Christy and Brett Bevans

Galaxyland

2012-02-10T20:29:00.000-08:00

While in Edmonton over Christmas we met up with Brett's sister's family and went to the waterpark and to Galaxyland (Melissa came and we met up with Michael and Trina at Galaxyland). The kids had a blast.

Grace loved every single ride she went on. I am sure she would have just loved to have stayed on each ride forever.

Georgia loved the rides aswell. It was so cute to watch them together on the rides. And nice to have moments with them where they aren't fighting.

Grace and her cousin Wyatt.

Grace loved this plane. It went up and down. I thought that she would be scared of the plane going so high in the air, but she loved it.

Of course we had to ride the train.

The park was crazy busy. There were so many people there. The wait for the train was way to long. We don't really ever get over to West Ed when we are in edmonton so it was really fun to take the kids there.

When we were back in Lethbridge I told Grace that her and I were going to the mall and she said " yeah, then we can see the penguins and the seals and go swimming". I had to explain that not every mall has stuff like that at it. She was happy to settle for some ice cream.

Christmas in Edmonton

2012-02-09T20:21:00.000-08:00

After Cardston, we drove to Edmonton to spend the week up there. Everyone had the whole week off work and so I was excited to be able to spend lots of family time.

Every year we do a a family photo, in the same spot.

And every year we do a serious/normal photo and a funny photo. This year we chose antlers.

We didn't really have any major plans all week. We had family dinner on Boxing day at my aunts place and then a dinner out with the family during the week. Other than that we spent most of the time just hanging out around my parent house.

Of course Aunty Lissa had lots of fun stuff for the kids to do. They decorated Ginger Bread houses.

And cookies too. Anything with icing and candy is always a hit with the kids.

My kids had fun playing with Bridget. They haven't seen her for a several months, but they loved playing. Grace is so gentle with her and acts like a big sister (but a nice one, totally not how she treats Georgia). B and little G are only 5 months apart, so I know that they will grow up being good buds.

Every year we do a race on New Years day. But since this year New Years was on Sunday we made our own race. The 6 of us ran a 5km route and then came back to a yummy pancake breakfast.

All the Grandkids eating their breakfast.

Classic.

The week in Edmonton was fun. More food, more family, more relaxing and more fun. I was sad to leave because it meant that I had to go home to Lethy and start packing my house.

Christmas in Cardston

2012-02-08T19:48:00.000-08:00

This year we got to spend Christmas eve and Christmas day in Cardston. The whole family was there, which means alot of kids.

The was lots of yummy food (that Bretts mom worked so hard on), lot of yummy baking (provided by everyone), lots of kids, lots of chaos, and lots of fun.

I also announced to family at Christmas that I was preggers. At the Bevans' I put up our stocking holder and put up 5 stockings, the last stocking said "Baby" on it. I didn't say anything, I just left it like that until someone noticed and said something. At my parents, I wrapped up a little onesie for my mom and on the onesie it said "I love Granny". See that way I never have to say the words "I am pregnant". For some reason I always feel awkward saying that.

In an effort to keep the kids busy, we had them all make Reindeer food (oats, raisins, nuts, and glitter). We sprinkled it outside so that the reindeer can eat it and it will help them fly. Luckily none of the kids seemed to notice the hurricane force wind that blew away anything they threw down.

When I was in NY I went to the disney store and got the girls princess jammies for the Christmas eve jammers.

I would say they were a hit. They both danced around and were so excited with them.

I asked them to both stand nicely and this is what I got. Little turkeys.

Grace asked for Barbie Car for Christmas. When she came out of her room to see what Santa brought and saw her Barbie car she just stared at it. I don't really know what she was thinking because she had no expression on her face. Just blank. I hope she was happy. Georgia was just happy with whatever.

With all the people that were at the house Christmas morning each family just did there own Christmas morning whenever they woke up. It really saved on the chaos of that many people trying to open gifts all at once.

Georgia loved her baby.

Opening stockinds with the girls. Usually we do this first, but for some reason it was done last.

It was a double barbie car Christmas. I think seeing Bella's car helped Grace get over her awkwardness over her car. She seemed to love it once it was out of the box and she had some Barbies to put in it.

It was a great weekend in Cardston. We had fun being around the family and the kids always have so much fun playing together.

Grace's Preschool Christmas Presentation

2012-02-07T12:35:00.000-08:00

Since September Grace has been in Preschool 2 days a week. She loved it.

I was sad that we decided to move because she would have to leave her preschool. It was good that the move was right after Christmas and so it just sort of seemed that the school had Christmas break and we moved and she started back up in Cranbrook again.

Before the Christmas break started her school had a small Christmas party and little presentation. They sang Christmas songs, recited little nursery rhyme that they memorized, and other little songs that they learned in school. There were 3 little boys in her class, although the picture above makes it look like it was an all girls class.

Grace recited Peter Peter Pumpkin eater. It was so cute. She got up and said it so proudly. I have it on my video camera, but those files never upload that great on the blog. But I do have it recorded. It was so cute.

After the program there were games and colorings and little Christmas crafts for the kids to do.

Pin the nose on the snowman. It is hard to see, but that is actually Georgia pinning the nose on the snowman.

Throw the snowball through the wreath.

It was a really cute party and a fun way for Grace to say goodbye to her teacher and her school friends.

Finally the end- Part 3

2012-02-05T17:00:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned in Part 1, the weather was perfect for the whole trip. It was November and we were eating on a patio and it was hot. I think I ended up even taking my sweater off. We of course had to go to Johnny Rockets, for old times sake.

Canal Street is back in business. When I was there in the summer, it was mostly shut down. But since then most of the vendors have come back and are selling again. You can find pretty much everything on Canal street. Purses, watches, scarfs, jewlery, random tourist stuff, and so much more. Its an experience. Brett hated it. Every store was the same and he was shopping. Couldn't get worse. The rest of us were loving it. My fav part was when an asian lady came up behind us and murmured something and Brett looked at me and said, "I think that lady cast a spell on us or something". hahaha. I told him that she was one of the 'underground' people selling handbags and her spell was her saying Gucci, Prada, etc. She wants you to follow her back somewhere and sell you knock off bags. Brett got really annoyed with all the people mumbling to him. I thought it was funny. Michael and Trina were actually in a store when the police came in and busted the vendor. The cops were taking purses and other various things from the store. I wish I could have seen that. I always miss the excitement.

Lombardi's Pizza. The pizza was good. The caesar salad was not.

One day we split up and the guys went to the USS Intrepid. The girls went shopping.

The Intrepid is one of the most successful ships in US history. (can you tell I got that off of a tourist website, lol). Michael and my dad really wanted to see it. Brett went along because he didn't want to spend the day shopping with the girls. But I think he enjoyed it.

The girls went to Jersey Gardens. The outlet mall in Jersey. Time well spent!!!

After a day of shopping and ships we all met up and went to see another show. This one was an Off-broadway show. It was called, brace yourselves, The Fartist. And yes, it is about just what you think it would be. A guy back in the 1800's who discovered that he could fart on command (and suck water in up there then shoot it out). He could make different sounds with his farts, including musical instruments. To make the sound effects they had someone to the side of the stage that would make the 'fart' noises when needed. The show was funny and very different than anything I have seen. I think my fav part is when the Burlesque dancing girls came down the isle and my dad happened to be sitting there and I think one girl sat on his lap. So awkward for him, but so funny for us watching. It was a dinner theatre and so we ate dinner first and then watched the show.

Oh yes, we were blown away by the Fartiste.

We were luckily enough to find a time that Jason was free and Kate could find a babysitter for Bridget and we all got to go to the temple. The Manhattan Temple is really interesting. It is part temple part church building. But as always church is still true. lol

It worked out great because right across the street is a Century 21, so we got to go shopping too.

And I think that right after going to the temple is the right time to try street meat.

Brett enjoying his. It was actually really good, you know, for street meat.

We went to the Natural History museum. It was a rush visit, but we saw most of it. Brett and I went around with Michael, which meant seeing everything, but fast.

We rushed over to Radio City to catch our final show of the week. The Rockettes. I joked with my mom that she was making us go see dancing girls. But it was the Christmas Special.

It was cute. There was dancing girls, but also a story line and Santa, and even a few 3D parts. I would love to take my kids to it. Lots of families there that have a tradition of giong every year with their kids. It was cute.

See, dancing girls. They were cool to watch. They were all the same height, they looked the same and they were perfectly in sync (not N'SYNC). I kept watching for mistakes. There were a few, but it was opening night.

We walked over to Rockefeller to see them putting the tree up. No lights yet, but there is the tree.

This was our final night in New York. Michael and Trina were leaving early in the morning and Brett, Melissa, and I were leaving later in the afternoon the next day. ( I did go to Holboken the next day in hopes of getting into Carlo's Bakery to get some stuff to take home, but there was a huge line. So we just walked around).

This is the whole gang. I was surprised at how much stuff we were able to do and how much we did together. There is alot more that we did that I didn't include and that I didn't even take pictures of. We had 8 days and we packed it all in. Lots of walking, lots of food, some shopping, lots to see, lots of laughs and very little sleep.

It was so much fun. I loved this trip. Not just being in New York, but being with my family too. I had so much fun.

It just keeps going- New York Part 2

2012-02-03T08:00:00.000-08:00

Lets start off part 2 of the New York trip with another musical. This one I actually got Brett to go to. It was Spiderman. The story line was that same as the movie, but obviously it has music. The music was done by Bono and that other U2 guy. The music was AMAZING. I left singing the music and had to have the soundtrack. Love the music (and I don't like U2). The acrobatics was crazy. Spiderman flew from the stage to the second balcony back to the stage then to the first balcony then up to the second then on to the floor then back to the stage. I can see why so many people get hurt while doing this show. 2 nights after we went one of the spidermans got hurt. Why couldn't that have been our night. But good show.

You can not go to Jersey City and not eat at the Brownstone Diner. It is right by Jason and Kates house. If you remember my post from my trip in July, we ate there then too. For some reason I ordered the same thing again. I should have ordered something different.

Michael, Trina, Brett and I split off from the rest of the family and we did the statue of liberty and ellis island tour. I don't even know what the rest of them did.

This is the dock from the Jersey side. This was also a train station. If you remember my post from July this is where I went running every morning (in July and this trip too). But you may remember the picture of the train station that I put in that blog. Fine, here is a link.

We took the Ferry from the Jersey side and went to Ellis Island first.

I really do find Ellis Island to be so interesting. I wish that we would have had more time there. We had a million other things on our list this day and so we had to rush through. I have been there before and loved it then, but I wish Brett would have had more time. Ellis island is where people immigrating to the US would come first when they got off their boats. From here they would go through a process to see if they were fit to be in the country. Health, mental, etc tests were done and if they passed they were allowed in. If not, they were sent home. From Ellis island they were then sent to where ever in the US their new home was. It was so interesting to read about.

This is the big hall where they would line up when they got there and be sent to various areas of the building depending on what they needed. So much history. This is also from the movie Hitch. You may remember it.

This is the view of New York from the ferry. Love that smog.

After Ellis Island we got back on the Ferry and went over to Liberty Island. Home of the Statue of Liberty. (What you may not know is that while the statue was a gift to New York, it is actually in New Jersey. New Jersey pays for the utilities, and New York pays for up-keep and maintenance on it). FYI.

I haven't really been on a trip with Michael since the days of the Station Wagon, but he is a schedule man. Everytime we got on or off the Ferry, it was go-go-go. He had everything down to the minute. We had 5 minutes to look another 5 to take some pictures and then 5 minutes to get back on the Ferry. I felt like I had just a tiny taste of what his trip to Europe was like. Sorry Trina. (but to his credit we saw alot in one day, so his schedule worked out for us).

But we saw the Statue and got our picture. Thats all that matters.

New York in the background and no smog this time.

Trina ran to meet up with Kate and Melissa to go to another Show. Anything Goes. Brett and Michael and I still had stuff to see. We walked around the financial district and saw the Bull. They now have a fence around him so you can't climb on him. Lame.

New York Stock Exchange.

One of the resturants on Michael list that he wanted to go to was Katz Deli. That is the place from that famous scene on the movie "When Harry met Sally". We took the subway to get there. When we came off the train you could tell the area would be sketchy because even the train station was ify. The area was totally sketchy. Not a very touristy area.

The place was packed. Nothing in there has changed since the time of the movie. The food was way over priced and was only ok. But an experience.

Michael and Brett and I then went further uptown and rode on the Roosevelt Tram. It takes you from New York over to Roosevelt island. There is nothing on the island, just houses, but it gives you a cool view of the city.

We rode it one way, got off, and got back on the next one to take us back.

Of course we had to make a stop at FAO Schwarts. And of course I had to play on the "Big" piano.

We went over to Times Square and met up with the girls after their show. We went to a restaurant called Stardust. The waiters are all people who are trying to make it on Broadway. So they will sing while you eat (not just to your table, but to everyone). It is cool. You can tip them while they are singing and those tips go towards helping with singing and acting lessons.

See, this lady is singing. They all had great voices.

Brett, so excited to be there.

Ok, except for the first picture this post was all one day. You can see how busy our days were. We did 7 days like this. It was contstant non-stop. But so fun. More to come in Part 3

Trip recap- NYC- Part 1

2012-01-30T19:30:00.000-08:00

Yes, I am preggers. I am due July 2. So right now I am 18 weeks. So that explains alittle why I wasn't blogging; I felt like crap and didn't really feel like doing anything. Then throw in Christmas and a move to a different province (again) and those are all my excuses for taking so long to blog.

After the marathon the guys went to a hockey game and the girls went to a show. There were really alot of shows playing Sunday night. Mary Poppins was cute. but it wouldn't have been my first choice. But it was fun. The set was really well done.

Waiting for the show to start.

The next morning Michael, Trina, Brett and I went to the Empire state building. I have been up there before, but since Brett had never been to New York I figured it was a must that we go.

The view is always really cool. The day was perfect for it too. When I went 6 years ago it was cloudy and you couldn't see as far. But this time was great.

We totally dorked it up and rented the guided tour phone thing that you listen to as you look out. That was actually really informative.

Brett thought it was cool. Brett wasn't really excited to go to New York, so my goal was so make sure that he saw everything and thought atleast some of it was cool.

Just a note to anyone that may be going to New York. We got the tour of the 87th floor (this is what you see in all these pics), but we also went to the 102 floor. Not worth it. Same view, but behind glass and not worth the extra money.

The rest of the family went somewhere else while we were on our tour and we met up with them after we were done. We met them over by Rockafeller

The other times I have been were in Summer and spring and so they didn't have the skating out. You always see it on TV or in Movies. It was actually smaller than I thought that it would be.

Grand Central was also a must see. We went at the right time because it was really busy. So it makes for a good picture of the blurry people moving around you.

The group (minus the photographer Trina). Even Jason. It was nice to be able to have him spend a day with us or meet us after he was done school. The rest of us had time off, but Jason still had school to attend.

It is really hard to get a good picture in there. It is huge and I didn't have my good camera, just my point and click. So I couldn't really play with lighting. But I do love the ceiling in Grand Central. I love the old buildings and the detail.

Tuesday morning we booked a tour of the 911 memorial. It is free, but you have to reserve tickets ahead of time. And they make you wait in alot of lines and show your ticket like a million times. The picture above is World Trade 1. Going to be really tall again.

In the center of the 'square' they have two large fountains. There are several buildings being built around and a large open area with trees. All along the sides of the fountains are all the names of people that lost their lives that day. They are listed in order of flight or building or company, or rescue worker. Families could also request that co-workers or friends have their names put beside each other.

It was impossible to read all the names, but everyso often you would come accross something like this above.

This is the base of WT1. It has some serious concrete reinforcement. They still haven't finished the bottom because they can't find a glass that is strong enough yet, or something like that.

This is the large open area (maybe in New York they call that a park). But it was really pretty with all the trees and the leaves turning. It actually just opened up to the public in September and tours just started. As beautiful as it was, it was also really sad. Inside the vistor info building they have little videos running and displays set up. One of the diplays had the wallet and wedding ring of a man that worked in one of the towers and obviously lost his life. The reality of it is heartbreaking.

As we were leaving we noticed a rainbow in one of the fountains.

Being in the finacial district we were right near Wall Street. This was the "Occupy Wall Street" camp. It stunk. Mostly like drugs, but it looked like it would smell like garbage too.

We walked down to the Seaport area (mostly because we had to get tickets to shows from tkts) But also cool to see. Good view of the Bridge too.

When I first went 6 years ago they had a big fish market, but when I went back in the summer they had taken all that out. So the stinky smell of gross fish was gone.

So that we could get everything we wanted to done we had a schedule made up of each day and what we wanted to do that day. Michael also had a list of all the resturants that he wanted to eat at. So we went to some pretty cool places to eat. After dinner one night we were walking and I saw a place called Rices to Riches. A place full of all kinds of rice pudding. I was in heaven!! Naturally we had to go in. They had signs hanging on the walls and from the ceiling with all kind of funny sayings. This was one of them and I feel that it is true.

The rice pudding was really good. Brett and I had the coconut. YUMMY.

Times Square was the starting point and ending point for most of our days. The train from Jersey takes you to one of two places. World Trade or 33rd (close to Times Square). So we saw it often.

The weather was perfect for November. We could sweaters or shirts all day long. Towards the end of the trip it got a little cooler and you needed a jacket at night. But it was great for walking around in.

This is only Part 1. More to come.

New York Marthon

2012-01-29T17:05:00.000-08:00

I feel like the Marathon needs an entire post of its own. It was awesome. This is probably the first race ever that I have not run in with the rest of my family. Usually I am out there with them. So it was weird to wake up and go with the spectators and just watch. You are all wondering why I didn't run. I really wish that I did. But I was (and still am) preggers. I knew that I would be by then (or hoping I would be) and so I didn't register or run the race. ( But that meant that no one wanted to run with me in the mornings all week when I went running every morning).

I'm sure that actually running it was an even more awesome experience (I know that when I have run my other 4 marathons, they were awesome. hahahahaha) but it was cool to be a spectator and take it all in. It was actually really emotional. I can't even blame it on being pregnant, because I would have been the same way it I wasn't pregs. But I totally cried, multiple times. Even just when random people would run by. It was so cool. It is such an accomplishment that I was so happy for people running it.

There were 47,000 people running it and probably about 2 million people watching along the way. Lots of runners would put their names on their shirts and so people could cheer for them personally. It was really fun to see all the spectators cheering and how you could tell that it really helped the runners. I wouldn't want to stop if someone was yelling out my name.

I was so proud of my 4 family members that ran it. Running 42.2km is not easy and the training is no easy either. But they all did it and they all did so great. (Go here to see my brothers post about his experience.)

Jason is the one in the Red. I have a closer one of him, but it is all blurry. Probably because he was going so fast. I did get video of him running by too. He was the first to pass us. We weren't really waiting where we told them we would be, so they were all alittle surprised to see us and were wondering where we were I am sure.

Trina waving to her fans and looking so strong. It really was hard to believe that this is at the end of the race. I think they only had 2 miles left to go, so they had already run 24 miles.

Dad stopped to take pictures of us cheering for him. He bought a small camera that would fit into his waist pack. He took pictures and video along the route as he ran. Cool photos of all 5 areas that they run through and of all the crowds running and cheering.

Michael Stopped to give us a quick wave before he kept running. Seriously they all looked so good. Even at this point. Michael almost missed us, because when we were calling his name he just assumed it was so one that read his shirt and was cheering, so he almost ran past and then stopped to look back and wave.

Group shot afterwards.

The race was at the start of the trip and so we had a week afterwards to relax and do everything and anything. And we did!!!

Montreal

2012-01-27T21:11:00.001-08:00

I'm going to play some catch up here.

Way back in October Trina, Georgia and I took a quick trip to Montreal. It was fun. Georgia and I went so that she could have a check up with her surgeon and I asked Trina to come to help (and she could have a trip to Montreal). Both T and I have already been there and have seen most of the basic tourist stuff, so Trina found us some great us places to check out.

Trina would do the research in the morning on the places we wanted to go and would find out how to get there. So we took the bus and metro to a few different spots. The first was this cute shopping area. Of course since I am posting this months after the fact I don't remember any of the names. I will have to ask Trina to remind me. This Street had little shops. Mostly home decor and such. We walked up and down the street and went in and out of shops. Georgia was so good. She would get tired, I would lay her back and she would sleep for a few hours. So nice.

We also went to this Market area. The bakery was really busy. Georgia is sharing her cookie with me.

There was tonnes of fresh fruit and flowers and jams and syrups. You name it. I did bring home some jars of maple syrup. Some how Trinas bag got so banged up on the airplane that my cans of syrup were really badly dented (and a few of her things broke). I'm glad that the cans weren't punctured and didn't leak on her stuff.

But the market was really cute.

Because it was the weekend before Halloween they had a lot of pumkins out. Georgia went through and picked out hers.

Georgia's appointment was great. I waited a really long time to get in (almost 2 hours). That is not fun with a tired and hungry baby and in a huge waiting room with no toys. But we got in and saw the Doctor. He is happy with the results and so am I. Afterwards I thought of a million questions that I wanted to ask and of course forgot. But he wants to see us again in 6 months, so I'll write them down and ask then.

I saw this statue in Old Montreal the last time we were there ( in April). Jason pointed it out when we were walking around. He called it "Montreal's version of THE VIEW". I don't really know what that means, but it is funny for some reason.

We did go to Old Montreal. It is cool to walk around there. I have been there each time I have been to Montreal (all 3 times) and each time because it is a different season it is different. Summer was obviously the best. But the fall was nice because the leave were turning and it wasn't at all busy.

We went to the Art musuem. Mostly because it was a little cold out and I wanted to let Georgia out to walk around. There were some great paintings, like nice stuff. Good stuff. But I didn't take pictures of that stuff. Only the weird stuff. You're Welcome.

Um, WTC! Seriously, this is art? Not seeing it. Weird if you ask me. Georgia was not really sure what to think. The part that made me feel slightly uncomfortable and immature were their giant private parts (which I did not get in the photo).

Again, good trip to Montreal. Of course we ate at Ruebens (Think Giant Sandwich). Did lots of walking. Saw the usual stuff (like old montreal and St. Catherines) and saw new stuff. I was glad Trina came. It was way more fun with her there and I was glad to have someone else there to help with George.

Halloween

2011-10-31T19:09:00.000-07:00

We went to the Ward Trunk-or-treat tonight. Grace dressed like a cupcake and Georgia was a Monkey (Although she wouldn't keep her hat on).

I stayed at the truck and handed out Candy while a friend of mine took Grace and Georgia around. (Brett is working out of town). They got way too much candy, but had so much.

Grace ran to and from every car in the parking lot. I felt bad because my friend (Antonia) had to carry Georgia.

She saw the picture of the cupcake costume online when it first came out and told me that is what she wanted to be. Every time I asked her, she would say she wanted to be a cupcake.

Poor Georgia, just got to wear Grace's old costume. (that is the life of the second child) But she didn't really care. She actually had a huge melt down when I put the costume on, but then was fine to wear just the body part of it.

It was a little chilly so we went home for a bit and took a minute or two to warm up. Then we went to some houses (about 7 or 8) just on our street.

Georgia would go up to every house and knock on the door and put her little bucket out. She got the hang of it really quick.

Grace would yell out 'Trick-or-treat' as loud as she could.

It was really fun to watch them. They were so excited and had lot of fun.

Then we went home and Grace handed out Candy. I really think she loved handing it out as much ans she loved trick-or-treating herself. She would hear kids at the door and run and answer it and put little piles of candy in all the kids bags. I heard her say to a group once, "there you go guys".

Thanksgiving and Prairie Gardens

2011-10-17T17:43:00.000-07:00

This year Thanksgiving started off in Cardston. We spent a few day with the Bevans family. Saturday we did a girls craft day. The guys were left at Brett's parents place with all the kids. I guess it was chaos while the women were away. But we got our crafts done and had Thanksgiving dinner that night.

Picture of all the Grandkids.

Sunday we drove to Edmonton for a second Thanksgiving dinner.

Monday the whole family (minus J&K&B) drove an hour north of Edmonton and we to a place called Prairie Gardens. It was alot of fun. There was a corn maze, pumpkin canon, scarecrow making, a petting zoo, parks, pumpkin decorating, face painting, and lots of other really cute stuff. I was surprised at how fun and how cute the place was.

Most importantly the kids had a blast.

The kids spent a lot of time playing and climbing on the hay before we even went in.

Trina and I were trying to get a picture of Georgia. She would not look at the camera (she stared at the ground) and when she finally looked we got this look.

From the front entrance they take you further in on a wagon ride (hooked up to a tractor).

There were rows of cute little buildings. Some were candy stores, or a place for hot chocolate, and ice cream shop, gift shop, etc. Others were a haunted house or a building with just creepy old things in it.

The petting zoo is always a hit with kids. (All I can think is "I want to wash my hands")

Georgia loved pointing to all the animals. She would see one and yell "Mum" and point to it.

They let kids hold little baby bunnies. Grace was in heaven. She did not want to let it go. I am sure she would have tried to leave with it if I let her.

Even George loved petting it. But Grace wouldn't give it up to let her hold it.

This baby goat was really really cute.

I love the look on their faces. They are not sure if they should go near it or run from it.

They had an area where kids could ride around on tractors (either powered or pedal). Grace thought that it was great that she could just press on the 'gas' and it would go.

Not yet ready for the big kid ones, she found a little car for herself.

They had a park that actually looked like it was just bits a pieces from old parks. But kids always have fun at parks. This was a tire swing that is cut to look like a horse. Georgia loved it.

We even attempted to get a family picture.

It wasn't really ice cream weather, but kids don't care about that. They wanted ice cream!!

Our last stop was the "Enchanted Forest". We took a walk through a treed area that was full of... well.. random weird things. Like actually really weird. But the kids didn't care.

These boards that they can stick their faces in are always a big hit.

The kids had so much fun (and so did I). I would love to go again next year. Only next year, I would go earlier so that we can spend more time doing everything.

First Day of Preschool

2011-09-28T11:15:00.000-07:00

Ok, so late, but I had to post her first day of preschool picture. She looks like such a big girl.

Grace goes to Preschool Tuesdays and Thursday mornings and then we do Joy School Wednesday afternoons. She loves both of them. When I tell her that she is going to school she asks me which one "Apples or Joy School?" (Her preschool is called Smart Apples.)

I love to see what she comes home with and what she has learned.

I will admit that it does feel weird to just drop her off. But I don't think that Georgia minds the time alone with me that she now gets.

My other blog

2011-09-23T18:25:00.000-07:00

Just incase anyone cares,

I updated my other blog.

It has been so long since I updated it that I am sure no one even checks it anymore (maybe no one did before either. lol)

www.anythingchristy.blogspot.com

Drama Queen

2011-09-18T14:02:00.000-07:00

Last night I was getting dinner ready and Grace came into the kitchen and asked if she could have a bun. I told her no and that she could wait a few minutes and it would be dinner time. She started to whine more that she wanted a bun. I told her no again. She then yelled,

"I DON"T LOVE YOU ANYMORE"

I knew at one point in her life she would say those words, I just figured she would be more like 13, not 3. (it didn't really hurt my feelings because I know that she doesn't really mean it).

She is such a drama queen, I have no idea where she gets it from.

Drumheller

2011-09-15T15:00:00.000-07:00

The September long weekend we took our last camping trip of the season (I hope). We headed to Drumheller with the Bevans family.

Seriously camping in a trailer is really where its at. It is so nice to pack everything into the trailer and go. All my clothes are hung up. Food and dishes in the kitchen. Electrical plug ins to use a computer and watch movies. I can have a hot shower and blow-dry my hair. That is camping!

Grace and Georgia loved driving through town and seeing all the dinosaurs that they have around town. They would point them all out to us.

We got there Friday night and the rest of the gang got there Saturday afternoon.

This is the dinosaur on the way into the RV park we stayed in.

Saturday afternoon we all went to see the giant T-Rex in town.

Its hard to miss, it is huge. Although I went running Saturday morning and realized that I ran past it and had not seen it. I must have been pretty focused on my running. I made sure to look for it on the way back. That very same run I ran 'downtown' and a homeless man I passed said "There you are, I have been waiting for you". I ran faster, it was 7am.

We climbed to the top of the dinosaur. It was probably 5 stories tall. (Maybe more).

There was alot of stairs to climb.

After the Dino we went to the spray park.

Sunday we went to the Tyrell Musuem. It was crazy busy. So many people. It was alittle stressful to keep track of all the kids.

I think Grace was disappointed that nothing in the museum was real. Nothing was alive.

At one point I told her to come over and see a little turtle. She came over and asked if it was real. I told her no and she gave me this look like "thats lame" and walked away.

Georgia was with us at the museum, but we don't have pictures of her because she slept in the stroller the entire time. It was nice because then I didn't have to worry about 2 kids running around the place.

The weather was great in the day. It was a little chilly and night. Especially the night that we ran out of propane and we woke up with no heat.

My fav part of camping is when the kids go to bed and we start a fire. Who doesn't love sitting around a fire and roasting marshmallows. Love those white clouds of goodness.

Summer Round-up

2011-09-12T20:01:00.000-07:00

Finally. I am blogging. Good thing I waited all summer before I blogged right. Now you have to sit through one of my long long, full of a million pictures, posts.

Like everyone elses, our summer was a busy one. Trips to see family, trips with friends, camping and general everyday summer life. It was busy, but so fun.

We camped in our trailer alot. I admit it is alot of fun. I like camping now.

Summer always means trips to the park. Brett doesn't work Wednesdays and so we took advantage and did some fun family stuff on those days.

We went out to park lake. We actually went to go to the petting zoo out that way, but I read the website wrong and they weren't open wednesdays, so we drove a little further to park lake.

The kids played at the park and then we let them play in the lake, with their clothes on.

We went to Edmonton in July (right before I went to New York). We took the kids to the Edmonton zoo. They had fun with their cousins.

The girls loved the petting zoo.

Grace had a list of animals that she wanted to see. So she would see one and then right away ask to see the next on her list.

Georgia LOVED seeing all the animals. It was so cute.

These three kids would run to and from every animal.

Georgia tried to climb in with a few of the animals.

I went to New york in July. Then got back and we went camping with friends the next weekend.

It was a Cabin Boys reunion. The guys that Brett grew up with and they were Besties. And they built a cabin together in highschool, no big deal.

It was so fun to get all the guys together and the wives together. And not to mention all the kids. I don't know which group had more fun.

We went camping out in BC at Wasa Lake. The weather was great. The beach was awesome.

All the kids played in the sand.

The Nelsons brought their boat and the kids of course LOVED that. Riding in the boat or being pulled by something. It was a hit.

Georgia tried to drive the boat.

Brett and I on the Jet-Ski. This was after Brett tried to dump me off. Not cool.

More days at the park.

Auntie Lissa came for her annual summer trip. I always say that she needs to stay for 2 weeks instead of one. We have so much that we want to do and never enough time.

We did lots of fun stuff with the kids. Including going to Henderson Pool.

Finally someone to take my picture with my kids.

My parents came for the weekend and we went out to park lake again. Georgia went over to some random kids and decided to play with them. She wanted to help build their castle too.

August came and our annual trip to Kelowna was very anticipated. The weather could not have been better. It was 30 degrees (or more) every day. I got a sweet tan. And the kids had so much fun.

Everyday we would have breakfast and then hit the beach. By 9:30am it was hot. We would hang out at the beach till lunch and then after lunch have naps and then hit the beach again till dinner. In the evening we would go to the pool and then put the kids to bed. We have rooms all in a row, so we would turn on our monitors and hang out in Brett's parents room. So fun. You guys, I put on makeup twice in the whole week. I was seriously ON VACATION.

We piled on the kids into the tube and drove around. They loved it. We did start to put an adult on there with the kids, just incase they went over.

Georgia is playing an intense game of chess with herself.

Grace can finally swim around on her own. With a life jacket on, but still on her own. So great.

Every morning George would bring me her suit and life jacket. Then bring me the sun screen. she was alreays ready to go to the beach.

The kids had so much fun playing in the lake. It was so nice.

There are a few of those huge trampolines in the lake and so we would swim out to them and play on them. Grace loved to swim all by herself (with me or Brett beside her) out to them. Georgia even swam out with us a few times.

Georgia would not take off her life jacket. All week she had to have it on. Even when I put her towel on.

The kids loved riding the quad to and from the beach.

I was taking a picture of Grace and I kept hearing someone say "cheee" and I look down and George is giving me her cheesy grin and saying "Cheeee".

One of the only photos of me, the whole trip. Not the greatest, but it proves I was there.

Georgia loved the Jet-ski. She would get on there and want her hand in the wrist strap and try to push Brett's hands away so she could steer.

I'm so sad that summer is ending. August is always a little sad because I know that it all has to come to an end. Although our September has been fun too so far. That is my next blog post though.

Crappy Crafts

2011-08-18T21:14:00.001-07:00

I always love to share with you fine examples of my mothering skills. Here is another.

With Brett working out of town, my days are long. Plus Monday I got sick with a brutal cold. Body aches, runny noise, and bad bad cough. So I have been alittle crabby with the cold. Today my kids were fighting all day, both of them were whiney, and just kept pressing all my wrong buttons. So at the end of the day I was trying to clean up and get the house semi-organized before Brett came home. I was in the process of fixing Grace's hair and her and Georgia kept being little monkeys. I finally said to Grace, "Look Grace, I don't have time for this crap" (in my defense I didn't yell it, I said it calmly). She looked at me and said "well could you just put the crafts out for me?" I had to ask her what she said to make sure I got it right. She thought that I had said, we don't have time for CRAFTS. hahahaha. That sounded better, so I just said "No Grace, we don't have time for CRAFTS"

New York

2011-07-18T20:52:00.000-07:00

I got back last week from a trip to New York with My sister Melissa. Actually it was a trip to New Jersey. My brother Jason lives there. It was a busy 6 days. This was my third time visiting New York, but my first time in Jersey. The first few days we spent hanging around Jersey.

This is a cute park right by my brothers house. If you have been to his place you know this park because you walk through it to get to the PATH (the train to New York).

Jason showed us some cool places. I don't even remember the name of this place. But is was a great view of New York on the other side.

Also, if you have been to Jason place you know the Brownstone Diner. Yummy food.

