Report Cards

Emry and Calum came home with report cards yesterday and both were exceptional!!  Emry is doing very well in Grade 4, math and science seem to be her strongest subjects!  Her report card said she loves all the science vocabulary and is able to memorize it quite easily!  She is a great reader but could  work harder on her comprehension!  She participates in all activities and comes up with great brainstorming ideas!  She's quiet (HUH?) but has a very sweet and contagious giggle!  She has a new teacher this year, and was totally disappointed about it at the beginning of the year!  But Emry has come to really like Mrs. Scharez and is working consistently at a proficient grade level!  I am so proud of her and of the effort she puts into everything she does!  She is a great example to her brothers.

Calum started Kindergarten this year and I have seriously been worrying that he just wouldn't take to school like Emry has.  He is so busy and I just couldn't see him sitting still long enough to learn much of anything.  Boy was I wrong!! He loves school (once he gets on the bus!!), he too is doing exceptional!  His teacher and him have found a common groove and seem to really mesh!  He really loves to learn, though it was said in his report card that he does like to test his boundaries but if he goes too far he is always very quick to apologize!  Mrs. Kaiser said he is a very sweet, sensitive and compassionate boy, always looking out for others.  He especially likes filling everyone's imaginary bucket with kindness!  He stays focussed on the task at hand and loves reading and being read to!  At his parent teacher interview I told his teacher that I was worried that he might be one of those kids who seem to be labelled as a problem student.  She told me that she has dealt with and seen every label out there and he is most definitely not one of them!  He is like any other five year old boy, BUSY!!!  If he does get distracted he is easily able to find his focus when prompted!  I love this little man so much, though he does exasperate me at times, he also melts my heart with his sensitivity and love!  I am so proud of him too and I think he is following his sister's example!

Time sure does fly!  At supper tonight Jared asked if I could picture what meals will be like when Calum is 16?  Emry will be in College and Armin will be 14!  Crazy how much things can change in such a short time!  I love this little family we have here, even if I do yell at them from time to time (Jared informs me that I turn into Christian Bale as Batman when I yell at the kids!!) I am still very proud of them and I do love them more than words can describe!  In these quiet times at night I can refocus on the joy they bring to our home and that gives me a sense of renewal!  Parenting is hard, harder than I actually thought it was going to be and I am learning each and every day, but it also is the best source of learning I have ever encountered and without these three little spirits I truly would be a lost soul wandering aimlessly though this life of many challenges!  They keep things in perspective for me and I love them soooooooo much!

CHOCOLATE!!!!

Saturday the Puzey girls got together for our annual chocolate dipping extravaganza!! It was a unanimous decision to do way less batches, instead of 22 batches we only did 12!! We were missing Lalainia, and really truly missing her!! Her and her family went to Jason's annual kids christmas party :( but we got it done without her, in fact we were wrapping up at 4:00 pm!! We even stopped for an hour or so for lunch and still got it all done! I tried a new flavor of fondant this year, root beer! It tastes just like root beer, and to keep the root beer flavor we decided to dip it in white chocolate! Sooooooo yummy!  Emry tried her hand at dipping and did a great job! 

It was a great day, I love doing chocolates with the girls and I love how much I learn from Myrna each time we get together! I'm excited to make more batches on my own! I love Christmas! I love the lead up, the decorating, the songs, the friendliness in the air, the lights, I just love all of it!  To me the Christmas season truly starts when we do chocolates!! It really is the most wonderful time of the year!!

The "Closest" Greatest Place on Earth!!

This past weekend all the Puzey's headed up to the great white north to celebrate a milestone birthday for Myrna.  This is the third time we have done this on this particular weekend in November!  And as always it was so much fun!

Ready to go!! This is how we left the farm!

The trip started Thursday morning, we loaded up the van, picked up Grandma and made our first stop in Champion to pick up Emry's Science review, and then onto Vulcan to get a lightbulb for our burnt out signal light.  Finally on our way for real, Calum had to pee!!  So we pulled over on the side of the road!  We made one more stop in High River for lunch and then off again!  The drive up was typical with three kids, quiet spurts between screams of fighting!  But we made it alive and still excited!  We first went to the hotel to unload the van and change into nicer clothes for dinner out at The Old Spaghetti Factory to celebrate Myrna's birthday!  All 19 of us were there, it was loud and fun!

Having fun at The Old Spaghetti Factory!

