guess who is .....

HAVING A BABY!!

My little sister Brooke is preggers. It is her first, I am so excited for both Brooke & Brett. They are gonna have the cutest kids, how do I know?

I had to dig this out of the photo archives, I don't think they were even engaged here.

They are gonna be the best parents. How do I know??

They are the Best Aunt AND Uncle. They are always super fun for the kids. I sure hope this baby doesn't take up tooo much attention. he he

They'll play with the kids for hours, but I still remember as soon as Sadie screamed or cried she handed her right back to mommy. Oh I can't wait to see her with a crying baby of her own.

Brooke is gonna be a great mom. I remember when she was visiting in NY & we made her push Sadie in the stroller (she was kinda nervous) ok it was New York. I wanted to see if she had the baby itch.

I can't wait to see her cute lil preggo belly. I really can't believe she kept the baby secret from me for sooo long. After all when I saw her in August I tried to get it out of her, I suspected she was but alas she said NOPE. I persisted and harassed her Lindsay even joined in, and then I even confessed that I was barely pregnant. She said congrats. So there you have it I came out and announced my baby news first only to be burned later on when she tells me she is a month ahead of me. What a girl! I still can't believe she did that to me come on right ya gotta spill your secrets to your sister right? Oh well I can't help but be so happy for them and now our little ones will be a month apart. She is due in March & me in April, making me 18 weeks and her 23 weeks. Yeah. We are excited!

the fun mom

Hmmm if this kid could remember her life so far what would she remember?
I remember when I was little & dreamed of being a mom one day, (I'm sure I'm not the only one right?) I was sure I would be the "fun mum." I envisioned a constant laughter in the home, dirty kids who played outside all day with me, the housework would still get done because it would be so fun to do together, grocery shopping would be an adventure and we would stop for suckers or ice cream, my husband would come home and adore me and the children, supper would be full of fun conversation, new beautiful artwork would cover the fridge, my kids would be best friends. At the end of the day they would happily run to bed exhausted and anticipate tomorrows new adventure.
So if you can believe it my motherhood dream has slightly changed. It's not as dreamy and glamorous as I once imagined, but I do love it. Many days are spent doing the routine life things and I forget to make laundry and bathroom cleaning exciting.

I read Alysha's post a while back & it made me think it can be fun for everyone when you say YES to your kids instead of no. When I think of my childhood I must have had a lot of yes' from my mom, and now I have a bazillion fun memories. To name a few: trick or treating in the summer, dying my hair with kool -aid, getting seriously covered in mud, painting my room, drawing on my walls, jumping off the roof onto the tramp. My mom maybe didn't knowingly say yes to all of them, but it all turned out ok. Would I say yes to every desire of a 2 year old? Nope. But some times the price ya pay to be the cool/fun mom real isn't that bad. I'm afraid the steaks will get higher too soon. So a messy face, kitchen clean up, maybe a bath it's totally worth it.





Don't even start with the fun dad business. Does it not seem that Dads do all the fun stuff? Ryan took Sadie to the movies and a little lunch date. How fun is that? I was feeling slightly left out, until I took off & enjoyed the afternoon to myself, & I remembered Sadie & I do fun stuff together all the time, it's just mixed in with the diaper changes, grocery shopping and all that stuff.

All Halloweened Out

Wasn't Halloween soo much fun? A little late, almost too late to put up Halloween pics, but here there are anyway. I took Sadie out before Halloween and we had a photo shoot in her costume, she totally loved it. Really she just thought we were on a great nature walk, it was fun. Can I have too many pictures of her dressed up?








I do feel like after looking around in the blog world that bumble bee was costume of the year. Maybe I noticed a lot because Sadie was one, but whatev it was still pretty stinking cute. I guess if I wanna be one of a kind I better get back to the homemade costumes. It's a good thing she LOVED her costume because she wore it out a few different times during the week.

Playgroup Halloween Party

Church Party

weeeeee, this was worth the wait.

Met Alysha and kids at the mall for round 1 of trick or treating

The real deal. She loved it, except the spooky houses in the neighborhood.

I do love that as long as Sadie's treats are outta sight she doesn't even ask for them, but dang it I know exactly where they are. I'm glad she didn't get too much candy for moi.
What's with it everyone is so glad Halloween is over and is all getting ready for Christmas. Yikes! Isn't it like 2 months away. Maybe I'll get the Christmas crafty bug or something, look out.

Halloweenie Week Begins

It's been forever since I've carved a pumpkin for Halloween. It was a good time. It's fun to get into the festivities of the season, especially now that Sadie is old enough to care. She was super excited about the whole thing. What a weird but fun thing to do.

