Grandma is 80

Grandma Martin turned 80!

I sent her a message wishing her Happy Birthday on Facebook, called to make her laugh and went down to celebrate with a handful of family Saturday evening.

Our kids had a Primary party to attend and a 2 hour drive down for an hour stand around party, followed by a 2 hour drive home just wasn't in the cards for this family. Instead I hopped in with Mom, Dad and Laura to pop down for the evening. 

The drive down was interesting, the Chinese food in Lethbridge for dinner was yummy and the Party was full of relatives. 

Grandma's ankle is still broken, she broke it in the bathroom when she got stuck and Grandpa tried to help her. The result was a broken ankle. In respect for my loving Grandparents we are just going to leave it at that. 😂

We sang Happy Birthday, I visited with cousins and then popped out for a few minutes to see Grandma Selman. She was awake and active which was a lovely surprise. We chatted about her Dad and she liked the Sunglasses hanging off my shirt. She took them and put them right on, and then took them off saying they were to dark, no good. 

more Wednesday

Do you want to hear the cutest thing ever?

Remy likes numbers. Like, she really likes numbers.

Today she has taken to writing down all the numbers she can find. She started walking around the house documenting numbers, and after she got ALL those she took to the neighbourhood. She got her boots and coat on and walked around our block writing down everyones house numbers. A little miffed she had to wait until her siblings were home to take her onto the next block but pretty happy with her collection. As soon as Barker walked in the door she had her coat and boots on ready to go- he was a bit confused on what she wanted, but when I explained her goal, he sighed and put his shoes back on.

Opening exersises  tonight with YW and YM a picture to help me out next week.

For YW this week Branch was in charge and our activity was Book of Mormon Cakes. The girls found a story in the BOM and they decorate a cake to get us to guess what story they chose. Justin had a meeting with another Father in the foyer while YW was happening so we had 3 visitors for the first 30 minutes of YW.

Joci was great and we ended up having a extra cake- so Joci and my kids chose the story, in Barkers words "when Nephi builds a boat".

The ward was in charge of the Beehive activity and Vanessa had her mom come and teach the girls a water-colour painting! They had a great time painting flowers!

I will leave you with this Book of Mormon Cake. I happened to be the only person to guess the story- lets see if anyone else can guess......

It is one verse. Thats your hint.

Parent Teacher Interviews

My Leprechaun. My name is Bob the builder. He is mostly Green with rainbow socks.

(to be finished when Barker gets home and can read it to me!)

by Baker

Barkers teacher is thrilled with how much progress he is making. Barker will but reading at grade level by the end of the year, which we are truly happy with. It is really hard to get a kid to read when all he wants to do is play outside.

Remys journal- I am having a fire at George Lane Park (above)

I ski fast down the hill

I love my school.

Remy's teacher is just a thrilled with her progress. She is learning to read and knows all her letters and sounds. She expressed that Remy is a delight to have in class and she is a great friend to all.

Annaliesse's when I am old paper- I look forward to seeing this Self Walk Sidewalk.

Annaliesse you will be ready for Grade 6 by the end of the year, and if you slow down and take your time on your assignments, you will do much better. Your doing great now, but you could do better by just slowing down....

If you knew me growing up, you will remember this (part) apple doesn't fall far from the tree. 😂😂

Aunties Car & Chocolate Chip Candy Candy Cane Cookies & the Garage

Justin and I went to the temple last night, as I came out Laura had sent me a little video. Apparently my children had washed her car with Clorox Bleach Wipes 😖😖😣 I am not sure who started it, or if Laura gave them the go ahead but it was a mess and we were both worried about a scratched up Aunties car.

Luckily she sent me a picture Saturday morning with her car smudge and scratch (from my kids at least) free. Next time you want to vacuum your car while babysitting nieces and nephews, remember 4 kids can go 1,000 different directions at once. Thank heavens it all worked out.

Up and going at it Saturday morning, it was finally time to clean out the garage. There have been building projects in if since 2nd week of January. Craft group was very supportive while Justin was not working for 3 months and we had lots of orders to fill, but parking outside in that cold snap was rough!

There was sawdust everywhere and craft projects waiting to be picked up. We still have a couple left that need to be picked ups, but the same women who love to order but not pick up... for months and months.... Life.

