Harry Potter & The Cursed Child

This morning we slept in a little bit and then wandered downstairs for the continental breakfast. The selection was actually really nice! 

The boys each made themselves some yummy waffles.

When they were full, they begged to check out the pool, so we went and changed into swim gear and headed down for a quick dip before we left for the day.

Daddy navigated Toronto like a pro and found a nice underground parkade for us to stay at for the day. We spent the rest of the morning and afternoon walking around downtown Toronto, checking out the different sights and doing some shopping.

We found the theatre where we would be watching Harry Potter and the Cursed child later that evening. Of course we had to snap some pictures!

Mr. Stannix and I saw this play while we were in London, so we were both curious to note the similarities and differences.

 

We walked all the way to Ripley's aquarium. Mr. Stannix had been before on a layover, and was really excited to show the boys!

While stingrays scare the heck out of me when I have to swim in the same water as them, I was happy to be able to touch them from the edge of this touch pool. 

In the mid afternoon, we went in search of food. All of the walking and playing had tuckered us out and our feet desperately needed a rest! We dined in and took our time enjoying the food and each others company.

Then we wandered a few blocks away to a huge mall and explored it top to bottom. We did some shopping (note Joe's new sunglasses) and grabbed a small snack before we made our way to the theatre.

The boys enjoyed the play for the most part, but were also pretty pooped out from our adventures that day. I think one or both of them ended up falling asleep in their chair about 3/4 of the way through. It was fun to watch it again though, and the boys were pretty impressed with the live magic! We all plopped into our beds exhausted at nights end.

 

Flying to Toronto

Today we took Joseph and Finley on their first ever flight to Toronto, ON. They were pretty excited to spend the week with just us and to see what flying was all about!

 

We grabbed a quick breakfast at Tim's just before our flight. Joseph was full of happy/nervous anticipation.

We each got to sit beside one of the boys and they quite enjoyed having a window seat for take off!

We were a little bit bummed about having no TV's on the airplane, but Fin enjoyed looking out the window at the clouds for most of the trip. At one point I think we switched up the seats so that Joe and Fin could watch a show together on Dad's iPad for the last little bit.

When we got to Toronto, we grabbed our rental car and went in search of dinner near our hotel. We found a Moxies and had fun watching the hockey game while we ate yummy food.

I had to document the delicious mango chicken creation that I ordered. It was so yummy!

When our tummies were full we went back to our hotel to rest up for a busy, full day in the morning.

 

Basketball Tournament

This weekend brought us to Okotoks for Camilla's basketball tournament. Daddy stayed home with the big boys to take care of highway cleanup and some other commitments we had this weekend while I took Sawyer, Lily and Camilla to Okotoks for her tournament. We were able to stay with my sister Friday evening and it was fun to hang out in between games! The girls played hard and had some close and not so close games. Everyone seemed to have a good time though!

Garden Asparagus

We have been getting a few handfuls of Asparagus from the garden.

They are so yummy and fresh!

It's only their first year, so we are being careful how much we harvest.

I'm already looking forward to next year!

Swinging Away

We have been blessed with some pretty great weather this soccer season! While Ollie is at practice, we usually hang out at the school park to keep everyone happy. Today Lily and I doubled on a swing ride. Listening to her giggle as her tummy tickled was my very favourite thing.

 

Shifting Seasons

The sun is shining but the wind is howling! The morning brought us on a walk up to the garden to check out the buds that are starting to pop. I am so looking forward to blossom season. We found Grampa up in the garden checking things out as well.

Moments like this remind me how grateful I am to share this with my parents. Our littles are blessed daily by their tender, loving care and attention.

Lily loved feeling the sunshine on her face and inquiring about every bush in the garden with a scrunchy nosed curiosity. She's growing up so fast!

She doesn't do "formal" naps anymore, but sometimes she crashes on the couch and soaks up the afternoon sun pouring through the windows. And when she does, I can't help but pause and admire the way her lashes rest on her cheeks while her chest slowly moves up and down. 

Soccer season also began again tonight, and Ollie is so pumped about it!! He's on a team with one his best friends from school and couldn't be happier about it. The big boys aren't playing this year, so we won't be at the field for hours on end two nights a week. It's the perfect amount of time for the kids to play at the park or play basketball with friends, and so far the weather has been quite agreeable! 

 

Swimming Lessons

 Today Lily and Sawyer started swimming lessons! For the next eight weeks you will find us at the pool on Monday mornings enjoying the water. Lily and I are doing a parent Tot class and Sawyer is in his own class right after us. 

She was pretty excited about it!

The afternoon brought more chicky snuggles. I love that having animals teaches them to be gentle and loving towards living things. Lily has been so good with them and is constantly begging me to take a chicky out of the box so that she can play with it.

They run around my livingroom rug (and sometimes poop) but it sure brings the littles a lot of joy!

Life Lately

It has been getting warmer outside and it is so welcome. Tonight after the littles were in bed, I cracked the windows and listened to the frog song as I read on the couch. It's been a stressful few weeks with tax season and prepping Mike's new office for the move over and organizing our home. Among the chaos is still swimming lessons, and sporting events, and music festivals...Some days I run from Dawn to Dusk. I'm always exhausted!

We are almost done with renovation stuff, just a few scraps of drywall to fix up, some window jamb extensions, a bit of electrical, stucco, and some deck stairs. Soon we will be into gardening and landscaping season, while also prepping for our Nauvoo trip and volunteering on the Band Parents board. It feels like a lot sometimes, but how can we make a difference in the world if all we do is sit at home together. I am glad my kids are out shining their lights and building their talents. I happily support their dreams and desires!

Soccer starts on Tuesday this week. It's just Ollie this year, so we won't be spending hours at the soccer field twice a week. This weekend we have a basketball tournament, stake conference and some highway cleanup. I still need to get some things ready for our flight to Toronto with Joe and Fin in eight days. We will begin our trip there seeing some sights and then drive across the border to Palmyra to visit some church history sites. Usually we take our children to conference when they turn eight but with Covid and temple square being renovated, it hasn't worked out for the last few years, so this is what we came up with instead! The boys are super pumped.

After celebrating Hyrum's birthday last night, we took a drive to pick up some new baby chicks! Right now they are living in a large box in our house and the littles were pretty excited to play with them before church this morning.

Sawyer and Lily have been pretty gentle with them! I'm not sure if either of them remember our baby chicks from last year, so they are both pretty excited.

I'm mostly excited about the blue eggs I'm going to get as these are Americana babies. We have some pure bread Wheaton Americanas and some mixed Americanas that will lay either blue or green eggs for us. 

They're all so stinkin' cute right now!