Praticing for the Summer 2024 Olympics

This weekend we had the opportunity to spend some time swimming with Grandpa, Grandma, Aunt Boo, Uncle Mike, Uncle Luke and Amber. After such a long, dreary, snowy winter it was so nice to spend some time relaxing in the water again - only two months until we get to start swimming again on a regular basis.Christine had a great time "swimming" in the water, not unlike a dolphin in her humble opinion. Here's a shot of her jumping in the pool with Amber's help. I love how her swimsuit bottoms are falling off in the picture - let's just make sure that behaviour doesn't continue when she's a teenager.
Dash was incredibly calm and relaxed in the water - he just seem to go with the flow no matter where we put him. Ben discovered that if you swam on your back he would hold on to your chest and balance himself as seen above in his Evel Knievel swimsuit.
If you ask Christine the best part of swimming she'll tell you it was going in the "hot water". The pool had a hot tub attached and she would endlessly go back and forth between the two - here she is in hot water with Grandpa (who are we kidding? She's got Grandpa wrapped around her little finger)

The Dreaded Countdown

The dreaded countdown to my return to work is now in full force, I now only have 7 more days till I'm back trying to balance work and the kiddos - I really shouldn't complain, after all Ben's been doing this all along. But I will miss my daily routine with the kids and those spontaneous funny moments that happen every day. So other than that what is new around here...our Dash Man seems to be fully healed from his fall and is incredibly fast at getting into trouble these days - heaven forbid you leave the bathroom door open at any point during the day - he'll be in there and using the toilet as a finger bowl in seconds.
Last week we dog-sat my brother's dog Bear while they were away. Christine was a big help taking care of him - she helped Ben walk him and "supervised" his meals as seen above. She would lie down and stare at him eating his dinner each and every night while telling me over and over again that he was making crunching noises, thank goodness he's great with the kids and didn't seem to mind his dinner date.

And today we had a visit from our friendly neighbourhood Spiderman. Dash got Spiderman as a Baptism gift from his Uncle Pat back in June but apparently Spiderman been really busy saving lives or something until today to hang out with us- I'm sure there will be much prop comedy (from Ben) to come with our superhero, so stayed tuned.

Our Own Little Humpty Dumpty

Well the Dash Man was days away from fully walking on his own when like Humpty Dumpty he had a great fall last week. He's fine, but he did hurt his leg/hip and is now getting around with a limp. Although the above picture was not taken after he fell (it was taken one evening right as the bedtime meltdown began) it's a pretty good example of how he was feeling, poor guy. Christine's been pretty good about helping her little brother get on the road to recovery - even if she's been a little jealous of the attention he's been getting. They are back to their usual shenanigans together - riding around the house in the car scattering toys in their wake.
So hopefully soon Dash will be back to his walking self as seen above, then watch out world!

Training Wheels

A quick video of Christine and Dash playing together this afternoon. The more mobile Dash becomes the more the two of them play together but an unfortunate consequence is more minor fights - usually Christine running to me saying "Dash happened" when he has taken the toy she is playing with. And so it all begins......

Happy Birthday Dashiell!

Our own little Dashiell (aka Dash, the Dash Man,or the Dashasaurus) had his first birthday on Saturday and we were all excited to celebrate his big day with him. Christine had been wishing him Happy Birthday all week but first thing she said when she woke up on Saturday morning was that it was his birthday that day and he finally got to open his presents (she diplomatically declared that she would share them with him).
Dash's big present from us was an inflatable pirate ship that is big enough for Christine and Dash to both play in - they both seem to love. And thus far we have spotted whales, polar bears, sharks and miscellaneous toys off the port side, only time will tell what else we see. After spending the morning together we headed off to Grandpa's day to celebrate Dash's birthday with Grandpa, Grandma, Uncle Mike, Uncle Pat, Uncle Matt and Aunt Boo (unfortunately his godparents Luke and Amber were off to Cuba that day but they dropped by with presents earlier in the week and called him internationally to wish him well). There were more awesome presents (including a bunch for the best sister around) and of course cake. The cake was delicious and we all enjoyed it but Dash of course just wanted to face paint with it - his crazy dad Ben decided to join him in the fun.Of course we couldn't contain our partying to just one day and Sunday afternoon we had Uncle Geof, Aunt Brenda and their dog Bear over to celebrate some more.
Of course there were more presents to be had both for the birthday boy and his big sister and instead of Christine helping Dash open his presents this time we had Bear give him a hand...I mean paw.
There was also a bonus gift that mysteriously appeared below.....it did not come with a gift receipt so no returns.

And finally here's a shot of Geof, Brenda and Christine all wearing protective headgear to prevent aliens from reading their minds (I think that was the intent) and Bear getting a good taste of the very tired birthday boy.

A great big thank you to everyone that helped us celebrate Dash's big day, we all appreciate it.