Canada Day

We decided that this year we would actually do something for Canada Day. A good friend of mine told me about the Garden Party hosted by the Lieutenant Governor at Government House. There was lemonade, cotton candy, popcorn, the RCMP, Suzanne (a dog who was a gift to the RCMP from the Queen), bubbles, parachute games, and a band. We managed to miss all the speeches, but given the blistering heat outside, I am not sure that it was a bad thing. The kids had a great time running around and just being with all those people.

Butterfly face

At the end of June our errands found us at Old Navy. Somehow we timed our shopping with the grand reopening of the store --they had redecorated and rebranded, so they needed to celebrate. Well, among other things they were doing face painting. Sophia was all into that...









She's got the posing down to an art. Anyway, for the next week, Sophia kept asking to go back to Old Navy so she could get her face painted again. It took a bit of convincing that the face painting wasn't an everyday occurrence. She sure did look cute!

Tea for two

Nana and Papa gave Sophia a cute little tea set for her birthday. She's spent a lot of time having tea and serving lattes (yes, lattes) to everyone and anyone. Not to be forgotten, Jacob has gotten in on the action and joined Sophia at her tea table.

She's 4!

Well, Sophia celebrated her fourth birthday last week! It's hard to believe that four whole years have gone by so very, very fast. We had a wonderful time.

Sophia and a few of her friends (Owen, William, Claire and Dylan) joined her for a party at Amazing Adventures, which is a gymnastics place. The kids had an hour on the floor to do circuits, jump on the trampolines and play in the foam pit all with a coach. After expending all their
energy, we had cake and juice, and gift opening. Everyone had a great time. Sophia had chosen a "Under the Water" theme...so her cake was Ariel from the Little Mermaid, and all the goodie bags had a water/fish theme. She had a great time!


This is Jacob on the trampoline for the first time! I have a feeling that he's going to LOVE gymnastics in the fall.










This is always the most fun...the foam pit. Sophia is being thrown around, and if you look closely you can just make out Jacob's feet....he's hanging over the edge into the pit.













To make the time even more special, Nana and Papa were here from Maple Ridge (yup, they only moved three weeks ago!). We've been enjoying being with them.

Turning four also meant the not so fun experience of getting her immunizations. While there, she got weighed and measured...
WEIGHT: 42 pounds
HEIGHT: 42 inches.

Nice and easy to remember. Although I was dumbfounded when they told me she was 42 pounds! I was still thinking she was 30 pounds. Oops.











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Communicating

Jacob doesn't have any words right now. And that's ok-were not worried about it. He is a younger sibling and everyone we talk to says it is typical for younger siblings to take longer to talk, since the older sibling often does the talking, meaning that the younger sibling gets what he wants or gets his point across without necessarily having to say words. Also, Jacob is a boy, and everyone we talk to says that boys typically talk later than girls, and we always have to remind ourselves that Sophia talked very early.

Even with all of that, though, we are kind of looking forward to the day when Jacob will start to use some words. Yes, we know that that means he will likely be talking nonstop after that, but right now he clearly has unexpressed wants and needs and it would be so much easier if he would just say something. His favorite form of communication at this point is the "point and grunt" which works for him most of the time but we often don't know exactly what he is pointing at or what he wants with it.

So all of this is to say that I was pleasantly surprised when Jacob today made a little progress in the communication area. No words, of course, but evidence that he is trying harder to make his point known. We were playing the playroom and he was doing his own thing, and he comes to me and says "juh" (mostly just the "j" sound) and holds up this card that you see at the top of this post. I say to him "do you want some juice?) and he does that half-nod, half-shake thing that means yes. So we go and get some juice. Communicating with flashcards is an acceptable form of communication, right?

Oh and that nod/shake thing? That's progress too. He used to shake his head (looking like he is saying no) when he wants to say yes. Very confusing. Point-grunt; "oh, do you want this?"; shakes head (but meaning yes); "no? ok, what do you want then?"... Very frustrating for everyone involved.