Spencer Convocates

 

Hooray.  Spencer passed his CA exam and all his requirements to become a CA (Chartered Accountant).  After all the hard work, sacrifice, time and effort it is all finished.  As a means of having some closure and after my encouragment Spencer decided to convocate.  It is a very time honored tradition for the CA profession as they have their own set way to do it.  All the new CA's get the opportunity to be introduced to the president of the CA association of Alberta, by another CA.  So Spencer had his one of his bosses introduce him.  They get to give a 2 minute introduction and go up on stage.  The highlight for us was that Spencer actually got his CA certificate that day as we walked across the stage. 

Of course it was a good idea at the time to bring our kids along to see Dad complete the whole school process and to see him graduate.  They saw him study, go to school, do homework, take tests all along the way so we thought it would be a good experience to see the end product.  It was a long day to say the least.  The ceremony started at 8am, Spencer had to be there early, we all drove together so we were up and out of the house earlier than a school day and this was on a Saturday and had to be dressed up!  I packed some snacks and things to do to help keep the kids quite.  That didn't last as long as I would have liked, but with a few bathroom breaks we lasted mostly the whole morning.  The ceremony lasted about 2.5 hours.  Yikes!  Hopefully the kids will remember something positive about it. 

 Here we are very early in the morning for a Saturday and all dressed up to boot!

 

 Here we are sitting in our seats waiting for it to start.  Everyone is still in good spirits. 

 

 Here are my boys toward the end of the 2 plus hours of being at the Winsper center.  It was best for everyone that we were outside in the lobby. 

Later that night there was a fancy dinner celebration for all the graduates and thier special guests.  As part of the ceremony all the CA graduates were Piped in.  Spencer's parents were able to be there to help us celebrate.  The theme was Hollywood and the Shaw Conference Center was decorated very nicely.  There was a delicious dinner and dancing later that evening.  Since it was a very early day we didn't stay too long after dinner and dessert were served.  But we did get a fun picture of the two of us dressed up in front of a theater with a movie theme.  I'll have to have Spencer scan it for me sometime. 

The rest of February

Here are some of the other highlights from the month of February:

 It was a beautiful warm winter day and after church to help keep the kids occupied we suggested that they could build a snowman in the backyard. They weren't too keen on the idea but Spencer was....and here is his snowman.  He has since been reduced to about half due to the warmer temperatures. 

For Valentine's Day I had signed up Aaron for a class at the valley zoo.  So here is his listening to information about animals and touching various objects and animals. 

 This is the wing of a female peacock. 

 Here he is petting a rooster that has beautiful reddish coloring and his red comb.

 

 

Here he is touching an armadillo. 

 He made this elephant craft and he also made a "stink bomb"  which is an enrichment toy for some of the animals.  It was made up of a piece of an old sheet filled up with sheep's wool (smelly) with other scented oils added to that (orange, peppermint) and tied up with twine.  We visited the lemurs and learned a little bit about them then we had time to wander around the zoo for ourselves. 

Who should we meet on our wanderings?......that's right Lucy the elephant was out for a stroll so we got an up close view and picture of her.  Aaron enjoyed being with other kids in a learning environment. 


 Evan lost his first tooth.  Hallelujah!  It was wiggly for quite sometime and starting to bother him.  He finally, after some advice from his older sister on what it is like to pull out your tooth, got brave enough to pull out his own tooth!  The tooth fairy did eventually find him and gave him a shiny "loonie" after stumbling upon one that she didn't need for grocery shopping. 

 On Family Day since we all had the day off we headed to the provincial museum which was very busy and crowded but still worth the effort.  Above is a picture of one of the rocks in the rock and mineral exhibit. 

 Here is Evan in the dinosaur exhibit.  We also enjoyed seeing all the other exhibits again and the new exhibit of Inuit dolls. 

 The kids had teachers convention at the end of the month so we went to the zoo.  It was a nice day to be outside.  Who should we happen to see again?.....that's right Lucy!  Boy she gets some good exercise and outside time. 

Here we are taking a short break and watching the tortoises and lemurs.  The Edmonton zoo is very different than the Calgary zoo.  It only takes us about 1 hour to see all there is to really see especially in the winter time.  We had a nice time together and it was a good way to spend some of the day. 

 On another day Aaron and I went to play at the John Janzen Nature center at the indoor play space.  They also happened to be feeding some of the reptiles while we were there.  So he felt a garter snake. 

He also touched a salamander and then watched as they tried to feed it a worm.  This boy is pretty brave to touch so many different animals and reptiles. 

 

Happy Valentines Day!

What a successful day we had yesterday as we celebrated valentines day.  I woke up a little later than I wanted to in the morning but already had in mind what we were having for breakfast.  French toast sticks with syrup, whipped cream and strawberries or Nutella; bacon and chocolate milk to drink.  Yummy. 

The kids got a little treat bag with a few goodies/surprises from mom and dad.  A chocolate marshmallow heart, conversation hearts, cinnamon hearts, colored bubbles, hugs and kisses, then Megan got some new love-y hand lotion and some lip scrub and the boys got some mini hockey sticks to play with carefully inside. 

For lunch they got left over pizza, strawberries, heart shaped praeventia cookies, chocolate pudding, a juice and carrots. 


The kids took some red licorice to share with their classmates and these were their valentines. 

 

 

After some convincing Spencer got me this for Valentines day and Mothers day.....

 

 

Sweet! I'm so excited now I can make real drinks with crushed ice in them.  Also soups and ice cream.  This little baby will be delivered to my house soon.  He also surprised me with a dozen roses.  The boys at work were bugging him that he got me a blender for valentines day.....a definite no no!  Thanks boys!

