Baby shower time!

I guess there is something in the water at our church because there have been an excessive amount of pregnant ladies this year. :)

At the end of July we had a shower at our house to celebrate with two "experienced" moms, Andy and Heather and their new babes, Isaac and Julie.

A few days later there was a shower at the church for the three new moms. All five of the babies were born within about 6 weeks!

And there are more on the way!! Here are a few of the yet to be born babies (and their Mommies).

Loose Tooth

An ongoing drama in our household this summer has involved Grace's wiggly teeth. Now, Grace has always done things in her own time and in her own way. A prime example of this is that she didn't get any teeth until she was 14 months old, and when she did get her first teeth, it was her molars! Being that she was so late getting her baby teeth, I wasn't sure what to expect with losing them, but it didn't surprise me that the first grade came and went without any sign of a wiggly tooth. Then, oh happy day, there came a day when suddenly all four of her front teeth were slightly wiggly. I didn't think they would fall out before grade 2 because they were just barely wiggly, but much to Grace's delight, I was wrong!

Here are some pictures we took at the end of July, trying to show how very loose her bottom right tooth had become.

Before the said tooth actually fell out, we noticed that the adult tooth was already coming up, a few millimeters behind the baby tooth. This would have caused me great distress if I hadn't had a friend tell me just a few weeks before about her daughter having the same issue and the adult tooth moved forward just fine once the baby tooth was out. In the case of my friend, the baby tooth had to be pulled out by the dentist though, which concerned us a little since we have no dental coverage right now. However, I think knowing about Alanna's tooth was a good motivator for Grace, who hates going to the dentist, and she helped her wiggly tooth along so that it came out without the help of the dentist! :)

Here she is, pleased as punch with the new hole in her mouth. And you can see in this picture that her top tooth is pretty loose too.
This past week Grace lost her other bottom front tooth but that snaggle-tooth on the top is still hanging in there. :)

Meeting Alexis

One of the highlights of our Boundary Bay week was the surprise arrival of my cousin Lindsay's baby daughter, Alexis. Despite being unexpected, she is a beautiful, healthy baby and we had the pleasure of celebrating with Lindsay and Rich at an impromptu baby shower at Ernie and Debby's house in Tsawassen.

Everyone got a turn to hold her, but I did try to monopolize her as much as I could. :)



Just for fun, here's a picture of Lindsay as a baby, for comparison.

And Alexis with her eyes open. A picture I stole from Lindsay's facebook. :)

Boudary Bay

Boundary Bay in Point Roberts, USA, is a special place for our family. I have precious memories of summer vacations spent playing on the sandbars there when I was a girl. My Mom also spent time out at Boundary Bay when she was a young girl, and so did my Grandma. Even though our family no longer owns a cabin there, it seems only natural for the next generation to be able to experience Boundary Bay, so, for the last 5 summers, my Grandma has rented a cabin there for a week where our extended family can converge for fun at the beach. It is always so much fun, but I think this was one of the best years yet because the weather was perfect - not too hot, but no rain!

One of Evan's favourite things to do at Boundary is skimboarding. He's definitely better at it than he was last summer when he tried it for the first time.

The dog in the pictures is not ours, but it hung around all morning and had fun chasing Evan on his skim board.


Rachel played for ages in this tiny puddle on the sandbar until it finally dried up.

Grace is such a water baby

Playing "Fox and Goose" or "Line Tag" or whatever you want to call it, with Brian and Quinn when they came out to visit one afternoon.
There were 5 in the bed and the little one said . . .

I don't know why this one won't flip over for me

Cute cousins!

Colby is always looking for critters Everybody helped to find crabs, and fish and other things to put in the "marine habitat."

Ashley is too cute!
Days like this are why we keep going back to Boundary Bay.
Grace found a ladybug friend



Grandma always makes flubber to entertain all the grandkids. This year they had bubble blowing contests with the flubber.
Rachel loves her Nana


Walking along the beach on the way to the clay cliffs.
I know it's hard to see some of the pictures but if you click on it, you can see it bigger.
Roy and Ryan having a very serious discussion about sandbar golfing

I think they've invented a new sport
Every year at Boundary Bay, one of the highlights is the walk down the beach to the "clay cliffs," where everyone climbs the hill of sand and clay and carves their name in it.
Evan magically grew to be as tall as Grandma! :)
A nest of baby swallows we saw on our walk.
Building the annual sandbar castle in order to stay out on the sandbars as long as possible.

As you can see, there are lots of fun happenings at Boundary Bay - and these aren't even all the pictures! It's been over a month already since we got home from Boundary so it's almost time for the kids to start asking "How much longer until we go back to Boundary Bay?!"

Horseback Riding

For Grace's birthday, my Mom, gave her a gift certificate for horseback riding. Mom has a friend who owns horses, so in July it worked out for her to give Grace a little lesson. Grace has been very into horses for the last few months and she was absolutely thrilled to have the chance to actually do some riding.

Grace had lots of fun and she even got to do some "tricks," with a little help.