jump

Annie wanted to take a picture of me jumping so, here I am. A couple of things about this picture:
1. Let's be astounded by Annie's photography skills, as she managed to get me in frame, in focus, all while struggling to hold up a heavy camera.
2. There's (obviously) a baby in that belly. Number 6 will be arriving in November and we're pretty excited about that.

cousin sandwich

Clara's in there, somewhere in the middle between a couple of awesome cousins.

done

These fine folks will now be joining our daily schedule of activities instead of heading off to school every day. We think they will be a great addition to the team and we're excited to have them on board!

Let the summer begin.

garden girl

Annie's in charge of picking our garden strawberries. She's committed to the job, even though our strawberries are only the size of tiny blueberries. Her reward for the work is that she gets to eat them all.

graduate

Here she is... our grad of 2018, Miss Annie Kantor. She persevered through those rough first days (er, months) of not wanting to leave her house to finally loving the activity and people of school and now, here she is, all done. Yippee! Way to go, Annie! Congratulations on your Kindergarten graduation! (As long as you understand that you're not done school forever... it's just for the summer...)

new friend

Annie found a friend in the garden today. (Look on the leaf... it's a slug... not snot.) She examined it for quite a long time, tried to feed it grass, and then accidentally dropped it and couldn't find it again. So a short friendship, but still special.

my people

Today was our annual barbecue with people we like a lot but don't get to see very much (ie. my S+L friends who live far away). Here we are, fondly remembering when our faces were on the side of van (yet so grateful that van was totaled in an accident).

clever

Annie figured out a way to push Janie on the swing AND still swing herself. It's only dangerous when she starts to go really high. And over a mud puddle.

gymtastic

Clara and Annie loved their gymnastic classes this year and wrapped everything up with big smiles and shiny medals during Show Week. Clara's specialties include waving, somersaults, and twirly jumps, while Annie really rocked it in the high bar, hand stand, and cartwheel categories. Can't wait to see what they learn next year.

(a lot - a lot - of pictures follow)

father's day darnival

("Darnival" is a poor attempt to combine 'dad' and 'carnival'.)

Anywho, we celebrated Daddy with some fun games (and maybe a little pouting when not everyone won at said fun games) in the hot, hot sun. The kids each came up with a few games to play (except for Janie... she's lazy) with their favourite fellow and then threw a bunch of water balloons at him (in a very loving way). Happy Father's Day, to our Daddy.

pear down

I guess we won't be harvesting a lot of pears this year.

(It was a rainstorm, not the kids, that knocked it down.)

okay blue jays

One of the favourite days of the year... Oakville Little League at the Jays' game. Cheap(er) tickets, buckets of popcorn, salty pretzels, and, oh right, a baseball game. The boys got to run the bases at the end, a 30-second moment in time shared with ten-million other kids, of which I have 20 blurry photos and just that one in-focus one just as they got to home plate. Ah, memories.