Growing girl

Louise had her 7 year old "well child" checkup on Tuesday.  "Well child" needed parentheses, in this case, because she left the office with a diagnosis of bronchitis.  The nurse also concluded during the visit that Louise is virtually blind in her left eye (20/200 vision), so we'll have a follow-up visit to an ophthalmologist later in the year.

On the plus side, Louise continues to grow.  She is now a towering 4' 2.5" (the half inch is critical!), which puts her in the 88th percentile.  She weighs 59.75 lbs (83%).

What a hoot!

Louise asked to have an owl-themed party, in honor of her beloved Bartholemew (a knitted animal Daddy received for graduation a few years ago).  She and a few friends enjoyed pizza and an owl-like cake she made with Mummy, and then they watched her "favourite" film, The Koala Kid.  Best of all, after all the other friends left, Katie was able to stay until lunchtime the following day.

Today, unsurprisingly for someone unused to being a night owl, the birthday girl is somewhat out of sorts.  But we're very proud of our beautiful seven year-old.

Happy 7th Birthday, Louise!

Louise was able to spend part of her birthday weekend with her best friend of virtually seven years, Katie.  Louise particularly enjoyed the princess dress-up party.  On the birthday itself, she graciously unleashed her sisters on her many packages, allowing them to open everything (under her close supervision).  Later that day, we confirmed that Everything Is Awesome at the Lego movie, which Louise enjoyed watching with her sisters and neighbors Max and Ava.

Claire "lived out her dream" and reached a new milestone this weekend: she assembled her first Lego without Daddy's help.  All the babies are growing up!

Mummy was delighted to be able to spend the weekend with Louise.  She had originally been scheduled to be in Singapore, but Snowmageddon 2014 arrived.  As a family, though, we've probably had our fill of snow for the year now.

Twintastic

Daddy was able to capture these moments of sweet sisterly cooperation.  It was almost a shame that they had to be separated for bedtime:

The Great Blizzard

The kids enjoyed playing in the Great Snow That Shut Down Schools for three days.  (Yes, you can see the tops of the blades of grass).  Fortunately, that didn't make the moments any less magical for the brave hilltop explorers and angel-makers: