Since our next weddings don’t start till later on this May here’s another personal post! Klementine turns two! Yay!

We can’t believe it’s Klementine’s second birthday already. I know it sounds cliché, but it’s so true when people say it seems it was just yesterday when she was born. We didn’t really have a massive party with a gazillion little ones running around (oh how fun that would be…) but instead we had a few get togethers with friends and family both here in Montreal and in Ottawa! Spring has finally come so the weather was just stellar and the trend is just continuing so as you can see the sun is just fantastic lately! All the kids had a lot of fun running around and doing things kids and us love so here are a few of the fun times captured. Enjoy and check back later in May for some more wedding action! ;)

 

The aaaaah-mazing home made über-chocolate cake made by master chocolatier Magda…

 

 

I vote that from now on kids should just receive only wrapping paper, bows and boxes as a gift since they seem to only be interested in that, rather than what’s inside :P

 

 

Her new chalkboard! And apparently chalk is really tasty according to our daughter. I tried it. End of story.

 

 

It took about two hours, but eventually Klementine and her good friends Sofia and Sienna blew out the oh-so-difficult candles ;)

 

 

Our dog Maya (right) also invited her own guest “Ginger” the adorable baby Yorkie-Mini Pinscher mix that our good friends just got! Isn’t she the cutest little mouse?

 

 

Overjoyed with her new wagon!

 

 

…but not before mommy gets to test it out first!

 

 

Then we headed to the park for some good old playing…

 

 

 

 

 

This is probably my favourite photo of Klementine to date:

 

 

 

 

Klementine’s very serious and future Gap-Kids model friend, Filip, striking a pose:

 

 

Check out that light!!

 

 

Relaxing with her new toys from her favourite show In the Night Garden (yes, we know it’s a weird show! but it’s highly entertaining if you manage to sit though the first 10 minutes…I swear!!!) Thanks Tony! :)

 

 

 

We can’t even explain how excited we are that the snow has almost completely melted and spring is fiiiiinally here! Man, what a looong Canadian winter it’s been this year. Just today they announced that the three bears in Montreal’s Ecomuseum who didn’t want to wake up, decided today is the day they’ll be coming out of hibernation! Which is definitely a sign that spring is here ;)

Seeing as Magda is a plant fanatic and has a larger green thumb than the incredible Hulk, all I hear about these days is how amazing it is to see all the new buds and plants sprouting up from the ground! I have to admit it is pretty awesome to see colors other than white outside… Magda has a crazy collection of plants decorating our house and she constantly looks for fresh new ones to add. So as I’m eating my mango, peach or peeling an avocado, before I can realize what happened, Magda snatches the seed out from the fruit and plants it in the blink of an eye. Sometimes the seeds grow mutant peach fuzz and shrivel away but most of the time they sprout and we have a new tropical plant to add to the collection!

Here is one of those that decided to come out and become a plant this year. It’s a Mango seed that’s got one of the weirdest oblong creations of any seed I’ve ever seen and we can’t wait to see what it grows up to be. So far it looks like a crazy alien claw! Happy (late) spring everybody :)

 

 

Our little Klementine is turning two this week! Wow, time flies.

We decided instead of getting her another toy to add to her gargantuous collection which she’ll completely forget about anyways, we’ll get her some fish! Every time we go to the Safari pet store here in Montreal, we run to the millions of fish that flash their colors in the water and catch Klementine’s attention. A while back we had gotten a really large bowl at a yard sale that would be perfect for fish because it’s way bigger than any of the ones you find in the pet store. After a ton of research we narrowed it down to a few species such as Guppies and Betta fish (Siamese fighting fish) that can thrive in a bowl with adequate care, real live water plants, and some good lovin’.

The store had sooo many choices of fish. I voted for a Nemo and Dory but apparently they like salt water…psshhhhh! Divas.

 

Here are some of the candidates that didn’t quite make it through Klementine’s rigorous elimination process…

 

 

 

 

Klementine’s most cherished Piggy has approved Guppies…

 

 

We kept telling her that they were way too expensive for her budget of $0, so we were kind enough to pitch in. Birthdays are an exception! ;)

 

 

The bag suddenly increased with fish poop. I wonder why?

 

 

We also needed to choose some real plants for the fish to nibble on and get oxygen from, since they’ll be going in a huge bowl.

 

 

 

The guppies getting climatized to their new home! Thumbs up!

 

 

After about an hour, home sweet home!

 

 

Lookin’ happy so far! Also, you can’t see him, but there’s a yellow bottom dweller fish just under the red guppy on the right (the janitor)

 

So we wanted to go out as a family for a fun day…but since it’s winter here in Montreal, there aren’t that many choices! There’s this place here called the Biodome and it’s basically an awesome indoor place in the Olympic stadium where you can see and interact with a TON of different animals. There’s a huge and humid tropical forest, a little Arctic and Antarctic, a marine ecosystem, a laurentian forest (animals you can see here in Canada in different parts) and much more. And that’s where we decided to go!

There were some killer animals. We couldn’t believe that a few of the tropical birds were so accustomed to tourists that they just shared the paths with us to the point that some people nearly stepped on them! Mind you, the whole tropical forest is open so you’ve got crazy little Capuchin monkeys jumping over your head and birds doing bombing runs over your kids. Speaking of which, this one pink flat beaked bird thought it would be a great idea to literally fling his poop across Klementine’s stroller, my sweater and a few other things. But hey, it’s a souvenir you can’t just buy at the gift shop can ya?

So if you are in the area, like nature and animals and have some time, check this place out! We had a blast and could almost spend an entire day just hanging out in the tropical rain-forest. I love sloths (yes, “Sid” from Ice Age is my favourite) so I was hoping to get a few shots of one but the only one there was sleeping super high in the trees so we couldn’t get a good look. Finally, here are some of our favourite shots from the day. Till next time ;)

Check out this crazy shot Magda took of these two parrots, I LOVE the colors

 

If I had a beak like that, I would also be blowing bubbles underwater all day.

 

 

This is one of the birds just chillin’ out on next to passers by. You could literally pet it! That is, unless for some reason you feel you have too many fingers.

 

 

These Red Bellied Piranhas seemed suspended by strings in the water, they were that still!

 

 

This is the foot of another smaller dude walking around between your feet

 

 

If you see this suspect in public, run. If you value your clothes and do not wish to feel the wrath of the pooping bird, run for your life!

 

 

These two were definitely wanting some alone time

 

 

 

“Eh! Wha-choo lookin’ at eh?”

 

 

This shot gives you a tiny glimpse of how humid it was in there. The lens fogged up right away the minute we stepped foot in there.

 

 

We took one of these home.

 

 

We came up on this incredibly handsome sloth taking care of it’s young, deep in the forest…

 

 

Look at the legs on this one, absolutely stunning! And they say dinosaurs are extinct…pshhhhh…