 

For dinner we had Tomato Basil Bisque Soup with Rye bread grilled cheese sandwiches and spinach salad.  Yummy again. 

 

What a happy day it was. 

Chinese New Year 2013

Of course we still do a little something for the Chinese New Year.  This year we visited the Muttart (Mutt -like a dog / Tart - with emphasis on tart).  They had a craft, music, a free jade plant to plant, and lovely displays.

 Here is the craft being made.  I thought it was suppose to be a hand catching "lucky" money.  But it is really suppose to be a tree and the gold dots the leaves.  The colors red and gold are lucky.

 Here are my 3 Buddhas. 

Yes, a snake to touch. All my kids did.  This year is the year of the snake, which is the year Spencer was born in so it will be a lucky year for him.  Hooray!

 Here I am with Aaron under an arched bench taking a break.

Here is Spencer with Evan and the dragon. 

In honor of Chinese New Year....I think that Chinese food would be a good choice.  Not the cheap junky kind that you regret later but real Chinese food from a chinese supermarket. 

Ice on Whyte

After a somewhat busy Saturday we decided to do something together as a family.  So we decided to go to the Ice on Whyte festival.  With 2 coupons to reduce cost the whole family got in for $10 that put us in a happy mood and then we found pretty good parking on the street by the festival so we were doing all right.  Unfortunately we parked at the wrong end and ended up walking all the way around to access the one entrance.  Oh well, it was a nice night out. 

It was fun to see the ice carvers in action.  They were using all sorts of tools like an iron.  There were some really neat sculptures and carvers from around the world who took part.  Then what the kids loved the most....ice slides.  There was one huge one with like 6 different slides that had lights under it so it glowed at night, which looked awesome.  They each took turn after turn trying out the different slides. 

 

They also had fire pits to warm up by and an inside tent that we stopped by so we could warm up.  This year they had a fantastic children's area with lots more shorter slides and short line ups so the kids played around for another 30-45 minutes there. 

It was past dinner by the time we were done so we stopped and ate at McDonalds.  I have to put my foot down.  I'm sick of eating there.  Let's face it --- the only reason that we do is because I know the kids will eat what is on the menu, they're everywhere, and its cheap (in every sense of the word).  But with bellies full and a chance to burn off some energy and being outside on a winter night -- by the time we got home the kids were either asleep or right ready for bed.  I love nights like that.

Evan's Play

The grade ones put on a play.  It was really cute.  It was called "The  Golden Goose".  All the kids had it memorized and they all played a part of some sort. They were all the narrators and then the actors/stage hand. 

If you feel like watching click below.  If not Evan did a good job as the King.  He told me one day earlier in the week that they had to dress up for the play; great since he has some nice choices with his church  clothes he was also mad a me one day and said that I couldn't go to watch his play.  Then the day of the play comes and he says he doesn't have to dress up....what?  he decides he would rather wert his lucky St. Patrick's Day t-shirt for good luck.  Ok.  He also wanted me to be there.  Spencer also made it.  I have to note that the school tricked us and rolled this play into one of their monthly assemblies; which they had a pretty good turn out for thanks to all the parents who wanted to watch their grade 1's in a play. 

Ringing in 2013

I forgot how much I loved getting ready for New Years.  I think I was pretty much done with all things Christmas and by Sunday the 30th I was disassembling the tree and packing up the decorations.  I was nice to move on to the next celebration. 

We actually started our celebrations in the early afternoon at the Muttart. They had a family fun masquerade ball, crafts, musical entertainment, balloon artist,face painting, pinatas etc. It wasn't too busy so the kids got their faces painted.

Evan's was the spray painted tattoo version.  That's the way to go.  Much faster. 

 There was pinata with candy and my kids got tons. They did two or three pinatas so they would come out and say where in the world it was close to midnight, we would count down and then start swinging at the pinata. 

 

 

Here is Evan's chunk of the pinata; it also served as our candy holder.

 

Here are our masks that we made for the theme of the day.  This is inside the show pyramid with all the poinsettias and nutcrackers/christmas theme. 

Last year we whimped out and didn't stay up to ring in the new year....the only brave soul was Megan and she didn't quite make it.  I felt bad about that and decided to do things right this year.  So after some research on Pinterest I found a few good ideas that I used to help keep the night going and fresh.  First off I decided to try my hand at making our own New Years Crackers.  So I scoured around to get some trinkets together and googled how to do it.  I'll be tweeking a few things for next year, but I really like the homemade version since you can customize it. 

 Here is what I put inside.  A homemade crown, noise maker, balloon, sucker, confetti paper, rubber worm, a joke and a fortune.  All of that got wrapped up in leftover christmas wrapping paper, with curling ribbon and I did buy the tab that you pull and it makes to popping sound (michaels).

Then we had our traditional fondue dinner.  It was really good this year; we did a cheese one with all the things to dip and then some. 

 

After clean up and starting at 7:00pm we started with our festivities.  I bought a 100 piece puzzle that was suppose to be on going throughout the night.  But everyone was working on it so it only lasted about 30 minutes. 

 

 

 

 Here is all the bags lined up waiting to be opened.  The activity and a small prize inside each bag. 

We had an All About Me questionnaire that they filled in, played games, dance party, movie and some Wii time.  They got some treats to eat and some small pokemon figures to play with.  It was fun to be together.  The final  bag held our glow necklaces and sparklers along with some hats.  Aaron didn't quite make it he lasted until 10pm.  No better way to ring in the new year than with those you love. 

PS Promptly after the celebration was finished we all went to bed.  Early the next morning Spencer and I got bundled up and went on our own resolution run.