The Luckiest No Matter What!

Canada turned 150 this year!  Pretty sweet, eh? I've been going to Canada for the last fifteen years to my parents' cottage on Lake Huron in Port Franks, Ontario and have grown an incredible deep love for the country and its people.  Canada has, after all, produced the only place on earth where I can fully relax.  For that, I will always be grateful. We were not going to be at the cottage this year to celebrate Canada Day (July 1st), so we decided to celebrate it here at home and go as big as we could to show our respect and love. It started with a joke that we were going to eat Tim Horton's, wear red and white, and say 'eh' a lot, but once I got on Pinterest looking up Canadian food recipes and reading articles about how Canadian's celebrate Canada Day, I went a little nuts ;) I decorated, bought Canadian picture books, invited our families over, and served a few authentic Canadian dishes. Here are a couple of things we ate... All-Dressed...

Carter's birthday is May 3rd... Nolan and Judah's birthday is May 7th... While it appears I am really good at timing things (especially being a teacher and being able to have the rest of the summer for maternity leave), you probably know from reading my blog that I can't POSSIBLY have planned any of that considering all the trouble we had with getting and staying pregnant.     Anyway, having all your kids birthdays so close together is both a blessing and a curse.  There has never been anything going on in May for either of our families- no birthdays, no anniversaries so having these in May has given us a great reason to celebrate.  You can have shopping on your brain for everyone at the same time and then be done so that's pretty great! Our kids are little and we are certain plans and traditions will morph and change, but so far, we have given Nolan and Judah and Carter their own first birthday party.  Nolan and Judah got that because, well, the...

Every summer, when I was growing up, I distinctly remember seeing store commercials on TV advertising a "Christmas in July" sale. This celebration made no logical sense to me and so those commercials always irked me.  Why in July?  It wasn't anywhere near Christmas, the weather wasn't like Christmas, they weren't going to help me get excited  for Christmas, and it wasn't even halfway until Christmas!  With my family's tradition of celebrating half birthdays, that part bothered me the most.  Christstmas' half birthdays was in JUNE people!  JUNE 25th is halfway to Christmas! Now that I am continuing to give half birthdays some airtime in my own family, I've decided to celebrate "Christmas in June" right where it belongs- ON JUNE 25th!   I shared my idea with Nolan, Judah, and Carter. My boys were completely unsurprised, but still very excited, to be presented with yet another theme day or adventure, and they couldn't wait to hel...