I look like a total dork in this picture. But everyday I ran in Liberty State Park. A park by Jasons place that had a pretty good view of Lady liberty (as I like to call her) and Ellis Island and of course the city. But seriously, running there was brutal. I was not used to the heat and humidity. I would go at 6am and it was still way to hot for my liking (at least for running)

I thought this place was pretty cool. This was an old Train yard. Out front they had all the signs of where the trains went. I think it was from 1920ish. Obvioulsy not in use now, but I am sure it was a busy place in its prime.

I love the history of these place. NY and NJ are full of history and old buildings. I love it all!

This is Mel and I in front of Jason's place. Lots of stairs to climb. This was 4th of July, yes we were dorks and totally wore 'fourthy' shirts.

Our first day there was Mall day. worked out perfectly that the only rain day we had was ont he day we had planned to go to the mall.

The next day was the 4th of July. We drove up to a beach in Jersey. It was a good beach. The water was cold, but it was so hot out that it felt so nice to be in it. I'll spare you the beach photos though.

After the beach we got ready and took the train to Hoboken (not to be mistaken for the homeless man that Jason has named hobo-Ken). Hoboken is right next to Jersey City. It is really cute. Lots of little shops and stores. I would have loved to have spent more time there.

But we stopped at Carlos' Bakery (the one from the TLC show Cake Boss). We thought that the 4th of July would mean that it would be crazy busy. Not at all. When you walk in you take a number. Mel and I got number 16 and 17 and when we walked in they were on number 2. So it was not long of a wait at all. We ordered Cannolis and Lobster tails. Both were so delish!

We stayed in Hoboken to watch the fireworks. They put on the fire works from out of the Hudson (in between NY and NJ). We sat in a park and watched them. Ok, the were cool, but lets be honest Fireworks are Fireworks.

The next day Mel and I totally did a double decker bus tour. Sounds kinda lame, but I like doing the bus tours. This is a hop-on-hop-off. So you can get on and off at any of the stops. Since we have both been there a few times and have seen most everything we want to see we didn't really get off that many times. But it gives you and good overview of everything.

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We got off down at Seaport (to get tickets for shows) and then got off in Central Park.

Me with my Donald trump Water.

This is the Freedom tower (I think it is called that). The building that is replacing the World Trade buildings.

We saw 4 shows while we were there.

The first was Memphis. I LOVED IT. The music was great, the actors were greats, their voices were great. When it started I was in love. so good.

Go here if you want to read about it.

This is the guy that plays the main guy in the show. He was kinda weird in the show, but seemed normal in real life. lol.

The next day we saw How to Succeed in Business without really trying. Again, I LOVED IT. One of the main characters was played by Daniel Radcliffe. I thought he did a great job. I loved the music (I have the sound track and listen to it everyday- even Grace sings along). It was funny too. Loved it.

Click here to read more about it.

Then that night we went to see Wicked. Long story about tickets that involved a little stress and worry from me but in the end Mel won the ticket lottery and we got front row seat for $26. Can't go wrong. I loved this too. Did I LOVE IT? Maybe. But it was good. The music was really good (again, I have the soundtrack and listen everyday). The girl that played Glinda was really funny. Front row was really close. I actually flew home and saw Wicked on Friday night in Calgary (yes twice in one week) and my seat were further back and I could see things that I didn't catch when I was so close.

Click here to read more about it.

Classic photo with the NY cops.

The next day (my last full day there) Mel and I did a little more shopping and then just walked around where every we felt like. It was really busy in NY. There were so many people. Times Square was crazy.

We met Jason after school and Kate got a sitter for Bridge and we went for dinner and then to a show.

We went to Rock of Ages. It was also good. I don't want to say that I LOVED it, because it was some Racy parts (girls dancing in skimpy clothes). But, the Music was great, the singing was FANTASTIC and it was funny. So yes, it was good.

Click here to read more about it.

After the show with one of the Actors.

I had a great trip. So fun to visit my brother. He has lived there for 3 years and this was the first time I had been to his place. It wasn't a relaxing trip because we were always on the go, but it was so much fun.

I'm already planning my next trip there (which will be in November with Brett and the rest of my family- no kids)

Self Feeding = Self Mess

2011-05-31T04:30:00.000-07:00

It is so great when your kids can and want to totally feed themselves food. There are times that Georgia refuses to even let me feed her yogurt and she has to do it on her own. I love the freedom. I can sit and eat my dinner without having to feed someone else at the same time.

But, then you are left with this to clean up...

I don't always give her a giant spoon to eat with. Both my kids (and maybe all kids) love to try to use the serving spoon. So when they get bored eating their dinner, I will sometimes give them the serving spoon to play with and they totally eat more.

May Long

2011-05-23T17:01:00.001-07:00

We went camping in Waterton this May long weekend. I will admit I was a little skeptical about how much fun it would be. I'm not a big fan of camping. But we bought a trailer a few months ago and so I wouldn't have to be in a tent. The weather was supposed to be really crappy, but it was actually really nice. One day the lake was actually really calm. Rare.

That is our trailer in the background. Brett is the greatest ebay shopper ever, found a great deal on the trailer and couldn't pass it up. It is really big inside. It has slide outs that make it feel really roomy. That back slide out is the girls room. It has bunk beds and a trundle bed and still enough room for Georgia's playpen.

We took a ride on the boat that goes up and down the lake. In all the years I have been to Waterton, I have never been on the boat tour. I have gone up and down the lake in other boats and have seen the same things, but I guess the extra info was interesting. But because the US side wasn't open yet, we couldn't get off on the other side.

The kids sat still for about the first 10 minutes. The other hour and 50 minutes they climbed on the seats, ran around, and fought. I think they enjoyed it. At least I hope.

Up until 5 days, before we went, the boat couldn't even make it all the way down the lake because of ice. Luckily it was all gone by the time we went. I didn't want to 'titanic' or anything.

But the lake was so calm. But cold. (side note, has anyone washed their hands in the bathroom on the dock? I did. I am pretty sure that they get that water straight from a nearby glacier. It hurt it was so cold)

That is the boat that we rode on . It was pretty much a private tour for the family. There was 13 of us and then another couple and their kid. I actually felt bad for the other family. Also the 2 guys giving the tour.

My fav part of the tour though was when some had to pee in a tin can (no bathroom on board) and then we had to dump the pee over the side. The tour guys never knew. Good times.

Ah, how can you not go to Cameron falls. They were 'raging' this time of year.

I ran past them Monday morning while I was out running and I enjoyed the mist blowing on me.

Grace honestly had the time of her life playing with her cousins. I have so many memories in Waterton playing with my cousins.

Made me a little nervous have such little railing there. Especially with George. She's a runner. Unpredictable.

The kids all wanted to go on a 'hike' up the falls. So we hiked up there for a different view.

The weekend was so much fun.

Here are a few more things that we did;

-Ate dinner at Wieners of Waterton. Seriously so good. The hot dog was fantastic and the sweet potato fries are some of the best I have had. Highly, highly recommended.

- Ice cream at Big Scoops. This is something we did all the time when I was a kid. I couldn't deny Grace that fun too.

-The park. Always a hit with the kids.

-Grace dipped her toes in the lake. So did Brett and Georgia. But Grace didn't feel that she could leave waterton without doing it.

-Run/bike rides. I ran while Brett pulled the kids in the chariot. Saturday we went out and went along the new trail along the highway. Monday we just did laps around the town looking at the cabins and the falls and the wildlife.

-We ran into Nima 3 times.

-Grace and her cousin Addi were playing and wandering and ended up trying to go into the wrong trailer. They walked into someones trailer and tried to jump on the bed. Luckily they were from Cardston, knew Brett's parents, and brought our kids back. Geez.

-We played cards and watched movies in our trailer at night when it was too cold to be outside. Plus there was a fire ban, so no roasting marshmallows (although we did roast some over the burner on the stove).

I am actually excited for the next camping trip.

Love being outside

2011-05-16T11:47:00.000-07:00

Yes, I am totally going to toot my own horn (this is my blog). I did a 5km race last weekend. I don't actually really like 5km races, they are too short I think. I've always liked the 15k or the halfies (21k). But anyways I did a 5k with my girlfriends (see photo above, Grace Wood, Naomi Tanner, and me). We run together a few times a week and mostly enjoy the social aspect of running together, but we sign up for races so we actually have to semi train for them.

I totally went in thinking "Ugh, I'm just going to enjoy myself". Meaning I will run and not try hard. But when I started I felt great, so I pushed hard. (after the fact I always tell myself I could have pushed harder). Anyways, long story short I was the first female finisher. That has never happened and probably never will again. So I will live in my glory for a bit.

Here is me getting my medal.

The weather has been so nice out lately. We have been spending lots of time outside and enjoying every minute.

I got a bubble machine and it was a huge hit. They loved it. Both Grace and Georgia chased the bubbles around. Grace was running in circles around the machine.

I love Georgia's pointed finger popping the bubbles in the grass

Serious excitment.

Love the running.

They love the Sand-box. They both love to get in there and play. Grace trys to build things. she also has to pick the sand out of her toes every few minutes.

Brett and I just aren't impressed with the amount of sand that ends up in the house. One night we found a bunch in our bed. Brett wants to get rid of it and plant a garden. I'm all for keeping it; despite the constant sweeping required.

She is so crazy. Grace just has to jump off everything.

I'm so glad that spring is here and that we have a great backyard to play in. We also live really close to a bunch of parks, so we have been going to several of those. Both my kids are fearless it seems and they always just have to climb high and jump.

Bring on Summer.

Easter

2011-05-03T07:32:00.000-07:00

Better late than never, my Easter post.

I was so excited to do an easter egg hunt for Grace and Georgia this year. I kept telling Grace that they easter bunny was coming (she had just finally forgetten about the Easter Alligator eating the Easter bunny last year)

The Easter bunny had left eggs all over the living room and the girls had fun running around picking them up. I was surprised at how much Georgia enjoyed it. She went around and found eggs and put them in her bucket. So cute. And they both enjoyed the candy inside.

When I showed Grace the other things that they Easter bunny had brought her, TWICE I said "and look what Mommy got you". haha. Brett finally looked at me and said "what is wrong with you?". Luckily Grace was way to into her stuff to even be paying attention to what I was saying. Geez, what is wrong with me?? lol

We went out to Cardston and had easter dinner, but before that we had to roll Eggs down the hill. (I did take a few pictures of Grace decorating eggs, but it was late at night and she looks like a total disaster, like more than usual, and I would be way to embarassed to have anyone see them). Good thing there was a big hill about 20ft out Brett's parents front door. Seriously, who doesn't love throwing/rolling eggs down a hill. When we were kids we went to a park by my house and had to clean up the mess. But outside of town, who cares. Plus my S-I-L's dog ate all the eggs bits.

Ok, now for some pictures.

So cute with her little bucket.

Searching for the eggs Mommy, I mean the Easter Bunny left.

Found an egg and putting it in her bucket.

Enjoying the candy inside.

Georgia is not one to miss out on what everyone else is doing. She wanted eggs and she would throw them. Then she would make Brett pick them up so she could throw it again.

Watching her egg roll down the hill. For some reason we were on the steepest part of the hill.

Surgery

2011-04-23T20:09:00.000-07:00

We are back from Montreal. It was a long 3 weeks. It was rough at some points and I am so glad that it is over. This is going to be a seriously long post. Don't feel like you need to read it all. I just wanted to journal it and have some stuff written down for myself.

The day before we went to the BIODOME we had our pre-op appointment. We met with one of the residents that was working with our surgeon (Dr. Daniel). The resident was super nice. Seriously, for a laugh look him up on ratemds.com. His name is Noah Sands. I promise I didn't write any of those. Anyways, the most important part of this consult for me was to find out if our MRI was sufficient. Thankfully it was. Huge sigh of relief.

Wednesday (march 30th) morning was an early one. We had to be at the hospital at 6:30am. I had to fill out alot of paper work. Mostly out of province stuff. We went up to the pre-op waiting room and waited for awhile. Finally someone came and told us that there was no ICU bed available for her for after surgery and so they had to wait for one to open up. That could have meant later in the day or maybe the next day. We were put on the top of the list because we were from out of town. But that meant waiting with a baby who was hungry and tired. Our surgeon came and talked to us. He is a no non-sense kinda guy, but I really like him. If you can make him smile, it is a huge accomplishment. But he is an awesome surgeon and knows what he is doing. He put me totally at ease. I thought that I would be a wreck, but talking to him made it feel like everything was going to be just fine. I felt so confident with him and what he was doing. He really made me feel like he had Georgias best interest in mind and that was all that mattered. He explained somethings to us about surgery and about after. He also sent us down to a room so that we could feed Georgia and so that she could have a nap. We were only there for an hour or so and we got the call to come back up to the operating waiting room, there was a bed available. It was so weird saying goodbye to her as they took her away. We gave her kisses and got out quick so that we both wouldn't break down and lose it.

I think that Brett and I were both so exhausted by this point (it was a little after 1pm). We actually went back to our hotel and had a nap. We knew the surgery would be a few hours and so we rested and then went back to the hospital. I think I would have gone crazy sitting there just waiting. We went back close to 4:30 and within 10 minutes of sitting down we got a call that they were done. We went up to the ICU floor and waited for Dr. Daniel to come talk to us. He told us that everything went well. There were a few surprises for him when he got in there and so he had to adjusted his original plan, but he said it all went great and he was happy. He did discover that she has a cleft soft pallet. Not really a big deal and nothing they can really do to fix it. It doesn't really mean anything other than that she has two uvulas (that thing that hangs at the back of your throat). Oh and it explains the fact that when she throws up it comes out her nose too.

We finally got to see her. She looked really good. Her tongue was swollen, but other than that, she looked good. She looked really peaceful. Just like she was sleeping (I guess she was). She would stay in the ICU because it is their typical procedure to intubate them after this surgery. They worry about airway problems and want to let swelling go down before extubating. So she would be in an induced coma for a week or so with a breathing tube down her nose. She had an IV in both hands and one in each foot. She had other tubes running stuff in and out. She was hooked up! She had her own nurse. So one-on-one nurse 24 hours a day. I felt really comfortable leaving her because I knew that she would be well taken care of. They had chairs for us to sit on, but they don't really want you spending the night there. We were happy to go back to our hotel and sleep in a bed. During the day we would sit and read or play games on the phone. Then we would go for lunch, then come back and sit more. Then we would go for dinner and then come back and sit more. Not really much you can do for her. I did read alot of magazines.

Every few hours her drugs would wear off. She had a steady stream of stuff running into her, but she was just fighting being put under. So every few hours she would 'wake up' and thrash around. They would have to rush to her side hold her down and then pump her full of more drugs. Everyday they had to up her dose of the steady stream going in. The problem with her coming out of it is that she would grab for the breathing tube and they were also worried that she would bite down on her tongue. So they had to act fast. They finally tied her hands and feet to the bed. There were a few times that her eyes would open and she would look around. I hated being there when she would wake up. That made me sad.

Dr. Daniel or his resident would come see us atleast once a day. We could ask questions or talk to them about anything we needed. His residents were awesome.

My brother Jason and his wife Kate (and of course B) drove up from NJ and were able to stay for the weekend. They got to say hi to Georgia, but most of the time they toured around. I was happy to hang out with them a little bit. Brett stayed at the hospital a few times without me while I hung out with them.

Finally Brett had to go back home to work. He left Sunday (apr 3) and his mom flew in to take his place.

The next day (apr 4) they decided that Georgia was ready to be extubated. It was time to wake her up. The drugs were stopped and her breathing tube was pulled out. This was sad too. We were warned that because the drugs that were given to her to keep her sedated were so addictive and the amount they had to give her was alot that she was basically a drug addict. So she would have some major withdrawal. They would give her more drugs to help deal with that. Brett told me that I should have filmed them bringing her 'out', but I don't think that he would have wanted to watch that video. It wasn't fun to see. When she woke up she looked so unsure what was going on. I am sure that things were a bit fuzzy for awhile. She was really dopey. Her body also had involuntary shakes. She would twitch and shake. This was part of the withdrawal. Because she had the breathing tube down for so long she had no voice. It took a few days for it to come back. She just made little squeaking noises. She would stay in ICU for a few more days, just to help her come down from withdrawal. Her first night she slept a total of 3 hours (3 mini naps), then didn't sleep at all the next day (part of withdrawal), so the second night they gave her some sleep meds to help her sleep. I also did find a bed sore on the back of her head. Poor thing. The hardest part for me was when they had to cut some of her hair so that they could put a bandaid on it. So not impressed. Still 3 weeks later, it is not healed yet.

We met with an occupational therapist who was serious useless. Not because she was an OT, but just her. By Wednesday Georgia was showing interest in eating but we weren't allowed to give her anything. Infact we got in trouble when we gave her water (the nurse didn't know that I could understand french and knew what she was saying). After the fact I was told that the OT wait way to long to feed her, like I said useless.

By Wednesday (the 6th) we were moved down to a regular floor/room. This is where the real hard work began. It was totally crappy that we had to share a room with 3 other kids. (umm, I was surprised at how many kids have their appendix removed) Lots of kids came and went from the room. Older kids, babies, etc. The hard ones were the babies, because they cry in the night. It is really hard to sleep in a hospital room. The nurses were pretty good at just letting us sleep. They would get what vitals they could while she was sleeping and wait for her to be awake to get the rest. Except seriously, do they hav eto do rectal tempurature all the time. Poor Georgia.

She had some really crabby days. This was also part of the withdrawal and part because she had major surgery and was probably still in pain. They did give her pain meds to help with that, and these also helped with the withdrawal.

Friday afternoon the OT (who still wouldn't let us feed her) came in and said "have a good weekend, I'll be back tuesday." Again, useless (can you see that I am a little bitter about this girl- lol)

We were able to pass the time playing with some toys and books that I brought but the best thing was putting Georgia in a stoller and walking with her. We would walk the hallways and the 1st and 2nd floor had some areas that we could walk around in too. But that only lasted a few days because Georgia got a high fever and so we had to stay in our room. They had to do a bunch of tests on her to figure out what was causing the high fever. This meant a few hours of poking and proding. Poor girl. I felt so bad for her. It was just the flu and it lasted a few days. I was glad that it wasn't some crazy infection or something. But that meant that we were confined to our tiny area. This made the days feel really long.

I stayed the first few nights in the hospital and then Brett's mom stayed the next few. This worked out well, so that I could be with Georgia during the day when she was crabby. I also got the flu and so that made everything a little more difficult cause I felt like crap.

By Monday (the 11th) I was tired of waiting for the OT to let us feed her. I talked to the Doctor and he was shocked that she wasn't eating yet. So he got me a new OT. The new one came with in a few minutes and watch Georgia eat and swallow and said it looked great and we could feed her whenever we wanted on our own now. (seriously that is all that we were waiting for) Georgia wouldn't take a bottle or sippy cup (still too sore), so we had to have her drink with little cups that they gave us. She also started eating soft baby food. Cereal and purees. She ate like a superstar. They stopped her feeding tube, which till then was how she was eating. By Wednesday she was eating well enough on her own that they took her feeding tube out.

Also by wednesday he fever had been gone for a few days and she seemed well enough, so we were able to leave the room again. So I got to take Georgia for walks again. She loved these. She loved dto jsut look around at people. I was actually starting to get a little depressed at this point. I was missing Brett and Grace and my house and my life at home. So being able to get out of the room with her was so nice. We had already had to change our flights home because we had to stay longer but we were told to book our new flights for Friday afternoon. I was so happy, the end was in sight.

Thursday (the 14th) morning I came in and Laura told me that the Doctor had said that we could leave today. REJOICE!!! They felt that she was eating well enough and that she had been off pain meds long enough (about 5 days).

We got out around noon. We spent the afternoon walking around St. Catherines Street. I noticed a huge change in Georgia even jsut from that morning till the afternoon. She honestly seemed so much happier. I was glad that we had at least an afternoon to wander around a see stuff.

The next morning Georgia and I had an appointment with Dr. Daniel, just to make sure she was doing good and so he could see her before she left. Walking back into that hospital where I had already spent 3 weeks was brutal. I was so glad when I got to walk back out of it when we were done. (I overheard a guy in the elevator saying that he had been there 4 weeks and they still didn't know what the problem was, I was counting my blessings that we got to go home after 3 weeks).

We packed up and we were off to the airport. I had already cried to some random lady at the hospital about how much I missed Grace, so I was so looking forward to getting back and seeing her. Laura flew with me to Edmonton to help me with Georgia and then the next day we drove to Calgary (where her car was). I totally cried at the airport when I saw Grace. I gave her the biggest hug ever. I don't recommend being away from your kids for 3 weeks. That was way too long.

People had asked what I ate for 3 weeks. Restaurants and mall food. When we had time, restuarant, when it had to be fast, mall food (or McDonalds, Tim Hortons, subways, etc) So I am so sick of it. I can't believe I didn't gain any weight. There was one restuarant that we ate at a few times (ok 4). I ate there 3 times with Brett and then I took Laura there on our last day. Reubens. You may remember it from our first trip to Montreal. Biggest sandwiches ever.

Also people have asked about the language. yes, everyone there speaks french and they will speak french to you first. You can either stare at them blankly or say "pardon" and they get the hint and say it again in english. Usually someone would say something to me in French and I would answer them in English. I didn't find it to be a problem.

Ok, serious shout out to Brett's mom for taking 2 weeks of her life to come and help me out in Montreal. For realsies, could not have done it without her. it would have been impossible. (I told her that numerous times). Also a big thank you to my family for taking Grace and Harley for 3 weeks. They loved her just enough and spoiled her way to much that she didn't even miss me. Really, she didn't.

Besides that one OT, I really felt like the doctors and nurse were top notch. I read some literature before the surgery that explained that doing it really young would mean that they don't remember it. If you were to ask a child who had it done after the age of 4 they would tell you it was the worst thing that has ever happened to them. I can totally see why. I felt so bad for Georgia. She got roughed up, daily. I'm not even going to sugar coat it. It was brutal at times. The results are great and I am so happy that we did it, but there were times in the middle of it where I wondered what the heck I was doing. The surgery wasn't a life saving one, but it was certainly a life changing one. I am glad that we did it. I'm just glad that she won't remember it.

Georgia is now doing great. Pretty much back to herself. Didn't take her long after being home for that to happen. Being here and with Grace made her bounce right back. She didn't even skip a beat. She is basically back to eating what she did before. She is not keen on a bottle but will take one, but won't touch a sippy cup. I am hoping that comes in time.

We have a follow up appointment in September in Montreal but besides that life can go on as normal.

Here are some pics.

Waiting in the hospital room for an ICU bed to open up. She was so happy to get a little bit of apple juice. She was so hungry.

Back up to the Pre-op waiting room. They had some toys to entertain her. She loved this car.

This was our first look at her after her surgery. There were tubes everywhere. We could touch her arms and legs and chest, but at first we were a little scared to touch her face. After a few days we started to rub her hair and a little bit of her face.

For the most part she look peaceful.

They had to put the rolls in her mouth so that she wouldn't bite down on her tongue. Don't worry, we were constantly adjusting her breathing tube so that it wouldn't leave her nose all weird.

Her supply of drugs. Ready to shoot her up when needed.

About 30 minutes after she was extubated. still a little unsure of what is going on. Yes that is a giant diaper. The have 2 sizes of diapers there. Size 1 for little babies and everyone else wears the huge-o ones. They are made to fit an 18 year old. After we got out of ICU I brought my own.

Finally sleeping peacefully in ICU.

My first time holding her after a week. I loved the serious cuddles I got.

Cuddles with Grandma

She looks a little doopy, but we were getting ready to go for a walk.

Finally eating food again and loving it.

This was our tiny little space that we had to stay in. The green chair folds out into a bed and that is what we slept on. This little space is where we had to stay all day. I felt bad for Georgia when she couldn't leave. It was so boring in there. Thank goodness for TV. I watched a lot of TLC and HGTV.

This was her crib, she just looks so cute in her hospital gear. I kept her in hospital clothes because she was drooling all the time. I had bibs on her, but I would end up changing her gown 3 or 4 times a day.

Almost back to herself. She was dipping fries and sucking the ketchup off. She was also laughing and playing. It was so nice to see her be happy again.

Montreal

2011-03-29T17:49:00.000-07:00

We made it to Montreal. The plane ride was long and rough with a 13 month old, but we did it. Today we wanted to do something as a (partial) Family where Georgia could just walk around and be free and enjoy herself. We decided to go to the BIODOME. The Biodome has 5 pavillions that represent different Ecosystems in the "America's". Tropical Rainforest, Laurentian Maple Forest, Golf of St. Lawrence, Labrador Coast, and Sub-Antarctic, Islands. They had plants and animals in each. It was fun and cool to see. Georgia could just walk around and look at anything she wanted, she loved it. Tomorrow is a big day, so we wanted to just have some fun today. And we did. Checking out some animals.

Offering Georgia up to the 'Gators

Those are the Croc's in the background. They were FAT! You could tell they were well fed.

She loved looking at the animals. Had to stare through the glass at them.

We just let he wander around. She literally was running around. She thought it was great. I don't think she has ever had so much room to run. (Its been a long winter)

THIS is exactly why I do not like swimming in lakes. These things are in there. Sturgeon. They are in lakes everywhere. Brett says that last year some guys in a BC Lake fished out a Sturgeon that took 8 men to hold. Would make this guy look tiny. And they threw it back (they had to). GROSS. Actually seeing these fish did not help my fear at all.

Georgia loved looking at these. She kept squating down to get a closer look. Then she kept trying to step on them through the glass.

Coming out of our Shell.

Georgia on the subway ride home. She liked looking out the window.

My Project Manager

2011-03-02T17:58:00.000-08:00

Can I just brag for a minute about my handy husband?

I love when Brett gets bored because that means PROJECTS!

Brett and I thought that Wainscoting would look great in our front entrance. Well, the next weekend Brett bought all the supplies and got started. He worked on it all weekend and then voila, its done.

I love it, I think it looks so good. Just a little more excitment for a boring entrance way.

The girls of course stood there and watched Daddy working so hard. They loved to just watch.

Graces B-day

2011-02-22T09:25:00.000-08:00

Grace turned 3 on Monday (the 21st). I pulled out her baby book yesterday and was reading about my pregnancy with her and her birth and all about her development. It made me a little sad that she is growing up.

This little girl has spunk. She is fiesty and independent and knows exactly what she wants. (reminds me of myself). She is hilarious and sweet. She makes us laugh and melts our hearts.

I usually find her jumping off something or dancing around. She does have a love for Treehouse and that is usually the only time she will sit still.

Grace loves to try to be a helper with Georgia or with cooking or cleaning. It usually ends up not helping, but she sure trys.

I love to watch her play with her dolls or stuffies. She talks to them and sings and is a mini-mom. I even found her with a baby up her shirt the other day. It is so cute.

The three things she says atleast 10 times a day are;
"Can I watch Treehouse?"
"Can I have a snack?"
"I know, lets do something fun!"

Some funny Grace stories

We were driving and she was sitting in the backseat eating those breadsticks and cheese things. She said "Look at me mommy, I am Jesus" I look back and she had spread the cheese on her chin to make a 'beard'.

She often brings up that Georgia was a baby in my tummy. I told her that she was a baby in my tummy too, so she brings that up now too. "Georgie was a baby in your tummy. And I was a baby in your tummy too." A while ago I showed Grace some pictures of when we first got Harley. There was a picture of puppy Harley in the pocket of Brett's hoodie. I told her that Harley was so little that he was in daddy's pocket. So a few weeks after that Grace said "Georgie was a baby in your tummy. And I was a baby in your tummy. And Harley was in daddy's pocket."

The other night Brett was putting Grace to bed. He went to say goodnight and she stuck her tongue out. So he put his fingers by her lips and waited for her to stick it out again. When she did, he grabbed it. They laughed and he turned to leave and she started screaming. He tought maybe he had hurt her somehow, but then she screamed "give it back". He said "give what back?". Grace responded with "My booger". Brett looked down at his fingers and yup, he had a stringy booger between his index finger and thumb. He was totally grossed out and bent down and wiped it on her shirt. She then reached down, picked it off her shirt and ate it. Sick!

First photo, still covered in gross stuff. My little 6lb 1oz baby. She looks a little like Georgia in this picture, but maybe everyone looks the same when they scrunch their face up to cry.

Hard to imagine that I was cuddling my new little baby 3 years ago.

Because it was family day weekend my parents and sister came down for a visit. It worked out great that we got to have a little birthday dinner for Grace.

I always love when my family comes to visit

Since I had already done so much baking in February I decided to take a break. It also gave me a good excuse to finally get cupcakes for the shop in town (Crazy Cakes). I got a few of each kind so we could taste them all. Yup, they were all good.

Grace blowing out her 3 candles.

Opening her presents. She kept asking "can I open presents". Even the next morning she asked if she could open presents

My mom made her an apron with her name on it. Now she can wear it when she helps me in the kitchen (which she loves to do).

Georgia was right in there playing with all the presents

We pulled out the Cotton Candy machine and made some. Grace loves 'Cott and Candy'.

I seriously love this little girl and everything about her!!!!

Big Party

2011-02-14T08:44:00.000-08:00

On the Bevans side there are 7 kids that celebrate their birthday between the end of Jan and the Middle of March. This year we decided to have one big party for those 7 kids.

Since there are so many people we decided to just book the church and set up a big party in the gym.

The kids had so much fun. And lets be honest, so did the adults.

I am pretty sure that Grace was running and playing the entire time. She loves playing with her cousins and had so much fun.

Seriously, this little girl is so cute. I love that she figured out how to push herself around on this.

Brett's sister bought a bouncy castle. How awesome is this thing. The kids loved it.

Georgia made her way into the ball pitt.

I could barely get Grace to hold still for a picture. She was just bouncing all over the place.

Everyone made their own individual pizza's.

This is 11 of the Grandkids. We put them at their own little table. They all looked so cute eating their little pizzas.

These are the 7 kids with birthdays

Wyatt (2), Casen (4), Keenan (3), Georgia (1), Grace (3), Teegan (5), Addison (3)

We made Balloon cupcakes.

Blowing out their candles.

Still not sure what to do with a cupcake. She poked at it and then ripped it apart, but never really ate it.

Grace on the other hand eats her cupcakes just like I do. Eats the icing off and then leaves the rest.

You can't have a b-day party without a pinata. Little George had a go at it.

Then Grace did too.

We started with the youngest kids and worked our way up to the older ones.

ok, I had to have a swing at it too. How could I not. Who doesn't love a pinata.

Waiting for the pinata to break open. There were little treat bags inside for the kids. Grace seriously loved her bag. The next morning she woke up and the first thing she asked for was her bag.

Grace loved her presents. She got coloring and painting things. She love doing that stuff.

(I love Georgia wandering in the background- that little girls loves to just walk anywhere and everywhere)

Grace was more interested in Georgias present than George was. But thats ok.

The party was so fun. I think that we will make it atleast a bi-annual event. It is a great excuse to get together and let the kids go wild and play.

Georgia's Birthday Party

2011-02-07T10:37:00.000-08:00

On Sunday I had a birthday party for Georgia. Really just an excuse to have some family over for dinner at my house.

It was a pink party. I tried to make everything pink. I didn't go as far as to turn the food pink (cause that is alittle extreme). But having a birthday around valentines day makes it easy to find pink things. I even had pink punch - raspberry sherbert with Raspberry gingerale.

Coming to get mommy. Everytime I try to take her picture while she is doing something, she turns and comes to get me.

Not really sure what to do with her cake. Obviously I blew the candle out for her. She grabbed the candle and poked at the cake for a bit.

Eventually she started to use her hands to poke the cake and then started grabbing chunks of it.

She put some of the cake and icing in her mouth, but mostly she spit it out and would have rather thrown it on the floor.

Georgia turns 1

2011-02-05T19:56:00.001-08:00

I am totally going to do a post in honor of my sweet Georgia.

She turned one on Friday. So cliche to say, but I can't believe that it has already been a year. Seriously. It has honestly been one heck of a year, full of ups and downs, but I wouldn't trade it for anything else. Everyday with this little girl is a blessing. She just brings us so much joy and happiness . I laugh with her and at her all day long.

Before I get to the pictures (BTW, there will be alot of them, so sorry in advance) here are some random bits of info on Georgia:

- She was named after my Grandad George Tulk.

-She started sleeping through the night at about 8 weeks (don't worry, I counted my blessings)

-She has already been on 4 airplane rides (well 8 if you count both ways). Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto, and San Fransisco (and another trip to Montreal coming up next month)

-She is such a happy little girl (most of the time).

-she does throw a mean tanrtum though. Like throws herself on the floor, wailing, and picking up and throwing anything near her. It is hilarious to watch now, but probably won't be when she is 2.

-She loves to give kisses, wave 'bye-bye', play peek-a-boo, climb the stairs, and has just learned how to feed the dog.

- She is walking. She started walking between two people at Christmas and would do about 5 or 6 steps, but took a little while longer to get the solo walking. Now she is cruising all over. So cute to watch her waddle around.

I just love watching her develop and learn. It is so fun. I am so blessed with my two little girls.

Ok, now for all the pictures.

Ok, this was 35 weeks. I still went two more weeks and got much bigger. Like alot bigger. I'm not even joking or exagerating either. (was planning on taking a picture at 37 weeks, but had her before I could get it.)

I love this moment. When they put the baby on your chest for the first time and you get to see your baby. I get emotional thinking about it.

I was so glad to come home from the hospital. she had low blood sugar at birth and was jaundice and so we had to stay a few extra days to get it all sorted out. I was so relieved to come home.

I still look at her baby photos over and over. I love these pictures so much.

Starting cereal.

Love this picture so much. I love her huge smile.

She loves to look at books and more so loves to pull all the books off the shelf.

Oh, she is so big now. I can't believe it.

Christmas

2011-01-09T12:24:00.001-08:00

Christmas came and went so fast this year. I feel like it snuck up and then was over before I knew it.

We were able to spend lots of time with family and even got to spend time with friends.

These next few photos were from a Christmas Party at Aunt Ruby's (Brett Aunt). They had a Santa come and all the kids could see him and he gave them treats. I snuck in and sat on his lap (but didn't take the treats).

Me, Bretts sisters (Kris, Ash, Kare, & Amanda), Brett's mom and Santa

The Family (Shane and Kim are missing)

Grace actually sat on his lap. I was so shocked. She went up and sat on his lap and talked to him. Then went up again later and sat on his lap. She also kept hanging around him. I guess this Santa was not as scary as the mall Santa. I'm not getting my hopes up though, I am sure that next year she will cry again.