While Justin was outside in the garage, of course Barker was outside with him. Kalia and Remy coming in and out of the house playing with the neighbours and loving the weather.  Annaliesse wanted to bake, which is becoming a norm. She wanted to make buns, but I just didn't have the energy to do that- instead I taught her how to make Chocolate Chip Candy Cane Cookies. Taught might be a to big of a word, directed might be a better distributed word for what I did. I directed while I sat and caught up on the blog.

We are all enjoying Annaliesse new found joy- I am not enjoying explaining when she bakes she should finish her task. AKA put cooled cookies away and cleaning the dishes.

After lunch Justin took the kids to the Skateboard Park- first trip of 2019. The kids had a great time with Daddy at the park while Mommy finished putting the house back together.

Remy and Mommy

 Remy and Mommy scootering to the park and back. BTW I am outta shape. Or the scooter wheels need air. Or Both. Or I am in such a shape and I bent the scooter wheels.... lets not talk about it anymore.

Remy and Mommy hanging out in bed when she had fever. She built a fort in Daddy's spot out of pillows. We love this kid.

1 hour later she was asleep on the floor in the living room after chugging a Gatorade, putting on "lippy" stuff and draining an iPad.

Lucky for her the fever only lasted 1 day- lets hope she doesn't get the cold Daddy had, then gave to Mommy and Barker...

HRCC at HRLCF

High River Children's Choir performed at Festival this week.

All I have to say....

It was good practice before our Spring Concert.

Hopefully it got the nerves out of the kids and helped them relax for next time.

Sunday Baking Fails

Getting home from church on Sunday the kitchen smelled like cake!

The girls had asked Daddy if they could make dessert, and he was all for it.

Things were looking good until the girls couldn't get the cake out of the pan. I helped them best I could but they didn't grease the pan very well- and one of the cakes came out almost in half.

I told the girls when it was time to ice, let me move it from the cooling rack or it might fall apart.

Did they listen?

What do you think?

Now they have a cake all over the counter and one whole cake.

This mom, goes, not to worry- lets make cake pops! I have made them before at YW's.

Terrible idea, Heather.

I WATCHED the girls make cake pops at Young Women's under the supervision of another YW leader. So we crumbled up 2 cakes... The kids made icing while I was making bread and proceeded to make to grossest looking green icing I have ever seen. All good right. All good.

Its just going to be family eating the cake pops, I have candy melts to cover the hideous colour- I go ahead and start adding the icing to the cake crumbles to make the cake pops and made it to runny 😩 All this "saving" for no reason. I didn't know what to do at that point....

A afternoon of baking ruined.

I was still trying to be upbeat and told the kids we still had the bread I made while they were making the cake. Until I forgot about the bread rising in the oven.... it calls for 25 minutes of rise time and I left it in there for a hour... 3 giant blobs of bread dough greeted me when I opened the oven. 

Good Gravy

I ended up punching down again, and reforming the bread. There was no way we could give a few loafs away now as part of our Come Follow Me. 

It ended up tasting fine but wasn't the best batch Ive ever made...

Come Follow Me Lesson after our baking fails- but luckily the lesson hit home.

The kids drew as part of the lesson and we used Chocolate Coins in another part of the lesson. 

Our lesson ended with a big mess of DP spilt all over the floor. 

Barker and Kalia took full advantage of drinking the forbidden (to them) substance off the floor.

😷😷😷😓

snapshots

Justin checking on the kids before bed- Remy sleeping in her sunglasses 😍😍

The kids in our neighbourhood are LOVING this nice weather. Everyday for this warm week the kids get home from school, grab a snack and head outside. When its time for dinner or piano lessons or choir or sports there is some whining about leaving.

Remy is rocking the handme downs in this pic. Each sister wore this jacket and these gumboots. That angry bird hat has been around for years and the kids love it. Nothing anyone else would notice except Mommy.

First family bike ride of the season, Remy and Mommy are out of shape and Remy needs the next size up bike.

XLarge FHE

With the warm weather and kids being sick of indoor FHE's we planed one our Family FHE Fire Pit nights (Like this one and this one). I had told Justin early the week before I wanted to do one, and then forgot all about it, until he reminded me Friday afternoon. 

