Christmas Tree light up 2011

Megan told us that she would like to go see them light up the city tree this year.  Since we missed last year we went this year.  Unfortunately I forgot the camera so we didn't capture any photos of us freezing outside. 

There was a little stage set up with singers, Santa was also there and some other media people.  It actually took us awhile to notice where the tree was set up.  I kept asking Spencer where is the tree?  At first I thought that they might be going more "green" and not chopping down a tree but finally it caught my eye.  It actually looked kinda spindly but it is 70 feet tall with over 10,000 lights.  So once they flipped the switch it looked really nice.  Then immediately afterwards there were fireworks that we enjoyed and then we promptly walked into city centre mall to warm up and start to head to the van. 

Did I mention that it was -27 degrees out! Ya, we might be a little nuts.  But this is the official start to our Christmas celebrations....

Cowboy Day

This is as good as it gets in our house when the children are celebrating the Canadian Finals Rodeo.  They got to dress up in western wear for the last part of the school day on Wednesday a couple of weeks ago. 

YeeHaw!

Old Country Fair

This past weekend was going to be a whirlwind of activity and excitement, unfortunately sickness reared its ugly head and I was out for the count of about 24 hours.  Thanks for Spencer for taking some time off work to help with childcare as someone forgot to tell the sick monster that MOMs DON'T GET SICK!  So I was in bed for much of Friday and we had to cancel our date night and hang out at home. 
Well by Saturday I was feeling much better and so tired of doing nothing and I needed to stretch my legs....so after our chores were done we headed out to Churchill square to the Old Time Country Fair.  Now the weather wasn't too bad.  We did get a light dusting of snow, but with boots and coats and some toques (winter hats) and mitts we were fine, remember we do live in Canada these items of clothing are a must.

 

Here is Spencer, Evan and Megan standing beside an old time fire truck.

 Here is Megan putting in some muscle to make the bell ring.  You really had to give it quite a whack.

Here is Evan knocking down the monsters. 

Here is Aaron playing with some animals that were walking around the square. 

The downtown farmer's market was also set up there in some warm tents.  There was free face painting and balloon animals (the balloon line was too long) but we all got our faces painted more like air brushed, it was fast and fun.  Aaron and Evan got Tigers,  Megan a dragon, Spencer got a spider and web and I chose a butterfly. 

They also had a wagon ride that we enjoyed and they had some fires going to warm up by and they provided some marshmellows to roast.  In order to fully enjoy our time we had to get some mini doughnuts to enjoy and warm us up.

Our Night of Ghost and Ghoblins....

We had a wonderful Halloween this year.  I think that the nice weather really helped and that our children can now go a bit longer trick or treating.

We started our Halloween off by decorating a spooky house, then later in the week we made some finger puppets with a Halloween theme of course. 

(Sorry for the sideways picture but here is the finished product)

Our tradition is to always carve our pumpkins for FHE before Halloween.  Which is what we did.  I bought our pumpkins earlier in the week and made Spencer proud when I found the biggest and best ones I could.  In our family we each get to carve a pumpkin....it just cuts down on the arguements and we love to have a nice selection to show off come Halloween night.   I am a master carver and helped Evan carve his pumpkin in no time.  We left Megan to go-it-alone and she had a lot to do by herself so she actually just got the top cut off and decided on a design that night.  I helped her by scooping out the insides and tracing her pattern on the pumpkin.  The next day she carved most of the pumpkin by herself.  Spencer helped Aaron...it took awhile but the results were worth the wait.  I actually didn't carve our (adult) pumpkin until Sunday of the following week.  Just too busy. But it only took about 1/2 an hour start to finish.  I love the smell of a lit pumpkin.  Megan suggested that I add cinnamon to the pumpkin and it will smell like a pumpkin pie with the candle going....yummy...next year we'll give that one a try. 

Our carving results...

A mummy, two different faces, and a cat.
Here are our costumes....

Here is my Megan dressed as her ipod nano standing beside Hermonie from Harry Potter (her school friend).  I even sprayed her hair purple, what you can't see is the play/menu button behind her bag and on the back the apple symbol with the word iPod.  She loved it.

Here is Evan as a firefighter minus the hat (it kinda gets annoying he says) we used this costume last year too.   Next year I'm pretty sure that he'll be harder to please.  When I saw costumes come on sale at costco I asked him if he wanted to be one of those ones this year.  But in the middle of August who is thinking about halloween.  Not him.  Aaron of all things....we miss placed his costume when it came time to trick or treat.  I couldn't find his tigger outfit anywhere?...how do you lose a halloween costume?  So I was ready to go out while the sun was still up and so were the boys, so thank goodness we had this pumpkin hat and an orange coat and a bag with a pumpkin face on it.  So that worked out ok.  In the end he didn't care what he was he just wanted to go trick or treating.

