Christmas

As promised, I'm doing our Christmas post. Only a week after Christmas, not too bad eh?
We had a lot of fun this Christmas. We spent time with both sides of the family - it's fairly easy to do when the two sides live only an hour apart. We spent most of the time with the Innes side, as my Sister Amy and her family were up, and we wanted our girls to have a chance to play with their cousins. So there ended up being 8 grandkids at my parents, with the oldest being 12. Only one grandson too! So our girls had a lot of fun with their cousins.

We spent part of Christmas eve with Chelsey's family. Ate their traditional meal of appetizers (the Parks really really like doing appetizer meals! Its a lot of fun as you get to eat a bunch of different things). When we first got there, Chelsey helped Jada and Kayla put out some "Reindeer Food" - Oatmeal and sugar and sparkles - in the snow. They were excited to leave some food for Rudolf and his friends.

We also opened up a present each. The girls got to open their present from Grandma. They got some small cloth diaper bags and homemade diapers and bibs for their baby dolls. They loved it.

After a short time with Chelsey's Family, we went off to Cardston. As I said, Amy was up, so we decided to go into to Cardston and sleep at my parents house so the girls could sleep with their Cousins. We left some cookies out for Santa, and finally got them in bed about 9ish. It was late for our girls and Amy's girls, but it was Christmas!

Claire, Jada and Jane

 

The next morning, my dad said that they all got up at 530am! Way to early! But they opened up their stockings, and played downstairs. We ate breakfast first, as we knew that once we started opening presents, our girls wouldn't want to do anything else.

 Jada helping pass out presents

 

Christmas morning fun

 

its a little bird

 

Looking at the new toys

 Alayna slept most of that time, so we had Jada and Kayla help open hers later. Everyone had a good time with Christmas. Jada because she went to bed late and got up way too early was out of sorts a bit. Every so oft she would start crying "I want to go home". After a few minutes, her cousins would say, "Jada come play' and happily she went to play again. She got some new colouring things, and had a great time talking and colouring with her cousins. I a new game - Munchkin (I've played before, and have some of the other sets, but never got the original till now) - and I surprised Chelsey with some new baking pans. Kayla's favorite present was a play shopping cart, that could fit her baby dolls in. In fact, once she had that, she didn't care about opening other presents for a little bit.
Chelsey and I had fun playing board games with Amy and Mike and catching up with everyone.

All in all, we had a good time. Can't wait till next year's Christmas when Alayna is more into it!

Blessing, Birthdays and Prechristmas fun!

 

 

There has been a lot and lot of things in the month leading up to Christmas (christmas blog to follow soon) that has kept us busy busy busy!
First of all, We had Alayna`s baby blessing. Doesn`t she have a cute smile? All our girls have lots of fun smiles!

 

 

 

She was a good baby during the blessing, and Chelsey thinks that Mike did a really nice job. She was blessed in the same dress that all of her sisters were blessed in. After church, We had a bunch of family and friends over for a 'appitizer' dinner - we just had everyone bring their favorite appizier or shairing plate, and just enjoyed each others company as we ate good food.

 

 

Great Grandma and little Alayna both asleep

 

It was lots of fun! However, there was no time to take a rest as we had birthdays right after that!  Mike turned 30 this year. I don't really feel any older, but 30 I am. Chelsey's birthday was the day after mine. No, she isn't 30 this year. As we decided to do a joint party on Chelsey's birthday, we made a little birthday treat that the girls could share in on each of our birthdays. The girls also got to blow out a candle and sing happy birthday to us

 

 

 

We called our birthday party "Mike turns 30 and Chelsey has a birthday" Birthday bash. We invited as many people as we knew, and while not everyone came, we had a good turnout. We played games, talked, ate cake, and just had a good time over all.

 

Soon after this, Cheley's Sister Kiplin had her birthday. She wanted to make gingerbread houses, so Chelsey kept very busy making home made (very delious!) gingerbread. Everyone had a good time making gingerbread houses, and eating some of the candy while decorating. The girls had a good time making gingerbread men. I wasn't able to help out with gingerbread stuff as I had to work late (again). Late night shopping was in full swing at the mall - Right up to Christmas eve. It got very tedious, and it was a hard time on the girls, but we eventually got through it.



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chelsey made a beautiful gingerbread tree, and we were going to make a Chinese style pagoda, however that never happened. Too much going on. Perhaps next year we will do that. 

All that Gingerbread made Chelsey really like the smell, so she found a recipe for Gingerbread playdough. The kids love rolling it out and making 'gingerbread cookies'. It was a good pre-christmas play idea for them.

 

 

So this is what has kept us busy for the last little while. We will post Christmas, and a 2012 in review shortly.... Hopefully not too many days into the new year. Hahaha

Potty Training Adventures

So Guess who is (mostly) potty trained now?

MAKAYLA!

