A Birthday Surprise!

The other day Myrna told me she would like to make a birthday dinner for us since she was away on my actual birthday!  It was soooooo delicious!  She made my favourite chicken dish, Chicken Cordon Bleu!  And for some reason it was extra delicious!  To make it a true birthday celebration, Myrna involved Emry! About half an hour before supper Emry came downstairs and presented me with an invitation...

When Jared got home from work Emry showed each of to our seats at the table, set by her!  She then took each of our plates so Myrna could dish them up...

Emry then presented us with a bottle of Sparkling Apple Juice, to see if it would be to our liking!

It definitely was, it was so refreshing!!

Myrna also made my favourite cake, chocolate with her amazing icing...no one can made butter icing like her!  Everyone sang Happy Birthday to me, even after the song was finished Calum would keep repeating, "Appy, to you...appy, to you...!"  We couldn't light the candles though, because for some strange and unknown reason Emry is terrified of fire.  She literally runs to another room when she sees we have a match!  I don't actually think there is anything wrong with this, it just makes celebrating birthdays a little inconvenient!

Calum was not himself this past week, he is still getting his two year molars and he has had a touch of the flu!  This is the mood we captured while eating supper that night...

It was a special birthday surprise, again I am so thankful for wonderful family!  I truly couldn't ask for a better mother in law, thank you for a wonderful birthday!

29 Years!!

Yesterday was my 29th birthday, and it really was a great one!  Emry didn't have school so it was nice to be able to spend the morning with my three favourite little people!  After lunch the kids and I headed over to my mom's!  It was nice to just relax without having to feel guilty about what needed to be done at home!  Mom had invited Arren and her family over to have supper with us.  Mom made a yummy Sicilian Meat roll, my favourite meat loaf recipe!  And when Jared got there we had a wonderful supper talking and laughing!  Arren had made a cake, it was the perfect first day of spring birthday cake, even if the weather outside said otherwise!

On friday Emry asked me what I wanted for my birthday and I told her that she could tell daddy that I love Dairy Queen ice cream cakes!  I wasn't sure what she thought of that as a present idea so I hadn't expected her to say anything to him, but I was wrong!  When Jared got to my mom's house he presented me with a cute ice cream cake!  We had Arren's cake and "ice cream" too!  I think Gilbert was happy I had a "party", when it was his dad's birthday earlier this month he told his dad to promise not to start his party without him (Gilbert said this as he was headed out to the bus for school!!).  Gil also wanted to know who Buck was inviting to his party!  Buck had to burst his innocent little bubble and told him he wasn't inviting anyone over because he wasn't having a party!  Last night I thanked Gilbert for coming to my party, and that it was the best one I have ever had!!  I think he was pleased!

My party guests!!

It was a really nice and laid back day!  When we came home the kids went to bed exceptionally well so Jared and I stayed up a little later and watched a movie together!  With Armin propped up between us!


With each birthday I find I reflect on what the past year brought and look forward with excitement to what the future will bring!  There are many things I am thankful for...

1. Jared, my very best friend, I am so thankful for him!  He is so patient with me and such a wonderful father to our three beautiful children.  Whenever the front door opens, they always light up in hopes that it is daddy!
2. Emry, Calum and Armin...even if at times they exasperate me I truly love each of their very unique personalities.  They all have such beautiful spirits...Emry is so helpful and always concerned about our feelings, Calum is so polite and always says, "Tank you Mama" without being prompted!  And Armin is so pleasant, as soon as I look at him his face lights up with the most adorable toothless smile!

3. Family!  All my family!  I am so thankful I live so close to both my mom's, and my sister!  I have had to call on each one of them to help me out with the kids while I went to appointments and for that I am forever indebted to them!

4. The Gospel!  I am so thankful I was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints!  It has been such a wonderful blessing in my life.  And even though there have been ups and downs over the years, the gospel has always remained constant in my life!  There are many areas I need to improve on but without this wonderful gospel in my life change would be a lot harder!
5. Friends who have done so much for me, and who have offered help in many ways.  Friends who I know I can call on if ever I am in need!
6. Jared's brother and sisters!  I feel like each one is my own.  It has been so neat to see Dave and Jared work together on the farm, getting things ready with the cows and talking about different strategies!

