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.

We have a walker...

Well, I think we can officially claim that Donovan is walking. He took his first steps over a month ago, but just walked when he felt like it, and crawled everywhere else. It wasn't very often that he would walk. Within the last week he has decided that he wants to walk everywhere, and he does. I love it when they first start walking with their hands in the air, they are so cute! I am excited that he is walking, but I know it will cause me headaches! He's a very brave little guy, and he is very inquisitive, so we will see what kind of things he gets into.
Today is such a beautiful day, so we have spent a lot of time out there already. Right now the kids are napping, well they are supposed to be. I can hear Clara playing her mini piano and Donovan is singing, but I am sure they will fall asleep soon. The kids love bubbles! In fact, besides 'uh oh', it's the only word Donovan really knows how to say. Today he kept pointing to the bubbles saying "bubba". So cute. They have been having so much fun outside, I am SO excited for summer when we go to the Tuscany club and play in the water, and we can go to Calaway Park and the zoo more often. I love the summer.

Nothing too exciting has been happening in our lives. I recently took a day trip to Great Falls to visit Target. It was actually pretty fun. I would do it again for sure. I am loving my job at Gymboree, it is a paid break for me, and I get a discount, so it's fantastic. I am still looking to add at least one more kid to my dayhome. I get emails or phone calls all the time, but they have such odd requests and often they have such high demands. Hopefully I will find some one soon, but I will wait as long as it takes to get some one else that fits well.
Jeff is almost done articling, what a day that will be when he finishes. Who knows what he will do when his time is up, sometimes he thinks he is going to stick it out where he is for a year or two to gain some experience. Other days he wants to jump ship right away and find something in oil and gas. He knows where he ultimately wants to be, but it is just the steps he takes to get there he has yet to figure out.
Clara is getting smarter all the time. Sometimes I am just amazed at what she says and does. I am still debating on whether to put her in preschool this year or not. I know we will put her in next year for sure, but it's hard to get 4 year olds in preschool around here unless they are in it the as 3 year olds. I think she would love the outside stimulation, but I don't think she needs the socialization and that's what 3 year old preschool really is.
Donovan is so close to walking. It is weird to me that he isn't because Clara did before she turned 1, but Donovan started crawling 3 months sooner than she did, so he could always get around just fine. He will walk across the room to get what he wants, but he just doesn't walk for longer than that. Which is ok, he needs to start somewhere. I forgot how cute it is to see little kids first start walking with their arms in the air. He is so much fun!

Here are some Easter pics of the kids. They wouldn't sit together for pictures, so I had to take them seperately. We had a great Easter, nothing fancy. Clara loved the Easter egg hunt at my parents house, and Donovan loved eating the eggs as she found them. This picture explains it all. GO FLAMES GO!!!

These are some pictures from our trip to the zoo. They had so much fun. It was so nice here yesterday, I can't wait for it to be consistently warm. Well, that's all for now.

Donovan Turns 1

I can't believe that my baby turns 1 today. It has been a year full of love and lots of fun. He is such a happy baby and we are a lucky family to have him a part of it. He is always smiling a big cheesy smile, that is sure to make anyone else smile. Everywhere I go I get comments from people that he is the happiest baby they have ever seen. He truly is. That smile of his is just pure love and it means more to me than words can describe. I will never forget his first smile. He was in the hospital when he was about 4 weeks old. I remember feeling so discouraged that my poor baby was suffering and was so sick, and he wasn't getting any better. His second day there he looked up at me and smiled. It was like he knew that was the comfort I needed. I remember the doctor telling me that he was too young to smile and it was probably gas, but I knew there was more than gas behind that smile of his. A couple of days later the doctor came in and asked me if I could get him to smile. Sure enough he did, and the doctor told me that smile was more than a smile, it was a milestone and that meant that Donovan was on the right track. What a blessing a smile can be. Donovan is so calm and so fun to be around. Clara loves him to death and is always kissing him and trying to play with him. Sometimes she will read him stories. Sometimes she will talk to him like he is her age and can talk back. Donovan just adores her, I see him watching her sometimes, just sitting there, staring at her, watching her every move. I hope they grow up to be close so they can share good times and bad. Donovan is such a boy, getting into everything, tearing things apart and making a mess wherever he goes. I can't wait to see what the future holds for him and what great things he will do.

Happy birthday Dono

We love you to pieces!!

I just wanted to post some random pics of my kids. I love my children more every day and things they do make me realize what life is about. It is amazing to me how fast they grow and I wish that I could freeze time and enjoy the stage they are in for just a little bit longer. I really would love to have more children, but some decisions are not ours to make. If Clara and Donovan are what completes our family, I am blessed and extremely grateful to have my little miracles!!