Sledge Hockey with Katheryn

We had a new sledge hockey player today!

Katheryn had the opportunity to get out and on the ice with Nick.
Nick actually did better with Katheryn on the ice. He certainly liked showing off!

Katheryn's heart

When Katheryn had her yearly doctors appointment this year,  her doctor said that he heard a heart murmur. I had never been told this before, so we wanted to get it checked out.

She saw a pediatric Cardiologist today. Dr Beaulieu, and he was so excellent with her!

Her described everything to her with pictures and videos and explained to Katheryn exactly what was normal in her heart and what a murmur (her murmur) was.

I was able to take a video of the ultrasound that they did to her heart.

And then Katheryn and I put together the video clips and some pictures into a video so Katheryn could show it to her Brownie group (and get a Brownie badge STEM)

Katheryn's murmur is called a musical murmur and is completely benign (not a medical problem).

It is caused by a couple of extra tendons in the left ventricle (the large 'room' in the heart). As the blood flows through the heart, it produces an extra sound. Dr Beaulieu described it as being a sound similar to when the wind blows over electrical lines or branches in the trees.

 So it is not a problem at all and will go away as she gets older.

Ballet Time

It was time for some Mommy and Katheryn time. This time we were going to the Ballet.

We got tickets to see The Little Prince ballet with my best friend Lisa and her 2 daughters.

Katheryn and I decided to take the train down.

She was so excited to be on the train. We moved seats 3 times during the ride!

We played handman on the ride there. Katheryn had lots of fun (and worked on her spelling)

We also decided to walk up from Union Station.
Katheryn said that the city looked like Paris! (Except for the CN Tower of course)
I'm not really sure where this came from other than Monster High. But she thought it was great

The Ballet was fun, it took a while for Katheryn to get used to the idea of now talking/singing. And there was whispering back and forth to understanding what was going on at the beginning. We were in the back row with 1 row people standing behind us. Towards the end of the show a lady in front of me kept turning back and shhing the kids and giving them dirty looks because someone in her row was tapping on her purse. 

And we found out at dinner that someone standing behind us tapped my friends youngest daughter on the head! We found this out later. She was furious that someone would put intentionally touch her child. Yes it was a ballet, but you don't touch other people! Keep you hands to yourself!

The 3 kids sat in between us 2 adults and they were very well behaved. It was the adults around us that I was very surprised in.

Afterwards we all went out for dinner and got to catch up and talk.
It was a great day out, and we are already planning our next date!

On the way out we saw a number of homeless people begging on the road. Katheryn asked for a loonie to give to one man. She was very proud of herself that she could help someone who asked.

It was really nice to be out with just Katheryn and give her some time along. We will do it again in a couple of months (and it's even better that I promote her love a theatre!)

Katheryn's First Communion

Katheryn had her first communion this weekend.

I hadn't at first realized how elaborate some of the dresses are. Like little wedding dressing (which I guess it the point). As someone who never did a first communion, this was new to me. I have attended lots of Catholic masses and I know the concept.

Similar to my own wedding dress we wanted a dress that was simple, tea length (below knee) and twirly. Twirly was a must.

Katheryn was very excited. She had been learning about First Communion all year. She was one of the children who got to bring  the wine up. And she even answered one of the questions the priest asked during mass!

The priest went through some of the different ways to accept the Eucharist. I remember when we were kids they could only take it on the tongue. (I think some priests got bitten and now it is a choice)

Afterwards we got some pictures.

Nice and cute, kids together

 Funny picture with mommy (My favorite picture)

Funny picture with Daddy

The kids love doing the funny pictures. It lets me get all of the nice pictures

Mothers Day

For Mothers Day the kids each made me a card telling me why they love me.

A lot of Katheryn's is stuff that Kyle actually does (me too, but motherly Kyle). But I love her line "My second reason is well, you made me and if you didn't make me I wouldn't be here"

And I love that she signed her name as Kate.

Nick wrote his flower out as well. His writing has gotten so much better!

Nick also got to practice his typing.
This totally made me cry. Especially the "she likes the same movies that I like"

They also each made me a drink coaster for my hot tea.
I am the luckiest mommy!

And I think my kids get part of their crazy from me

Katheryn loves her dog

Rory has been doing less nibbling and so Katheryn has really started cuddling more with Rory.
I think she is in love

But she is still a puppy who wants to be in control

Martial Arts!

Katheryn started martial arts last fall and has been having so much fun with it!

Katheryn has been getting stronger and more confident.

She was very happy that today she got to test for her yellow belt!

Nailed it!

Girls Night Out

I thought that Katheryn was old enough share a passion of mine. Musical Theatre.

I love going to the theatre and the more musical the better.

