I would normally attempt on my own. She did really good and didn't fall at all. She rode all the way down the street and back. She was so excited, she kept yelling "Yeehaw!! Look at me! I'm riding a 2 wheeler!!" It's a good thing she decided to do it this week, or I think Kepler might have learned to ride his bike before her when he gets one for his birthday next week! :)

I don't know what happened to the video. Somehow when I put it on the computer and rotated it I lost the sound and it became bad quality, but you get the idea.

Kepler's Pretend Birthday

Kepler's "real" birthday isn't until the 24th. But we decided to have a little party for him with his friends before we move. We told Kepler that he wasn't actually going to be 4 yet, but we were just having his party before his birthday, so he started calling it his pretend birthday. It was so entertaining watching Kepler try to decide on a theme for his party. For a long time it was Lightning McQueen all the way, but thanks to all Jayna's "helpful" suggestions Kepler just could not settle on one theme for the party. So one morning while Jayna was at school I took Kepler to the store to pick out his party stuff. And this is what he came up with:

My personal favourite is his green frog cake. He just saw it and instantly wanted the cute, green frog on top of his cake! Haha, this party could not suit him more. He got to have everything he loved and didn't have to  leave anything out. 

And I can't forget the black and brown streamers he chose!

 Jayna was so mad that we went to get all the stuff without her. She said "I wanted to go and tell Kepler what to get!" And that's exactly why we did it this way. :)

The kids putting together the treat buckets and pinata. 

Kepler snuck away a couple times during his party to check out all his gifts. I think he was in shock that they were all really for him!

 

The great thing about all my kids having summer birthdays is the backyard birthday parties!

We did lots of games outside and an obstacle course.  Kepler's jumping over the snake.

 

And of course the pinata, all the kid's favourite!

Poor Jayna, she was looking a little rough that day and I'm pretty sure I didn't brush her hair at all. We had Kepler party after Gibb being gone for 12 days. We picked him up at the airport at 2:20 and the party started at 4:00, so needless to say that was not high on my priority list.

4 is sounding like a really big number for this little guy! In a lot of ways Kepler is still my baby boy, and I'm sure he would gladly accept (or steal) the title of baby from Keira if he could. He is such a sweet, sensitive boy and still loves to snuggle. He has definitely given us a run for our money this year, so in some ways I'm hoping we can put the terrible 3's behind us now. I think a lot of that stemmed from jealousy, but he is a great big brother to Keira. He like to give her lots of love and his motto when he's "playing" with her is if she's not crying then she must be having fun! Kepler has a big imagination, loves boats and airplanes, wants to learn to play hockey, wants to be exactly like Jayna and wants to be a surfer dude when he grows up. We love you so much Kepler, I can't imagine our family without him!

Tip-toe Ballerina

Today at school it was dress up as your favourite character from a book day. When I asked Jayna what her favourite book was she came back with this board book, Tip-toe Ballerina, that we haven't read in a while. She does like this book, but she really just wanted to dress up as a ballerina. :) Which was fine with me, we already had everything we needed so it was super easy. Jayna was so excited this morning, it's cute how all the little things mean so much to them!

Right after school I dropped Jayna off at a birthday party, and I brought a dress for her to change into. But she just wanted to wear this to the party instead. I love this age when they are so girly and it's still socially acceptable to dress as a ballerina at birthday parties! Life is so magical for 5 year olds!

Park Days

 A couple weeks ago we had some nice weather and got to go to the park. The first day at the park is always SO fun! You would have thought I told the kids we were going to Disney World, they were so happy. :) We met Jayna at the bus stop with the bikes. As soon as she got off the bus she yelled "You brought my bike, thanks Mama!!" and started jumping up and down.

Keira's first time on the swing!

Kepler would still rather go on the baby swings than the big ones. I think that Kepler was meant to be the baby of the family, he still has a hard time giving up that role to Keira sometimes. We compromised by letting him push her on the baby swing.
(That adoring expression on Keira's face shows perfectly how she feels about her big brother)

Last summer we practically lived at the park, we had no schedule and it was great!

But this little munchkin needed to get home for a nap, I think her days of sleeping anywhere with no schedule are over. But it lasted a good 7 months, so I guess we can let her have some normalcy in her life now. 

 This week is supposed to be warm and sunny all week again, and as of right now, I plan on doing this again every day!

Happy Easter!

Friday we didn't really have much planned so we did a little bunny craft. 

And then the kids wanted a bunny lunch too.

On Saturday morning we had our Egg Hunt!

There were 74 eggs hidden! 

Keira already doesn't like to be left out. :)

 

My cute little bunny's first Easter!

 

We used the whisk method for dyeing our eggs this year, so much better and easier.

And we made a couple dinosaur eggs too.

We got a bit of nice weather on Saturday, Jayna and Kepler started out playing and then ended up hanging out and chatting on the bench for a while.

Easter Sunday after church we had some friends over for dinner.

Frosty the Chick and Yellow, Jayna and Kepler usually end up playing with  their crafts that we make. They played with these chicks for at least an hour!

Making bird's nests with some friends.

I always feel like a "real" mom and grown up during holidays. And like true grown ups, Gibb and I were tired at the end of it all. :)

Atlantis Submarine

 On our last day we had to check out early, but our flight wasn't until the evening. So we booked a submarine ride to kill some time. It's hard finding something to do that doesn't involve swimming or sand! The submarine ride was pretty good. We went down to 109 feet and saw a shipwreck. We saw a few reef sharks and some huge schools of fish.

 

 

 We couldn't take Keira on the sub so my mom stayed with her and did some shopping on Front Street.

We had a red eye flight that night and luckily the kids slept on it, although we were all exhausted the next day. These pictures made me laugh, sometimes it's really great having thumb suckers.

Luau

 You can't go to Hawaii without going to a Luau! We had booked a luau a few days in advance and of course that night was the one night it rained. Not just sprinkling either, it was pouring for a while. I ran inside with Keira, but everyone else braved it out with the plastic ponchos they were handing out. It stopped raining after a while so they still did the show. Gibb said that the kids loved it! But I had the camera with me so we didn't really get many pictures.

Whale Watching

 We got up early one morning to go whale watching. This was probably my favourite thing we did! Gibb wasn't feeling good so he stayed home with Keira. He had gone out scuba diving a couple times and spear fishing, so he wasn't feeling up to another morning on a boat.

Jayna, Kepler, Avery, Alex and Abby

We saw tons of whales this morning

Within the first 20 minutes we saw 2 whales jump and 2 whales breech!

  

Kepler was just so happy to be on a boat

 

The boats are not allowed to go close to the whales unless a whale swims up to you. So we stopped for a while and there were a few whales all around us. Then a whale swam right under our boat! We were sitting right up front and it was close enough to reach out and touch it! Then it sprayed it's blowhole about 10 feet away from us and splashed us with it's tail, and kept splashing it's tail a few times as it swam away. It was incredible!

 

I had put away my camera at that point (of course), so I didn't get any really good pictures, but I did catch part of Jayna's reaction. :)

Alex and Jayna