Liam is 4!

Happy birthday Liam! It's hard to believe that Liam turned 4 on Friday! Time flies by so quickly. I know it's such a cliche' - but it does seem like yesterday that he was born...

When we came to daycare on Friday morning Dorota summed it up so nicely (and brought tears to my eyes...)

"Happy birthday, Liam! Four years ago you were born and the world became a better place!"

Here are some pictures from his birthday:

Breakfast with cake and presents in the morning:

Anouk enjoying Liam's cake:

Liam in his Raven King costume for his birthday party. He had drawn a picture for me with the exact directions about this costume. The cloak was to be yellow with a purple rim and the crown was to be in this specific shape with 60,000 feathers (OK, I cheated, I didn't use 60,000) and of course there were to be jewels on his crown!

... and here he is only 4 years ago, just an hour or so old:

Salmonberries

Today we started off the berry season. The salmonberries are ripe! We were in Pacific Spirit Park and went for a long walk and collected lots of salmonberries. These were then used to coax Liam into walking some more. They are true energy berries. He would run ahead and then sit on a log and wait for another berry. It was great. Anouk really liked the berries, too. She didn't need to run for them though, she was just fed sitting in her stroller, a big smile on her face the reward for putting a berry into her mouth.

When we cam home Liam took our container of collected berries into the yard and shared them with his friend Maddy. Now we'll have to go again soon to pick some more :)

Oh my God - I am THAT parent!

Do you ever have that feeling you are that parent? You know, that parent - the one on the playground or in daycare. The one from your childhood, your friend's parent. The parent you always admired, the parent you thought was crazy, overprotective, slightly negligent, not attentive enough, talking too much about their children, not mentioning them enough, you know, that parent.

Well, I am now that parent. I am that parent who sends their 4-year old to violin lessons. This summer. Every week. With a 1/10 violin. In my defense: it was his choice. We were in the music store and I told him he could choose whichever instrument he wanted to get lessons for this summer. He chose the violin. 

And I was secretly proud of him and happy to be that parent. 

word cloud 2

...OK, I'm having way too much fun with this! This is the word cloud from all of the entries of this blog. 

If you compare it to the other word cloud from just the more recent entries, you can see a definite shift - towards chocolate....

:)

word cloud