Isa's Birthday Party

Havi and all her friends got together to celebrate Isa's 4th birthday party... no words needed... it was a fun party.

Havi jumping in...





The whale!

New School = Best Decision Ever Made!

So Havi has been at her new school for almost three weeks now and we can honestly say it's the best decision we ever made. She settled in really well, I think having her friend Taylor from her old school definitely helped, and she loves her new teachers Miss Rachel and Miss Erin. At the moment she has about 10 class mates, once the whole class is enrolled there will be 16 - but a few move up to Kindergarten at the end of the summer.

Last week Havi went on her first field trip to Tropical Smoothie - where apparently the orange smoothie was delicious! She had been so excited to go on the school bus, and from the excited story when she got home I don't think she was disappointed. Next week the class goes bowling and they have visits to the nature centre, ice cream shop, zoo and lots more through out the summer.

Each day Havi brings home a 'report' about her day, what she ate and drank, if she slept and what she did. Each one is filled in so well with lots of remarks about the fun and silly stuff they did. Last Friday she earned the privilege of being 'weather girl' for the day, and her responsibility was to check the weather and let the class know.

In two short weeks she's started spelling out everything, car rides are filled with T-T-T-T-tree, C-C-C-C-car, H-H-H-H-house etc. She knows her days of the week and months of the year. Yesterday she wrote "Dad, Love Havi" all by herself, no help at all. She actually talks about her day at dinner time, instead of "nothing" being the answer to "what did you do."

Can you tell we're pleased?

Here's a mini tour... the Frogs classroom.

The computer room - she has a half hour class in here each day.

The dance room - she has ballet every Wednesday morning with the same ballet school as before.

The gym - for fun games as well as somewhere to run on days when the weathers bad!

The art room - messy time!

The library! Havi's favourite I think :-)

They also have a great shaded playscape, swings, play house and sand pit outside, along with bikes and trikes. As well as a swimming pool where the 4 year olds and up get to spend 45 minutes every afternoon splashing around.

All in all... big thumbs up!

Birthday at the Zoo

What's better than a trip to the zoo with friends and Grandma on your birthday? Nothing tops that I think!

We started the morning off with a HUGE pile of pressies and Havi was so giddy as she opened each one. Among her big presents was a Hello Kitty bike, a princess tent, a pink bean bag chair and a Strawberry Shortcake house - all topped off with the biggest My Little Pony balloon I've ever seen.

We got this same big cheesy grin as each gift was opened.

We then set off early with Grandma and Rebecca to avoid the heat and met Dilek, Selin and Kaan there. Havi was excited to show Selin the zoo as she'd not been before.

They got to watch the tiger taking a dip in the pool, feed the goats, deer and llama's and of course have a ride on the train. While we were waiting for the train Havi got a very cute present from Kaan... he said her name for the first time... he even said her name before he said Selin's! Very cute. He then belly bumped her :-)

After a fun few hours at the zoo we met Auntie Brooke for lunch on the way home then all had a much needed afternoon nap.

We spent her birthday afternoon playing with her new toys and watching Princess and the Frog.

Havi's birthday always falls on Memorial Day weekend, so the following day we went to The Bates' for some fun in the sun. This was also Peter's first trip out of the house since he'd left the hospital (other than for wound care appointments) and he was able to relax and watch the kids be silly.

Ian and Havi were quite the life of the party, after playing in the inflatable castle, slip 'n' slide and the pool, they turned the deck into a dance floor!

Many more pics of the birthday weekend HERE

Daddy in the hospital :-(

After Grandma and Auntie Brooke took Havi out for dinner after her recital, I ran off to the ER to see what the diagnosis was for Peter.

Staph infection :-( This meant they would admit him into the hospital and keep him on an IV antibiotic. I stayed until Peter was settled then headed back to the house so that we could be as normal as possible for Havi. That evening we took Havi to visit - dressed her up in her nurses outfit and took her doctors kit. This took her mind off of what was really going on and she got to see her Daddy.

She really took care of him - it was very cute to see. She took his temperature and gave him fake injections (like he needed more!)

Peter had to stay in the hospital for four days in the end... he's on the mend now. Still going in for wound care treatment every three days, but it's finally healing.

Thank you to everyone who came to visit him and have helped us out while he's been 'out of service'... it means a lot.

Grandma is here - and what GREAT timing - parties, recitals and hospital visits!

A few days after we got home Grandma arrived for a visit - Mount Notsosupercalifragilisticexpialidocious attempted to stop her - but no volcano is going to stop Grandma getting here.

I picked her up at the airport late on the Friday night and Havi was SO excited to see her that next morning, I think she may have made Mum light headed after the squeeze she gave her. We dragged the poor jet lagged woman off to swim class and story time, let her have a quick nap then it was birthday party time.

The Party Princess

Havi and Selin had a joint 4th birthday party at Little Gym and it was SO much fun - and so easy! We just turned up with kids, food and cake and they did the rest. The kids played on the jumping track and with the parachute and had a cool game of 'smash the cheese' before digging in to snacks and cupcakes (thanks to Rebecca for the yummy cupcakes).

It was still one week until Havi's actual birthday... but Havi asked quite a few times if all her friends were coming to her house on her birthday 'just like my three year old birthday' and couldn't quite grasp the early birthday party concept!

To continue Grandma's busy first weekend here, Sunday was Havi's first ballet recital. It was Sleeping Beauty and was held at a proper theatre down town. Big stuff for a little girl. On the Friday before they'd had their rehearsal and I snapped this adorable picture of all the Little Pink Fairies together.

Just as we were about to leave for the recital we noticed something was up with Peter's stingray'd leg. His whole legs was red and bumpy... not good. So Havi didn't have both her parents missing from the recital Rebecca took Peter to the urgent care and we headed off down to the theatre.

Havi did such a GREAT job. She randomly started waving in the middle of their two minute little piece, which was so cute as I don't even know who she was waving at. Unfortunately, right before she went on stage we got a call from Rebecca, Peter was heading to the ER :-( As soon as Havi was finished I grabbed her from back stage and Grandma and Auntie Brooke took her out to eat while I headed off to the hospital.

So as not to steal this post - head on over HERE for the hospital details!

Thank you so much to Brooke, Kelly, Rob and Ian for coming to watch and for the lovely roses (seeing Ian give them to her with a mini hug was too cute) - it meant a lot to have them all there to watch.

This is the only picture I managed to get with the 'no flash' rule - but we do get a DVD of the whole show and I'll make a link of her little bit once I have it.

Port Aransas and the Stingray Incident 2010

In mid May we set off for our (almost) yearly trip to the beach house in Port Aransas with Kelly, Rob and Ian and Rebecca and Matt.

Just look how Havi and Ian have grown over our last three trips...

August 2007

May 2009

May 2010

All was going well - Kelly, Rebecca and I had gone horse riding on the beach, the kids had had endless hours playing in the sand and surf and we'd eaten lots of good grub - then Mr. Stingray came along!

Peter was about to go body surfing with Matt and Rob and was in about 18 inches of water when he got stung by a stingray. Now, I always presumed a stingray sting was just a bit worse than a jellyfish - oh no... it's a LOT worse. After a 911 call, a trip to the ER, some vicodin and hours with his leg in hot water - poor Peter spent the rest of the weekend with his leg up to stop the swelling. He was in internet jail (not internet at the beach house) and I'm sure bored out of his mind. More to come on the whole stingray incident in a later blog post!

Other than the 'incident' we had a lovely long weekend away with friends and the kids had a blast on the beach.

See lots of pics right HERE