Kelowna

We spent the past week up in Kelowna. We had lots of time visiting with Grandpa Clark, Uncle Matt, and Auntie Jaynie. It was so fun to see Auntie Jaynie's baby bump. Spencer and I can't wait to have a nephew / niece and our girls are thrilled about having a cousin.

Karis got her first haircut from Auntie Jaynie.

Juju got a haircut too.

We played ping-pong in the garage.

Ella got her haircut, and so did I! That's a lot of Lafleur girl haircuts. Thanks Auntie Jaynie!

Ella saying hello to her cousin.

Our girls were very adventuresome in the pool. They enjoyed jumping off the side and were happy to dunk their heads right under the water.

We visited the Kangaroo Farm. Juliette was truly in her element :)

Miss Eileen came to visit and she bought the girls a book called "Ella Bella Ballerina".

Karis was fearless in the water and spent a lot of time swimming around on a noodle (all by herself). She would sometimes dunk right under water and say "I went under".

2 girls relaxing and Karis doing push-ups. No wonder she's so strong :)

A Special Guest

A couple of weeks ago Hailey came and spent a couple of hours at our house. Karis has always been very fond of Hailey and was really excited to have her here (so were the rest of us :) It was fun to get a preview of what life with 4 girls may be like.

About Reading

Ella has a love for reading and loves to read to her sisters. It brings me so much joy to see her snuggled up with Juju or Karis reading a book. Juliette has shown interest in learning how to read so I'm starting to teach her some of the basics. Juju is so much fun to teach and has a different learning style than Ella. She wants to read like her big sister, but is not quite there yet. The other day I overheard this conversation:

E - Juju are you learning to read books like I can read?
J - I know how to read books.
E - No, you don't know how to read yet.
J - Yes, I know how to read. But I read with my eyes closed. (she went on to "read" from a book with her eyes closed - really funny to see her scrunch her eyes right closed and say a bunch of random words)
E - (a little bent out of shape at this point) That's not a thing, Juj. Reading with you eyes closed is not a thing.

I love Juliette's lighthearted personality. I'm so thankful that God blessed us with her in our family.

Things they say...

On being nocturnal...

While we were camping I saw an owl one evening. It was so beautiful. Unfortunately, I was the only one in our family who saw it. In the morning I was describing the owl to the girls and explaining that owls are nocturnal - awake while we are sleeping and sleeping while we are awake. Ella's dear friend Jonas lives overseas and is in a timezone that is pretty much opposite to ours. When we pray for him before we go to bed we often talk about how his day is just beginning. So after hearing about the owl's day starting when we go to bed, Ella's eyes got quite big and she asked "Mom, is Jonas nocturnal?"

Camping at Shuswap Lake

This year we did our annual camping trip at Shuswap Lake Provincial Park. We loved this campground. The lake was great for the girls (warmish water and a sandy beach) and there were tons of trails for them to ride their bikes. We think we will return to Shuswap next year - as a family of 6 :)

We are reading "Little House on the Prairie" for our read-aloud right now. The girls thought it was funny to see Dadda chopping wood and kept calling him "Pa." They then renamed themselves after the characters in the book as well. This works well for us since the Ingalls are also a family of 5 with 3 little girls.

Making and eating s'mores was a highlight!

There was also a learn to fish program that Ella and Juliette participated in.

We didn't catch any fish, but the girls had fun learning!

We built lots of sand castles!