We drove up to Edmonton the week before Christmas. Jason and Kate were coming in that weekend and blessing Bridget. I was able to stay the whole week with my family. Brett had to drive back home and work a few days, but then drove back out the 23rd. I had great time hanging out with family. I was so glad I was able to stay the whole week. I hadn't seen Jason for a whole year. I had really looked forward to spending time with him.

Christmas Eve tradition is that we take a family photo. A nice one.

Then a silly one. This photo cracks me up. Michaels moustach looks real. My mom just bought black stick-on moustaches for all of us, but Michael shows up with his own 'stach. It was made of real hair. Classic Michael. Grace would not wear a moustach. Totally a party pooper! George looks pretty ticked too.

My mom made costumes for the kids so that we could do a short nativity. Grace was the angel.

The kids are sprinkling stuff on the lawn for the reindeer. It had oats for them to eat and blue sparkles so that they could find their way to our house. (Nolan and Denae made it at Playschool)

Christmas morning. Mom with the 3 babies.

Grace checking out all the stuff in her stocking.

We always have to get a photo of us coming down the stairs.

All the girls got Tutu's and wings from Granny. Too cute. (Grace and Bridget)

Georgia playing with her Christmas Present. A new phone.

The kids dressed up in the costumes my mom made. (I think Grace threw a fit the night before and wouldn't take a good picture with the 4 of them, so we had to try again) And actually any picture that I had from the night before had Bridget in the background getting her diaper changed.

Boxing day we drove out to Fairmont and spent the week out there with Brett's family (I think Brett planned that a little too well, I didn't get to hit ANY Boxing day or Boxing week sales). The weather was pretty good for most of the time. The guys went hiking and fishing. Some went snowboarding a few times. The girls did an Aquasize class and Amanda and I did a glass etching class. They had classes for the kids to do as well. Grace didn't get to really enjoy them because she was sick the whole time. Ear infection. But she loved being with her cousins and the one time she got to go to the pool. We didn't even go to the Hot Springs. I just enjoyed relaxing and being with Family.

Brett and I went into Cranbrook for New Years even and New Years day and spent some time with friends. That was alot of fun to get together.

Grace opening presents with Grandma.

Georgia getting help with her present. She wasn't really sure what to make of Christmas.

But she has a good time watching all her cousins play.

Grace giving her new doll a piggy back ride while wearing princess shoes.

It was a great Christmas. Two whole weeks of family. Some people may groan at the idea of that, but I had so much fun. Although I was ready to be back in my own house in the end. I missed my Bed.

Classic

2010-12-13T20:00:00.000-08:00

It just wouldn't be a Santa picture without Grace crying in it. Here and here. Georgia could have cared less about him. She looked at him and didn't really care. Grace was hysterical. She wouldn't even look at him.

Oh the memories we are creating.

3 wishes

2010-12-08T19:17:00.000-08:00

I was watching Toopy and Binoo today with Grace. On the episode Toopy came out of a lamp and was granting Binoo 3 wishes. It got me thinking about what I would wish for (you know, if magic lamps were real).

When I was younger I would have wished for something like "to live in a castle" or "to be a millionaire" (maybe now I would shoot for billionaire) or "world peace" or "to be a princess".

While those would be great, my wishes now would be a little different.

Wish #1- To Have a Marriage full of love and happiness lasting for Eternity (with Brett of course)
Wish #2- My family to be healthy and strong
Wish #3- For my children to be happy. Like truly happy

I guess your priorities change as you get older. Wish 1 & 3 are great, it is wish 2 that I worry most about.

I know that was kinda random. But I was thinking it today.

What would your 3 wishes be? Probably pretty similar to mine.

These pictures have nothing to do with the three wishes, but they were on my camera card.

I finally finished my Edward puzzle. I started it at Thanksgiving. It was hard, ok. But I did it all myself (because Brett said he wouldn't help with a puzzle with Edward on it). It was $1 at Walmart.

Grace loves to watch everything I do in the kitchen. She pushes her chair over and watches. She is covering her ears because the popcorn popper is loud.

Georgia is so fast these days. She crawls all over and is into everything. Loves to toss things around in the pantry. Also, she is standing all by herself. She gets up and stands there and is not sure what to do. It is so weird to see her standing in the middle of the room all by herself, she looks way to little. No steps yet though.

2010-11-30T07:50:00.000-08:00

Look at what I found. My natural hair color. I think I was in Grade 10 when these were taken. Maybe Grade 11. But I had really forgotten what my real hair color was. Don't think I'll be going back to it anytime soon.

Those are also my real front teeth.

Dont even get me started on the eyebrows.

My Rememberance Day

2010-11-15T10:23:00.000-08:00

November 11th started out pretty much like any other day does. I got up early, went downstairs and went on the eliptical for an hour (I wussed out of running outside because it was too cold). Fed the girls, cleaned up, etc. Brett didn't have to work so he was busy doing things around the house. This included re-doing the railing on our storage loft in our garage, and cutting pieces of wood I wanted for a Halloween craft (little to late Brett).

Brett and his friend Mark had decided to go quading in the afternoon. Mark came, they loaded up Bretts quad and they left. I didn't think about it again. I continued to go about my day; Lunch, naps, and a trip to walmart. I got home from Walmart around 6:00, grumbling to myself that Brett wasn't home yet and again vowing to never take my kids to the store again.

The minute I walked in the door, my phone started ringing and it was Brett's sister. She was asking me if Brett's mom had got ahold of me yet. I said no. She then told me that Brett had been in a qauding accident and was in the hospital with a concussion. Crap. I got off the phone with her and got ahold of Bretts mom who said that she was at the hospital with him. He had a concussion and some memory loss. They were going to do some X-rays and find out if he had broken ribs and how his head looked. She didn't know much more, but would call me when she did.

Brett's mom called me back and told me that they would probably release Brett that night and that the girls and I could come out and spend the night. I packed the 3 of us up and started on my way to Cardston. I was thinking to myself "ok, this is not too bad". Only got about 20 minutes from Lethbridge and Brett's mom called and said to turn around because they were sending Brett to Lethbridge. They thought that they saw something in his x-ray (of his head) and his memory loss was not going away like it should. At this point I am really starting to panic. All I wanted was to be with Brett. I had to go home and wait an hour for Brett's mom to get to my house and then go to the Hospital here in Lethy. They had rushed Brett by ambulance to Lethbridge. They wanted to do a CAT-Scan.

I got to the hospital after the scan had been done. They were just admitting him into Emerg. He looked really sore, stiff and his eyes were glossed over. he had a few cuts on his face and his hears looked like they had been partially ripped off. He knew who I was, thankfully.

Laying in his bed this is how the conversation went all night. Brett: "am I in Lethbridge?" Me: "Yes". Brett: "What happened?" Me: "you were in an accident". Brett: "How's my quad?" Me: "fine". Small pause. Brett: "My chest hurts" Me: "your chest hit the handle bars" Brett: "What happened?" Me: "You were in an accident" Brett: "where am I?"...

I didn't know if I should laugh or cry.

It just repeated that all night long. He remembered me, the girls, that we lived in Lethbridge, etc. The important stuff. But at first he didn't know where he worked, although he knew he was a dentist. He didn't remember that we had gone to San Fran the week before, he didn't know what day it was, what year it was, what month it was. Basically no short term memory from before the accident and obviously couldn't hold on to any memory after the accident. If I would have left the room he would not have remembered that I had been there. Anything I told him, 5 minutes later he forgot.

Before I continue let me tell you what actually happened to Brett in his accident. This is all from Mark and Marks dad (who is the one that actually saw it happen). Mark had wanted to try Brett's quad and so Brett was driving Mark's quad, which I just found out today that it had no rear brakes and Brett knew that (How could he be so stupid?). Brett did have a helmet on. A huge full face helmet. (this saved his life) There was a ditch/trench accross the road. Mark was in front and saw it and slowed down in time, but Brett didn't see it in time and couldn't slow down and he hit it and flew. His chest hit the handle bars, which probably slowed him down alittle. But he still flew about 40ft, doing cartwheels in the air before landing. I can only assume he landed on his head because he has no other bruises or broken bones. He was knocked out for about 2 or 3 minutes. When he came too he was confused and stumbling around. They checked for broken bones and then rushed him to Cardston (nearest hospital). They didn't know how serious it was until Brett started talking and was totally confused and had no idea where he was or what was going on. Mark told me later that Brett actually got alittle emotional because he was so confused, then 5 minutes later, couldn't remember why he was emotional. I'm so glad that Mark took him to the hospital and stayed with him till he left Cardston.

Back to the ER in Lethbridge. The Scan came back ok and all his x-rays came back ok for broken bones. but no short term memory. What really had me worried was when the ER Doctor told me that some people never get their memory back. He told me he would be lying if he told me that Brett was going to fully recover. He couldn't make that promise. WHAT? No sugar-coating there. This is the part where I really start panicing. (In hindsight his comment may have been alittle extreme, I know he can't promise full recovery to people, but maybe just a little extreme).

Brett's dad had come and stayed with me. The Doctor kept coming and asking questions about what Brett could remember. Not much. He couldn't tell you what the last thing he remember was. By the end of the night he did remember where he worked, which was good because a few hours earlier he didn't know that. Brett thought that it was a saturday because he had been out playing and not working. Whenever someone told him that it was Rememberance day he kept saying "How ironic". Then 10 minutes later would say the same thing (even though he didn't remember what day it was) . They wanted to keep Brett in the hospital atleast 24hours. They got him a room and settled him in there. I stayed with him until he was so tired he couldn't keep his eyes open. I cuddled with him for a bit and just kept telling myself Atleast he knows who I am and that he loves me. I can work with that.

I hardly slept that night. I just kept hoping that I would go in the next morning and he would be ok. I thought maybe he just needed to sleep it off. I went into the hospital and he was awake. He looked really sad. He told me that he had woken up and not known where he was or what had happened. he had to look at his hospital ID bracelet to know where he was and what day it was. He even had to look at the bracelet when he was answering a questionaire and it asked how old he was. He was sad that he was so confused. Seriously I will never forget that look. It makes me so sad to think about it.

By noon he started to come out of his daze. He remembered our trip to San Fran. Without me telling him anything about it. He remembered details of it. He could also remember what he had for Breakfast that morning. Progress. Our family Doc came in to see him and to talk to me. She was awesome (thanks again to my uncle for recommending her, cause I now think that she is so awesome). She told us that everything that Brett was experiencing was normal, instead of making me feel like all hope was lost (like the ER Doc). She did some tests on Brett and said that he was doing good (considering). The girls came to see him and that seemed to liven him up alittle. He had been asking about them all night and all morning.

By the afternoon he was doing much better. Memory was coming back to him and he wasn't so confused about things. Things were coming back fast. They let him go home after he had dinner. When he left the hospital all he wanted was Pizza. Ham and Pinnapple Pizza. Which is weird because we never order ham and pinnapple pizza, but 4 days before we had ordered it on our way home from Cranbrook because we had to get something that Grace would eat too. But that is what he wanted. He was craving it.

The Doctor told him that he had to take 2 weeks off of work and that he basically had to sit at home and relax. Not use his brain. No physical activity, no reading books, or watching action filled tv or movies, no crossword puzzles. Pretty much anything that worked his brain too much. If you know Brett this is so hard for him. He always has to be doing something. Some project, or activity. So these next 2 weeks are going to be alot of nagging from me for him to slow down.

I don't know if Brett really realizes how scary it was for me to see him in that state. I was so sad for him (and for me). I was so scared of what the outcome would be. I was also scared when I thought about how different the outcome could have been. It is weird but I am thankful that it was JUST a concussion. I am thankful he was wearing a helmet. I am thankful that I still have my husband here in one piece. I know that without the helmet, he would not be here. Brett must be still a little dilusional because he talks like he is still going to go quading.

His memory is basically back. Still alittle forgetful. But that will come back too. He still doesn't remember the day of the accident or the accident itself. He probably never will. I will remind him everyday of it if I have to so that he realizes what could have been lost had things turned out differently. Not everyone is so lucky to just escape with a concussion.

If you're going to San Francisco

2010-11-09T19:38:00.000-08:00

Brett had yet another course somewhere and Georgia and I got to tag along. The course was in San Fran. We had planed this trip about a month and a half ago. Got airline tickets, etc. We were leaving Wednesday, the 3rd. Monday at noon, Brett came home for lunch and said "hey does Georgia need a passport?" Crap, of course she does. So I drove up to Calgary and did the rush passport. We drove up again Wednesday, picked up the passport and went to the airport. It was a little stressful for a a bit. Just glad that we were able to get it done. I was so sure that Georgia and were going to have to stay home. I can't believe that we forgot that she needed a passport. I guess we just didn't think about it. We have flown with her 3 times before (within Canada) and we always drive into the states, so we totally didn't think about it.

Then on our way to calgary we realized we forgot our camera. SERIOUSLY?? Luckily we had to meet my parents (so that they could take Grace and Harley to Edmonton) and they had one in their car. So we borrowed their camera for the weekend.

Anyways, the rest of the trip was alittle less stressful. It was alot of fun. Brett did the course thing all day and then we would go out at night. During the day, Georgia and I would either shop or tour around. We stayed downtown (a block from Union Square if you know San Fran at all). The location was great. It was close to stores and shops and a mall. And a long walk or a cable car ride from Fishermans Wharf. The weather was great, except for the day we left it rained, but we left first thing in the morning. So all in all, good trip.

This may be picture overload, but too bad. Plus lots of picture of me, but its my blog. haha.

After Brett's first day of his course we walked from our hotel through China town to Fishermans Wharf. It was about an hour walk. China town was cool. There was a fortune cookie factory there, we tried to find it but couldn't.

Brett walking with Georgie with the cable car in the background.

Taking a break from the stroller.

She used Brett's hair as handles.

Checking out the Pier.

It got dark pretty fast there. I tried to get some pictures of Alcatraz late at night, but they didn't work.

Anyone see the movie 'Big' . I made a wish that I could get a job playing with toys and have a trampoline in my house too. Isn't that what Tom Hanks wished for?

Riding the cable car.

Day 2 I did a bus tour. Totally touristy, but so good. Lots of good info and you get a good summary of the city. Our first stop was the Golden Gate Bridge. It was a little foggy. It is a huge Bridge. I loved all the info that the tour guide gave us. Pretty much an expert now.

This is a emergency phone booth right before you walk onto the bridge. Suicide help line. The stat is that there is one jumper every 2 weeks.

Beach. I guess no one goes to the beach because it is way too cold. Even in the summer.

We drove up to the top of this hill (I don't remember what it is called), but it was a good view of the city. Again, a little foggy.

Ok, the hills in this place are crazy. I complained about Cranbrook, but these were insane.

At the top of this hill is the crookedest Street. It is hard to see in the picture (I could see it better in person) I could have walked up to the top to get a better look, but I didn't want to walk up that hill. Plus the tour bus would have left me.

After my tour was over I wanted to go back and see more of Fishermans Wharf and Peir 39. It was so dark the night before.

The tour guide said that Peir 39 is the second most visited site in California, after Disneyland. Not sure how true that is. The peir was cool, but I'm sure Cali has a few more interesting things.

These are vendors that you can buy sea food from. It seemed kinda sketchy at best, But I still had some crab from them. Not that great, but what do you expect for $9 for 1/2 a crab.

When I met up with Brett later we went for diner at a great seafood place.

I finally got a picture of Alcatraz. I probably should have gone to do a tour of it. I just felt like I had alot of other things to see. Next time.

These are the Sea Lions that have made these docks at Peir 39 their home. They were hilarious to watch. They slept there and the barked at each other and chased each other off the docks. I could have watched them all day, if not for the smell. Oh, Terrible! So strong and so gross. At time overwhelming. I'm pretty sure that they poop all over the dock.

Brett does a great sea lion 'bark'. I dared him to do it on the plane home while it was silent and we were taking off. He didn't. But that would have been so awesome if he would have.

Oh Ghiradelli. This is Ghiradelli square. Oh these chocolates are so good. I'm not a huge chocolate person, but I have eaten way to many of these in the last few days. So good.

Waiting to catch the cable car. I never got to hang off the front (Kinda hard when you have a stroller and a baby). Loved riding it.

It was a good trip. A good mix of shopping (mostly just trying stuff on), walking, touring, eating chocolate, eating seafood, and hanging out with my husband.

I give it two thumbs up.

Halloween

2010-11-01T20:34:00.000-07:00

I haven't even blogged about Thanksgiving yet. Yes, I am waiting for some pictures from my dad before I can blog about it. But he is slow sending them too me. Hint hint dad.

So I will blog about Halloween anyways. But just to warn you I will blog about Thanksgiving later and it will be out of order. Oh well.

Halloween was a busy weekend. Friday was the Trunk-or-treat. Saturday we spent the day in Kalispel dropping off our old countertops . (We are getting new granite and they need to old to measure. So I am without countertops for 2 weeks.) Saturday night Halloween party and Sunday Halloween itself. My kids wore their costumes 3 times. Grace was probably surprised today when she didn't have to put it on.

Grace and I made a Halloween house. She enjoyed making it (or watching me make it). She was actually more interested in eating the candy and icing off the house as I put it on. She had way to much of the black icing.

Our ward trunk-or-treat. It was alot of fun. There was a great halloween party afterwards. Grace had so much fun. Georgia just hung out with Brett.

She ran around the gym with her friend Corson and they laughed and danced and chased each other. It was so cute to watch. He lips are all blue from the blue cotton candy.