Who wouldn't be excited to see all the pumpkin guts?

It took a teeny bit of convincing but she did a little scooping.

Then I took the baby pumpkin and let her "do it." I think it was a good alternative to handing her a knife and she made her own face.

The whole thing didn't take to long as you can see, she is so brimming with excitement. No sugar yet, I promise. I think she is gonna get CRAZY this Halloween, (not really but maybe crazy for her).

We went and took Halloween pictures outside today & she LOVED her costume. I'm so glad I did because we should be getting some white stuff on the ground and with that the cold comes. Okay I wasn't going to here is a sneak peek of the bumble bee and her ladybug friend.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

how glad am I?

Isn't everybody so happy that the snow came & LEFT before I even bothered digging out ALL the winter gear. It's always fun to see how long we can put this off for. Sadie on our new deck, I never got a chance to show off our newly finished backyard. Yeah for grass, a deck, and a husband that did it all....with the help of his dad and our neighbor.

Isn't this great? This girl finds a way to get into the drawers and is happy to decorate the house with lovely post its and sticky tabs. She has become a master of getting into what she wants with her stool maneuvering skills.

How much is Sadie loving to colour? Oh she asks to colour all the time, she just loves it. Of course she loves colouring in a big huge book with her cousins too. Look at the way she buries her head getting soo close to her masterpieces.

How THRILLED am I that Sadie is starting to eat a few new to her foods sometimes. And really loving that Ryan is home for supper too.

How awesome is it that this kid just pulls out all sorts of poses for the camera, usually some big cheeser grins

How much do I LOVE her brown eyes AND blond hair. again the posing.

Some days I am just so glad that this girl will still take a nap. She's never been a dream at napping so clearly I take what I can get. She often fights the crib or a bed(it's too fun), or the clock (4:00 is too late to begin a nap), or the whole thing.

How glad am I NOT that
Sadie is so into dressing herself some days.
She loves to get her hair done like 3 times a day. We put some "ponies" in and then she takes them out, and repeat, repeat repeat. Oh, I am so NOT complaining about doing her hair though.
I have created a sewder (soother) obsessed and yankit(blanket) loving little girl. I 'm mostly fine with her growing up, but that means ditching the soother sooner than later right?
Also not looking forward to potty training, really trying to pump myself up for this one. I think she is ready, but am I?

Rewind

I can't not do a post about our getaway to Tofino. So here I go way back, when the sun was shining and shorts were a definite option. Don't get me wrong life is still good, but I don't think I'm the only one scrambling for warm coats and wondering where those fall days went. I must say there are a lot of pics here so scroll quickly or not at all.
We stopped to visit Ryan's Aunt Vicky, who lives in a beautiful place. Her house is right on the ocean it is truly amazing. Coming from the city where I walk into my backyard and see into all 5 of my neighbors yard it is really refreshing and breathtaking. We looked out and all we saw was blue ocean and mountains, and all we heard was birds, seals honking, and waves rolling in.

There was some real 2 year old attitude coming out already.

We went to Coombs also known as the Goats on the Roof Town.

Always a joker. She just knew this was funny and would get a laugh from everyone, except from Ryan.

Going to any beach is amazing, especially one by the ocean. The beauty of going to a beach in Canada is it is so not crowded, go figure.

We did a couple of little hikes while we were out there. It was really neat to walk into such luscious green forests. We went on a whale watching tour where we saw so many animals; tons of grey and humpback whales, bear, dolphins, seals, and sea lions, really awesome. The boat took us to a remote island where we hiked in to a ridiculously hot hot spring.

I don't think she could be more excited to be in Cathedral Grove. It is an awesome rain forest with huge trees that are hundreds of years old.

Sunset on Chestemere Beach

I just love that she fell asleep on his shoulders.

Best Buddies. It was fun to have a friend for Sadie to play with while we were there. Even though sometimes it just meant someone else's toys to steal.

I just think she looks so grown up here

Thanks to the Dahl family for coming out with us. We had so much fun!

little man, big whale

I have my camera back and I am seriously overwhelmed by the sheer number of pictures I took while out at Tofino. We saw some amazing things, but this may have been the most entertaining.
This is out on our whale watching tour, this was in a tiny cove just off the great big ocean. We saw many whales, but this was the only man in his teeny tiny boat in the big wide ocean trying to prove something....

They really are a different type those islanders and you can see it took him a minute to really react. We just watched sure that he was gonna get flipped, he was pretty dang close.
Yes, I know I am a nerd for blogging this, but I'd rather be that nerd than the idiot in the boat. hmm?