As part of our family's winter bucket list this year Matthew demanded we have a winter feast, a concept enthusiastically endorsed by Elizabeth and Amelia. We've been discussing what exactly constitutes a "winter feast" ever since and finally settled on a menu.

Turns out that a winter feast is a fancy seven course meal as follows:

Starter (Hors d'oeuvre): Garlic Bread

Potage (Soup): Leek and potato

Fancy Jello

Poisson (Fish): Cucumber, cream cheese and smoked salmon bites

Entrée: Chinese fondue with chicken and beef

Sorbet as palate cleanser

Salades: Caesar Salad

Fromage: Pizza fondue

Dessert: Chocolate fondue and s'mores roasted over the fire

Matthew also wanted to have juice (a big treat here as we rarely have juice), ideally "the kind of fancy juice Amelia's godfather brought us at Christmas". We settled for Fruitopia and Lorianne's Sunrise drink (lemonade with grenadine).

Eating in front of the fire was deemed the ultimate in fancy but Matthew agreed we could eat some of the courses at the table with Lorianne's silver candelabra.

Elizabeth decided she wanted to dress up for the feast and put on her fanciest dress.

The kids thought it wouldn't be a feast if it was just our family, so Oliver and Lorianne joined us for the feast. Lorianne was able to put her etiquette knowledge to good use and told the kids many many stories during dinner based on story prompts provided by the kid. We heard "The Lady and the Tiger", "the girl that found a friend" (it was a duck, and she did not eat him at the end), "the tiger that wanted to fly" and "the scared kitten in the tree". I told them my grandpa's favourite Lady and the Tiger limerick ("There once was a Lady from Niger") and about the Jungle Doctor's monkey who tried to lift himself out of the swamp by his whiskers.

Grandma took most of the cousins snowshoeing this morning! I still can't go as my toe is still not healed but at least the kids could finally check this off their winter bucket list. Brendan was coming down with a cold so he decided he'd better sit this one out too.

We're probably the only people in Ottawa hoping for a long winter.

In any case, we met up with Michael and Kaitlyn at our house to check out our super awesome igloo before heading downtown by snobus to see the completed ice sculptures. They obviously sustained a bit of damage due to the mild temperatures last week but they were still very pretty. Maria was excited to find not one but TWO bear sculptures. We got to watch more carving being done as well. 

We had lunch at Olive and Chili's again. Elizabeth and Erika ate off in the corner because there wasn't enough room at the tables at first - they are growing up so fast!

It took us a bit longer to eat than anticipated. I think the girls were disappointed we didn't get across to Gatineau to go to the snow kingdom, but since it was "just tubing" they didn't complain too much. Matthew was feeling a bit cold so he didn't mind at all. We also didn't want to get trapped as the snobus was going to stop running. The weather was glorious - there was much frolicking in the snow on the way home and then the kids played in the igloo some more.

After Kaitlyn left the kids felt they hadn't had enough time in the snow (even though they had spent most of the day outside) so we grabbed sleds and headed to Brown's inlet. Erika and Elizabeth took turns while Matthew, Maria and Amelia used their own. There was much shrieking and laughter. All too soon it was time to head in.

Six is showing continued signs of maturing. 

Yes, Matthew is still very energetic and boisterous but he can control it better. There is less of the wild child rolling around wrestling with his buddies at music or junior church while giggling about bananas, and more serious and thoughtful listening going on. 

Still cute, likes to exert his independance and self sufficiency sometimes in terrifying ways (eg standing on tippy toes to get things out of the cupboard)

Adores building things and is quite good at following instructions. He’s mainly interested in putting together his Lego sets rather than playing with the end result. Amelia’s happy to play with his completed sets though, inventing all kinds of elaborate stories for the characters. Matthew is still the most generous of my children so far and usually lets her play with his things, even though he’s always worried she’s going to break it.

When Matthew and Amelia aren’t fighting, they get along super well. They are either doting on each other or pulling each other’s hair out. He oscillates between enjoying playing with her and having her look up to him as adored big brother and enjoying making her scream. He’s very good at pushing her buttons.

He’s more interested in playing with Michael now that he can walk. He likes to pick him up and drag him around by the armpits. Mostly Michael seems to find Matthew amusing and doesn’t mind the tougher than we’d prefer handling.

His best friend appears to be a little girl in his class named Sianna. 

Matthew asked for chocolate pancakes, sausages, eggs and bacon for his birthday breakfast.

He was super excited to find his present from Lorianne, including a birthday boy name tag and some little paper stars that smell "so nice" (the tins had been used for tea).

He went to school so that he could do his piñata and to karate so he could get a birthday belt (we also went to Tim Horton's after karate as a special highly coveted treat!)

Shared food such as celebratory cupcakes aren't allowed at our school; instead each classroom is expected to develop their own rituals. When Elizabeth was in kindergarten birthdays got to make popcorn. Matthew's class invites the parents to send in a piñata with a few items per child that they then use for math class that day. We didn't do the piñata in JK but Matthew asked very nicely if we could this year. I sent in little packages of alphabet beads, compressed washcloths that expanded in water to regular size and . I gather any leftovers (eg if kids are absent that day) go in the box of surprises which Matthew gets to pick from when he's specially good. 

It seems that he's very good at school. His teachers recently emailed me " C'est notre champion en lecture, écriture, math, écouter les consignes et très responsable à tous les niveaux." (He's our reading, writing, math and rule-following champ. He's very responsible at all levels)

I picked Matthew up early from school by special request and he spent the next few hours playing at home before karate. We had the leftover cake from his party and opened his presents from Auntie Janice (cooking magazine renewal), Mommy and Daddy and Grandma and Grandpa (Hospital lego!).

Winter recital time and Amelia did more than just stand there! Hooray!

Slightly rough start with both Michael and Amelia crying during the rhythm procession at the beginning. Apparently Amelia wanted to go on stage first before doing the procession and "you didn't let me". I think Michael got overwhelmed by all the people.

Things settled down after that though.

Matthew picked his piece because "it's my best piece". He had wanted to go back and play Deck the Halls, but it would have taken quite a lot of practice to get it back to a place where he could play it and I encouraged him to pick one of his current pieces so that we didn't have to do any extra practice. Matthew finds learning new pieces a tough slog unfortunately, although once he really knows a piece he's quite proud of being able to play it.

Elizabeth picked her piece because "I like the melody". She's recently become interested in jokes and is going around telling people many many jokes, some of which are funny, some not so much as she's working out what makes a joke funny. So for the first time she also submitted a music joke "What is Beethoven doing right now? Decomposing." Brendan is still working on not cutting off the first few notes of the piece when filming.