Grace and Corson and another little girl (who I don't know).

Brett always feels the need to give our kids licorice when they are babies. I think that Grace had her first nibs at 3 months.

oh whats this? a picture of me with my kids. I can't believe it. Ha, I actually had to ask Brett to take it. I feel like my kids will look back and think "where was mom". I was there, just taking pictures. You all know how I feel I am sure.

Anyways, I was teaching Grace the art of pouring out your candy to examine it and take inventory. Georigia was helping too.

We went to a party saturday night. One of Brett's assistants had a party. Her house was so decorated. I can't believe all the decorations she had. It took her 3 days to put it all up.

I was a Princess and Brett was a fat chef. We didn't get a picture of him though.

Oh my! How cute is her huge smile. I love that smile. Geez she is so cute.

She was a little cranky at first and put the bucket on her head. But I told her we were going trick or treating and she seemed to accept that and took the bucket off.

Judge all you want, but yeah, I took Grace trick or treating on Sunday. We just went to a few houses on my street.

She had so much fun doing it. After every house she would say "where are we going next?" She also commented on every house's decorations and whether or not they had pumpkins or not. She was more interested if a dog came to the door than the candy.

I actually started to give away some of her candy after we got home. Just the stuff I don't like. Like M&M's and Oh Henry. Barf-a-roo.

Action Shot. By the end of it she was saying "trick-or-treat". Of course only when the door was shut. she said nothing the minute someone opened their door.

Heading home. Bucket is full.

Seriously, one day she will look at her photos and ask
me why she always look like a disaster. I swear I try.

Not sure why she had to have 4 at a time. But she did. She didn't finish them though.

She tried to sample a little of everything.

(This is her combined Candy from trunk-or-treat and trick-or-treating)

I put all the candy away and she has pretty much forgotten about it. She doesn't even ask for it.

Potty Training in Home Depot

2010-10-18T19:21:00.000-07:00

Brett and I are re-doing our counter tops and so we went over to Home Depot tonight to look at faucets and sinks. We were in that section looking around and Grace kinda wandered away for about a minute. Brett and I turned to look for her and both came around a corner and found Grace with her pants (and Panties) at her knees trying to get onto a toilet that they had on display in the store. It took me a second or two to figure out why she had her pants down. But she said 'I have to go potty". She couldn't figure out why Brett and I were laughing so hard. I did check to make sure that she hadn't actually used it yet.

I took her potty, but in the actual washroom, not the floor display.

Just an update

2010-10-04T21:12:00.000-07:00

I feel like it has been way too long since I have posted anything.

We have been so busy. We've been gone every weekend for the past few months and it shows no sign of slowing down. I feel like there is no point in putting my suitcase away anymore because I just get it out a few days later. So it sits on my floor, never fully unpacked.

We have been to Saskatoon, Fairmont, Cranbrook, Edmonton, etc. Did I take pictures on any of these trips. No! I wish I would have, but no wants to see pictures of me shopping, or sitting in a hot tub, or whatever. But luckily the last time I was in Edmonton, someone else took pictures of my kids for me.

I like going places, but I am really looking forward to spending a weekend at home, with nothing to do and no where to go. Soon Hopefully.

Here are a few recent pictures.

Ok, these ones are actually from a month ago. The last time we actually spent a weekend in Lethbridge. We went to the strawberry Festival with Bretts sister and Family. This is Grace and her cousin Addy. They are 3 weeks apart. I love seeing them together and hope that they become 'Besties'. They had fun picking strawberries. And by picking, I mean eating.

yeah, count them. There are 5 kids in the stroller.

It is hard to tell from this picture, but they are both covered in sugar and strawberry smoothy. They were feeding each other. Disaster, but they had fun!

This is Georgia and Preston. He is seriously so cute. Little solid man.

Georgia kissing his head.

Like the good mom that I am, I went shopping while someone else took Grace to have fun. (in my defense I was supposed to meet them there, but Brett came back from his course early and Mel told me not to come down because of traffic) Anyways. Trina and Michael took their kids and Aunty Lissa took Grace to Fort Edmonton for the last day of the season there. Trina ( or someone) took some great photos of the kids playing. I love this one of Grace, because I can tell by the smile on her face that she is just having so much fun.

Oh, these three together is so hilarious. They just have so much fun. I'm so glad that Grace has so many cousins her age on both sides.

Don't worry, next week is Thanksgiving and I can always count on my dad to take some photos. and by some, I mean alot. It will be the first time that all the Grace and George will be together with all their cousins, on both sides. (can't wait to meet you Bridget!!!)

Ok, before I click post, just a funny Potty Training story. I started potty Training Grace this past week. I had her sit on the potty and said "ok, push or squeeze like you are going to toot." She looked at me and pointed her finger at me and said "Pull my finger and I will toot!". Haha. Oh Child.

Spiderus

2010-09-14T14:19:00.000-07:00

For several weeks this spider has lived outside of one of our kitchen windows. He was about the size of a twonie (including legs). It was actually really cool to watch him fix his web and move around. Of couse it was cool to watch a bug fly into the web and this guy rush over and wrap them up. I'll admit that it is totally gross, but at the same time a little cool. He would tuck himself up under the railing of the deck in the day and then come out at night. I really didn't mind that he was there. He wasn't bothering me, so I just left him.

We came home after being away this weekend and found that the spider and his web are gone. I am not sure if it was windy or if it rained. You might be thinking, "great that sick thing is gone.", Right, Wrong!! Now I am grossed out because I have no idea where it is. It has obviously relocated. But where?? Could be anywhere. The good part about it being in the kitchen window is that I knew where it was at all times, now I have no idea.

Should have killed it while I had the chance.

Jeggings

2010-09-07T09:44:00.000-07:00

Another example of my fine mothering skills.

I took the girls to the mall the other day. Georgia was in the bjorn and Grace was in one of those 'car' carts from the mall. We went into a store and I wanted to try a few things on. I put Georgia down in front of me on the floor. I put her between my feet so that if she fell back or to the side she would just fall into my legs. Grace was sitting in the car in front of us. I tried on a few things. I had bought a shirt in another store without trying it on and figured I might as well try it on now, while I have the chance. So I put in on. And some jeggings. The shirt was ok, but the jeggings were cute.

Well, George didn't fall back or to the side, she fell forward, smack into the car cart. Face plant. Then fell on to the floor. (in my defense, she doesn't really ever fall sitting and certainly not forwards) She starts screaming and I pick her up and immediately put her face on my shoulder to cuddle and rock her. After a few minutes she calms down and I turn her around and see that there is blood. I do a check and realize it is from her nose. It has stopped bleeding, so it didn't gush or anything, but there was alittle on her face and on her shirt but of course most of it was on the shirt that I had just bought and was considering returning.

I cleaned her up and got changed. I did buy the jeggings. But I am sure that the other people in the change room wondered what the heck was going on in my room. My poor screaming baby. Once she calmed sown she was totally fine and seems to have no lasting damage.

Poor little girl. Her first nose bleed. I felt so bad. All because I had to try on some jeggings.

Finish off August

2010-08-31T21:01:00.000-07:00

The last half of August was just as crazy as the first half.

We honestly still have boxes in our house that aren't unpacked and things aren't really put away (and it drives me crazy) because we haven't really been home. We have been gone almost every weekend all summer. And for some of August I was gone all week too. September doesn't look much better. All the weekends are booked up already.

After we got home from Kelowna I was home for a day and then took the girls and drove up to Edmonton for a few days. I had to go get Harley, who was living the good life at my parents. Seriously, I am pretty sure he wanted to stay and not come home. I think he was actually mad when I showed up. At my parents he is spoiled. I needed to bring Harley home but it was also a good excuse to go to Edmonton.

We filled our time there playing with Nolan and Denea. And for Grace, she couldn't be happier. I always feel like I need a good week or so there to get done everything I need to do. I rearely get to see friends when I go because there is so much other stuff to do.

We took the kids to the Telus Discovery place. Ok, I have no idea what it is called, because when I was young it was called the Space Science Center, so that is what I call it. But we went there. I haven't been there in years. I totally bought the freeze dried ice cream. Am I the only person that likes that stuff?

I just had to get my picture in this.

And so did Grace.

And we couldn't leave out George.

These 3 are seriously hilarious together.

I could only stay in Edmonton for a few days because I had to rush back home so that I could do a triathlon. Now I am not making excuses, but I was really unprepared. But I really wanted to do it. The swimming and the running I never worry about. It is the biking that was my biggest concern. Brett got my bike out the morning of the triathlon and the chain was all rusty. Parts of it were stuck together and he had to spray so much WD-40 on it. It took about 2km into the biking until my chain stopped clicking and finally losened up. I don't think I had been on it since the last tri I did 2 years ago. But I had fun doing it.

I swear I did use my arms and didn't just float. haha. I was just about to do the flip around.

My transition time was really bad. I need to speed that up. But it didn't help that I was also trying to wrangle Grace off someones bike.

Thats me on the bike.

Brett missed me coming in from the bike and leaving on the run. I would have like to have seen him because I was feeling weak and needed a protien bar (in my purse that he had). I was getting a cold (got sick the night before) and had no energy. Luckily about 2 km into the run they had gatorade and energy gels. Took some of that and it fueled me up enough to finish.

Kelowna

2010-08-22T09:59:00.000-07:00

Every year we look forward to our annual trip to the Okanagan with the Bevans family. And every year we have a full week of fun and relaxation. The weather was good. Grace had a blast. And I think we all came back with tans (not Georgia).

We went to a sweet pool in Kelowna. Grace had so much fun. Georgia and I just watched.

Everytime the boat would pull in Grace would just walk over and wait to get on. She loved being in the boat. she had to watch what everyone was doing behind the boat.

Yup, her and Brett went out on the knee board. She had to try what everyone else was.

It is hard to see, but her and Brett are on there. She loved it.

And whenever the tube was out, she was on it. She would just climb on a sit and wait for her ride.

Georgia on the other hand was fine to sit on the beach and read magazines with mommy. We had to catch up on the latest 'news'. She is working so hard to get her hands on the magazine.

I did actually get on the jet ski. I don't have a need for speed, so I was happy to just cruise slowly around. Ashley and I went out. First she drove and then I drove.

Now the time that Brett took me out on it was not great. Well, for him it was. He likes to go fast and whip around. Of course I forgot to remind him that all the girls were going out that night and I didn't want to be in the water. Sure enough, he whipped us and we both went flying. I was holding on so tight to his life jacket that when I went flying, so did he. Lake water creeps me out alittle and so I swam so fast back to the jetski. I think I even pushed Brett out of my way to get back on.

Family Float.

While George watched from the beach!

Our happy family.

Do I look like I am going on a safari?

Grace had the best time. She loved every bit of this trip. Lake, beach, pools, cousins, candy, etc.

This is a picture of all the cousins. Bad lighting, I know. But before I could adjust setting we had to snap what we could. Not easy to get all 17 of them, including six 2 year olds. It was crazy, but so fun.

I'm already excited for next year.

Everyone needs an Auntie Lissa

2010-08-06T08:01:00.000-07:00

Once again Auntie Lissa came to visit. The girls and I love it when she comes. For me it means help with the kids, time with my BFF, and fun trying yummy recipes. For the girls it means lots of attention, presents, and new songs, games and activities. It really is a win-win situation.

For me it also means some to take a picture of me with my kids. I can finally be in a picture with them.

We took them to Henderson pool. Grace loved it.

I am too scared to try to go swimming alone with my kids, so I was glad to have another adult with me to take them.

Lots of time relaxing outside on the deck.

Grace loved having Lissa here. She would wake up in the morning and look for Lissa. it is great for me because I become invisible and everything is all about Auntie Lissa.

I know that I am already looking forward to another visit from my sister. They are always so short. There seems to never be enough time to do everything that we want.

Montreal

2010-07-26T19:38:00.000-07:00

Brett, Georgia, and I went to Montreal for the weekend. Just a quick trip. We really just had one day to sight see. It was a busy day but we saw alot.

Montreal is a very cool place. Brett actually said that it is his favorite place that he has visited so far. (I keep telling him that if he liked Montreal he will love New York).

Most people spoke english. They would start talking to us in French and would get the hint when we would stare at them blankly. So many times Brett and I would laugh after about how awkward he and I were when people would talk to us.

There was one time when some people asked us Georgia's name and we told them and they were talking and smiling at her and said "Gloria, Hi Gloria, Hi Gloria." We corrected them and said "Its Georgia". They kept saying "Hi Gloria, Hi Gloria" . Ok, whatever.

This may be picture overload. I took alot of pictures for one day, But I felt I could have taken pictures of everything.

First, Lets start with Georgie. She is finally sitting on her own. She is still a little top heavy, but she does good.

Brett and I spent Friday night walking around St. Catherines Street. It reminds be of Robson in Vancouver. Lots of stores and lots of people. But still fun to see.

Saturday morning we decided to do a 3 hour bus tour. I was really hoping it was on a double decker bus, but no such luck.

The tour started in Old Montreal.

In old Montreal there is a building there that looks just like the Empire State Building, just smaller.

Notre Dame Church.

you can see how big it is. I think the exterior took 2 years and the interior took 40 years.

These are the pews. At the end of each pew was a head. I think that they were saints. I actually didn't really see these till later, because Georgia decided that she would have a blow out. I had to sit down and get her naked and change her. it was a mess.

It is hard to take a picture inside this church and catch all the detail. I can see why it took so long to build.

It was after we got on the bus that we noticed that the battery on our camera was dead. We had been on the tour for 30 minutes and it was dead already. How terrible is that. I was sort of freaking out, because I was worried that now I would get no photos of Montreal. And we had just started our day.

Luckily at every stop we made I found a plug in and plugged in my charger and charged it all up. So we made it the rest of the day!!! Crisis averted.

This is the Olympic Stadium from back when Montreal had the olympics. It cost them about $54 million and was a disaster. The roof sucked and they went way over budget.

I just loved all the cute little streets with cute houses. Reminds me of NY or New Jersey or something.

St. Joseph Oritoire.

Too many Stairs for me to climb. Just kidding. The tour bus was only stopping for a few minutes so we couldn't go up. Next time though.

This is up on Mont Royal. You can look out over the city. But is was so foggy we really couldn't see much.

Grace saw this picture and said "Hey, where's me?". Poor girl, her family went on a trip without her.

Love all these cute buildings.

After our tour ended we went to this Resturant on st. Catherines. We had to have a Ruben sandwich (montreal special). Holy cow, largest sandwich ever!!. I felt gross just looking at it. I took out over half of the meat and still felt like it was alot. But it was good (with less meat).

The "Just for Laughs" comedy festival was on while we were there. We walked through a few times and saw a few people performing. But they were in French and we couldn't understand alot. But I am sure it was good. I kept hoping that something weird would happen and then they would tell me I was on "Just for laughs gags", but my prayers weren't answered.

Entrance to China town. We walked through. I love looking at all the Vendors. Montreal is supposed to have some Fantastic shopping. We didn't do much of it. Infact, I didn't really buy anything. Too much to see to worry about shopping.

I didn't realize that Montreal is an island. I know that the St. Lawrence is on one side. I don't know what is on the other side. This is at the pier. Pretty cool area too.

The Expo ball. This is about as close as we got to it. another thing that I would see more of next time.

Standing there I could hear the Heavy Metal Festival happening. I can't remember who was playing at the time, but it was loud. Montreal is just Festival after Festival.

Bonsecour Market. A market from I think the 1600, that now has upscale boutiques. Cool building. Didn't go in because we got there and it wasn't stroller friendly.

The streets of old Montreal were just packed with people. It was a saturday night and there were fireworks. Of course another Festival. A fireworks festival. All summer long. So there were alot of people in the area waiting for the fireworks.

This is an old firehouse from the 1600. So cute. Now it is a history museum.

The Bonsecour market at night.

We were out all day. It was a long day, but we packed alot in. I did have a few blisters, but worth it.

We waited around for the fireworks. They were good, but fireworks are fireworks. You know, seen one, you've seen 'em all.

But Montreal on the other hand... AWESOME! If you are looking for a place to visit, go there. Super cool. I can't wait to go back out there. I don't even think that my pictures do it justice.

The Move

2010-07-12T18:45:00.000-07:00

Yes, we have moved again. This will be my fourth move in 4 years.

We moved back to Lethbridge (hereafter called Lethy).

Now you may remember a little over a year ago when I posted about moving to Cranny. I was unsure about it and almost convinced I wouldn't like it. So you may think that that is why we moved. Well, its not. Brett and I both loved Cranbrook. It was a great place to live and we have great friends there. We just didn't see ourselves there forever and the biggest thing was that it was too far from family. But, please don't think that we moved from Cranny because we didn't like it. We loved it and we will really miss it (and miss our friends). But luckily we get to go back there every couple weeks on Fridays so that Brett can see his ortho patients that he still has there. So it really wasn't goodbye from Cranbrook.

But now on to the actual move. Holy cow. When we moved from Lethy to Cranny last year, we hired movers and hired someone to clean the house. This time we didn't do that. Oh, so much work. The move itself was insane. We had way more stuff than we thought (and I even de-junked and got rid of stuff). We rented a uhaul. The biggest truck they have (according to Uhaul the biggest truck you can drive with your drivers license).