So for Christmas I got Katheryn tickets to see Beauty and the Beast!

She had to wait 2 1/2 months, but finally the night came

Katheryn was very, very excited for a girls night out

Katheryn really wanted to wear her a Belle dress. Her old dress was waay too short for her. So when Nick and I went to the Disney store earlier in the week for his appointment, we got Katheryn her beautiful Belle dress. (And I wore gold to match her)

Katheryn was excited to be going downtown for fun as well. The streets were all still covered in snow and slush, but she was really good with holding her dress up and not getting it dirty at all.

We went down with a friend from work and went out for dinner. Katheryn loved the mustache glasses!

And what is your first trip to live theatre without some kind of memorabilia. So Katheryn got a Belle crown to match her dress.

I was actually surprised that she was the only kid I saw who was dressed like a princess. She got lots and lots of compliments.

We got to sit waaay in the back of the theatre. She couldn't wear her crown (of course) at the theatre to prevent the couple of people behind us from seeing, and she understood when I explained it like that (if only adults understood that as well). At first I was telling Katheryn to sit back and sit still. But then I realized there were lots of kids at the show, it was a Disney musical of course, and the seats were deep.

She had a great time at the theatre and can't wait to go to another show!
And it was really nice to have some quality girls time with Katheryn and me

Karate Kid

Katheryn got to start some martial arts last month and is having a blast!

 

She is learning how to kick and roll and it is great exercise for her. (she does need to learn how to do proper push ups though).

 

Katheryn was very excited to do this hand move she learned on Kyle... Brought him to his knees. We all thought it was hilarious. But she knows not to do anything to hurt anyone.

It's funny because we know some of the words they say from Ninja Turtles

She is having so much fun, she is excited to go back every week!

Birthday Party

Katheryn had her birthday party this weekend.
She had a number of choices and picked Neb's Fun World and bowling. (She originally wanted swimming like Nick's party, but I didn't feel comfortable watching kids I don't know in the pool.) It was my first... I mean Katheryn's first... friend birthday party.

So she picked 5 friends from school (which turned into 9 friends from school) and family and friends and we had 16 kids for bowling. We had 3 lanes and so divided everyone up.

Family stayed in one lane and then friends were in the other 2 lanes. We had girl friends and boy friends and there were some friends who didn't want to play together (my first clue that there might be drama)

I assigned adults to every lane. One parent stayed and everyone else dropped their child off. It wasn't until the last parent asked about leaving a phone number that I realized that if anything happened to any of the children I had no way to get a hold of anyone.
I also had my list to keep track of who was there, and then cross kids off after they got picked up.

I was in charge of the girl team, and the girl drama. I hadn't realized drama would start at such an early age (thinking more teens). But we had tears and it's not fair and she won't let her and she's not sharing. I think that I did well with the drama and everyone had fun.

Because it was a girl and boy party I also had girl themed and boy themed loot bags (and left overs for Nick's party in November).

Katheryn had a great 7th Birthday! And smiles all day

Hoppy Birthday

Katheryn had a special 7th birthday today. It fell on Easter Sunday. So it was sharing the special-ness of Katheryn's birthday with an Easter Egg hunt for both of them.

So that tricky Easter Bunny hid all of Katheryn's presents around her room. She was very excited

Nick got into the fun as well and was right into the action while Katheryn opened her presents.

Everything kind of stopped once Katheryn opened her big present. A DS3. It was attached to her for the rest of the day

Then it was Easter Egg hunting.
Katheryn made up a note for the Easter Bunny asking if all of the eggs can be paired together. One for Katheryn and one for Nickolas.

 Katheryn is an Easter egg hunting machine! Nick is significantly slower, so it evens it out for everyone.

We have Katheryn's birthday party next weekend, but wanted to do something special for her. So we headed off to the zoo

She told everyone we saw that it was her birthday and she was 7 today. And she had a big Princess Birthday pin.

The zoo wasn't that busy, considering it was a holiday. There was a scavenger hunt set up by the zoo to visit different animals and get stickers.

We had to visit the polar bears, which is an old time favorite of Katheryn.

Nick liked the sea otter ("just like Marlene" from Penguins of Madagascar)

My favorite was the Komodo Dragon. We waited to see if it would start to breathe fire, but it didn't. The kids were not convinced that it was an actual dragon.

We got together for some photos.

And there was a Parks Rec beaver mascot for pictures.

After the zoo we went back to the house for an inpromtu party.

Complete with some purple hair chalk!

I didn't take any pictures, but we had family come over for a pizza party and cake.

Katheryn had a great birthday! (And the both enjoyed their Easter)
(Easter Sunday doesn't fall on Katheryn's birthday again until she is 18 years old, so I am glad that we made it special)