Walk Trot and Lead Line

The girls do dancing and riding this year. 

Riding is, by far, their favorite.

Kalia will be entering in a Walk Trot Classes starting in June and if it is something she really enjoys there are shows all summer she can participate in.

AND she will start learning about barrel racing this summer, and MAYBE MAYBE POSSIBLY vaulting, but probably not, cause Mommy is a big fat chicken who has heart burn every time she sees her kids get on the horse. Trotting and barrel racing is about all my heart can stand.

Annaliesse will be starting with a Lead Line Class. She is still hesitant and not really confident with Allegro yet. But she is learning and she loves being on the horse.

New House

What??!?!!?

WHATS THIS?!?!!

That my friends is our new house to be!

We are still in High River, and on the very NW of town. Here is a aril shot of the North West of High River - Old (the pink squiggle on the top right)- is where we live now with Grandma and Grandpa and NEW (the pink squiggle on the bottom left) is where our new house will be. Just blocks away from Grandma, close to the park and spray park, not been flooded, close to the highway for Justin's commute AND still qualifies for school bussing!

Why, do you ask is there a basement with no house in the middle of a developed subdivision?!?!

During the flood, the electricity got shut off before everyone had evacuated. This house has a renter in it, well the renter left- but left the stove on. So when the electricity got turned on a couple times during the flood and the renter had left the stove on. The house sufficiently burned before the fire fighters could get to it.

LUCKILY the fire went straight up into the roof. The owners decided to take a buy out and put the lot and basement up for sale.

SO had the basement inspected and passed by a engineer before we officially bought the lot and it is still good to build on!

My dear friends, our 2014 blessings count has been on the up and up!

Spark Telus Science

Aunt Jen and Aunt Dianne came up Wednesday of Reading week, we hung out at the house and let the kids play all day Wednesday.

Then Thursday we took all the kids to the spark science center for opening at 10!

Right off the bat they had a creative corner event and the staff were helping the kids make a Lion out of bags, air, tape and paper. The older girls LOVED this and we spent the next hour and a half in the creative kids zone.

Barker, Zander, and James quickly tired of the crafting girls and headed off for the water. Which has always been Barkers preferred part of the science center

Zander just drank his fill.

After lunch we did the upstairs part of the center. With all the hands on activities.

They even had a special wood working shop going on that Kalia, James and Conner got to participate in.

The workshop could only do 4 kids at a time and Annaliesse was the 5th (there was another little boy in there) she was so disapointed. She sat outside of it and watched with the saddest look.

Then the other little boy left and Annaliesse got to go in for a short turn. THEN it turned out she was too little and got sent out, followed shortly by Conner and Kalia. They did have a fun time for a while though!

So onto the many other stations to build and play.

There was this adorable booth that had you work on expressions. So it would say do a mad face and then snap a photo- it was hilarious watching the kids do it…. at least the first 5 times was hilarious. Then it got old.

Remy did so good the whole time, she is such a happy face! We played the whole day there, from opening until closing. What a fun fun place!

Reading Week

I am getting tired of Blogging.

Reading Week Break was CRAZY busy!! I feel like I say we are busy a lot.
It seems to me the older my children get, the more things there are to do. Like more laundry, more brain work (homework), more activities, more cooking, and more time paying them eye to eye attention.

Gone are the days when I would take the kids out for a hour or two, then head home for naps.
Gone are the days when I am actually bored, with nothing to do.

We were really lucky this year that Daddy got to spend FIVE WHOLE days off with us.
The zoo, swimming, and just being around Daddy was soo nice.

Happy Remy liked the Zoo.

Barker and Kalia working on her reading words. Kalia would read them and Barker we repeat after her.

Barker loves swimming. He is so fun to watch.

Daddy had to leave Tuesday Morning to go back to work- we are back to Facetimeing for a while. But not much longer!

OFFICIALLY SOLD

Its official!

Our Raymond house has been sold!
The new owners will take possession March 1, to rent for 6 months- and then August 1 the offer to purchase goes through!

Talk about stress overload the last 3 weeks. Seriously.

But this is great news- and even greater news will soon follow.

2013 was a hard stressful year- and its looking like, so will 2014- BUT it will be a GOOD Hard STRESS!!

Snapshots

5:45 am. Is not bathtime. Except- the other day. 5:45 am was bathtime.

Annaliesse made a shield the other day. Very ingenious eh?

Another early morning last week.

Remy roo working on sitting.

Kiddos watching a movie so mom could get some things done!

Annaliesse made a sign for her bed. Its a pic of Barker with a big X through it! HAHAHAHA

New Big Boy coat!

Kalia is a fantastic, amazing, beautiful, great, and lovely big sister. I hope she knows how much I love and appreciate her.

Frosten

Little Annaliesse still calls Frozen- Frosten.

FROSTEN. Its adorable.

Happy Valentines Day!!!!!

So for FHE we talked about loving one another and made us some Frosten Valentines!

link

Maren and Rebekka!

Congratulations to Maren who got baptized on Saturday!

 AND Congratulations to Rebekka who got a name and a blessing!

Thanks for having us down for the Saturday- unfortunately Uncle Justin couldn't make it, so the kids and I drove down by ourselves for the baptism. But couldn't make it to the blessing- luckily Aunt Krista sent us a photo!

Barker had a great time "helping". He helped fold up as many chairs as he could get his hands on. It was so cute.

Bless my soul- he is such a handsome two year old. I wouldn't change a thing about my fantastic son!

Personal Party Planner

Justin started working for a new company in July. Nilex has been great for him so far, the bad news- sometimes in the winter months he needs to work up north. It sucks, but it is what it is.

His first stint was for 10 days, a couple weeks ago, and it wasn't easy on the kids. BUT Annaliesse had a great idea.  She decided, ALL ON HER OWN, that Daddy needed a surprise party when he got home.
She talked about it all week, how we would have balloons, cookies, and streamers. She even decided at the last minute he needed a pinata. And when I say talked about it all week… I MEAN NON STOP PLANNING ALL WEEK.

This little 5 year old of ours has great ideas, and has no problem expressing them and insisting we follow through.

 We spent all day Thursday getting ready for Daddy to come home. We did the whole 9 yards, just like Annaliesse had planned. Including Sugar cookies, rice crispy squares and homemade chili for dinner.

Welcome Home Daddy

Daddy was super surprised and he had so much fun with the kids.

Laura and Miles even came over to celebrate, as per Annaliesse's instructions. :)

I did explain to my personal party planner, that we are NOT doing this every time Daddy comes home. She reluctantly agreed.