Nope, that wasn't enough, we had to rent a smaller trailer to pull behind the uhaul, plus our own trailer full, both our cars full of stuff, and our brother-in-law's truck full of stuff. And that wasn't even everything. We had to come back to Cranny for 3 more days of work. So we still had stuff left at the house. So that was another truck and trailer full (and by full, I mean the trailer was loaded over 7 ft high and the truck was almost the same). Thank you to my brother-in-laws. They worked hard. I am sure they were cursing me when they were carrying my eliptical, treadmill, and bike down the stairs. Oh, then the cleaning. Thank you to my friends for coming over and helping with that.

Now it is just unpacking. One good thing is that since we just moved back into our old house here, we just put stuff back where it was before.

I do already miss Cranbrook and my friends there. But I am enjoying it here too. Grace and I have already been out for a wagon ride and we are going to get her a little bike too. (we couldn't do that in Cranny cause we live on top of a huge hill).

Two days after we moved, we went camping with Brett family. I'm not a huge fan of camping. Even if it was staying in an RV. But I enjoying spending time with the fam, so I go. It was cold and windy, but we still had a good time. Grace sure enjoyed herself. Even though she had trouble staying in our camp site.

Seriously, could she look anymore homeless. I would say it was because we were camping, but she looks like this at home too. Face covered in food and hair a mess.

Little Georgie camping. She was a trooper. I had to sit in the RV with her alot because she was a little sick and it was so cold and windy. But she did great.

Let me tell you the best part about camping. Roasting marshmallows. I found these marshmallows in Kalispel that are about 3 times the size of a regular mashmallow. They were so perfect for s'mores. Actually, I just like to roast it, pull off the top layer, roast again, peel of the top layer, and repeat till it was all gone. So good.

If only...

2010-07-07T21:37:00.000-07:00

Is it just me or does anyone else wish that all oreos looked like this. Forget double stuffed, I want triple stuffed. Since they aren't available in stores I have to make my own. I may just write a letter to Mr. Christie and see what he thinks of my idea.

Georgia update

2010-06-19T08:37:00.000-07:00

Just a little update of Georgia.

She is now 4 months olds. She smiles and giggles so much. Now I just have to look at her (not even smile or say anything) and she gets a huge grin on her face. She has been so much happier lately. Not so fussy. I can actually put her down and do things. She does like to be around people though. If you leave her alone in a room she starts to cry. But if I bring her into the room I am in, she is happy to just watch what I am doing. If she hears our voices she will search the room till she can find us.

I think Georgia is a little unsure of Grace. I can understand why. If someone laughed an evil laugh and then smoothered me with their body I might be scared to. Graces intentions are good and she just wants to be a big sister and love her little "George". It is cute. Lots of kisses and hugs. She likes to help. Although the other day I was in the kitchen and Georgie was in her excer-saucer and Grace was watching her, in the other room, I heard Georgia start to cry and I came in and asked why she was crying. Grace told me "She had an eye booger and I picked it". Poor George.

Georgie likes to put everything in her mouth. Mostly her hands, but now it is whatever she can grab.

At 4 months she is 14lbs. She is growing like a weed. She rolls from front to back, but that is the easy one. Back to front is a little ways away.

She loves her jumper. She will sit in this for awhile. She hasn't got the knack of jumping yet, but she loves to kick her legs and just move around.

I love her one bum cheek sticking out the side.

she likes to grab things and send them straight to her mouth to chew/suck.

In her 'saucer'. sucking on her hand. Her hands are always wet with drool. Brett said he saw her put her whole fist in her mouth once.

Yeah, I am that mom that dresses my girls alike. It is so fun.

I love her smile. So big. This picture is off center because everytime I pull the camera out and try to get her to smile she just stares at the camera, so I kinda had to hide the camera to try to get a shot of her smiling.

And one of Grace, doing what she loves to do; blow bubbles.

My birthday

2010-06-15T17:32:00.001-07:00

Yesterday was my 32nd birthday. Yeah, 32, I know, so old. When I say it it sounds so old. but I don't feel that old.

We had a BBQ with some friends. It was fun. Except that a few days before I got the flu and was sick. So I hardly ate anything and didn't even have cake. And you know how much I loves me some store bought cake. Especially the icing. So good. I really do love it. But as the cake sat there infront of me I was totally getting sicker. I actually went to the bathroom after dinner and threw up. So the party was fun, the sickness wasn't.

(don't start thinking that I am pregnant, cause I am not. I am not that kind of sick. I really have the flu. Stomach flu or whatever. )

We had a bunch of kids there, so to help entertain them I put together a pinata. I love pinatas, so I assume kids to do. I didn't just fill it full of candy either. I got some things from the Dollar store. They seemed to all have fun whacking it and getting all the loot inside. Apparantly Grace's fav toy inside was the crayons, because when she saw them, she yelled out in excitment, "CRAYONS".

Sadly I only got a few pictures of Grace and the camera card was full. I went inside to upload onto the compy and by the time I got back they had broken it open. Plus I was too sick to make Brett take pictures of me with my large cake. And my dad wasn't here to take a million pictures. I can usually rely on him to document in photo events like this.

As much as I hate being sick, the not wanting cake or much food at all may help me to lose the last 5 lbs of pregnancy weight that I have to go.

Grace taking a turn swinging at the pinata.

Love these photos

2010-05-25T20:08:00.000-07:00

I got these pictures done when Georgia was 3 weeks old. It took me awhile to get them (I live in Cranny and the photographer is in Lethy). I actually got them about a month ago and only put up a few in a previous post. But I wanted to put up just the ones of Georgie.

I am so in love with every picture that the Photographer took (Shanna Bikman - silverslides photography). I swear when I first got them I looked at them atleast 10 times a day. The pictures of Georgia are so great, she got good family photos, and even managed to get some great ones of Grace. You can tell that Shanna loves what she does.

Love the pictures, but more importantly love the little girl in them.

I love her dark hair. It is lightening up a bit. But I loved it when people wuld look at me and ask where she got her dark hair from. That means that I have actually fooled people to think that I am naturally blond.

This picture makes me laugh. Georgie pooped all over me and the floor after this pic was taken.

She just looks so sweet.

Little flower in a pot

Love her little booty.

Special K

2010-05-13T20:14:00.000-07:00

This morning while I was dealing with my fussy baby(and talking on the phone), Grace somehow found a box of cereal and brought it into the livingroom. She sat on the couch and ate straight from the box. (yeah, I'm a good mom, don't judge me). I left the room to put Georgia down for a nap and I came back 2 minutes later and Grace was walking out of the livingroom with the box and throwing handfuls of cereal on the floor. Like she was a flower girl in a wedding and the cereal was her rose petals. I look into the rest of the living room and there is a trail from the couch and then on the couch there is a huge pile of cereal. I was gone 2 minutes!!

I made her vaccum it up. (I actually did it, but made her do a little).

Will I let her eat cereal from the box again? You bet!

This was the floor and there was a trial like this for about 6 ft away from couch.

This was some of the pile on the couch. This was after I had already taken 2 handfuls away.

My little helper cleaning up her mess.

My Everything

2010-04-25T19:13:00.001-07:00

These three mean the world to me.

I count my blessings everyday.

Van-Couves

2010-04-19T21:01:00.000-07:00

Brett and I got back from our trip to Couvey. Same dental conference as last year. Although this year Georgie got some come with us. We met my parents in Calgary and they took Grace and we flew out from there.

It seems that Brett and I can't go to this course without some sort of drama. Last year we had tickets problems (bought plane tickets for the wrong month, so had to buy a whole other set of tickets- at the airport). This year key problems. We met my parents at Crossiron Mills Mall and went in and ate some dinner at the food court. Our flight was at 9:40pm. We came out of the mall at 8:20 and figured we had plenty of time. Then we realized our keys were in the car and the doors were locked. Oh Boy. AMA came and unlocked our doors and we rushed to the airport. Got to the airport at 9:10. We literally ran to the desk, ran to security, ran to the gate and then ran right on to the plane. Not one second to spare. At least we made it and so did our luggage. I am already worried about what next years drama will be.

But the rest of the trip was so fun. We hung out with friends and had a great time. The guys did the conference thing and us girls hung out and shopped. Robson street, the mall, Lulu lemon outlet, etc. We did so much walking. Geez my feet were sore. Poor Georgie spent all her time in the carseat in her stroller, but she was a trooper. We sure got alot of looks when all of us were together, 4 strollers(with moms) and 2 pregnant ladies walking down the street. Like a bad fertile gang.

It is always nice to have a slight break from reality. No cooking or cleaning or cranky 2 year old. But also fun to be home and get back to reality.

Baby Blessing and Easter

2010-04-07T20:46:00.000-07:00

This past weekend we travelled over to Southern Alberta and had Georgia's baby blessing. We planned it the Easter weekend so that my family would have more time to travel down from Edmonton.

My family came down Friday and they stayed at our empty house in Lethbridge. (Doesn't everyone have a empty house somewhere?? No? Oh.) Saturday we had an Easter egg hunt in the house and the Easter Bunny and Easter Alligator came. You may be asking what the Easter Alligator is. Well, when my bros and sis and I were older I guess the Easter bunny thing got old for my dad, so he started to tell us that the Easter Alligator came and ate the Easter bunny. Leaving chocolate tracks and an earless chocolate easter bunny. So he has continued it on with his Grandkids. The Easter bunny comes and leaves treats and then the alligator eats the bunny. I am sure they will be tramatized. Anyways, it was so fun to spend the day with my fam.

Sunday was the blessing. All of my Southern Alberta family was there (with the exception of a few cousins who couldn't make it). It was lots of fun to see them all. I love these events where the whole fam can get together. There were lots of people there. I was glad that everyone (family and Friends) could make it. The blessing was great. Brett's mom, of course, pulled off another fantastic meal. All-in-all, great day.

These are the tracks of the Easter Alligator and the bunny he leaves behind.

The kids, unphased by the Alligators handy work.

Grace collecting her eggs.

She had to open every egg and eat the candy out. She had no interest in what the Easter bunny brought her. Just what was inside these eggs.

Brett and I with our baby girl.

Our family.

RSV

2010-03-26T21:10:00.000-07:00

Last thursday little Georgia started to get a little cough. It didn't surprise me considering that Grace had been coughing for a few days. I kept an eye on Georgias cough because I knew that a friend of mine had a little baby that a few days before had been sick and maybe had RSV. I knew the symptoms to watch for and sure enough they appeared.

Sunday Georgia woke up from her nap and looked just a little purple and I noticed that her breathing was different. She was pulling in alot with her ribs. Grace has been sick with fevers or cough and I have been worried, but I have never once thought to take her in, but for some reason this time with Georgie I just had the feeling that we needed to go to emerg. In Cranny we don't have a medi-center, just an emergency room. So off we went.

I half expected them to tell me that if was just a cough and not to be so paranoid. But that was not the case. They took us in immediately. Georgia was only 6 weeks and was totally displaying signs of RSV or something similar. There were 3 nurses and a Dr. on her ASAP. Because she was premature, they had to do more blood tests than usual. They started an IV with fluids and antibiotics. I was so glad that they finally found a vein in her hand because they were about to shave a spot on her head and go in there. She also had to have oxygen. Oh and a chest x-ray. The nurses and Dr. didn't take it lightly. They then told me that we would be spending the night. They moved us up to ICU. Luckily I got a private room with her and didn't have to be with all the old people. Also lucky I was able to stay with her. We stayed the night in ICU. Both our Doctors came in in the morning (my family Dr and our pediatrician) and informed me that we would be in the hospital another few days. Not really what I wanted to hear. But they did take out her IV. I was really happy for that. We were moved to the peds. ward in the afternoon and we stayed there till we left on Wednesday. We had our own room with a bed for me and a crib for her. They continued giving her antibiotics and oxygen. But she was slowly weened off the oxygen. I was glad to leave on Wednesday but nervous at the same time. I didn't want to get home and have something happen to her. so I watched her like a hawk.

We went to the Dr. today and he said that she is much better. she still has the cough, but that may be around for a few weeks (maybe not). I am just so glad that she got better. I hated being in the hospital, but glad that they made her all better. It kind of scares me to think that if I hadn't known the symptoms to look for I would have totally missed it. (Thanks Jen). I am also glad that I didn't ignore the feeling that I had to take her in.

Oh, and if you are wondering where Grace went during the day while I was at the hospital and Brett was at work... I have some great friends that watched her. Thank you to Jen and Heidi and Amy.

Georgia getting her hit of 'roids. Yes, I have baby drool on my boob.

G sleeping in her huge crib. The cords are her oxygen and her monitors.

Brett getting some oxygen for himself

This is how Grace entertained herself when she came to visit Georgia and I at night time.

Double G

2010-03-12T09:51:00.000-08:00

It has been 5 weeks since Georgia's arrival. Lots of people have asked how it is having two. It is actually not bad. There are moments when it can get a little frustrating, but there are also moments when it is fun. Luckily Georgia still sleeps alot and so I can still spend some one-on-one time with Grace.

There are time where Grace will spend a few hours in just her diaper and rubber boots. (Her choice and I can't change her mind) but I have had to learn to choose my battles.

Here are some photos of what it is like now.

My biggest battle is keeping Grace off Georgia. Grace loves to give her hugs and kisses, it just means Georgia gets mauled in the process.

There is more of this happening. TV watching. But not bad. Usually 1 or 2 shows a day. I wish I could spend more time with Grace. When I can, I try to sit down with her and play, or read, or take her outside.

Grace now likes to be 'wrapped'. Like Georgia is. Before Georgia was born Grace would not sleep with a blanket on and if you put one on her, even if she was asleep, she would FREAK OUT. Since Georgia has come Grace has to have a blanket on her and is almost possesive about 'her' blankets.

There has been more talk of 'boobies' from Grace. She will get her face right in beside Georgias head while I feed. In the beginning she would ask for a "drink of boobie". I said no. Especially after Grace kept trying to tell me that Georgia was biting me.

I felt silly at the doctor yesterday when the Doctor was listening to Georgia with the stethescope and put it on her chest and just happened to put it over her 'boobie'. Grace kept pointing and saying 'boobie'.

Grace's babies have had to try out all the baby gear. They all get in the car seat or the swing or the bouncy chair. Grace is a little mini-mom. Kinda cute.

Grace has also had to try out all the baby gear. Even though she is not allowed in it. I constantly find her in something. Probably doesn't help that I stop to take a picture.

She climbed into the swing by herself. I don't know how she got her legs in. Also I am already sick of the song it plays because Grace turns it on every chance she can get.

Even Harley feels the need to try out the baby's things. I came upstairs this morning and found him like this.

But we do have good sister moments.

It is fun to have two kids. Fun to see Grace be a big sister. She likes to tell me where I should put Georgia. Mostly when Grace wants my attention she will tell me to put Georgia down somewhere and then play with her.

Also some have asked if we planned on naming both our kids with the letter G. No, we did not plan it. It just happened that both names started with G. We didn't do it on purpose. Grace was named after my great-aunt and Georgia was named after my grandad (George). Just happened.

2 year old Joy

2010-03-01T17:46:00.000-08:00

Today I was changing Graces diaper. She was in one of her moods and was mad that I had to change her. I took her boots off and she said in an angry sassy tone, "My boots!". Then I took her pants off and she said in the same angry sassy tone "My pants!". I explained that I had to change her diaper and she said "My diaper!". Then I told her that she was poopy and so she had to be changed. She then said in her angry sassy tone, "My Poop! My POOP!".

I didn't know how to respond to that.

My 2 year old

2010-02-28T19:32:00.000-08:00

Grace turned 2 last week.

I can't believe that my little girl is already 2. I know that it is so cliche to say that, but I really can't believe that she is so grown up. From the day she was born she has been so much fun (well, not always). Watching her grow and change over the past 2 years hasbeen so exciting and so rewarding. From rolling, to crawling, to walking, to talking. It just constantly amazes us the things that she does. Brett and I can't imagine our lives without her. She is part of our little family.

Everyday it is something new with her.

Right now her fav words are "That's mine". And she says it about everything. Melissa and I (and some friends) went to Kalispel the other day and we were at Costco and Melly and Gracie were waiting for a sample. Melly told Grace to say please and Grace said "Pease" and was patiently waiting for her sample. When some other lady budded in and grabbed the one sample out there before Mel or Grace could get it Grace yelled at the lady "hey, thats mine".

She loves to read books. She loves to read books more than play with toys. I am pretty sure that she has most of her books memorized. She loves books so much that her crib is covered with books and she cuddles with them, instead of with a stuffy.

It amazes me what she knows and remembers. When I picked up Melly from the airport on Thursday we came home and I was getting Georgia out of the car and Melissa went to the end of the driveway to get the empty garbage can (it was garbage day). She asked where we kept our cans. Before I could answer Grace was near the front door and pointing to where the can went and yelled out "Right here". I don't think I have ever showed her where it went, but she knew. Then when Melly put the can away Grace said "Good job".

I have leart that I can't trick Grace. She remembers everything I say. If I tell her she can have a fruit snack at home, when we get home she wants her fruit snack. If I tell her that when she wakes up from her nap she can play with Playdough, the first thing she says when she wakes up is "Playdough". There is no point in trying to trick her, cause she calls me on it everytime.

2 years ago I had no idea how much my life would change, but I am so glad that it did. Everyday I love her more and more.

Meeting my baby for the first time. Even though she was covered in gross stuff and looked like a gremlin, it was love at first sight.

