Smitten!!!

On Sunday we were able to go to Lethbridge and be with Rachel and Jared's sweet little family for Freya's baby blessing! Jared gave her a beautiful blessing and after church all 36 of us squeezed into their house for a delicious dinner! I got to snuggle with Freya, she is such a sweetheart which makes me want to have another little girl so badly!! 

Emry held Freya for a little while too and seemed to really enjoy it!! After Freya started to fuss Emry gave her back to Rachel and picked up little Cadence, who isn't so little anymore :( she is 7 months old and super duper adorable!!!  The pictures Jared candidly took of Emry and Cadence were priceless and it was quite apparent that Emry was smitten with her!!!  I am so thankful for these two new little girls in our family, they bring such joy!!!

Our beautiful girl is growing up much too fast! She is becoming a confident, sensitive and compassionate young woman!!! She truly brings joy to our family!!! I love her so much and couldn't ask for a better daughter!

A New 'tar!!!!!

Ampa Wen, aka Grandpa Glen, was not going to be able to see Armin on his actual birthday so he decided to give him his present early!!! I'm so glad he was able to see Armin's face as he opened it!!! Grandpa gave Armin a real guitar!  Armin has always rocked out on his toy, ukulele size Woody guitar. As soon as Armin opened it he said, "a new 'tar, I love it ampa!!"  He then proceeded to rock out! He played while sitting, then he would stand, but he always had his eyes closed!!! At one point he even put the guitar on his lap and played slide guitar style!!! After playing for a bit he woud run to grandpa and give him a great big hug and say thank you!!!!  I think the guitar was a huge hit, he won't even let Jared touch it to tune it, he says he doesn't want him to wreck it!!! I think we have a future musician on our hands!!!!

Christmas Tree Festival

Every Christmas there is usually a Christmas tree display in the atrium of the hospital, this year the event was moved to the Enmax Centre!!! With it being at the Enmax they were able to incorporate more activities.  Monday was Family Night meaning that it was free to go and look at all the beautifully decorated trees, skate with the Hurricanes, make crafts, have a snack and hot chocolate and visit with Santa!!!! When we first arrived there were a million people there and I didn't think we would even get to see the Christmas trees. So we stood in line for Santa first and to my surprise the line moved at a rather steady pace!! The kids were so good while waiting.

Armin was especially cute with Santa!!! Very animated and totally engaged!!! Calum was a little nervous and wouldn't look at Santa, but he did sit with him!! Emry stood beside and was just fine until he talked to her then she got a little embarrassed!!!

The Christmas trees were beautiful! The businesses that decorated them did an exceptional job, each one was different and beautiful in its own way!! Some of my favourites were:

Disney Frozen inspired tree!!!

The Grinch Who Stole Christmas!

Music Inspired!

This was a wedding dress inspired tree!  For some reason I loved it!! Maybe it was the fact it had burlap in it!!

It was a really fun night and made even more fun because Myrna came with us!! Our kids just adore her, Calum sat beside her in the van and talked the entire time, and he gave her hugs periodically through the night and said he loved her!!! It was a great way to kick off the Christmas Season!!!!!

So Proud

A couple of weeks ago the dogs would not stop barking at the red grain shed.  Emry and her cousins finally went to see just what they were barking at!!  As they peered into the opening they saw three sets of eyes peering back at them, a little family of racoons had taken up residence there!

By mid afternoon the dogs finally got one of the racoons out and injured its back end.  They continued to torment the cute little thing until finally Jared came and put it out of its misery.  It was quite sad that Jared had to shoot it but it was even sadder seeing it being tormented by two dogs twice its size.  I really find racoons to be quite cute with their big bushy stripped tale and their black mask.  Their paws are really rather remarkable too, they look like hands with long fingers.  I guess that is why they can make such a mess.

Gibson and Fender were so proud of themselves for catching the racoon, they both sat over it panting and smiling at what they did!!!  It was the cutest thing ever!

Sunday is Cancelled!

We had quite a horrible snow storm this past Saturday!  Of course it started as we were trying to move cows home from the sand and steadily got worse.  Jared, Emry and I headed down to the cows in the early afternoon to first get the bulls out of the herd of cows and then second to move the cows without the bulls across the road and into the other field so we could be ready to walk them home.  Well, one thing after another seemed to go wrong!  We were actually able to get the bulls out with no complications, it just took a long time, our patience and persistence really paid off!  Once the bulls were out we drove the tractor with a bale on the front into the watering hub to lure the cows across the road and into the next watering hub!  Things seemed to be going as planned until the cows noticed the open gate leading into the field that we rented to cut hay.  Jared took off on Emry's little quad to start rounding them up while I drove in with the tractor and together we went back and forth across the field to get them to go back toward the open gate.  Surprisingly it worked and once they get close to the gate I drove the tractor out ahead and they followed me!!  Though only as far as the gate across the road, and as I went through they decided they wanted to go past :( so instead of getting them into the field and to the opposite corner where we usually move them from we started walking them home.  It was a bit of chaos for a awhile but together Jared (on foot) and Emry (on her quad) were able to keep the cows in somewhat of an orderly group to follow me (in the tractor)!!  Dave was able to get there just in time to help us when we were almost to our neighbours stack of bales!  It would have been a nightmare trying to get them out of those!

Walking them home took longer than it has in the past, but with the help of Myrna and Emry in the van, Jared on the quad and Dave on foot, the cows followed me in the tractor all the way home!!  I felt bad being able to ride in the warmth of the tractor while I watched Jared and Dave riding and walking as the snow got heavier and the temperature got colder.  But I guess I earned the warmth of the tractor after the last few years walking in weather much similar!!

The snow just thicker and thicker, making even the gravel roads icy.  Jared and I had been invited to our friends in Vulcan to play games that night but we decided to turn around when the entire way up Fath Hill we slipped and slided!!  I joked that maybe church would be cancelled the next morning!  Well, who knew that it wasn't a joke after all!!  Church was indeed cancelled and so guess what the kids did?  "Do you want to build a snowman?" were the first words out of Armin's mouth when he saw the massive amount of snow covering the ground!  Jared helped them and together they built a very fine snowman! Myrna had invited us over for dinner but it ended up being postponed until tuesday due to our power being off for 12 hours :(  it was a meal worth waiting for, it was delicious!!  Blake had said that sunday is cancelled instead of church is cancelled!!! He gave us a good chuckle!

Fender seemed to come alive with the snow!!  He was out exploring instead of lazing in the shade of the house!!

Looking for rocks and twigs!

Today the snow is mostly gone and with the chinook wind the weather is hoodie worthy again!  I wonder when our winter will officially be here?  I love winter, though I really am enjoying the prolonged autumn, even with the little snow storm hiccups!!

Trick or Treating

This year we decided to take the kids to Vulcan to go trick or treating!! This way they would be able to go house to house without having to get back in the car every time! Blake was able to tag along with us and the kids loved having him there!! They all had so much fun, we could see them skip and run as they went house to house and we could hear them laughing and giggling too!! They got SO much candy, too much I think!!!

Out and about we had Woody, Anakin Skywalker, a Bat and Paul McCartney!!! They all looked awesome!!

 

Cutest cowboy ever!!!

These are pictures from the fun day the kids had at school!!

Such beautiful weather this year, so much fun!!! Happy Halloween!!!