I know that I should be eating more veggies and cutting out the carbs and sweets. It makes perfect sense. I even managed to get on the treadmill for 20 minutes today. Had a huge salad for lunch. Feeling fit already. BUT.....the problem is I have a huge sweet tooth and the naughty things from my pantry keep calling my name all day long.

So of course I had to give in and make the most delicious peanut butter/chocolate chunk cookies ever. I have absolutely no self control. I ate 3 right away when they came out of the oven. And then an additional 3 when the kids were napping. Terrible. They were so worth it though.

In case you didn't know yet....Rachel got her ears pierced. She is one proud 4 year old. She let us know that she was ready to get them pierced when we were at the mall. She got up on the chair and let the lady pierce them one at a time. With absolutely no tears. Alex got them done a year ago and Rachel I guess wanted to have them done too.

And here is Alex with 2 of her favorite things.....flowers and barbies. Ahhhhh to be 4 again and find uncomplicated happiness.

Our Vacation out East

Where do I even begin? The girls and I were gone about 3 weeks and we did a quick whirlwind visit with our family. The first weekend we were there we went to my cousin's wedding where Alex and Rachel got to spend time with their cousins (Romy, Victor and Edouard). We also spent lots of time in Ottawa hanging with Baby Hudson and visiting Grandpa in the hospital. Then we raced to the airport quick quick quick to pick up Papa (he only joined us half way through since someone in the family had to work). The girls were soooooooo excited to see James and we had a group hug when we saw him and the girls exclaimed, "we're a family again!", so sweet. Then we drove to Toronto to spend time with James' family where the girls enjoyed playing with their cousins Ava and Brandon. So basically, lots of visiting, lots of driving (come on for small town folk, anything more than a 15 minute drive is far) and lots of good memories.

(click on the links to see loads and loads of pics)

Our Evening in the Backyard

Our whole day wasn't as happy as our evening turned out to be. My father had yet to have another surgery this morning so the whole day was full of tears and worry for me. But he is doing well and resting now and so we went outside to let off some stress.

This is Alex's Baby Tiger. She loves to rename him every few days or so. Tiger has been named Sparkle, then Rainbow Sherbert and now is named Jasmine. She makes sure that his whiskers are straightened before she sets him down anywhere.
This bubble wand makes some serious bubbles!


Here is hoping that the rest of the week remains stressfree.

Flower GirlsMy cousin, Kyung Ah, got married July 28th at a quaint small town near St Sauveur up north of Montreal. She asked Alex & Rachel to be her flower girls! The girls were very excited and did a great job walking down the aisle in front of all those people.
My cousin married into this lovely family. The groom's brother and sister BOTH have a set of identical twin boys. So in this small wedding, there were 3 sets of identical twins. Craziness. If you see the photo below, you can see them. One set of boys were 20 months old (plus they have an older brother who also looks very much like them but a little bit taller) and the other set of boys were under a year.

Alex & Rachel were accompanied by their very handsome cousin, Edouard, down the aisle who was the ring bearer. Don't they look sooooooooo adorable?

The weather was beautiful that day and the outdoor ceremony was so picturesque. We made a weekend out of it and spent a night at the hotel up there. We got adjoining rooms with my sister, Susan and her family. It was so much fun and all the cousins had such a great time together. So my time in Montreal was short but very sweet.