7. My health!  Yes I had a scare earlier this year with a pulmonary embolism (a blood clot in my lung!), but I am thankful for the care I received while I was in the Vulcan hospital, and for the care my kids received from their grandma's!
8. I am thankful Armin is completely okay after falling.  Even though he does have a fracture on the right side of his skull, his brain was not damaged!
9. Emry has the opportunity to go to school and learn things that I would not be able to teach her without a lot of tears due to my lack of patience!

10. Living on the farm!  These past three years of living with David and Myrna have been truly wonderful.  I couldn't ask for better in-laws, never have I felt like this wasn't home!

11. Our new house!  Soon our house will be finished and I am so excited!  Jared has done such a magnificent job!  I am so proud of him, he has built with his own hands, from scratch, the place we will forever call home.  It will be the home our children will grow up in, the home they will bring their children to and the home Jared and I will grow old together in!  It hasn't been easy or cheap, but it has been worth it on so many levels!

Our beautiful kitchen cabinets!

The amazing paint job Jared and Myrna have done!

Jared in the early stages of building!

12. For all the help Jared has gotten on building the house!  Dave has always been willing to help Jared when he needed it...standing walls in place, putting in the windows and doors, and putting up drywall!  Myrna has helped with watching the kids if Jared needed my help, and she has helped Jared with all the painting!  I am also thankful for the Young Men, they have helped Jared with lots of nit picky projects related to the house!

13. I am thankful for my calling at church!  I am the Second Councillor in the Relief Society Presidency!  I am able to plan and organize any monthly activities we have in our ward.  It has been a lot of fun, and I am learning so much!  I am also thankful I get to teach once every three months!  I learn so much when I get to prepare these lessons!
14. I couldn't ask for a better country to live in.  I often wonder how Heavenly Father determines where each of us will be born and into what kind of circumstances.  The freedom, the equality and the opportunity I have been blessed with is truly remarkable.
15. I am thankful for my dad and for his phone calls throughout the week.  They always seem to come at the right time, usually when I am in desperate need to hear a complete sentence that I don't have to pretend I understood!

16. I am thankful I get to be at home with my kids!  Even if at times I feel completely useless, and even lazy when it appears that not a lot has gotten done in a day!
17. Music!  Jared has always been a lover of music, all types!  And I am thankful he has influenced me to be the same!  This past summer we were able to see one of our favourite musicians, Jack White, with his most recent band, The Dead Weather!  We went all the way to Billings Montana to see them.  The concert was at a very old theatre, a very small venue, but it was spectacular!  The best concert I have been to!

The Dead Weather

18. Technology!  I never caught on to texting until recently and Jared and I will text each other throughout the day, and just those little messages can bring a smile to my face!
19. Snow!  Even though this has been a very long winter with a lot more than usual amounts of snow, it has been beautiful!  I find that the snow gives the earth a very clean and pure look!  I always feel so much more at peace in the winter, life seems slower and a lot quieter!  I love it when I am outside and I can hear the train whistle 5 miles away, though it sounds much closer!
20. The stars!  I love looking up on a clear night and seeing millions and millions of little sparkling lights!  When each one twinkles it makes me feel like we are each like a star, special and unique, and sparkling in our own way!
21. I am thankful for Emry's imagination!  I love being in the car with her and when she looks out the window and can spot different shapes in the clouds.  I love it when she asks me what I see, and together we look harder for more!
22. My new mini van!  Jared and I had talked about getting a mini van before Armin was born but we quickly realized it was not in the financial plan!  When Jared surprised me with one on Christmas Day I was totally blown away!  Yes we could have made do with our little Jetta, but a van would be so much more convenient, and safer for Armin, since we could put Calum in a totally different row than his little brother!  And so far Armin has been able to keep all his fingers in tact!  Little did I know that Jared was able to find a steal of a deal on a used van if he fixed it first!