I got on Facebook Messenger and invited the usuals... and then a few more. We have had some move in's and grown closer to different families as we grow and change. I knew there were going to be lots of people come- I just didn't add it up.

We always go early to start the fire and claim a spot. THIS TIME it was mostly to shovel snow- which I hadn't checked on...

All around town the snow was melting like crazy and I didn't get around to checking on George Lane Park. We showed up and 2 of the 3 fire pits were Lakes. The last one was still covered in a foot of snow- a quick run to one of the families who lived close for a shovel, and back to shovel out the area.
The fire pit was FULL of snow. Grandma and Grandpa were thinking of coming, so I called them and asked them to stop at our house and bring everyones boots please. This mom had let everyone come in runners... whoops.

Mom took one look at the snow, dropped off our boots and left 😂😂

We got the fire going and people started showing up at 5:30pm!

And kept coming.

When we do these nights, everyone brings hotdogs and buns for their family, and a side item to share. It works out really well and the kids love it cause there are Chips everywhere HAHA.

With everyone arriving sporadically the hot dogs were cooked in batches. Potluck items was spread on one table to share and dinner got started.

Justin finally asked how many families I invited and I shrugged. I tried to include everyone and it seemed like everyone wanted to be included...

The final tally was 80 people.

There were kids everywhere, hot-dogs everywhere, food everywhere, adults everywhere. I wish I had gotten to visit with everyone but it was crazy busy.

It didn't last as long as it usually does, it was really wet and as soon as the sun went down it got cold. We were the last family out, with Cathy and Brian Anderson staying around to enjoy the fire by themselves, at 7:45pm.

Such a fun FHE- we can't wait to hold a few more this year. It will get hard with Soccer and Lacrosse starting for us- with all of our other commitments on top of that.

If you missed it we would love to see you next time!

crafting

March crafting is strong in this house.

I was at Micheals and picked up a little Perler bead Easter Themed set for Remy to do on her days off of Kindergarten.  Kalia and Annaliesse did this YEARS ago, and still have some beads left. I thought if they saw her do one, they would get out their old beads and do some to! It worked! We had quite the collection of bunnies to iron and Remy has been playing with the little figures for days.

Along with the 2 quilt tops made, and bead action, we had another craft pick up going on. Justin made 13 table runners- which continued the giant wood mess in the garage. He used these plans . Turns out they were a lot bigger then I anticipated. HAHA. It looks good on our massive table, but some of the ladies who ordered one were a little surprised!

Calgary Coral Festival

Okotoks Philharmonic Chorus went to Festival this week. It was one of those events that was on the books, but I didn't think I would be able to attend as it fell on a Wednesday night (YW). But due to stake and temple trips that week for the youth, there was not activity wed- so I was able to attend!

The original plan was for Mom and I to carpool downtown Calgary together to perform at Knox United Church with the choir. Unfortunately Mom got sick Wednesday afternoon and wasn't able to attend. I really didn't want to drive downtown Calgary by myself so I asked Justin if he would take me.

Please note- I have not asked Justin to come to any performance since last time 

I thought I would ask if he would take me and go from there, pretty sure he would have 10000 arguments why he couldn't or didn't want to take me.... Shocking us both, he agreed rather quickly! This is really not his thing. 

We arrived downtown and with his mad parking skills we didn't even have to pay for parking. I warmed up with the choir, for almost 45 minutes while Justin waited and then the audience came in. We sang three songs, and the other 2 choirs sang 3 songs. Justin listened the whole time 😲 and kind of enjoyed himself. At least thats what it looked like from my perspective- he wasn't on his phone playing and he didn't have that look of pain and annoyance on his face like the last time he came. 

Our choir preformed rather well, and the other 2 choirs, who were both University Choirs sounded amazing- it was a real treat to hear them! Knox United Church has amazing acoustics (for Alberta), and I had forgotten what a choir can sound like when the building is working with you and not against you LOL

It was the last hour of the night I felt kinda bad- each choir had a adjudicator work with them for a hour. It was really great singing wise, but there was more waiting for Justin. Although the lounge where he waited had really nice chairs, WIFI, drinks and his charge cord. So... he wasn't totally bored.

All in all it was a great impromptu date night, yes I am totally calling a date night.

We are rocking this 2019 adventurous date night goal of ours!