August Long Weekend

We spent August long weekend this year at my Aunt's cabin in Shuswap. The drive was just a little too long for us, but other than that it was a great trip. The weather was perfect, it wasn't too hot. We enjoyed the company, it is always nice to visit with family. The kids loved the freedom. Their yard is huge and the kids had so much fun just running around the yard. Clara spent all day swinging on the swings. She would hurry and eat her breakfast every morning so she could go play outside on the swings. Then she would buckle herself into the swing and cry for someone to come help her get out. It was really cute. Donovan was happy just running around. When it came time to play in the lake, Clara was too chicken. She got about knee deep in the water before screaming to get out. Donovan was all over it, he probably would have walked right off the dock into the water and it wouldn't have phased him. It was nice to spend some time away from home with the kids. The next post will be about the time we spent away from home without the kids in VEGAS!! I am so excited, so stay tuned!!

Donovan loved these chairs, he played with them a lot.

Walking on the dock with Auntie Dawn

Clare enjoying herself swinging

I was trying to set the kids up so I could take a nice picture of the four of us. I sat the kids down and took a couple of shots and was getting the camera set up for the rest of us and Clara started screaming really loud and out of control. She threw something on the ground and when we looked down we saw that it was a wasp. She was stung 3 times. Poor girl. Needless to say, I made sure I took care of that wasp, it wasn't going to sting anyone again.
She handled it really well, but it was really sad. I think I was almost as upset as she was. I just felt so bad to see my little girl so sad. They swelled up a little but by morning there wasn't much left of her stings and within 24 hours you could hardly tell they were there. I am grateful for that.

Clara and the Firetruck

Well, this post is dedicated to George. After he told me he was disappointed in not seeing me post about this, I figured I better do it, even if it is not funny to me yet. Hopefully one day it will be.

We had a nephew get baptized last weekend so we were all at the church for that. We were all standing in the hall chatting as we were preparing to leave. All of a sudden the fire alarm is going. Jeff looks at me and says, "That was Clara". I looked over at Clara, who was no more than 4 feet away from me, and sure enough, she was standing under the pulled fire alarm. She was hysterical, or maybe that was me. I was told I could do nothing to stop the fire department from coming, so I let it happen. Thank goodness the baptism was over. Jenn took Clara outside for me because I was not impressed and I was really embarrassed that my child would do such a thing.

I must say it took a while before the fire department showed up, it was a good thing that there really wasn't a fire because I can't imagine how much it could have spread in that time.

Anyways, I guess when they got there Jeff told them it was pulled by a kid. They had to go inside and check, and while they were inside all the kids were getting their picture taken in front of the firetruck. I had Jenn take a picture of Clara, although I was not sure I wanted to remember this experience.
I found out the other day that Anthony, the nephew who was baptized, was thrilled and had his picture taken in front of the fire truck. I am happy to say that at least my child made his day more memorable.

So here it is, the picture that proves that my child is in fact, not perfect.

Some new pictures

We have been needing a new camera for a while now, but I have been holding off because I wanted to buy a good one, not just another camera that we will have to replace again in 2 years. Thanks to Heather I started getting serious about it and the next day a good deal came along and we did it.
It's so much fun, I just love having it, but I have so much to learn!! A lot of my pictures are much worse than they were with my little point and shoot camera, but I hope one day, with a little practice, they will get better. There is just a little bit of a learning curve.
Anyways, here are some shots from the last couple of days. Of course they are all of the kids, although I did take some other pictures, I just don't think I will post them. I figure no matter how bad the picture is, it is cute if my kids are in it!!

Donovan likes to copy his big sister. Today we went to the zoo and here they are checking out the flamingos.

Donovan loved having his Aunt Dawn pick him up and show him everything there was to see.

Clara and her Aunt

Clara attempted to climb a tree but took a couple of steps up the trunk and started crying to get down. She is not my risk taker, that's for sure.

This is more like Clara, just hanging out on the grass.

Donovan with a knife and a car. He is such a boy.

The kids love reading books. I get so tired of reading them all day that I tell them to read them by themselves, this time they actually listened to me and did it!! (Notice how Donovan's book is upside down)

This is my innocent Clara....

Now this is my attitude Clara, telling me what to do!!

I just have to say, I would never have captured this picture on my other camera, she would have been done yelling at my by the time my camera actually took the picture! I am sooooo happy to have a camera that takes pictures when I want it to, and not on it's own schedule!!

Sunshine and Summertime

We have been having so much fun the last couple of weeks. Jeff is on holidays and it has been so nice having him home. We have taken trips to Calaway Park, the zoo, Cardston and Lethbridge and pancake breakfasts. We will head to the Stampede for his last day off and then we will have to try to get our lives back to normal. I think the kids will have such a hard time when he goes back, they just love having him around and they have so much fun together.
We have gotten a lot done around the house as well. We finally have most of our baseboards nailed to the wall, only one year after moving into this house. All the remaining baseboards are almost all cut, so by next weekend it should be complete!! I can't even begin to tell you how nice that feels, I can't wait until this house is completely finished. I knew it would take a long time, but I didn't realize it would take over a year, but really it shouldn't be a surprise.
Here are some pictures from our summer so far, there are lots. All of the kids of course, I just love taking pictures of them, they make everything in life so much more fun!!