 

Thats right, Makayla is now (more or less) potty trained. We've been doing it for about a month, and she picked up really quickly. I guess it helps having a big sister who shows her what to do! She has her share of accidents still, so we are washing a fair share of pants, but thats par for course. She often runs to the potty saying pee-pee all by her self. She still needs help pulling her pants down - in fact once, she sat on the potty by her self, with her pants still up, happily peeing in the potty - Would you call this a sucess or an accident or a sucident? At least she got to the potty, right? We are still working on teaching her how to get her pants up and down, but we figured bladder control first - we can always help her with the pants.

 

Every time she goes potty, we say Yay Kayla, and she just smiles. With Jada, we had to bribe her with potty treats, but Kayla loves just getting a Yay. Its so fun seeing her smile.

 

Now, only if we could get them both night trained, and alayna trained.....

Our Current Favourite Quick Breakfast Dishes

 Pannekoeken
We probably eat this for breakfast twice a week. Looks and tastes like lots of work but it is so simple. Preheat the oven and cast iron pan to 400 F. Four ingredients: 1 cup flour, 1 cup milk, 6 eggs and 1/2 tsp. salt go in a blender and blend until well mixed. Once oven reaches 400 F add 1/3 cup butter to the cast iron pan, close up the oven for another minute or until the butter is melted then pour in the batter and bake 20-25 minutes. Remove from the oven and sprinkle with lemon juice (we like a good three or so Tbsp.), blueberries and powdered sugar.

 Oatmeal Raisin Pudding
Same overall flavor as a yummy bowl of creamy rice pudding but it only takes 5 minutes or so using quick oats instead. We eat this at least 3 times/week and so we use half water and half milk to conserve milk but you can do all milk for an even creamier version. For Mike and I and a three year old and 20 month old we use 4 servings of 1/3 cup quick oats each which comes to 1 1/3 cup oats. We add to a small saucepan 1 1/3 cups quick oat, 1 1/3 cups water, 1 1/3 cups milk and 4 Tbsp. sugar. We bring to a boil and boil about 1 minute or until thickened but still very saucy. Stir in 1/3 cup raisins and 1 tsp. vanilla. Dish up into 4 bowls and sprinkle with brown sugar and cinnamon.

Dan Bing
This is a favourite breakfast we learned to make in Taiwan. We substitute tortillas for the flatbread they use in taiwan. So so easy. Beat two egg and add to a frying pan that has been preheated over medium heat and has had 1-2 Tbsp. oil swirled around it. Move the pan around so that the egg spreads out to cover the bottom of the pan. Let it cook a couple seconds or until egg is about half set. Place tortilla over top and press down on it lightly. When it feels firm to the touch meaning the egg is cooked (this happens very quickly), flip the tortilla over and lightly brown the other side. Roll up and slice and serve with dipping sauce such as sweet soy paste or chili sauce. You can also add meat and vegetables such as bacon or ham, chopped green onions, corn, ect.

Halloween Fun

We had a lot of fun this Halloween. The Girls all dressed up and we did pumpkins and went out trick or treating. We didn't go very long, but the girls filled their little buckets up. We also didn't get any trick or treaters, as we missed them all while we went out trick our treating. It was kinda a cold and icy night, so there were not a lot of people out on the street anyway. I also won a $100 gift certificate for Halloween Alley, a costume store, so that was cool. Chelsey got the tiger ears, I got the mad scientist,  and Jada got wings, and we got some face paints as well. 

 Kayla and Jada's Costumes

 I'm a proud lion!

 Jada couldn't decide if she wanted to be a cat or a butterfly, so she became the butterfly cat!

 HULK MAD!

 BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

 ANIMAL!

 The Tiger and the Leopard

 So much candy...

 

It seems as if we don't do this often enough....

First of all, forgive us for not posting much over the summer. We kept meaning to as different things came up, but it always seemed to be pushed back a bit. Then a bit more... Then again.... and once more got pushed back. Until now. Lots of things to cover in this post. Some of my friends would make 10 or so different posts to cover everything, and even backdate them so that the posts are in proper order. Me, I'm just going to make a single post covering the many adventures that we had over the summer - at least all those that we haven't posted before. (I'll try to remember everything)

It was a great summer. We got out a lot - as much as possible and then some. We went to the Royal Tyrell Dinosaur Museum in Drumheller to show Jada the dinosaurs; we had fun going to park lake and Waterton;  we went to the Calgary Zoo; I went SCUBA diving; we went swimming a lot; the girls had a blast playing with their cousins; Jada turned three and got a big girl bike; we turned a dresser for the girls from a smurf blue to a pale purple with butterflies. At the end of it all, we had a baby AND moved in the same week.

