11 x 7 = 77 YEARS YOUNG

We recently celebrated Mae's 11th birthday.  With the paper work that came with her, we know she was born in June 2004.  We do not have a concrete day in June, and given that her name is Mae, we thought it appropriate to celebrate her birthday on May 31st, so that is what we did.  Thankfully, Mum and Tom came over for a last minute dinner celebration.  The boys picked out treats and presents so she knew that we were celebrating her and grateful to have her in our life.  She has been a fantastic addition to our family.  We love you Mae!

K picked out a doggie cupcake from the pet store.  It was a hit!

Q got her a new stuffy with the hopes that she will stop stealing the boys stuffed animals from their room.

Mae and her stuffies and a delicious new bone

VAN GOGH

Ms. Masellas had a visiting artist come into her classroom a few weeks ago.  As I understand it she was there over the course of 2 days working with the boys and girls, teaching them how to paint Van Gogh's sunflowers.  As you can imagine, Quinn was thrilled and exhilirated by this.  He came home that week and told me all about the step by step process they had done, he explained painting a reflection vs. shading, how to do it and how they were different and was desperate for me to see his finished product.  When he came out of school the following week carrying his artwork I was amazed!  Clearly grade two art has come a long way since I was in grade two.  WOW!  Well done Quinn.  I am happy you loved the process so much and that you are so proud of your art work, you should be, it is amazing!  As I write this, his sunflower painting is hanging proudly in his bedroom.

YOUR WINGS ARE READY...

Both of the boys have studied butterflies.  Kieran did it in SK with Ms. Chang and Quinn did it in grade 1 with Ms. Masellas.  Both of them have such fond memories of watching the life cycle of butterflies and then releasing them once they had become full butterflies.  When our science department was placing an order and offered for us to jump in on it we decided to do it at home.  It has been a fun project for all of us the past month.  Our kit included small containers, some corn meal type looking food to mix with water and place in the containers, 60+ eggs and a pop up net container to keep them in once chrysalis' formed.  Each stage takes between 7-10 days and all of them we very neat to watch unfold.  Tonight we set the butterflies free.  After dinner we gathered on our front lawn and unzipped their habitat.  Many flew off quickly, happy to be free at last, the rest of them needed to be coaxed a bit to head out on their next adventure.  Many of the neighbourhood kids were out so they popped over to watch some of it unfold as well.  I highly recommend this to friends with kids.  A very fun experience.  Thanks to Ms. Chang and Ms. Masellas for starting and sharing the interest of butterflies with both of our boys.

Night 1.  Preparing the food and placing it into the small cups

Transfer eggs into small cups

It was tricky work, they were tiny little things

Eventually Quinn decided to draw, naturally, he drew a butterfly

And Kieran sorted the cups into a shoebox

Q began to colour...

Quinn's butterfly

The grew into caterpillars, some of them were HUGE!

The transfer of chrysalis' into the netting habitat

Our first butterfly!  Kieran rescued it from the sugar water bowl.

Tonight's release.  This particular butterfly would not leave Kieran.  He nearly cried when it officially left.

K crouching down to show 2 year old Willa the butterfly

Neighbour Beckett wanting to try holding one

This one landed on our hedges and stayed there for quite a while before taking off