A good day for a parade

On the May long weekend, Faith again participated in the Parade of Horses at an historic site near my parents' farm. I'm not sure if Faith or my dad was more excited about it. The main idea of the parade is to show off various breeds of horses to the crowds that attend the event. People can get up close to the horses, talk to the owners, and see the horses in action in a show ring.

This year, 13 breeds were on display, including my dad's Morgan horse, Suzie. Faith's job was to ride Suzie in the show ring. They prepped Suzie and did some practice runs around the site, figuring out along the way that one stirrup was about 30 cms longer than the other! After they got this all fixed up, they were ready to go.

Faith rode western this time (different saddle for the non-horse lovers), and was completely at home in the ring. Dad had to lead her around the ring according to the rules...if you're under 12, you have to be on a lead line. The whole fan-damn-ily showed up to watch on the gorgeous day. And I took about a million pictures. I was so darn proud of her.

We couldn't stick around for the whole parade, because, as usual on our trips to my parents', it was a jam-packed schedule. But, we did get to see my brother's friend, Kyle, bring in a gorgeous pair of horses he's been training:

The owner of the horses rode with him in the ring (and yes, Kyle took this BIG setup through a very crowded site and made it look easy):

And they did some fancy tricks...

The mist in the background was a little strange though. We were next to Lake Erie, and it was a clear, blue day when we showed up. But, over the course of half an hour, a thick mist formed on the lake and rolled into the site. It was like the setup to a bad horror movie. But the eery mist was no match for the sun, and the show carried on.

Happy Birthday George!

A very happy birthday to my honey! I won't reveal how old he is, but I will say that I've known him for FAR more than half his life now. :) Right now he's watching Montreal and hoping for a win. So far, it looks like his birthday wish may come true.

Sunday Stills: Flowers/Wildflowers

Despite spending most of the week either nursing someone in my family back to health, or sick in bed myself, I was able to take pictures of flowers for Sunday Stills.

As usual, I don't know the name of the flower (azalea?). It's been just outside my front door since we moved into our house seven years ago, and it's grown about 10 inches in that whole time. When I first saw it, the bush was in pretty bad shape, so I cut it way back and hoped that it would survive. Somehow it did and I enjoy seeing the delicate pink flowers every spring.

This next once was a transplant from our old house, and my mom gave me the original bulbs. It's called an anemone and only opens in sunlight. And, yes, it is this blindingly white.

Happy Birthday to my baby brother

A belated happy birthday to my baby brother, Ryan! Yes, he may dwarf me now at 6 feet something, something, but I still think of him as my baby bro. He was at our place a couple of weeks ago to spend the night and head out at 3:00 am for a turkey hunt. (Crazy.) He was successful and showed off his prize on my front lawn, AFTER dripping some turkey blood on the front porch. Perhaps good for a voodoo ceremony later?

As Ryan said, "Your neighbours must think you're rednecks." If not us, at least my family.

Happy 9th birthday!

Happy Birthday to our nine-year old! I can't believe the time has gone by so fast. She's gone from fitting in one hand to wearing my sweater at dinner last night...and it pretty much fit. I think we've officially entered the tween years now, complete with a camera for her birthday to take pictures of her friends to post online (not).

Tonight, we'll be having the cake that the kids and I made. An annual tradition actually. We make chocolate cake, lick the beaters (George taught them), and then repeat the process for the icing. We have a crude but tasty decorating technique that always leads to an interesting final result:

Our official party will be on Friday. We had a slight postponement because Blake woke up sick today, but Faith took it in stride. She's already used up a set of batteries on her camera, so I'm thinking that will keep her busy the rest of the night. And, between that, homemade pizza, and cake and ice cream, it will be a birthday well done.

Mother's Day starts at midnight

As is normally the case when you have a three-year-old and a nine-year-old in the house, you're always going through a transition of some sort. In our case, Blake is transitioning from a daily afternoon nap to no nap at all. Mention this to any parent of a kid who's no longer napping, and you automatically get a look of sympathy. It's also a short-form excuse of sorts when we're out in the afternoons now and he has some sort of meltdown in a store. I just have to look slightly apologetic as I throw him under my arm and say, "He's not napping anymore."

So, this transition means that my normal afternoon nap on the weekends has been severely curtailed. Yesterday, I told George that all I wanted for Mother's Day was a nap. I should have kept my big mouth shut. Add to this the message I left on our friends' answering machine telling them we'd have Faith's birthday party on Monday night so we could have a peaceful day of doing nothing on Sunday. How could I have cursed myself so?

Yes, this year Mother's Day began at midnight when Blake woke up crying and struggling with his breathing. Croup. A fairly bad attack of it for him actually. George took him right out to the porch wrapped in a blanket and the cold night air helped straighten out his breathing almost immediately. (Thank you cold snap!) I'm not sure why it works, but I'm glad it does. Then, it was a call to TeleHealth (thank you Mike Harris...did I just type that?) to get a second opinion. Yes, we were doing the right things, and were to visit a doctor within 24 hours.

Blake spent the night in our room, in case of another attack, so I spent the night listening to his wheezing and George's snoring - a symphony to be sure. And, when 7:00 rolled around, who jumped out of bed completely refreshed and declared, "I'm all better now!" I can tell you it wasn't George and I.

But, as it was Mother's Day, the kids and George headed downstairs, and Faith brought me a bagel and juice in bed. I even got to read a little bit. Quite heavenly actually. The kids had made me cards and Faith created a paper-mache bowl, while Blake gave me a sparkly-painted tulip. George got me a card and my favourite chocolates, which promptly went into the new bowl to be shared.

Then we got back to real life. I took Blake to the on-call doctor, who told me he was fine now, and gave him a puffer for his next croup attack. Then, on to the grocery store/pharmacy to pick up said puffer, where all the other mom's were also out doing their shopping today.

Finally, back at the ranch, I headed up to bed for my now completely non-optional, I'm-going-to-fall-flat-on-my-face-I'm-so-tired nap. Blake crawled into bed with me and we both blacked out for an hour until Faith nudged me awake to make her birthday cake for tomorrow.

Yes, just another day of motherhood.

Now, here's to my two best mother's day presents....

Sunday Stills: The Letter B

Sydney has been urging me to try out Sunday Stills - each week you post a picture related to a theme. This week's theme, the letter B, seemed to fit this picture I took on a very warm April 30th in our friends' backyard.