Pumpkins

Leanne and I carved our pumpkins Friday night. Here are a few pictures of them.

Oh, and for those of you that don't live around here. Guess what we woke up to this morning...almost a foot of snow! As much as I'm not one for the cold weather, I have to admit that it was an absolutely beautiful sight to see first thing this morning. It's not even terribly cold out. I think it's between 0 and -5. Anyways, it's getting me very excited for christmas...as a matter of fact I'm going to go into Calgary with Jon's mom tomorrow and finish my christmas shopping. That's right, I said finish. I try to buy a little bit every month starting in like July. Our family is getting so big that it's near impossible to buy all the gifts in the last 2 months. We'd either be bankrupt, or everyone would be getting a gift worth no more than $10 each. I enjoy doing it a little at a time, and it's also ways less hectic in the month of Dec. it leaves me more time to bake those millions of cookies.

I Remembered!!

Well, we went to the Calgary Climbing Center on Sunday and I remembered to bring my camera this time. So here are the pictures of Brielle climbing as promised. She did even better than last time, and once again made it right to the top. Oh, and I found out the walls are 40 feet high not 30. Her Nana is the one climbing beside her in that picture. We went to the climbing center with Jon's family. His Mom and Dad were there, along with Adam, Leanne, Stacey, and Grandma Giesbrecht. It was great fun. Almost everyone climbed.

Anniversary Week

Tis the week for Anniversaries. My Mom and Dad's 30th anniversary was on Monday, and Jon's Mom and Dad's 27th anniversary is today.
Congratulations you guys. I think it's GREAT that you've been married this long and as Kelly said on her blog..."are still holding hands". God Bless you in the next 27/30 years.

Fun in the Park

Ha, Ha. I just love this picture.

It looks like we hung Micah up in a tree.

Jon and the kids were having fun. He was throwing them as high as he could, and they were loving every minute of it.

Micah is wearing Jon's sweater from when he was a little boy, and Brielle is wearing Jon's brother Adam's sweater. Isn't that awesome! Jon and Adam's Great Aunt's made those sweaters. I think that is so cool.

I love hand-me-downs.

SNOW!!!

Can you believe it??? Yesterday morning I pulled the blinds up on the window only to see snow. Of course...since this is Calgary weather, it was gone in the afternoon yesterday but it's back once again this morning. Man oh man...I don't feel ready for the cold winter days yet.

Thanksgiving

I'm sorry that I don't have any pictures of our Thanksgiving weekend, but it was great. On Sunday we had a wonderful Thanksgiving meal at my Mom and Dad's house. My mom had said that she wasn't going to go all out with dinner this year. She'd said that she was going to keep it simple...well...apparently simple in her mind includes Turkey, Stuffing, Cranberries, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, broccoli salad (by me), really good veggies (compliments of my Grandma Ivy), buns, OH and ham. I think that's it for supper, then there was dessert...she made 3 different kinds of pie. We had the worlds best pumpkin pie, apple pie and lemon meringue pie and some pumpkin cookies that I made. I'll have to post that recipe...they were really good.
Then on Monday night we went to Jon's mom and dad's house for supper. It was also a full turkey meal. However, I made the pumpkin pie for dessert. It actually turned out pretty good. I was terrified that it was going to be horrible. It was my first time EVER making a pie of any kind. It turned out to be a pretty close replica of my moms pie though. We also had home made cinnamon buns thanks to Brian (a friend of Jon's parents) for coffee later in the evening. I don't think I should eat anything other than salad for the next few days. Well, that was our thanksgiving weekend. How about all of you? Did you all get to enjoy Turkey dinners or did you feast on something else?

BOYS!!!!!!

What is it with boys??? I went into Micah's room to get him out of his bed this morning and found him completely bottomless. He'd taken off his diaper and was laying there in nothing but his pajama shirt. I felt around his bed to make sure it wasn't wet...you know, a baby without a diaper = problem! No wetness was to be found..Phew I thought. I found the diaper, and it wasn't ONLY a wet one. Luckily for me, he didn't think it would be fun to play with this unknown brown stuff. Anyways, I got him dressed and brought him downstairs for some breakfast. As we're sitting there eating breakfast Brielle goes upstairs to Micah's room to get herself some underwear. She comes downstairs moments later asking who made the wet on the floor. Moron...how could I have failed to check the floor for accidents. I suppose I'm used to little girls. If there's an accident it's directly beneath them. Apparently Micah has now figured out that it's fun to stand up and pee off the edge of things. I have a sneaking suspicion that this isn't going to be the last time that I have to clean his bodily fluids off the floor. Gross.

Girls will be girls

When my sister Kelly and I were little we used to always pretend that we were Annie and the orphans living with Miss Hanigan. We used to pretend that our older sister Jen was Miss Hanigan (without her knowing it), and when we heard her coming we'd say "Quick, Miss Hanigan's coming" and we'd climb out the basement windows and run into the back alley. Quite the imagination we had, it was always a lot of fun. Well, not to long ago I found the movie on DVD and picked up a copy for myself and Kelly. It turns out that Brielle loves to watch this movie as much as Kelly and I did when we were little (and still do now). Just 5 minutes ago I heard her downstairs playing with Micah, saying to him "We love you Miss Hanigan". A quote from the movie. My niece also likes this movie and was heard saying "Leaping Lizards"...very funny coming out of the mouth of a 2 year old.
I find it funny how even though the toys have changed dramatically. Life as a child isn't much different than it was when we were little. Children still rely on their imaginations as their prime source of entertainment, and I think it's important to encourage this sort of play. It's also quite entertaining for us adults.

My wonderful husband!!!

Yesterday was Jonathan's 24th birthday. I kinda spoiled him rotten this year and I LOVED doing it! A good month ago we were walking through the mall and saw that Boutique of Leathers was having a 50% off sale on everything in their store. We were looking around and I made Jon try on a few jackets. I ended up getting him a really nice brown leather jacket. He thought that that was all I was going to do for him for his birthday...but he was oh so wrong. I asked my mom and dad if they would be able to keep the kids over night from Sunday - Monday. They were able to which was great. So Sunday after we got family pictures done with my whole family (which we hadn't had done in almost 10 years.), we headed into Calgary. I reserved a hotel room at Wingate Inn, which I highly recommend to everyone. The room was huge. It was a big L shaped room with a kitchenette, table and chairs, desk, hide-a-bed, big chair and ottoman, King sized bed, and a bathroom the size of most bedrooms. There was a big jacuzzi tub and extra large shower, it was great. They had a bottle of wine and wine glasses in our room when we got there, and chocolate (how could you go wrong?). Also they had bathrobes for us to use, and all kinds of bubble bath, bath salts, etc. Anyways, I took Jon to Red Lobster for supper then we headed back to the hotel and played in the pool and hot tub. There was a crazy waterslide there that you couldn't help but go extremely fast down. We had a good evening. Monday we watched some T.V. in bed before we headed off to Chinook mall. We pretty much just wandered around the mall for awhile, did a bit of shopping, played a TON of arcade games and at 3:30pm we went to see the movie "The Guardian". I definitely recommend this movie. It was well worth watching in the theaters. After this we went to Jons parents house for a great supper, and that concluded Jon's birthday surprise. He enjoyed every minute of it. I have a wonderful husband, who loves me more than I could ever explain to anyone and I just hope that he knows that I love him just as much.