Our ward held a trunk or treat at the church.  There were lots of fun games and activities then the trunk or treating.  This year we handed out bags of chips.  The kids got a nice little haul...enough to get started with anyways. 

Megan went out trick or treating with a school friend and had a good time.  She got quite the haul and five bucks to boot!

I went out with Evan and Aaron around 5:45pm just around our complex.  It takes so long for Aaron to walk to each house....he was so excited to use his flashing lights bag and he loves to see what kind of candy was given.  With just the three of us going around to houses we had to say "trick-or-treat" a few times and loudly so people could hear us.  We went back to our house with the boys bags full.  Then Spencer took them out again to some houses that are close by.  By this time Evan was being pushed in our stroller and Aaron was the trooper and walked the whole way.  He is definately our big boy.

This is Evan's candy.  Imagine Aaron's added to this.  Yikes!  We let our kids enjoy some of their candy that night, then we let them select about 10 pieces that they can eat and the rest goes into our movie night bucket.  As our children love not only popcorn but a little candy as well when they watch a movie. 

Thanksgiving and Birthday Celebrations!

We had a wonderful and full thanksgiving.  My parents came up to share in our festivities along with my sister and her little brood and my brother and his family from the city joined in as well.   We loved having everyone over and are glad that they all put up with our small space. 

I cooked a turkey and ham and some veggies and everyone else brought the rest to fill out our thanksgiving dinner. 

The weather was so nice that after our dinner we decided to go for a walk around gold park park.  Then we came home and enjoyed some yummy pumpkin muffins and some slightly undercooked apple pie. 


On Sunday we celebrated my birthday.  I turned the big 33 this year.

My sister made a surprise cake....yup, she made me a rainbow cake!  I've seen this done before and I've wanted to make one, I will someday.  My sister put alot of time and prep into this cake and it turned out great and tasted fantastic.  One thing to note...Duncan Hines is the preferred icing over Betty crocker. 

I received some great gifts.  Megan did this drawing for me.  Later I asked her to color it which she did and it really makes it stand out even more.  I think she looks like me don't you?  Maybe it's me in Japanimation....

My mother gave me a white blanket that the kids have prompted taken over.  I once called them polar bears when they were wearing it.  So now it will be known as "polar bear, polar bear" blanket.

My sister (and brother in law) is so good to me as she listened carefully to things that we often talk about on the phone.  I told her about a cookbook that I was interested in at Costco and she got it for me.  It is the Quinoa cookbook;  She also got me a package of Quinoa to go with it.  I was thinking that I would become like that movie "Julie & Julia" and try every recipe.  If I do that I will post my results and updates.

My hubby is also very good to me.  I told him that I was thinking about cancelling my gym membership and just staying home to exercise since we already have a treadmill.  The gym lifestyle just doesn't fit my lifestyle anymore.  But in order for me to do this I was thinking about getting a small tv for just in front of the treadmill that I would be able to watch effortlessly.  I really enjoy it.(I now run for my 30 minutes without feeling much pain.)   So he jumped right on it and we also ended up getting a new tv for the family as well.  Welcome to the 21st Century!  Now we are living a little higher life.  Spencer enjoys the tv for all the neat things that they can do now.  I just enjoy being able to watch a tv without having to whack it to get the picture back.  It's a much more enjoyable experience. 

Lots of love and celebration this thanksgiving weekend!

Loose tooth...

I don't know why it bugs me so much when my child is about to lose a tooth.   Maybe it is because of this....

She did lose this tooth that she had been wiggling all week.  It is now no big deal when a tooth comes out, thank goodness.  The tooth fairy did eventually find her.  Can I just say that with inflation the tooth fairy might need some other financial backing to continue to do her job for all the other little boys coming up.  

Saint or Sinner....

Don't judge us...

 On Sunday our kids were feeling sick, so I stayed home with them.  It was such a beautiful day that we did need to get out.....can I help it that the city of Edmonton wanted to thank all those who use and enjoy the city recreation facilities/venues.  So we decided to go the the Muttart Conservatory.  It is a nice place to visit.  It was just recently re-done and what they added makes it a nice place to sit and enjoy.  We visited each of the four pyramids and enjoyed each "zone": tropical, moderate, temperate and a show pyramid that was filled with all shades of pink flowers in honor of breast cancer awareness.
 

Here we are in the tropical zone. 

There were a few nice little water features, this one was a little water fall behind us. They had some fish ponds as well. 

In the atrium there was an art display and the calligraphy group from the city that was printing names.  So the kids each had their names done fancy. 

Afterwards we headed outside and the kids loved running up and down the hills and finding the apples that they had on the trees outside.  There were a few more wonderful flower beds outside that I wandered around to enjoy. 

We enjoyed ourselves and all of Heavenly Fathers creations that we don't usually get to see most of all we enjoyed being together as a family...sick or not.