My little baby girl.

She has always been a little princess.

I loved watching her learn to walk. Once she started, you couldn't stop her.

Always been so full of giggles and smiles.

Blowing out the candles on her cake. (please ignore my belly roll, I had just had a baby 10 days before)

Gracie jumping on the tramp at Jumpy jumpy. I love the look on her face, she is so happy.

She loves to jump in Puddles or climb in the snow.

Grace loves to be a big girl. She has to have her own cart and push it, just like mommy. But she got tired of walking around and insisted that we push her like this.

Showing off her 'sticky bug'. She learnt this at Gymnastics. She loves to do these and summersaults and 'pencil rolls' all over the house.

We love love love our little 2 year old.

Georgia Marie Bevans

2010-02-11T02:20:00.001-08:00

The baby has arrived.

My water broke at 2:00am Feb 4th. I just felt this tiny amount of water come out and my jammy bottoms were wet. So I quickly got up and did my nails. Then woke up Brett and told him my water broke. I asked him if he thought that I had time to do my hair. So, I did my hair.

Finally around 4:00 we went to the hospital. Since I wasn't really having contractions (a few irregular ones) I just had to sit there and wait. Of course they never believe you that your water has broken, expecially when it is not the huge gush. Since I had just been to the Dr. the day before and had had my Group Strep B test (and obviously the results weren't back yet) they had to give me the IV anyways. Brett and I slept for a bit and then around 6:00 I started having contractions. They were mild, but 5 minutes apart.

My Doctor came to see me around 8am. We joked that I had just been to see him the day before. Brett told him that I had gotten on the bike and rode till I went into labour. The Doctor believed him. I had to tell him repeatedly that I hadn't done that. I was only 37 weeks (to the day).

By 9:00 I was in Labour. They were mega intense. they went from meh to holy crap so fast. I won't lie, this labor was way more intense than with Grace. I feel like to took forever to get to 10cm. Even though it only took 3 hours. From Start to finish labour itself was only 3 hours. With Grace it was 6. I went without the epidural again and tried to go totally pain free, but my Dr finally said it was time for gas. So I had gas for the last 20 minutes. It really just helped to relax me a little. With Grace I pushed for an hour, with this one 5 pushes and it was done. Yah. When they told me it was a girl, I just sobbed. I was so so happy. I would have loved a boy too, but I really wanted another little girl. Also happy because we did not have a name for a boy picked out. Even in labour we couldn't think of one. I was happy she was here and happy the labor part was over. Georgia Marie Bevans was Born at 12:20pm, weighing 7lbs 15oz and 21 inches. She came out screaming. She was mad!! She looked so plump to me (since Grace was only 6lbs 1oz an almost 8lb baby looks chubb). So much dark hair!

Me in labor, with the gas. Lovin' life. Oh labor sucks!

First time meeting my sweet Georgia

Our happy little family. Now we have 2 little girls.

Grace is going to be a good big sister (I hope)

Georgia just has a mop of hair at the back. I love it.

She had low blood sugar, so she had to have an IV for a few days until it regulated. They had to check her levels every few hours, which meant that her little heel was pretty marked up by the time we left.

Finally home. After 5 days in the hospital I was so glad to take my baby girl home.

She is so precious and we love her so much.

recipes and blog addy

2010-02-01T14:42:00.001-08:00

Ok, so a few posts ago I told you all about my goal to try some new recipes. Well, I have made several and so far, success!

I have blogged about a few of them already. Where, you ask?? Well on my other blog.

Thats right, I have 2 blogs. No one knows about the other one. I have had it for almost a year now and have been posting on it, but haven't told anyone about it. Weird, I know.

But I figured now would be a good time to let you know all about it.

The address is http://www.anythingchristy.blogspot.com/ please feel free to check it out and add it to your list of Favs. There are posts that go back a year, so please look at all of them when you have time. There are fav recipes, new recipes, crafts I have made, etc.

I will obviously continue with both blogs as I have been for the past year. They are totally different, which is why I have kept them seperate.

I hope you enjoy it.

Playdium

2010-01-24T03:03:00.000-08:00

I don't know if anyone remembers that place at West Edmonton Mall that was was called Playdium. There were all kinds of games to play. Any kind of video game you wanted. And all kinds of other games too. For some reason I went there alot. I think because it was a good place to go on a date with someone. Plus they had this 18-wheeler driving game that I loved.
But what I didn't realize is that going to Playdium also helped me weed out who to marry and who NOT to marry.

Brett and I were cleaning out some boxes and I came across a stack of pictures and found these. I had totally forgotten about them.

What it is is, two people go into a booth and get their picture taken and it tells you what your child will look like. Thank goodness I did this.

Sorry Blaise, she just wasn't cute enough. Chin is weird.

Nope, sorry Shayne, her forehead is way too big. Not a good feature.

Whoa, should have looked at this picture sooner, could have saved me a few years. Is that a red scrunchy in her hair?

And if I ever needed another reason that two women should not (and thankfully cannot) procreate, let this poor little girl be that reason. Scary!

Even though Brett and I went on our first date to Playdium, we for some reason didn't get this done. May have been to soon to suggest it on the first date.

But look at that little face. I would say I chose right!

Cradle

2010-01-19T13:12:00.000-08:00

Ok, here is the post I talked about previously.

I really did feel that this cradle deserved its own post, rather than being lumped into with other random things.

Brett told me one day a few months back that he was bored and needed a project. So he started looking online and found a pattern to make a baby cradle.

He built it from scratch. Cut the wood, used lots of saws, and routers, and sanders (and other things I know nothing about) and then put it together, and stained it.

I love it. It turned out fantastic, just like I knew it would.

Let me also give credit to my mom, who made the mattress for it and the sheets.

Brett now says that he wants to make the baby a crib. I haven't decided if I want him to do this. 2 reasons.
1.I am a paranoid person and I would worry that it would be the 'crib of death' and something would happen to the baby (not that I think Brett would make a piece of crap, but I worry about everything)
2. It would mean that for the next several months he would be in the garage all the time and not helping me with Grace or the baby (is that selfish of me)

recently

2010-01-17T20:08:00.001-08:00

Not much happening around here lately. Thats ok. I am enjoying just hanging out at home and waddling around.

I did go over to the 'mall' (I use that term loosely) earlier this week and was just wandering around in some stores. I went into Bootlegger, just for something to do. The highschool aged employee greeted me by saying, "oh look at your big belly". I continued to wander around aimlessly through the store and she walked past me and said "I just can't believe how big you are!" "That must be so uncomfortable." Yup, just what I wanted to hear. I guess I look like I am ready to deliever anyday now. Someone at church today even asked if I was overdue. Seriously, am I the biggest pregnant person ever, or so people just always make these comments?

This week I am starting out my new goal to make new recipes. I was just getting bored of the usuals that I am making, so I figured I would pull out a few of my millions of cookbooks and find some new ideas. To bad I had to come up with this idea 5 weeks before I have a new baby, because I am sure that it will be a few weeks till I am wanting to spend time on cooking after baby comes. I did ask Brett last week what kind of meals he wanted me to make now and freeze to eat after baby comes. He told me none, we didn't need to freeze any (and he said it like I was crazy for thinking we did). I then asked if he would be coming home everyday and making dinner. Haha. So maybe I will find some new recipe that will be perfect to freeze.

Still haven't picked out a name if the baby is a boy. Brett doesn't seem concerned about it because 'it isn't even February yet'. So I guess we still have time. But most everything else is ready for baby. I have one outfit for either sex to leave the hospital in. And I washed all my gender neutral items (like onesies) that I had from Grace. Last week I sewed 5 baby blankets and 13 burp cloths. Not all for me. I will keep a few and then the rest will be for gifts. I am trying to get any unfinished project dones. And the cradle is ready (I will give that its own post). We just have to move it into our room. Now I just have to have the baby.

Here are a few pictures from the past week or so.

Our basement looks ghetto, but Grace had to play with daddy down there. Actually I am pretty sure that this is the first time in years anyone has played with the fuseball table. I just thought it was way to cute. She was actually turning the handles trying to play.

Grace got sick last Saturday afternoon. We knew she was really sick when Brett found her slumped over asleep on the couch at 5pm. Poor little girl. She just looked so little all alone on the couch. I love that Harley had been there and left the tail of his toy for her. She had a fever from Saturday till tuesday. I felt so bad for her, but she is so cuddly when sick.

This was taken almost 2 weeks ago, but so funny. I was posing for the picture and she had to come over and pose like mommy. She just loves to do what we are doing.

Resolution Run

2010-01-09T08:59:00.000-08:00

Every year my family does the New Years Resolution run at the YMCA on New Years day. Everyone does it, even if they walk it. Just because I was pregnant this year I sure didn't want to be left out. And despite what my body may look like I still have been working out just the same as before and even still running (mind you, it is slower). And its just a 5km race. I signed up anyways!

And I am glad that I did. I was able to run for about half of it, then I had to go pee and all that just make my utey (or uterus as most people call it) contract and that does not make for comfortable running. So I sped walked the rest of it. -20 with snow is never optimal racing conditions, then throw in that I was 32 weeks pregnant and I figure I did ok.

Lets keep in mind that while I was 'running', Brett was right beside me, speed walking. But he did say the next day that he was sore cause he has never walked that fast. That made me feel alittle better.

This year was kinda a bizzaro run. Some of the runners in the family didn't do it or like myself half did it (but thanks to them for watching Grace while I did it) and the non runners actually ran it. Michael has brought his shoes out of a 5 year retirement and Melissa has been running since the summer. Good for them!!

Lets also not forget the pancake breakfast afterwards. You really can't go wrong with pancakes.

Michael, Melissa, My Dad, and Jason. They all finished before Brett and I.

Notice that I am running and Brett is walking. Don't let the two people beside us fool you, it is not that fast. Although, in every race I always pick one person that is by me the whole time that I have to beat in the end. Brett and I chose this couple with matching green stretch pants. We passed them on the final stretch! YES!!!

Yeah, my bib number was #1. When in my life has that ever happened or will it ever happen again. Pretty sweet. To bad it was for this race. I joked that they gave me number 1 because on my race entry form in the medical info section I wrote that on race day I would be 32 weeks pregnant. They probably wanted to keep an eye on me.

Seriously, how come Brett looks totally normal and I look like I was physically abused at the finish line.

They don't make us eat pancakes outside, everyone crowds into the gym and chows down. Also can I point out that I think we have been doing this race for about 9 years now and NEVER have we won a draw prize. Not one of us.

The whole gang.

One final shot of me. You can see how my running clothes are straining to keep the belly in. I guess they don't make maternity running gear.

New Years Eve

2010-01-07T07:57:00.000-08:00

I know what question has been weighing on your minds since the start of the New year; "What did Christy do for New Years Eve?"

Well, better than me telling you, let me show you!

Yeah, thats right. Awesome, I know. I stayed up past midnight on New Years making this sweet Halloween vest.

You might be asking "why?". Well, why not.

As I was helping Melissa 'edit' some things of hers, we found this material and pattern for this vest. Instead of putting it in the pile for Goodwill, I saw some potential in it and decided that it needed to be made.

After I got mad at Brett for waking me up off the couch at 9:00pm New years eve, I thought that it would be the perfect time to make the vest. So I set out of my new years vest adventure. It kept me awake long enough to ring in the new year (Usually I am asleep by 11:00).

I am now ready to get a job at Fabricland, because don't they all have vests like this...

Juice???

2010-01-05T17:38:00.000-08:00

I don't know if people will think this story is funny or really gross.

So here in Cranny when I go to the Dr. I bring in a urine sample. Each time they give me a new cup and tell me to fill it the morning of my next appointment. This is totally different than what I did is Sasky. I never had to do urine tests. But whatever. So like a good patient, I fill it, put it in a plastic bag (last thing I want is it spilling in my purse) and bring it in.

I had an appointment this morning and so I filled the cup and left it on the bathroom counter. (it is sealed and the clean). Grace and I were later in that bathroom getting ready to go and she saw the cup and pulled it off the counter and said 'juice'. I quickly took it from her and told her she couldn't have it and that it wasn't juice. She freaked out and was crying for juice. I explained to her that it wasn't juice, but that it was mommy's pee (don't most of you have to explain your cups of pee around the house??). I had to get her some apple juice to calm her down. I laughed and laughed. Then laughed more when we were on our way out the door and I asked her what was in my little cup and she answered "pee".

Christmas in Edmonton

2010-01-05T07:12:00.000-08:00

On Boxing day morning we loaded up from Cardston and headed to Edmonton. The whole Fam went for dinner and then back to my parents for more presents. Brett flew back to Cranbrook Sunday to work for 3 days (then flew back to e-town again) and I stayed in Edmonton and hung out with family relaxed (ok, I shopped too).

I was glad that Grace and I were able to stay the whole week there. It was fun for her to be around Nolan and Denae and of course her aunties and uncles . I think that the only one that she calls Auntie and Uncle are Jason and Kate. She will actually say "Uncle Jason" or "Auntie Kate". But Trina is just "Trina", Melissa is just "Lissa" and Michael is "Michael Michael" ( I think because Uncle and Michael sound the same she just says the same word twice. )

The whole gang. Even Harley got in the picture.

Every year we have to do a theme picture. This year, because of Jason and Kate we chose NY. We all just happened to have "I love NY" shirts.

Grace getting a little help from Denae opening her presents.

She looks so big here. I can't believe it.

These three were hilarious to watch together. Grace LOVED playing with them.

And of course they loved being with Auntie Lissa. She let them help feed her Fish.

Christmas in Cardston

2010-01-01T16:17:00.000-08:00

The first part of our Christmas was spent in Cardston. We spent lots of time with family. We were only there for a few days, but was packed with lots of fun stuff. There was skating, Mings (haha), a baby blessing, more food than I needed, and lots of hanging out. It was great to spend that time with Family

All the Grandkids acted out the Nativity. The costumes were really cute. Of course Grace wanted no part of it and did her own thing. She just wanted to rock baby Jesus. She was rocking the cradle and singing "Rock-baby".

All the Grandkinds got matching PJ's. The PJ's are really cute, but do you think that we could get a decent picture of all the kids. No. That is my child fleeing the couch crying.

Christmas Morning. Grace actually really liked opening presents and kept wanting to open more.

I gave her some candy that I got in my stocking and I guess she didn't want to set it down to even open a present, so she tried using her feet to open it.

Once again trying to get a picture of some of the kids. Theses are all the babies that were born in one year. They all got Elmos from Grandma. But didn't want a picture.

30 weeks

2009-12-17T20:54:00.000-08:00

Yeah, I know, big.

The rest of my body isn't that big (it is bigger, but not huge), but the tummy is massive.

Believe me, I have heard it all. Multiple people have told me that I am going to have a big baby, or that I am big, or asked is there just one?. None of which I want to hear. Don't think I don't look in the mirror and think I am huge. Being told that I have a big baby in there does not make me feel good. I have to push out that big baby in 10 weeks.

I don't think I looked this big at 40 weeks with Grace. Its probably a boy.

Gingerbread house making

2009-12-06T21:29:00.001-08:00

I thought that it would be really fun for Grace and I to make a gingerbread house. And it was fun, for the first 10 minutes. I bought one of those pre-made house kits from Michaels. It had the house pieces, the icing mix and all the candy.

We started off by making the icing. Grace made her mommy so proud when she tried eating all the icing. She even actually picked up the icing bag and started sucking on the tip. I guess I passed on my deep love of icing to her. But eating the icing kept her busy while I put the house together. I finally had to cut her off from the icing. Only after she started picking off the icing that I had put on the house for windows and doors. I felt like a bad mom for letting her eat so much of it.

Then came the candy. Of course she was more interested in eating it than actually putting it on the house. And I kept putting candy on the house and she kept eating it off. This is the point where she started to lose interest and I started to get frustrated. I threw all the candy on and called 'er quits. It seriously looks like a 5 year old made it. I am a little embarassed at how it looks I won't even post pictures of it. I always have these visions of making a super-sweet house and it looking so cool. That never happens.

I tried to atleast wait a few days before I started to eat the candy off of it. No such luck.

She looks so innocent here. Um, no Grace we can all see that you have icing all over your hands and face.

I love when she says "cheese". And her little canines poking out of the gums!

For some reason my spice drawer is her fav spot to be. she is always pushing the chair over and opening the drawer and poking around in there.

Luckily I usually catch her before she gets these bottles open. Not going to be very happy the time that I find coconut extract all over the place.

And yes, she still has icing all over her hands and face.

You can see the house in the background. The windows and door are still intact at this point. She hasn't started picking them off yet. I think as soon as I shut the drawer she went in for the kill.

Santa Ho ho ho

2009-12-01T16:44:00.000-08:00

We tried to prepare Grace to see Santa this year. We have been talking about him, showing her pictures and generally trying to make her feel at ease.

We went to the mall in Lethy and there was Santa. We walked up and showed her Santa and she said "Hohoho Santa". We stood there for a bit and let it all soak in for her. We decided to do another lap of the mall just to ease her into it. When we walked away she reached out her arms for Santa and said "Santa". We did a lap of the mall and told Grace that she was going to sit on Santas lap and he would give her a Candy Cane and that everything would be ok. She said "yup" to everything, like she was ready for it.

We went back and stood in line to get pictures. She was fine and kept saying "hohoho".

When our turn came to sit on Santa...

Yup, I would say it went well.