Sisters

I often wonder what it will be like, three girls, three sisters?  I had one sister and she had one sister, just the two of us.  Sure there were brothers... but just one sister.  It's fun to watch Fiona watching her big sisters and know that in no time she'll be right in there playing!  I feel so blessed that they have each other.  Yay for sisters! 

Party Day

We began the day at Bizzy Bee's in Alliston.  Johnny and Kate are in the same primary class at church.  His Mom and I have become friends and she was sweet enough to invite our whole family to his birthday party.  There were a few other families there from our ward and Kate and Alice had fun playing with their church friends.  Johnny's Grandma made him and awesome batman birthday cake. I didn't get to take too many pictures.  I was nursing and the camera was acting up.  I didn't even get a good shot of Johnny or his awesome cake!

After that it was party number two.  Every year for the past five years we've made an annual pilgrimage to Keswick.  In 2008 it was for Cooper's baby shower - Cooper was still on the inside for that party.

Just for fun here's Cooper's first b-day

And here he was today.

Shawn threw an Angry Birds party.  Cooper loves Angry Birds.  Kate loves them too.  It was a beautiful day and most of the activities were outdoors but Kate and Alice both enjoyed playing inside with Cooper's toys too.  Shawn goes above and beyond every time she throws a party.  She should be a party planner.  We all had so much fun.  I took more pictures then is reasonable, but will try to show restraint in the number that I post on the blog.

(Okay, not too much restraint really.  But fun pictures!)

I had a proud Mommy moment.  All the kids wanted Cooper to open their present first.  Kate waited and waited.  She was so patient.  Cooper opened her present last and she didn't lose it!  Oh and one more fun thing, it was Cooper's actual birthday today, not just his party!

After a lovely party we came home and I watched the Relief Society broadcast online in the basement.  It was the perfect end to a lovely day.  I think I'll include my thoughts about the broadcast when I post about conference!

Terry Fox Walk

Today was Kate's very first Terry Fox Walk at her school.  Last night we read part of a book about Terry Fox.  We talked about cancer.  I told Kate about Gordon's little sister Ally having cancer.  There was lots of discussion.  Alice had lots of questions too.  Today when I got to school to pick up Kate she had her Terry Fox sticker on her chest.  Much to my surprise and delight she had remembered our discussion the night before, and even though I'm still not sure how much she understood, it would seem that she understood enough!

Apples and Temples

Ken and I were both so disappointed that our trip to Chudleigh's was rained out, that we went today instead.  Ken didn't have any work assignments and the forecast looked lovely, so off we went.  I was a little sad that it was just our family (as in no cousins), but we did have a lovely time.

We enjoyed the slides, running around on hay bales, the petting farm, the wagon ride and picking apples.  We spent several hours at Chudleigh's and picked a goodly amount of apples.  Not too many - no baking on the horizon.

We left the orchard and went to the new outlet stores in Milton, just a few minutes away from Chudleigh's.  We needed to find Kate new outdoor shoes.  We found them, for a great price and then got back on the highway to head home.  But then it didn't really make sense to go straight home.  We were quite far from home and hadn't planned ahead for dinner, not to mention that any more time in the car and both girls would have fallen asleep.  We came off the 410 in Brampton and right there was a Swiss Chalet.  It wasn't the best dinner out ever, the girls were tired and a little crazy - poor Alice particularly!  After our dinner stop we decided that we would go walk around the temple before heading home.

We had so much fun being near the temple.  Kate needed to use the bathroom before we went home so we went inside the waiting room to use the facilities.  If you've never been in a temple before, imagine the most peaceful, loving, happy, quiet space you know and that might start to come close to the feeling inside the temple.  We stopped inside the waiting room and I turned to Kate and whispered, asking her if she could feel how peaceful and wonderful it felt in the temple.  I took the opportunity to testify of my belief that the temple is a sacred, holy place.

Apples and temples.  What a beautiful, wonderful world we live in!