sunday school picnic

Today was our annual Sunday School Picnic.

The weather was hot, but that didn't stop the kiddies enjoying themselves! From running races to slurping on popsicles! From the water ballon toss to a delicious BBQ! A super time was had by all.

Lilah really outdid herself, well kinda... I sorta forgot she turned 5 a couple of weeks ago and ended up putting her in the 4 and under team, oops! She came second in the running race and third in the sack race. Actually, she'd been talking about the sack race all morning - I guess she remembered it from last year and was full of anticipation!

Here's a few pictures of our amazing Church family. I cherish every one of these people, a family formed through adoption... so amazing that we've each been adopted into the family of God.

Also, I really lucked out and captured the picture below of my hubby and girl slurping on their popsicles (ice-lollies to my NI friends!)... the photo is definitely pretty special to me, especially on the eve of Father's Day.

[ the flickr set is here ]

baba's shirt and getting married!

A few posts ago I wrote about Lilah really wanting (and getting) a peaked hat, because she wanted to look like her Baba. The same hat is loved and worn basically every day. So it should have come as no surprise to me, a few days ago when we were out shopping, guess what she spotted? A checked shirt, of course - just like her Baba wears! Oh man.

What can I say? Those two tease the life out of each other... but she adores her Baba Boy! Especially his style!

On another note, recently she brought up the idea of marriage. She used to tell us she wasn't getting married... well, in all fairness, those were Baba's words that she was basically just repeating! However recently, in fact, just this past week, she abruptly told us one evening: "I've changed my mind. I want to marry a big boy, like a husband!" It was totally out of the blue and of course, we gasped dramatically and asked why she would want to do a crazy thing like that! The girl certainly isn't short of answers, she was quick to quip back: "Well, you're married!" Of course, we had to agree! And then we dived in a little deeper and asked who the lucky boy was?

This is where things got interesting...

lilah: "I want to marry a boy with black hair and brown skin, who looks like me... Hugo I mean!" (Hugo is an adorable boy in her class, I think he is Vietnamese, but I'm not 100% sure.)
us: "Ohhhh, Hugo! He's a verrrry nice boy. So why do you think your husband has to look like you?"
lilah: (looks at both of us) "Well, you two are matching!"

We couldn't even attempt a straight face after that!!
And it's true, my husband and I have a lot of similarities. Here's a photo of us that proves her point!

I've said this before, she is so incredibly observant - she shows attention to detail like you wouldn't believe. Absolutely nothing goes unnoticed to her and she has an answer to just about everything - which can be a good thing, or maybe not! Ha!

[ the flickr set is here ]

she is my heart

Hello. My name is Jill. I have an addiction. Okay, I have many addictions, but now I have another addiction!

So recently, during my search for all things fresh and lovely, in order to make both my girls blogs look prettier... I fell among some really neat sellers on Etsy. These lovely ladies do exactly what I have become addicted to, indeed, let me introduce you to... digital scrapbooking and paper packs!!

Now I can freshen up my blog and create frames for my pictures, to my hearts content! I will introduce you to some of my favourite sellers soon.

If only there were more hours in the day!

the ornamental gardens

On Friday evening, after a pretty big thunderstorm, Lilah and I headed to the Ornamental Gardens, situated here in the city.

Earlier in the day I had googled online for things to do in Ottawa, just to see if there was anything happening this weekend that we could enjoy. While browsing through the list, I saw something about a Peony Rose tour at the Ornamental Gardens. As much as I adore Peony Roses, a Peony Rose tour certainly isn't my cup-of-tea and definitely wouldn't be Lilahs either! However, I decided, since we both love the Ornamental Gardens so much, that maybe we could visit them ourselves... you know, without the guided tour part!

So, we did. And not only were the Peony Roses in bloom, a lot of beautiful flowers were blooming - blooming beautiful as the saying goes. Lilah loves the great outdoors, she had a wonderful time: measuring herself to flowers, matching her clothes colours to flowers, smelling the flowers, swinging on branches, checking out the fish pond, singing along with the birds, searching for bugs and we also played our own version of i-spy around the gardens, I would describle flowers and she would find them. Of course, she also left with an armful of treasures, ...including 5 pine cones (because she's 5 years old, of course!) some pine needles (to give me injections!) and a few other rocks and twigs and leaves she found lying around.

Another thing she gathered up, were petals, that had fallen to the ground from the Dog Roses. When she was picking up the petals it brought back some childhood memories for me... as a child I used to pick the petals, put them into a bowl with a little water and smush them up to make my own brand of perfume. So I was telling Lilah my childhood story and she thought it was a great idea - she couldn't wait to get home to do the same! After she made her own perfume that evening, I asked her what she was going to call it, I made a suggestion that maybe she could call it rose perfume or something along those lines... but my independent girl had her own idea, she said "It's called Petal Perfume". It really did smell good!

I'm going to apologize in advance for the number of pictures I've included in this post! Decision making definitely isn't my strong point.