23. A two year old's level of comprehension!  I love it when I ask Calum to do something with multiple instructions and he fully understands!  The other day he was carrying a bucket of lego out of his room and really struggling!  I was nursing Armin so I told him to put the bucket down and push it down the hall!  I was sure he wouldn't be able to grasp what I was telling him, because he kept saying "push it" as though it were a question!  Sure enough though he figured out what I had said and he pushed the bucket.  He was so proud of himself when he got to his final destination!
24. The opportunity I have to be the Time for Rhymes facilitator in Champion!  Even though there are very few kids who come anymore it really is a great time to bond with my own kids and teach them little songs and rhymes!  I especially love it when we do a favourite one and "again, again" is constantly repeated!  It usually ends up being the car ride one, and by the time we do it three times my legs are killing me from bouncing a 35 pounder up and down!  But the look of pure glee on their little faces is so worth it!
25. Blogging!  I have always liked keeping a journal but I have found that I don't always make time to write in it like I used to!  I am thankful for my blog because in a way it is my journal!  I love being able to add pictures when I want to, and I love being able to write about many things including all the trivial things of life!  I still love my journal because in it I can include the more personal parts of my life!
26. The last nine years I have been married to Jared!  It has been a journey, with lots and lots of character building experiences!  I have enjoyed the journey so far and I so look forward to what the future will bring.
27. Toy Story and Buzz Lightyear!!  Without these magnificent movies and toys, I think Calum would have been the death of me!  But at least I can accomplish a few tasks throughout the day when he decides he wants to watch one of them!  I love how he constantly gives me the play by play, by the tone of his voice I usually know what part of the movie he is at!

28. I am thankful for the little girl I have!  I love that she loves to wear dresses and "high heels", but that she still loves going out to help her daddy feed cows and work on the house in her little over-alls!  The best of both world's!  I am also thankful for two little boys who will be best of friends, and will probably get into a ton of trouble together!  But I am thankful they are so close in age that they will have lots in common!

29. Finally, I am thankful to be me!  I am thankful I have a family who loves and supports me in all I do, and I am thankful I have the opportunity to grow and better myself each and everyday!

Well, that was a lot harder than I expected it to be!  But I am thankful I did it!  The last 29 years have been exceptional, I look forward to what the next year will bring!

A Prima Ballerina!

Emry decided she wanted to try dance this year.  It turns out it is not exactly what she thought it would be so I don't think she will do it next year!  Anyway, the teacher Emry is taking ballet from gives her students the opportunity to compete in front of adjudicators!  There is three actual competitions that her students participate in and all of them are in Calgary.  Last saturday was Emry's dress rehearsal and pictures, and yesterday she was able to perform for the residents of the long term care at the Vulcan hospital.  She does a really good job and is a real natural when it comes to dance, she has perfect poise and is very graceful.  The song her class is dancing to is called, "In the Garden" and their costumes are adorable, I am still getting used to the idea of her wearing make up, it might be different if it was only a little bit of make up but to make her face really stand out on the stage I was told to put lots on and then when "I" think its enough to put on more!!  It has been a great experience for both of us, and if she does decided she still wants to dance I think she may do tap!  She saw the other class of girls her age do their tap number and she thought it was the coolest thing!

Child Slave Labour?!

I don't know if this classifies me as employing under age children to do my "dirty" work, but this morning when I started doing the typical weekly cleaning Emry asked if she could do it for me!  As soon as she started dusting Calum had to get involved.  It actually worked out perfectly because as soon as Emry asked if she could clean for me Armin woke up and was really quite hungry, so I went to get him out of his bed, sat on the couch to feed him, and since the kids were preoccupied with cleaning I found it the perfect opportunity to watch a show that appealed more to my liking, the home and garden channel!!  I am so thankful for their help and I actually think they did a better job than when I do it, either that or they just use a lot more cleaning stuff so it smells really clean!!

A Day In the Life of Calum

Today was a typical day for Calum...

