It's finally warm enough that the first flowers are poking their heads out to say hi and I'm excited to go to the park.

Matthew is spending all of his time at the park zoning out in the swing. Amelia quite enjoys the swing too - just not quite as long as her brother! Elizabeth doesn't get as much park time (cuz school), but it's amazing how many of her friends we randomly bump into at the park. One of her fellow piano students has regular gym time at our local park. I was amused that the teacher told her off for "talking to a stranger without permission". Friend was quite indignant: "That's NOT a stranger, that's Elizabeth's MOM". Another of Elizabeth's schoolmates and good friend lives next door to the park, which was quite convenient when Matthew urgently had to pee...

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Our "new" (read: it can't possibly be ten years old already?!?) microwave was acting up recently after it got overheated making sweet potato chips. Long story short- a microwave should not run empty. A silicone tray of sweet potatoes is insufficient to qualify as "not empty". Lesson learned...

Anyway, the microwave was intermittently turning itself off mid-cooking. This was somewhat annoying, especially since it didn't always turn back on again. We looked up possible causes and it seemed possible that the door sensor was involved. Many things were tried; leaning on the door while it was cooking, opening and closing the door. They seemed to work for a while. Then we noticed that the tray would stop rotating right before it died. So we cleaned and rotated the turntable every time it died and that seemed to help too. Janice started taking her food to the neighbours. I was just patient as it mostly worked whenever we wanted it. It seemed risky to allow Brendan to take it apart while it was still working.

Then it died altogether. Since the alternative was to spend $600 to replace it, Brendan figured it wouldn't hurt to take a look. He quickly located the crumbling and blackened part that had fried. Ten dollars at the appliance store later and we were back in business and all wondering why we hadn't let my clever husband work his magic earlier!

Didn't I marry well?

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55 models. 16 stores, including some local designers! Over one hundred and thirty silent auction items. Nearly $18,000 raised for CHEO!!!

Our Elizabeth did a really great job modeling her clothes (big smile, nice pose!) and thoroughly enjoyed the fashion show. Matthew had a great time too, especially dancing with CHEO bear. It was loads of fun to see a number of neighbours in the lineup, including three year old Elizabeth from two doors down. The wee ones were super cute again. I thought the older kids had more confidence generally. Lots more backflips and cool poses. Noemie sure has some athletic friends! 

The league of super heroes were a huge hit, though my kids didn't really know who any of them were and thought the Star Wars characters were pretty scary. "Mom!", Elizabeth said, pointing to Darth Vader "I think that one's supposed to be a bad guy!" Yup! I hope that she enjoys the movies when her mean parents finally let her watch Star Wars...

The Bears (and princesses!) were more approachable, though Matthew warmed up to Batman after discovering he was friends with Spider-Man. Pretty amazing costumes (and all the Heros were handmade!)

There were a ton of Beanie Boos being sold and I allowed my children to use their allowance to buy one. Because CLEARLY we have a severe stuffie shortage in our house... Oh well - it was for a good cause, right? 

A day or so before the show Elizabeth went over to Noemie's to help cut out decorations (and eat many many cookies). She was super proud of the end result and pointed out some of the hearts she had helped make. Amelia may have enjoyed eating a few of them. 

Noemie gave a polished welcome speech that any adult would have been pleased to give. Then they played a personal message from Sophie Grégoire-Trudeau!

Noemie was pretty happy. She's a pretty impressive young lady and we're pleased to have her as a role model for our kids living right next door!

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Getting Amelia's godparents together in the same room is pretty tricky, so as Lorianne's departure for the summer drew closer we suddenly realized we ought to have them over for dinner to celebrate Amelia's one year baptism anniversary. I know, it's still a couple of months early but...

In any case we lit the candle, we had cake and we prayed for one special little girl. We're so blessed with our various godparent selections!

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When we had new windows installed, one of the selling points was that the mosquito screens are on the inside. This means that we can clean them from the inside (and they don't get all disgusting!)

There has been a terribly unfortunate side effect in that when birds fly into the windows, they have tended to leave a bloody streak behind...

In any case, we're up to three corpses so far this spring. Number one probably wasn't a window strike (given position of body and lack of smears), but the kids found it and insisted we have a proper burial. Elizabeth presided. First we all had to say a few words about the bird. "But we didn't know the bird", points out Matthew. "It's the most important part of a funeral!" retorts Elizabeth. "Dear bird, you were so beautiful and now you are dead. I hope you get to sing to Great Grandpa, Great Grandma and Grandpa Christian in heaven. Okay, now let's dig the hole." "O-TAY!" says Matthew.

Bird two was a gorgeous woodpecker who mysteriously disappeared before I had a chance to deal with the body (cat? raccoon?) Brendan and I were standing on the back deck talking about how to reduce bird strikes and whether or not there are more strikes with the new windows (or whether we just are outside more now that we have kids and therefore noticing before the cats do), when a third bird quite literally dropped dead at our feet. I didn't photograph him but it had beautiful yellow wings. Then to top it off, the next day at church I watched a bird zoom into one of the windows and the shadow falling plunk outside. Mind you, that window was a) filthy and b) totally opaque. So apparently it is the season for birds to be dumb and I felt just a wee bit better. I'm still going to try some anti-bird strike solutions though!

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