Thankfully the kids were tired out enough from the ride up that they fell fast asleep in no time!  In the morning we got up and had a nice continental breakfast and then on our way to the Water park!  We got there when it opened and left when it closed!  9 hours of super exhilarating fun!!  The boys couldn't go on many slides but they didn't seem to mind!  We hung out at the kids park, it had three slides, lots of things that shot water and things to climb!  The boys loved it!  There was also a smaller pool with mini slides, the water was shallow but warm enough to just sit in and watch the boys have fun!  Calum and Liam played Batman and Robin quite a bit, the water was poison!  Armin had fun going down these little slides with Jonas!  I hardly saw Emry since she was either riding slides with Leah and Cora or playing in the waves with them!  We finally convinced her to do the zip line with us, it went right over the entire length of the wave pool and past the beach area!  Calum was heavy enough to do it too!  I had to be brave since we were going with our kids, but holey moley....it was scary!  Once I was strapped onto the cable I started to really panic, my heart was beating fast and hard, but as soon as Emry looked at me I changed my face to a look of calm!  Totally not feeling that on the inside!  The guide let each of us go and off we went, it was so much fun! I'm so glad we did it!  The kids really liked it too and were all smiles when we came to a stop!  A new extreme slide had a loop in it, Jared finally was convinced to go on it and after he said it should be illegal, though he did go on it again!  The thrill was exciting!  You had to stand in a canister and then the count down...3,  2, 1...WHOOSH!  The door below opens and down you go!  No thanks!!

Zip Line!

Jason, Ashton and Bowen on the Zip line! 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=X8AYCL9hdxY

For a cute video that Jared Hague put together click on this link!

That night we ate at the mall food court and then back to the hotel, with very tired kids!  Another easy night of getting everyone to bed!

Totally tuckered out!

The next morning started the same as the one before!  This time we planned on going to Galaxy Land!  Friday, when we walked past Galaxy Land, Armin saw the Merry-go-Round and put both arms in the air and said "that's totally awesome!"  Emry wanted to try out this new thing at the mall called "Ropes Quest", you were harnessed in and attached to a rope that was locked into a track.  There were three levels of different types of bridges.  Jared and Emry did it together and had lots of fun, although she was a little afraid of going higher than the first level she still had a great time!  After they were finished we all headed to Galaxy Land, where our super solid, tough guy was terrified!!  We had to force him on every ride, and the only ones we forced him on were ones that toddlers could ride all by themselves!!  Armin on the other hand loved the rides and wanted to go on every single one!!  One more extreme ride that he was able to go one was the Ocean Motion Ship!  Jared wouldn't even go on it with him, so Grandma took him!  Well, Armin hated it!! When the ship would go up and we could see his face it was a look of sheer panic!!  But he still came off with a huge smile on his face!  Emry did the Space Shot twice!!!  Just seeing her on it the first time made my heart beat hard and fast!  It shoots you up 130 feet super fast and then free falls back down!  She loved it!  Jared did the Mind Bender Roller Coaster with Dave, Rachel and Jared H.  Again we closed out the place!  We decided to eat at Boston Pizza in the mall which was a bit of a wait, but worth it for the yummy food!  One downfall, our coats were taken when someone decided that the cart we rented was left abandoned and not just parked outside the restaurant because we were eating there!!  I'm sure they took it because they needed it, not realizing all our winter coats were inside the basket!  Luckily when they returned the cart they also took our coats to Lost and Found, which we went to the next morning on our way home!

This is how Calum felt about Galaxy Land!

This is how Armin felt about Galaxy Land!! 

That night also brought Armin to his ultimate demise!! Another bump to his head!  While we were waiting for Jared to come back from looking at all the exits for our coats Armin was running back and forth in front of the seats we were sitting on!  As usual he wasn't looking and he ran smack into a metal garbage canister.  The hit flattened him and when I picked him up he had a huge goose egg on his forehead!  Poor guy!

 After breakfast we packed up and headed home!  We made a stop at The Bass Pro Shop to stretch our legs and let the kids look at all the wildlife!  It seems we only get there on our way home from up north since it is totally on the wrong side of Calgary for us!!  Santa was there and it happened to be the day for free photos with him!  Armin was excited until he got closer, and Calum wouldn't go at all!  So Emry sat on Santa's knee, I sat on a stool in front of him with Armin on my lap and Jared stood beside Santa with Calum in his arms!!  It actually turned out to be a cute family photo!!  One more stop for something to eat, Five Guys Burgers and Fries!!  A nice end to a great birthday celebration for a wonderful woman!!