[ the flickr set is here ]

lifecycle of a butterfly

Lilah has been learning about the lifecycle of a butterfly this past week in her Junior Kindergarten class.

After watching this movie of herself, she was quick to tell me she made a mistake,
the caterpillar actually sheds it's chrysalis, not it's skin!

immunizations for china

Yesterday, we visited the travel doctor and nurse, and Lilah got her two shots (one in each arm) for travelling to China.

I call them her "China Shots", but she lovingly refers to them as her "Sister Shots"!

She was such a brave girl, as always... so after she got them we headed downstairs to the local grocery store and found something that Lilah has been looking for a LONG time - a peaked hat - so she can look just like her Baba! Baba thinks it is just the sweetest thing that she wants to look like him, and I do too. She's a cutie pie for sure! Today someone stopped with her and told her: "You sure joined the right team!"

Recently she's been all about running races, jumping and hopping. She draws lines on the ground with chalk and we have to race, yes, of course, I have to run and jump and hop too... phew, I'm certainly not getting any younger!

she's a funny little bug!

“Do never ever talk to strangers Mama, because they could take you in their car.”

lilah: “My friend Fenna speaks English and Dutch – what does Dutch sound like?”
me: “I’m sure we can find a youtube video of someone speaking Dutch.”
lilah: “Well I know how to speak Chinese, because I can say Yang Qi!” (Yang Qi is Phebe’s Chinese name)

After Baba and Lilah’s ‘Daddy Daughter Day’ together at the farm, on the drive home Lilah announced from the back seat: “'Ça va trés bien! That means I had a good day Baba!”

lilah: “What does reward mean?”
me: Well it means if you do something good you could get something special for doing it. Like for example, if I asked you to put the dishes in the dishwasher and told you I would reward you, I might take you to the 7/11 and get you a treat.”
lilah: “Oh.”
(45 minutes and lots of conversations later, supper is finally finished and Lilah starts taking the dishes from the table over to the dishwasher.)
lilah: “Do you remember what we talked about earlier Mama?”
me: Hmm. Lots of things, what are you thinking of?”
lilah: “That thing we talked about when you were making supper?”
me: “Well we talked about a lot of things and I don’t know what you’re thinking. Can you remember what it’s about?”
baba: “Hold on, are you thinking about the reward Mama was telling you about?”
lilah: “YES! Do I get one now?”
(Of course Baba took her to the 7/11 for a treat!)

me: “Lilah, what are you thinking about?”
lilah: “I’m just sitting thinking about Phebe.”

At the supper table one evening Baba and I were chatting about a Chinese-Canadian family in our Church who are planning a trip to China to visit their families… they weren’t out at Church that particular Sunday and Baba was asking me if I knew when you were supposed to be going to China and if they had maybe gone already? Of course Lilah was listening in and at the mention of the family going to China, she quickly asked: “Are they going to get a baby sister too?”

lilah: “When your mom or dad shout at you or something, you should go into your bedroom and get calm… it’s an exercise called spaghetti toes… I learned it at school today.”
me: “Really?” *Snort*
lilah: “Don’t laugh – it’s really true!”

me: “Love you so much Lilah.”
lilah: “Love you even more than you do love me.”

Lilah: “I really want to go to California sometime”
Me: “Oh. Why?”
Lilah: “I just want to see what that country looks like.”
Me: “Do you know someone who went there?”
Lilah: “Aunt Sue went there. Did you ever go there when you were young?”
Me: “No, I’ve never been to California.
Lilah: “We should ask Baba if we can go… and if he says no, we’ll beg him!”

baba: “Eat up your crusts Lilah, they’ll make you smart.”
lilah: “I’m already smart… but crusts will make my muscles strong.”

“We can all share germs, because we’re all the same family.”

a rainy day

"Pitter-patter, pitter-patter," can you hear the rain? ~ "Pitter-patter, pitter-patter," on the window pane.
"Pitter-patter, pitter-patter," let's go out to play. ~ I just love to jump in puddles on a rainy day.

Little raindrops, "Splashing, splashing," all across my face. ~ Little raindrops, "Splashing, splashing,” splashing every place.
"Pitter-patter, pitter-patter," do you hear that sound? ~ I just love to hear those raindrops falling to the ground.

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the birthday scooter

Lilah is so thrilled with her birthday scooter.

On her birthday evening, (Tuesday past), she had already changed into her pajamas and was all ready for bed when I realized she hadn't actually had a chance to take her scooter outside and try it outdoors, so I felt a little bad about that and asked her if she'd like to have a little scoot, even though it was past her bedtime...

Like she was going to say no!

The only thing she hesitated over, is wearing her pajamas... she wanted to be sure that no one would think she was wearing her pajamas... so I reassured her that no, no one would know she was wearing pajamas, they'd just think she was wearing shorts and t-shirt! She's pretty self conscious over little things like that, the funny monkey!

She sure loves that silly old scooter... and she sure can scoot, I almost got run over a couple of times!

[ the flickr set is here ]