Northern Lights

 We've been able to see the Northern Lights quite a bit this fall. I finally got to see some with red, and Gibb saw some with purple. It's so amazing to see them in person, this is one of my favourite things about living here. Beautiful!

  

Kindergarten!

 Jayna started Kindergarten on her 5th birthday! Seriously, she could not have had a better day! Well actually maybe it could have been a little bit better if she had taken the bus that day, but Gibb and I drove her instead. :) She was so excited and so ready to start school. Her teacher is Madame Diane, and she is fantastic! I think she'll be really good for Jayna. She told me her favourite thing from the first day of school was getting Happy Birthday sung to her in French and getting a birthday pencil.

When I brought her backpack up from the basement she hugged it and said she had missed it so much, haha!

Jayna's doing French Immersion and she was so excited that she already learned how to speak French on the first day. She can say Bonjour, Au revoir, Je m'appelle Jayna and a few colours and other random words. One night Kepler wasn't listening and before I could even start counting Jayna started counting to 3 in French.

I was pretty much on the verge of tears all morning, but I was holding it together pretty good. And then when we were giving her hugs good-bye she said "I'm going to miss you mommy". I had to book it out of her classroom because I totally lost it and I was bawling. I told Gibb on the way home that I wanted to start homeschooling. I'm so not ready for my little girl to go to school every day!

The next day Jayna got to ride the bus, the excitement was just never ending that week! Once again I was on the verge of tears, but kept them in until she drove away, and then totally lost it again. 

I thought she might be nervous to get on the bus by herself, but she was just loving every second! She waved to me and Kepler with a huge grin all the way down the street.

Since my mom is here I thought that it would be nice to be able to take Jayna to the bus without bringing the other kids along. But Jayna and Kepler had other plans. Jayna insisted that Kepler had to come see her get on the bus and say bye to her and wave to her, she's a little bit sentimental like her mom. And of course Kepler is always up for tagging along, these 2 really are best buddies!

I thought that Kepler would be sad and missing Jayna all morning, but he was living it up! His first order of business was to play with all her toys that she never lets him touch. Then when I told him it was time to go pick her up he said "No I want to go play with her baby again." Haha! He's definitely taking advantage of having the spotlight for once.

 I just couldn't resist taking pictures of her every day!

Jayna is loving every minute of Kindergarten and her teacher said that she's adjusting and doing really well. I have mixed feelings, it's been way harder than I thought to send her off to school every day. I miss her all morning, the house feels so different without her here. Now that she's started school, 5 years doesn't seem like enough time to have her all to myself, it went by so fast! *Sigh*, it's been such an emotional week for me. I don't know if it's just me being really sentimental, or baby hormones still raging...but I may or may not have cried every time she drove away on the bus last week. And I may or may not have cried again just writing this post.

So one week down and 13 more years to go... ;)

Jayna is 5!

 Wow, I can't believe Jayna is 5, that sounds so big! She seems to have grown up a lot in the last month or so...which could also be because we just had a baby too. Either way she definitely seems like a 5 year old now. When we went to Kindergarten orientation the teacher asked us to write down some things about our child. This is what I wrote about Jayna. She's very compassionate and sensitive to other's feelings. She's very creative and love crafts. She has a great imagination. She loves to be a helper. She's very observant. She tries really hard to do the right thing. She is very social.

The other day I was busy doing something and I told Jayna to go play until I was done. She said to me "Mom, don't you know I'm only an artist. I don't like to play with toys." Haha, this is so true. Jayna doesn't really ever play with any toy for very long, but she could spend a whole day doing crafts.

We had her birthday party a few days before her birthday. This was her first year having a friend party, she was so excited! She wanted a Care Bears theme with a purple Care Bear cake. Thanks to Aunt Cassandra for taking Jayna to get all her party supplies!!

Jayna specifically requested the streamers hanging down like this for her decorations

Share Bear, purple is Jayna's new favourite colour (although pink and blue are a very close second)

 We were all pretty excited!

 Doing a craft

 The boys opted to make pirate hats instead of pink party hats, hehe!

They turned out so cute!

 Cake time! Jayna told me before the party started that she gets a little bit shy when everyone is singing Happy Birthday to her.

 Jayna got spoiled this year!

 She's been asking for the bath Barbie for a while, she was so happy that Kepler got it for her :)

And of course a pinata!

Candy!!

Having a dance party. The party was so fun, kid's this age are so easy to please. I'm glad we didn't plan too much because the kids just wanted to play and I was so impressed with how well they all played together.

Jayna's actual birthday was the first day of school. That night we went out for dinner to Montana's.

There happened to be 3 other people there for their birthdays that night! When Jayna heard them singing to the other people she said that she wanted that too. So I told the waiter it was her birthday and he went to get her sparkler and gather everyone to sing. Then she started getting nervous and decided she didn't want everyone to sing to her. So we cancelled the singing, but she still got a sparkler.

On the Friday after her birthday I took a treat in to her Kindergarten class, so this lucky girl had a whole week long celebration! And she was definitely milking it too. She kept telling Kepler that she got to go first or pick the plate colour, etc. because she was the birthday girl. 

Jayna had the best birthday this year, I don't know how we'll ever top it. A party with friends, and then the first day of Kindergarten too! We love Jayna and can't imagine life without her!!