7 year old scientist

IIn the whirlwind of house closings this November, I'm a little behind in sharing the tales of Lady M's 7th birthday. This year, I feel as though her birthday was a little taken over by our moving plans. but I think she still felt very special overall!

Last year, Lady M participated in a school-based program called Mad Science. Each week the group participated in different scientific demonstrations and hands-on activities, and every week she came home raving about what she had learned and observed. Fast forward to this fall, she decided that she wanted to have a Mad Science birthday party.

Her special day fell on a Satuday, so after happily being l'etoile du jour in class on Friday, she was ready for a full birthday celebration on Saturday! For some reason, I decided to host the party at our house. Typically, I felt that the house was a bit too small to accommodate a group of parents or kids, but decided to go for it. One final soirée in our home; what better reason than to celebrate our oldest girl!

We used a room in the basement as the "science lab" and the scientist, Dr. D. Enay, arrived promptly to set up her schtick while the kids congregated upstairs. When she was set, the kids headed down to enjoy the demonstrations and activities that she had planned, and they were mesmerized!!

From magic tricks to dry ice demonstrations, the scientist had the full attention of the group for almost two straight hours! It was awesome to watch the kids reactions to the experiments, and to hear the commentary they shared throughout. At the end, they all had an opportunity to make their own silly putty to take home, along with a science goody bag filled with about eight different at-home activities.

After some pizza and cake the crew left, family remained and we finished up her birthday by giving her some time to sift through the numerous presents she had received from her friends. Notable favorites this year - shopkins, rock 'n' royals barbie dolls and loads of Rainbow Fairy books.

That night, my freshly minted 7 year old climbed into bed and snuggled up with one of her new books. Although packing and moving was high on the priority list this year, I think she was well aware that her day was our #1 priority, and we had a great time celebrating her champagne birthday.

And in true 7-year-old fashion, she lost one of her front teeth about two weeks later...

goodbye, home

The temperature dropped below zero outside as we closed the door to our old home, and began a new season in our lives. We moved into our townhouse in 2008 when I was 37 weeks pregnant with Lady M, about to begin our parenting adventure. I spent hours waddling through Home Depot as we prepared the house for our new arrival. A couple of weeks ago we had her 7th birthday party at the house, and then began to pack our lives away in preparation for our move.

It's funny the amount of memories that linger in a home. Seven years may not seem like a terribly long time, but we've seen a lot of firsts in that house, and it's shaped many of our memories as a family of four.

We brought both of our girls home from the hospital to that house and watched them begin to crawl and take their first steps in the hallways. We must have walked six thousand laps around the kitchen island while trying to soothe the babies back to sleep. We've bandaged scraped knees, had thousands of family meals together, ridden bikes, drawn countless chalk pictures on the driveway and snuggled up for many family movie nights. We've celebrated 25 birthdays there, spent seven Christmases decorating, baking and celebrating.

Thinking back on all of this started to make me a little emotional as we gathered up the last of our things. Thankfully, we squeezed in a final visit to our first home, complete with a moving box picnic dinner and an impromptu dance party in our bare living room. After that, we shut the door for the last time. 

I know that our new home will provide the setting for new memories, and the ones we've created in our townhome will always be special.

Thankfully, the new house we're now settling into is just what we all wanted. After a long journey to find it we are thrilled to be in our new town, closer to the girls' schools and in a lovely neighbourhood with a lot more space to play.

Paramount Drive will always be a special part of our lives, but we're all excited to shape new experiences, make new memories and ride our bikes on a brand new street.