Trick or Treat

It was a fun Halloween this year!  Calum hadn't fully decided what he wanted to be and Emry changed her mind back and forth between two different costumes.  The day before Halloween I took Calum to Arren's to pick a costume out of Gilbert's dress up box.  He picked Batman!  That night we carved our pumpkins, and as tradition would have it Armin was terrified!  While Jared was scooping out the guts of the pumpkin he pretended his hand was stuck, Armin screamed and was really concerned!  Like the horrible parents we are we would keep scaring him!  The pumpkins turned out really cute, the kids picked out what they wanted carved and Emry and Armin even helped scoop out the inside while Jared did the carving.

After being absolutely terrified, Armin finally decided to give it a try!

Halloween day the kids had a carnival at school so Armin and I went in to take part!  I took Calum around to all the stations while Emry let Armin tag along with her and her friends!  Armin was so scared of Lily, she was dressed up as a Vampire, he wouldn't even go near her.  And he was very leery of Gilbert, who was dressed up as The Joker.  Emry decided to be a bat again since her best friend wasn't able to see her in it last year.  Grandma Debbie had given her a beautiful witch costume (can a witch costume be beautiful?!), but she decided she would be a witch next year, that makes it much easier for us!  Once Jared came home we had a quick supper and got ready to go trick or treating!  The kids were beyond excited, they hadn't even had any candy yet and they were already bouncing off the walls!  Armin was such a trooper going door to door with Emry and Calum.  At each door he would say "Happy Hoween!"  All three kids were so polite and said thank you with very little prompting, and they took turns at each house ringing the doorbell!

 They came home with so much candy, Jared and I decided to keep their candy in our room and lock the door so the only way they can get some is if they ask!  Hopefully we can prevent some tummy aches and extreme sugar highs!  It was lots of fun and the weather wasn't too bad either, nippy but not snow pant weather!

This morning Jared needed my help to get the rest of the bales off the field where the cows are now.  They have started to get into the bales and Jared wasn't wanting to start feeding them quite yet.  It was taking him so long by himself, he would have to drive the tractor and trailer out to a section in the field, park it, unhook the tractor from the trailer to load 15 bales onto the trailer, hook back up to the trailer, drive the trailer home, park it in the field, unhook the trailer from the tractor, unload the 15 bales, hook back up to the trailer, drive back to the sand to load 15 more bales and start again!  This process took him about 2 hours, so in a good day he could really only make 4 round trips, which would make approximately 60 bales out of around 320 bales home in one day!  I think Jared estimated it would take about 10 full days to do this by himself!  10 days he didn't really have!  So today I didn't have to work so I helped him!  To save some time Jared hooked up the John Deere tractor to the trailer, which I drove around the field.  We would go to a section and he would use the other tractor with the bale forks to load up the bales.  Once loaded I would drive to the edge of the field where Jared would stack the bales on the other side of the fence until the ground freezes good and hard so he can bring them home without the fear of getting stuck in the mud.  Helping him finish up today only took us 4 hours instead of several days!  Jared was really feeling quite stressed, and maybe still is with all that still has to be done before winter really sets in!  He has to get the water here at home winter ready so when we bring the bulls home they will have water to drink.  He has to fix the fence around the main hub in the sand so he can bring home the metal panels he uses in the corrals.  He needs to bring the bulls home and set up moveable fences to be able to bale graze the cows once they too come home!  I was hoping to get our decks done if we had a few days of warm fall weather but I think Jared's time will be devoted to getting the farm winter ready for the cows!  Maybe in the spring?!!  While I was out helping Jared we left Emry in charge of the boys, we had no other choice and she really does do well when this responsibility is placed on her!  I only got one phone call from her telling me that the library called and what could they eat!  When I came in the house I noticed something was different, looking closer I noticed there were no toys upstairs, the dishes had been put away, the entry room was tidy and investigating further, even through the tears in my eyes I could see very clearly that the basement was spotless, all the toys were put away and all three kids were sitting huddled together on the couch watching Puss in Boots!!  No one was injured or missing!  I was so proud of my girl!  She is truly a blessing in our home, her brothers adore her and look up to her!  She is an example to me and I love her so much!  Even though her and I can fight like teenage girls, I still admire her strength, her diverse personality, her tender heart and her helpful spirit!