A Week of Firsts.

This has been a busy week, the children's birthdays usually make this time of year a rat race. My parents came down from Victoria, BC for the occasion, and was the first time my mom saw SweetHaven. Unfortunately my mom is not our biggest supporter, and I don't believe she was impressed.

Unfortunately because I was so wrapped up in birthday celebrations I completely forgot to sign the kids up for the next round of swimming lessons and by the time I remembered the classes were all full, so we too the kids to an open swim on Sunday so they could each try out their new wet suits they received for their birthdays.

                                            

                                            

Another first this week, now that Finnegan is four years old he took his first class of Tae kwon do. He has been excited for weeks in anticipation of this event. Everyday it was, "I get to start Tae kwon do because I'm four!" So going off his excitement we paid his first full month, bought him a uniform but the day of his first class arrived and the excited boy was now digging in his feet. He refused to join the other kids, screamed and cried and clung to dear life to marks legs, how embarrassing. After five minutes of making a scene we took him back to the truck for a stern talk and some threatening with no more iPad time and bribing with ice cream and a toy if he was good and participated. Half way through the class red eyed and snuffling Finn took the instructors hand and joined the other kids.
All it took was his first side kick and he was happy. We knew he wanted to do this but what he put himself and us through just to get him over his apprehension. Sometimes we have to be tough to get them to get over themselves so they can do what we know they will really love. You can tell my his smile at the end of class how
 much he loved it, our little ninja.
 
This is our first birthday party here in Whidbey, we miss our friends from back home, the great group of kids from our church who have been attending our kids birthday parties since Finnegan's first. But being such a small group of Canadians working here, we have a tight group of families here who graced our party with their presence and we all had fun.

                                                
This year was a pizza party theme, it's getting harder to find unisex themes since Aislinn and Finn share a party. This was a good one, we had 13 children come and they all made their own pizzas.
                                               
                                                          Birthday girl was so excited.
                                        
                               The cookie pizza table, they each decorated one to take home.
  Thanks to being gluten free I have to be the cake decorator in the family, Finnys ninja turtle cake he requested and Aislinns girly cake, thank goodness for easy to make marshmallow fondant.


                                   

                                   

                                    
                                                                   All our little chefs.

Thankfully the hectic time has slowed somewhat as we can now focus on gearing up for Christmas. Work continues very slowly on the boat. Now that the temperatures are dropping here we have shifted our focus on building a shelf so we can install skippy (our wood stove).