Oct 2010 - wow long time no chat!

Hi everyone - hope you had a great summer! let's see, since last we updated: we celebrated Angelique's 5th birthday (my baby!), moved into a new home in a new neighbourhood, and (drumroll....) - Angelique started kindergarten!! The photo above is on the school bus on the first day - wow!

School is going very well! She is in a French-immersion program and is doing great - she's loves her teachers, is getting used to being around new kids, and has adusted well to the new routines! Her school does 1/2 day kindergarten so she goes there in the mornings (even riding the school bus there and back!) , then goes to the home-based daycare she's been at for the last 1.5 years for the afternoons.

For the new language, she may have a bit of an advantage over some of the other kids in that she 'gets it' that a French word is just another way to say something! She remembers the process for learning words as it's only been 2 years since she learned English! (wow has it been 2 years? - Oct 6 was the 2 yr anniversary of Angelique coming home to Canada - unbelievable!! )

Paul's first language is French, as is my Dad's. I learned it later but I'm fairly comfortable with it myself - and most of our nieces/nephews speak it, so Angelique has heard a lot of French already! This big-time helps with the transition as she 'wants' to speak it! (Of course that hasn't stopped her from making up words and saying 'that's french y'know, Mommy...) ;-)

Aside from school our biggest news has been the move! We're thrilled with our new house, and it's only a couple of minutes away from our old neighbourhood (which is why we've kept the same daycare).

The actual 'move' itself is now just a blurred memory - never fun - but all actually went really well, and our old house sold very quickly which is a bonus!

We now have more rooms (including a spare bedroom and an office - woohoo), a rec-room/toy-room in the basement, an attached garage and a larger yard with a deck off the kitchen - yay! We really lucked out and found a place with so many items from our 'wish-list'! And we're now on a cul-de-sac street (a small bay with only 8 houses and only one entrance/exit, so no 'through' traffic) which is soooooooo much nicer than the busy street we were on before!

Angelique mastered her 2 wheeled bicycle and roller-blades this summer/fall, largely due to the freedom she has on our little street, not having to watch for cars and buses!

Our furry-child Farley was not terribly impressed at first (tough to change the routines of a 14 year old cat), but has since come to looooooove all the windows for napping in the sun, and the deck! He doesn't spend as much time outside anymore, but will still make a quick circle around the house to make sure all is well in his kingdom- too cute!

My job is going well, still working from home - now with a separate office (did I say WOOHOO already?) - no more working from the dining room table! The summer is actually my company's busy time, so I'm just now able to take some days off and catch my breath. Paul has been off work for a while with a back injury, but has now returned to 'light duties' and looks forward to getting back to his normal routine.

I'm attaching a couple of new pics from the summer, in a separate post - hope all is well and you're enjoying this beautiful time of year! Love to all!

Take care,
N&P&A
xox

A few pictures....

Apr 2 2010 - where does the time go ???

Hi everyone - yes I know it's been a while since we posted (for anyone who's still stalking... Pam P. ?!?) :-) It wasn't really my intention of keeping this going past the exciting one-year at home mark, but still it's nice to keep a record of Angelique's amazing-ness, so here is an update!



Angelique has grown sooo much in the last few months - physically, emotionally, spiritually, verbally, socially, every '-lly' I can think of! She is a happy, stable, beautiful, smart little girl, and we are now completely unable to picture our life before she came into it!



Angelique is so much more a pre-schooler than a toddler now - and soon to be a 'schooler'! We went to an orientation for Kindergarten a while back, at the French Immersion school in our neighbourhood. A came with us and now calls the school 'my school' when we drive or walk by - very fun! We met the principal and the kindergarten teacher, and toured the library, K room and gym. Everything looks great and Angelique is excited to go!



A is also a tooth-losing machine, dropping 4 since Christmas! Two bottom and 2 top ones, including the 'other' top -front one, which is always an interesting one as the new tooth that comes in looks so different than the baby tooth that was lost!



Her verbal skills are growing by leaps and bounds, and other than the pesky 'S' and 'TH' sounds, she has a handle on pretty much all letter combinations - very impressive ! We'll look into some speech help once kindergarten starts, if it's still needed.



A can recognize all letters of the alphabet, even out of order and out of context - she loves to read out the letters in a sign when we drive or walk by! She is also doing great with numbers, colours, and has many of her books memorized so she often 'reads' to us!



Angelique and I (N) had a fun visit in Arizona with Grandma and Grandpa in March - gorgeous weather, lots of swimming and visiting! Here's pic with G&G.... poor Daddy couldn't come this time - we missed him!



And that means we were able to get A's passport done - after all the paperwork, all the wait and all the photos, it was finally done! I surprised myself by getting quite emotional when I picked it up and saw the line which says 'Nationality: Canadian'.......... I'm such a suck! :-)



Let's see what else is going on......... since March I've been working full-time hours, still from home - it's working out extremely well, and I'm grateful for having this opportunity. Paul's work has been keeping him busy - much nicer since the weather has let up and the snow has disappeared!



Angelique did another session of pre-school (once/week) January-March, and also tried out a ballet class - she enjoyed them both! This coming session (starting in April), we're hoping to get her into another swimming class, and in May she'll start SOCCER - should be great!



No summer plans so far - Paul has a Vegas trip planned with some friends from his hockey team, and I don't have much vacation time built up yet, so we may not go anywhere over the summer months - hopefully we'll find have time to go camping or visiting family/friends at their cottages. Summer is extremely busy work-wise for both of us, so we may just wait it out and do a winter trip next year.



I think that's it for now - I'll try not to wait so long before adding another update - hope you're having a great Easter weekend! Big hugs and lots of love!

N&P&A

xoxox