Happy Birthday Marshall!
Marshall turned 4 yesterday! We had his party on Saturday at the Splash Park. We had a great time, though it was a lot of work (Rick made homemade hamburgers and potato salad, I made brocolli salad and did up the treat bags, lugging stuff to the park, chasing after children etc) and Marshall didn’t want to put his swimsuit on, or play with his friends (Jack, Connor, Jean, Evelyne, Marek, Greyson, Boris, Lucas) apparently. heh. They enjoyed the cake (Mickey) and pinata, and some of the kids enjoyed the splash park. We enjoyed the deilicious burgers and the company.
Marshall received lots of really nice gifts. Aqua Sand, outdoor toys, a camping lantern, Trouble (the game) … He even received a gift from Julien and Alexandre today at school – Lincoln Logs – we built a fort with them tonight after supper.
We gave him a wooden dragon for his castle that we picked up in Ottawa, a pirate puppet, some t-shirts, and some play kitchen things. Auntie Stacey sent down some sharper scissors and finger puppets. We made up a story with those and did a little play together. He used his new scissors to cut the tags off. Uncle Randy and Steve gave him a James megablocks train – he made a lighthouse, windmill and his favourite, the crane with the blocks!
The Grampys did well this year: Grampy got him the coveted DSi (XL) and he’s going to use Grampa Bob’s birthday money to buy a game for it! And Uncle Jamie dropped by Saturday afternoon with a RC Car. Nana had sent a box on the bus that he opened on Friday with some nice clothes and a cool magnet/spelling book, and Gram gave him a water bottle and some outdoor/pool toys and will be seeing him next weekend with some other things from her Atlanta trip.
Sunday we went to Greyson’s birthday party (across the street) – he turned 2! Marshall had fun playing wiht all Greyson’s toys and they had cupcakes. The adults enjoyed themselves as well with a fun guessing game and lots of good munchies. Must absolutely NOT get the recipe for Cathy’s nacho dip – deliciously deadly! Also: they had red velvet cake from the Cakebox. Yum!!
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Just to backtrack a bit, Ella and I had a great trip to Calgary and really enjoyed our visit with Stacey, Cris, Sam and Diego and Martha. We saw Lake Louise and lots of mountains, we went to the stampede, and a stampede breakfast! We got to see my uncles Brad and Ron, aunts Jeannie and Roberta, my cousin Lara and her son (who was due the same day as Ella but born 5 weeks early) Gage, and Jeannie’s son Connor.
I made curtains for the boys room, and Cris got me hooked on Lost again. We had many nice meals and celebrated Stacey’s … 34th??!! birthday!
Ella did really well on the plane both ways. I had lots of room on the planes on the way out to Calgary, but on the way back it was packed. We still managed! (even though on the way back they swabbed the baby bottles and got a red flag… everything had to go through xray again and they had to pat me – and Ella – down before they’d let us through!)
I learned on this trip that Ella loves her Bjorn (baby carrier). I picked it up on Canada Day for $35 on Kijiji.
I missed my boys though! It’s nice to be back home!
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I have updated pics but am still working on the Calgary ones … I’m a little behind!
Did I mention I’m going back to work in September?? Eek!