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?

She's 2

Wowee Sadie turned 2 this last week. Happy Birthday Sadie. She loved it all, especially the fact that some celebrating got spread out from her birthday to the weekend. She is full of twotitude. I still laugh a little at the 2 year old tantrums. You know when her arms start flailing and her wrists go floppy, and the screaming crying begins, but mostly they are gonna get old real quick.
On her birthday we had a fun play date with some friends and Sadie loved the "pardee, take, bawoons"
On Saturday we had both her grandparents here and Lindsay came and brought Alli & James too. The party was a hit.


The kids went on a little treasure hunt, they loved it. It was just what they could handle and enough running around to burn a some energy. Here there are looking for clues and then finding the treasure. As fun as it is in my head to go all out for birthday parties, I know myself & it's hard to go to crazy when I usually leave it to the last minute, and really it's all the same to a two year old. Low expectations means less disappointment right? So for now I am all about less is better.

At first I was shocked that they were really listening to me, awaiting the 1st clue.

Sadie at 2 in a few words or less.

She is still tiny to me, I carry her around probably more than the average 2 year old I'm sure. I guess that is the perk of only being 22lbs. She is quite a little chatterbox at times, and can request all sorts of crazy things. If she sees ketchup she must have it, she insists on cold fridge water right before bed (yes she knows the difference, I tried). I'm starting to lose the what to wear battle on some days. Breakfast is her best meal of the day, she actually eats it! She gives a good cheesy smile when she wants to. She hates getting her teeth brushed, it's a funny little game she plays to avoid it. If Ryan is home she almost always insists he reads to her and puts her to bed. She loves to colour. She loves her little people and her baby. Her lack of hair and her not even wanting me to touch it stresses me out some days, lame I know. She loves the little friends she has to play with. What more can I say she is growing up more everyday and we love everything about her.

First of all......

CONGRATULATIONS!It's official.

We were there to witness the whole thing. Yipee

Ryan is officially a real lawyer. I couldn't be more proud. What a ride! It was only 5 years ago we got married & he was finishing his B.A in Economics and then applying to law school. Look at us now. I'm gonna try not to brag.. like my husband is better than yours and it gets annoying and old real fast. For real though Ryan is a ridiculously hard worker, loves to do a job well (as in perfect), he is always willing to help out, he likes to learn and take on challenges, he is well liked - probably because he almost never turns down a work assignment. They said a lot of good stuff at his bar call and I won't lie it was nice to hear it all. I'm glad I am a part of his accomplishments. The bar call was neat and very official and so it marks the end of an era.
So just a few changes in our life. I like to think I do okay at enjoying each stage in our life (even when we were poor and students -cause looking back that was really fun sometimes). I don't like to wish it all away, thinking life will be better when we have a house, a yard, a kid, real job, no debts, yummier food to eat, more money, the list goes on right? Ryan just finished his year of articling at a law firm. I knew what we signed up for when he started working there, but there were nights I wondered if we could both really keep doing it. I mean the continual suppers we ate alone. Some days we both were counting down the days till this articling year was done, and hoped it would be different when he was a real lawyer. It was a large firm that where he worked on some interesting and challenging deals, but it was also very demanding as far as hours and weekends. He basically didn't have control over when he worked and they wanted him to work a lot. What can I say my husband is a good worker and he does love it.
We also like to spend time together which was tricky to balance. It was when his firm sent us to work in New York that we really realized spending time with family is so important and what we want and you just can't get those precious years back. He loved waking up and playing with Sadie and coming home for supper and being there for bedtime. Our life while we were there was definitely not completely normal but the time we spent together was amazing and we just craved that. So we have made the decision to leave the firm he was at.

He will be partnering up with another lawyer that he has known for a while. Ryan C just started his own firm this last year. This comes with a lot of changes and some uncertainties but we are both excited for the opportunity. They are both very ambitious and dedicated to making a great law practice.

Here he is with his new partner Ryan C and Meghann & I.

I LOVE this picture of these 2.

And I love this little series of Sadie.

What do ya know. He doesn't really start work till next week so he is off on a little golfing excursion. Aren't I the best, to just tell him to go off and enjoy it. He already called and felt a little bad for leaving us behind, I'm sure it was just a weak moment and he will have a great time.

We went on a little vacation out to Tofino a couple a weeks ago & we had a great time. I of course took my camera and tried to capture some of the beauties of nature, and of our fun family time. I think I did just that. We came home and I left my camera there, fortunately I should be getting it back sometime soon. I'll stop neglecting an update and share a pic of these 2 sleeping beauties from awhile back.

These 2 did not want to be put down for separate naps, but eventually they played themselves out. I can't think of anything sweeter. I may have even had a little snooze myself. I can't think of anything better than napping on the couch with them.

This was Sunday where 5 mins before Ryan said, " do you think Sadie is done with napping?"
NOPE! We love our Sunday naps and relaxin time. She thinks she is getting too big for her crib, and pretty much insists on sleeping in the spare bed sometimes. As long as she sleeps it's fine by me.