Mid-week adventure

We drove up to Edmonton for the night, with one purpose in mind...the Tim McGraw and Faith Hill concert. I have to be honest and say...it was AMAZING!! They are so talented! I loved it so much that I wished I could have gone the next day!! I wish we could have afforded better seats, but I am just so happy we got to go. They put on such a great show and they are just so entertaining. I have to admit that Tim performance was a little better to me, but it was all still fantastic! I loved seeing them in concert together. My absolute favorite was the very end. They had done their encore and everyone around us was leaving. I was sad because they hadn't sung my favorite song. Then they came up on stage and they were sitting very close to each other, face to face. They were sharing a mic and they sung I Need you. WOW!! I loved that song before, but now I love it even more. It brought tears to my eyes to hear them sing that to each other. If you haven't heard the song yet, you should check out their new video. Now this isn't anything like it was on stage, but you can get an idea about how nice the song is by watching this.


Here is a picture of them singing It's Your Love, which was also an incredible performance.
So Jimmy and Alysha watched the kids for us while we went to the concert, and we are so grateful for that. Thank you guys! I had to take them so we could go to the waterpark the next day. What a mistake that was. Jimmy and Alysha put them to bed at their house and we had to wake them up to take them to the hotel when we go the their house. I know, we are mean parents and we totally deserve what we got. So at the hotel, Donovan is still screaming at 2:00 in the morning, he just didn't want to go to sleep. I felt so bad for people in the rooms around us. I hope he didn't wake everyone up. Donovan finally went to sleep at 2:30, and then Clara woke up at 6:30, waking all of us up with her. That was a good night sleep! We decided to still go swimming though, I wasn't dragging the kids all this way just to go home when we woke up. Lucky for us, they were so good, even with their lack of sleep. We shopped for 2 hours before the waterpark opened, then we went swimming for an hour. I think we all had a good time in the end, but it was a hard drive home working on no sleep. We made it home just in time for me to get in the car and drive to work. I was so tired my whole shift, but it was SO worth it.

Donovan kept clinging to his daddy. It was so cute. For some reason he was scared to go stand in the water by himself at first, but eventually he got better.
Clara was very adventurous and after 3 times going up the stairs to this slide, and coming back down, she decided she was going to try it. Then we couldn't get her off of it!

Our Accident Child

So since Donovan started walking, we have had quite a few accidents. He is so clumsy and just has no fear. He always has somewhere to go and his feet move there faster than his body half the time. So we end up with problems, as you can tell by these pictures. It's crazy to me that Clara is 2.5 years old and the first time I saw blood from her was a month ago when she scraped her knee, and that wasn't even bleeding enough to require a bandaid!! I am sure Donovan is going to cause me a lot of heartache and has many more accidents ahead of him!!



The first two pictures are a result of him falling into a coffee table. It wasn't a huge cut, and it didn't bleed a whole lot, but it was deep and quite wide, so he needed a stitch. I just keep thinking we are so lucky it wasn't closer to his eye!

These pictures are from today. We don't know what happened, he was walking down the hall and must have fallen or something. By the time we got to him he was his nose and mouth were bleeding quite a bit. It was pretty gross. That is not paint, marker or food all over him, it is blood. He is one crazy kid, but we will keep him!!!
This is a picture I took when he woke up after his fall. His mouth is so swollen. I hope he doesn't have permanent damage, it looks pretty sore. Poor guy. He is such a disaster sometimes.

Our Recent Adventures

We have had some exciting things happen in our lives the last little while. The biggest being that Jeff finally has his time in articling!! It's crazy to me that it is finally over. Once Jeff gets his papers submitted, he will officially be a CA!! Being a CA brings a lot of opportunity. Jeff can now switch jobs and persue what he really wants to do. Another thing he can do is apply for a secomdent, which is basically a transfer within KPMG to another firm, anywhere in the world for a certain period of time!! We have decided this is what we are going to do. We looked into going this October, but his firm would not let him leave until after busy season this year. So, we are going to go away next May!! We have chosen Australia, and we will leave for 18 months. That brings us back just in time for Clara to start kindergarten back home. I am probably the most excited about this. I have spent hours and hours learning everything I can about this amazing country.

I hope the next 11 months go fast. I think they will because we are going to Vegas in August, and Jeff has another business trip to Boston in November. This time it could be as long as 3 weeks or as short as 2. Regardless, I will be packing up the kids and heading to Boston with Jeff for that month. I can't wait, Boston is a beautiful place and I am excited to have more time to spend there! After the trip it will be busy season for Jeff and that ends in April. Then it is time to pack up and head to Australia!!

In the meantime, we will enjoy our lives and look forward to summer. We have been having such a great time enjoying the nice weather. Whether it be Calaway Park, the zoo, or just playing in our yard, we are loving it! I can't wait for summer to officially be here, then I can take the kids to the water park, I know they will love that. It is so fun to watch them enjoy their lives, I love seeing them so happy. There is nothing better than seeing a smile on their faces.