Jada thought the dinosaur museum interesting - for the first little bit. I think if we were to go back now, she would love it a lot more. One of her favorite shows on netflix to watch is called Dinosaur Train - its a cute show where this dinosaur family goes on train trips to see and learn about other kinds of dinosaurs. At Nana's house, they have a bunch of plastic dinosaurs, and Jada will spend a long time playing with those and the farm animals. So next time we go, I think Jada would have a lot more fun. Sadly, we forgot our camera that day, so no photos.


Jada and Makayla loved the zoo. They especially loved the penguins! Have you seen them? If not, GO! The girls probably could have spent hours in there if they could watching the penguins hop and swim. Because of demand, they currently only allow small groups in the enclosure for 15 minute periods. We actually went twice - once at the beginning of the day and again just before going home. Both times we were very lucky and were able to get in right away. There have been times when people have waited 2 hours plus to see the penguins. Just as at an amusement park, there are signs that say "approx x time from this point". I'm glad we didn't have long to wait!

The other favorite part of the zoo for Jada was the butterfly house. She LOVES butterflies! While Makayla was getting a diaper change, Jada and Dad waited in there. She would look at the butterflies, and then sat trying to get a butterfly to land on her. Sadly none did, she wasn't quite patient enough. As a butterfly would come close, she would get up and try to get it to land on her finger.

The other highlight of the zoo for the girls was the merry-go-round. We probably rode it 10 times in a row and each time they wanted a different animal. Again, we were lucky that it was not a busy day at the zoo so the girls could do things like this.

 

 

As I had mentioned previously, I have wanted to Scuba for a long time. I think I was around 14 when I did a discover Scuba pool dive in Calgary in a Young Men's activity. I was hooked then, but time and money, location and other things always seemed to get in the way. I finally had some extra money, some time and while maybe not the perfect location, I still had a location. One of my other friends recently got certified in Honduras. Waterton lake is a lot colder then Honduras, the bottom of Emerald Bay was about 5C. So hence the 7mm wetsuit, hood, gloves, boots. Plus I was wearing a dive skin underneath that - I decided to do that as I had trouble enough in class getting the boots on. The dive skin helped the wetsuit not stick to my skin. Anyway, this was a cool experience for me. Emerald bay's visibility is between 10-20 feet, and it has a greenish tinge to it (hence the name Emerald bay). So you can't see far and can see even less - like down to 2 inches -  when the bottom silt gets stirred up (that happened a lot as the group of us were just getting certified). We dived the wreck of the Gertrude - an old steamer on the bottom. It really really neat following the instructor and then all of a sudden see some of the beams of the keel rise up in your vision! I'm definitely hooked. I've been able to go once more this summer after getting certified. Hopefully next summer I have some more chances, and I hope Chelsey comes along with. Her plans diving got put on hold when we found out Alayna was coming to join our family.

 

 

Jada Thought the gear was very interesting. Perhaps when she is 12ish she will go diving with me.

 

 

 

Our present to Jada for her third birthday was a big girl bike. She loves it! She has a lot of fun pedalling around the parks we go to. She still needs a little help, and gets scared if she starts going too fast on a downhill grade, but it is a lot of fun watching her.

 

 

 

A friend gave us an old dresser that was as I call it, smurf blue. Not the colour that we wanted for a girls dresser. So we spent some time getting that blue off. We used a paint stripper and sanding to do this. It was quite the effort, but finally got that blue off. Underneath the blue was white and pink on the drawers.

Our original plan was to stain it a neutral colour, but with the decorative edges, and the lack of experience and proper tools made it almost impossible to get all the previous colours off, so the stain made it look even worse then it did with bare wood or the blue. So we decided that if it is going to go in a girls room, why not paint it Jada's favourite colour - purple? We even let Jada choose the shade of purple. We added butterflies, and a bit of gloss coat to help protect it. So even though the dresser is still dinged up in spots (its been well used!) it looks a lot better then smurf blue.

You know, looking over all these photos makes us realize how much Jada and Makayla have grown and changed over the summer. We recently took them to the doctor for check ups, and found out that Alayna and Makayla are both in the 75th percentile for height and 25th for weight, while Jada is 75th for weight and 94th for height!!!! Over the summer we measured her up against her four year old cousin Claire. Claire only had about an inch over Jada! All the girls are happy and healthy. We had a lot of fun over the summer, and we will try not to make such massive posts again.

 

Oh Yes, We moved! Out of the blue! The same week we had Alayna! Our friends had six  months left on their lease, but wanted to move back to Cardston to make it easier. Adam is doing a lot of work there, and so never saw his family while they were living in Lethbridge. So they called us up and asked if we wanted their place. It was an instant yes, as we had been looking for something bigger, and this house was the yardstick that Chelsey was using to measure any other prospective houses. We have 3 bedrooms, a covered deck, backyard, enough off street parking, 2 full bathrooms, a very spacious playroom and tons of storage space! All this for only $100 more than what were paying. Steal of a deal if you ask us! Thanks to all the help we received in getting us to the new place!

Enjoy the rest of the photos for fun!