Tiptoe through the Tulipfest

What better day to tour the Ottawa Tulipfest than Mother's Day? Frankly, there are probably a lot better days as this particular day the Tulipfest was mobbed with touristas. However, we did have a nice visit with Nana and Papa and snapped a few pictures of the kids interacting with the flowers. Elliot's favourite activity was to dig in the dirt, while Rachel gently smelled them. Or at least, mostly gently.
Rachel, whose favourite colours used to be pink and blue, now espouses love for "all my colours."

However, she did admit later that perhaps she was particularly fond of the dark purple ones called "Faust." Can a child show signs of being a future Goth by age three? Time will only tell. She will likely be the only Goth to dress in pink tutus and sparkly tiaras. But one always hopes that their child will break new ground.
Here is Rachel attending the opening of the Parkdale market. She is enraptured by the drug sniffing German Shepard police dogs that were doing a demonstration - for about five minutes. Then it was time to play in the bouncy castle.

It was a good weekend.

New Words

Both Elliot and Rachel are learning new words all the time. And often in funny ways.

Rachel is learning a lot of French songs at school. A current favourite is "un elephant, ca trompe, ca trompe, une elephant, ca trompe enormement." The difficulty is that she is sometimes just saying/singing things phonetically and we can't figure out what she is saying because our French isn't strong enough. So, the other day I was trying to figure out what the second verse meant, so I looked it up in her song book. I tried singing it, but then she started correcting me and when she sang it again, I realized her song book was different (it was a cute version of the same song but about elephants eating peanut butter). So, thanks to the wonders of the Internet, I found out what she was actually singing, and it is a fairly old French nursery rhyme.

La peinture a l'huile
C'est bien difficile
Mais c'est bien plus beau
Que la peinture a l'eau

Interestingly, a movie was made with the name "une elephant ca trompe enormement" and it was later turned into the English movie "the Lady in Red." So, I learned something new today and my head is full.

Elliot is often learning words faster than we realize, we just really need to listen closely. The other day I discovered that Elliot can say "jushh" (juice) and "appo" (apple). He also wags his finger and says "no, no, noooo, no" especially when he knows he is not supposed to be doing something. Yesterday, I dropped a bowl of potatos on the floor (and made a big mess). Rachel wanted to know why I had dropped them (Rachel's favourite word these days is "why" and answering it five times in succession does not seem to put a damper on its use). We noticed Elliot crouching down and looking at the potatos intently. Then he pointed and said "bo-day-do." Potato! Wow, a three syllable word! However, it should not really be a suprise I suppose as it is one of his favourite foods, and his nick name.

Keep those words coming kids!