To start off the morning he was promptly sent to the time out chair for trying to scratch Armin's head off!  Next he was climbing on the couch and standing on the arm when he slipped backwards and hit the front of his head on the stone fireplace (not the first time he has hit his head on the fireplace).

It is actually hard to see the mark, but it is on his right side very close to his hairline.

To keep him from falling asleep in case he had a concussion I took him outside to see the cows and then over to our house to see how the hardwood flooring looked.  When we were at the house Calum took off on a dead run into the office and before I could catch him he managed to knock over the bi-fold closet doors that were free standing in there (Adam, the guy doing the finishing work had put them in there so he could spray the white paint on them).  He knocked over three of them, just like a gigantic game of dominos!  One is slightly scratched up, the other has a little hole from the hinge screw of the other, and the third one put two holes in the wall, thankfully the holes will require minor repair and not new drywall.

While we were waiting for Jared to come home from work I was sitting on the couch reading a magazine, Emry was cuddled up beside me also looking at the magazine and Calum was propped up on the arm right beside me playing with a little jeep and some people when he saw the phone just sitting there.  At first he was pretending his little people were talking on the phone, then he decided he wanted to talk.  Since we have had two experiences of Calum calling 911 (one incidence even brought out a police officer!) I tried to grab the phone from him, bad idea!  Emry, being the little mother hen, instantly jumped off the couch hoping to get it from Calum.  This just fuelled the fire, he took off and so did Emry right after him.  He had a head start and made it to the bathroom and just as Emry came in he threw the phone into the toilet and flushed it, not once, but twice.  I was close behind them but before I could get the phone it was hardly visible, it had gone into the hole, I really had to dig it out!  Gross!  Emry was almost in tears when she saw what he did.  The worst part is it wasn't even our phone, it was Myrna's.  This sent him to the time out chair once again.

After supper Emry and Calum were playing with play dough and colouring, Emry left the table and Calum started to rummage through her crayon box and found a pair of scissors.  At first he was cutting the play dough, which was fine, but the next time we looked over at him he was opening the scissors as wide as they would go and putting them on top of his head, cutting his hair.  Thankfully he didn't have much force using the scissors that way and only cut a few little strands.

 I think that was it, and at 7 pm, while he was drinking his milk and watching a show he actually said, "Mama, bed" and pointed to his room, I asked him if he wanted to go to bed and he nodded and said, "Uh Huh!"  Poor little man, he is still the cutest toddler I know, and I wouldn't trade him for anything!

He is not impressed that I am taking pictures of him while he is sleeping!  Though he never did wake up!!

By the way, the hard wood floors look so good, as do the cabinets, and the paint on the kitchen, livingroom and entryway walls!  Not just good, ABSOLUTELY AMAZING!!!!!  All thanks to Mom Puzey and Jared!!!!

Red Deer

Jared and I have been in Red Deer for the past two days because he has Chrysler training.  It has been a fun little get a way!  We were worried about the drive up Monday night because the weather was not ideal, and the road report had said that the highway between Didsbury and Red Deer had zero visibility.  By the time we left Claresholm the roads there were not great, mostly blowing snow, and by the time we got north of Calgary the roads were much better.  When we got to the hotel it actually felt a little warmer than it did at home, however that obviously was not the case!  The next morning Jared wasn't able to get the van started, so he ended up walking to the Mopar building which thankfully is not too far away, though it did take a good twenty minutes!  By the time he got to the building the one instructor told him he had the best winter beard, it was full of icicles!  He was actually worried about frost bite it was so cold.  It was minus 35 and that was without the wind chill, his feet were still cold this morning when he got up!  It has been a long, cold winter.  Usually we have a cluster of mild days, I hate complaining because I really hate the wind and I don't like the mess that the chinooks leave when the snow melts.  Right now it is snowing in Red Deer as I wait for Jared to come and pick Armin and I up for lunch, it isn't the beautiful fluffy snow that falls slowly, it is a sideways snow that comes when it is windy, I am not looking forward to heading outside!  After lunch Armin and I will have to head to the mall and escape this nasty weather until Jared is done his course!  A silver lining to the long cold winter!!