A good day for a parade

We packed up the kids and went to watch the Santa Clause parade today, featuring Faith and George (Santa too)! George is co-chair of the Kof C Toy Drive for the region, so he normally takes Faith in the parade with him to help with the collection.

The weather was pretty much perfect this year - a little sun, just cold enough. Allyson and I took the rest of the kids (successfully fitting three kids' seats in the back of our Escape). We met up with Karen, Cordelia and William and headed to our spot across from the hospital. Free parking at the church, and lots of grass for the kids to roll around on waiting for the parade to start. And, a Tim Horton's across the street at the hospital. Perfect location.

I nominated myself for the Tim's run. The lineup was daunting, but I made it back out of the hospital just as the parade was getting to our spot. With the kids cheering me on, I hoofed it with a tray of hot drinks and made it across the street without spilling a drop.

The kids drank hot chocolate and juice, ate timbits and collected a fistful of candy canes as they watched planes, dogs, horses, singers, bands, grinches, and more go by.



George and Faith were at the beginning of the parade, collecting the buckets of coin donations for the toy drive. They ended up with a truck full of toys, although financial donations were down 40% this year. Not sure why yet. So, they'll have some work to do to make up for the shortfall.


And the kids got to wave at Santa as he finished off the parade. (Again, with me hoofing it across the street so we wouldn't miss the big guy after I took Blake to the bathroom.)

A good way to spend a Saturday morning.

Happy 3rd Birthday Logan!

A special occasion this week - my niece's 3rd birthday! We celebrated with chocolate cake, ice cream, and wine (for the adults) on Thursday evening. Logan was her normal adorable, and intelligent, self. (The kid sounds like she's been in school for 5 years already.) She's already registered for JK next fall...where did the time go?

Sunday Stills: Teacups

The Sunday Stills challenge this week, Teacups, was an easy one for me. I've got a little collection of teacups in my front hall that are "for looking at", but my favourite teacups are the ones I actually drink out of of. I've shown one of them in the blog before, but in this case, I decided to showcase half the set - they are red, black, and green, two of each. And, I swear they make tea taste better. Plus, they are dishwasher safe! Perfection!




For more teacups, check out the Teacups series on my flickr stream.

Sunday Stills: Meal time

The challenge this week was "Meal time". The idea was to take a picture that involved at least three different foods. For some reason I wasn't on the ball this week and forgot about the challenge until Friday.

But, again, the cameraphone came to the rescue when the kids and I hit Boston Pizza for lunch with Karen, Cordelia, and William on Saturday. My quesadilla, salsa, and salad qualifies for three different foods (and more if you count all the ingredients. :) And, yummy too.

A request for Happy Halloween photos

At the request of Gramma, I am posting some happy halloween photos instead of the sad one I posted on Sunday. :)

OK...maybe not happy, but having fun pretending to be a "Dragon Pirate". Arrgghh maties!



And, here's our happy witch:



And here's the, mostly, happy crew. Jordyn was not into being Frankenstein at all. Although I find it amusing that it looks like Logan is trying to pull her head off -- an appropriate activity for a dragon. So, we had two dragons and two pirates (including costume mashups) a witch, and frankenstein. An excellent representation.

Sunday Stills: Halloween

The challenge this week was Halloween.

The first one is my "Sad Dragon". Blake decided he did not like his costume, which is a pirate dragon, and pouted about it for about 5 seconds. He is over it now. The thought of all the candy he's going to get cheered him up. :)



For this one, we turned off all the lights and I set the camera on the table to get a shot of the halloween house that my niece, Ava, created. The purple is a little purple light her mom put on the inside.



And, because it was so cute, I had to get a shot of the house from the top too.

Sunday Stills: Fall Foliage

This week's Sunday Stills is Fall Foliage. It's a little late for us to get great pictures of fall foliage. I've been on the lookout all week, but it's either been dreary or raining. Today it was doing both again, but I managed to get a shot of this maple leaf on my way home from groceries. A little bit of processing to enhance the mood, and here it is: