Marathon Picture Post

I seem to always start out with an apology about how long it's been since I last posted and to ignore the overflow of pictures. But oh well, this post is the same. We've had a lot of fun and excitement with starting school and GRIT, etc. Here's what we've been up to.

Funny story: Madeline once heard me say that I had a frog in my throat. She replied by saying, "I have a bunny in my throat."

Ah the joys of owning a home. We had our dishwasher inspected because it's not draining properly but the appliance guy said it was a plumbing issue. So we had a plumber come and fix the drain pipe, but the dishwasher is still having the same problem. I called the appliance company to come look at it again (for FREE!) and they are closed for the entire month of September. Nice. Now we had our chimney cleaned and inspected and found out that the chimney needs to be extended almost 3 feet and the home inspector didn't tell us anything about that. So now we have another fight on our hands. I'm sure something else will go wrong soon.

We've had lots of meetings and appointments like the Malmo Annual General Meeting and eye check ups and Gymboree classes and meet the teacher nights, etc.

I might have mentioned this before, but if you are a stay at home parent, you can apply for a grant for approved childrens' programming. You can receive up to $100 per month per child so I use the money for Claire to go towards preschool and for Madeline, her Gymboree classes. Here's a link to the application online.


Ryan's been getting into golf a little bit more this summer. He's been a couple of times with my family and is enjoying it. Ryan's also been going swimming more often with Greg and Steph(s) and Natalie who have started their own lane swimming program.

Ryan's had a strange start to the year with the introduction of a teacher to the school (who had been on stress leave) who is supposed to "help" him in his French classes. It's really extra work for him because now he has to collaborate with her and implement some of her ideas and separate work out for her to do, etc. Hopefully she'll move over to another school soon so he can have his classroom back.

We had our first ward activity this weekend. A corn bust! The bishopric in our old ward hated corn busts for some reason, so this was our first one ever. It was fun. We all were to bring an international dish for the potluck and there were some very interesting and tasty things there.

On to the pictures!!!


Madeline loves Great Grandma's picture on the piano. She's always taking it down and putting it on the piano like a music book and playing "Great Grandma's song." She also likes to twirl around and dance with the picture. It makes me happy because we miss Grandma.


Here we are relaxing at Uncle Dan's annual golf tournament.


Madeline really got into the spray gun war and it was hilarious to watch.


Claire was smart to stay in the shade with Dad.


Val brought the girls back beautiful dresses from Tibet and here they are modeling them.


One night at Mom and Dad's we broke out the old records that we used to dance to as kids. Has anyone hear of Mousercise? It's a Mickey Mouse record with exercises for kids to do. So we turned our old school music and brought a new generation into the club by dancing with Maddie and Claire. It was so much fun!








Rob and Kyle slept over at our place before Sonic Boom. Here is Rob trying to add extra filling to his Twinkie. It didn't quite work out the way he had planned.


Here's Madeline and her new best friend, Kyle. He was sitting on the couch and she snuggled right up to him and put her arm around him. He said, "She's putting the moves on me!" Oh man, we're in trouble.


Here's the boys at Sonic Boom. Despite a crowd surfing fall and a sprained neck and damaged ear drums, they had a great day! I think it might become a yearly tradition.


Here's Madeline at Grandma and Grandpa Layton's house riding around on a trike. She loved it.


We tried out cousin Broc's quad (since he was in Calgary). Both the girls loved it!





Auntie Natalie (or Belinda) and Claire having fun in the sandbox.


We popped over to my parents house after being at Ryan's parents' house (it's nice to have them in the same city) and hung out with the fam. Included in this photo is Brandon, Steph's boyfriend.


We spent part of the long weekend Monday out at Payne's cabin. The weather became very lovely in the evening. I like this picture of us with Claire.


Madeline only had eyes for the bouncy castle/slide. She probably went down this literally a hundred times.


We hung out on the dock, enjoying the lake. Auntie Mel helped Madeline dip her toes in the water.


Ryan and I on the dock. It was a beautiful night.


Madeline and her new friend Nixon (from Nursery) learned how to share as they both tried to drive the boat. It was cute to watch them interact with each other!


These next few pictures are my attempt to get a good photo of the girls together. I gave up after awhile.








Claire started preschool! Here are some picture from her first day.

This is all the equipment that we had to take to Claire's school for her first day!!! This is definitely the story of our lives. Everytime we go anywhere, we have to anticipate every possibility and what she might need to help her do things.



Grandma did Claire's hair very fancy for her first day of school.


Here's myself, Madeline, Claire and Lisa - all ready for school!


Lisa and Claire, just before going in the classroom on the first day!


Claire loved the stations - especially playdough and the sand table. She's got these new Gator braces that Lisa straps on her legs and then helps her balance at the table, just like the other kids.


They have a fun park in the school yard with a teeter totter that Claire can sit on. It's a nice way to end the school day.


I was trying to take a nice picture of Madeline and I and she snuck in a funny face.


Grandma has come over lots to play with the girls. Here they are enjoying the lovely weather.



Claire started Little Bits again. Here she is in all her gear. The neck brace is a new one and seems to work a lot better than the soft foam one. She has a pillow in front of her, a gardening board for back support and two people to help her balance. It's quite a production but I think she really loves it. It's a great program!

Slackerooni

I have been a major blog slacker. This month has been a crazy one. So instead of catching up on housework, I'm doing a blog entry. Here's a recap:

Face squish!



Claire loves to stand and sometimes we can get her to do it for a little while - Ryan got her to dance with him for a few seconds the other day and it was so cute!



Even though we live far away now, our family still pops in for fun visits and to help us with babysitting. Mel stopped by one day and got Maddie all done up in her bandana.


To those who are about to rock, we salute you.



We had a fun date night with Thompsons & Jensens. Usually it's just the boys that go out, but we made a whole production of it this time and included the girls! Yay! We had a yummy Outback dinner and finally saw Harry Potter. It was lots of fun.

Here's Maddie and the Thompson boys enjoying superhero cartoons


I finished up all the dental work I needed done this month. It was nice to get it out of the way, but pretty sucky to get it done.

We've had about 5 furnace quotes this month and have finally settled on one. It's all very confusing with the rebates and the efficiency levels, etc. I've learned a lot from the different quotes though.

We also had James Johnson (a friend from our old ward) come over to do some plumbing work for us. Let me know if you need a good plumber and I'll give you his information!

We had some slave labour (family and friends) come over to help us plant our trees. They look great and hopefully will thrive again in the spring!








We've had lots of fun playing at the park(s) across the street.










We had my brothers and sisters come over for a badminton party but as soon as Ryan finished setting up the net, it poured rain. So we moved inside and had a hair-dying, hair-cutting party courtesy of Natalie!

The most exciting thing to happen this month was Kathy's wedding! It was a great occasion. Being the matron of honour I got to be a part of most everything - rehearsal, decorating, ceremony, pictures, reception. I only took a couple of pictures but you can check out some of the wedding preview pictures on this website - Chicks that Click.

Here's Ryan and I at the reception. We had so much fun dancing together. Kathy and Peter picked great songs.



Auntie Val came back from her trip to Tibet and brought the girls some beautiful dresses and cute T-shirts. It was fun to visit with her again.





Ryan and I are getting settled in our new callings. Primary is crazy in our ward! So many kids compared to our old ward, but it's fun. Ryan's class went well too. He's getting used to dealing with teenagers' attitudes!

Thanks to Greg & Steph's housewarming gift, we got a new swingset for the backyard and it's been a hit!


We went swimming a record number of times this summer with help from Grandma and Shauna and the CNIB arranging things. The downtown YMCA has a really fun pool with lots of natural light and fun toys. It was really a good experience.

Ryan's been officially back at school for the past two days. He's been working unofficially the whole week and is feeling better about getting back into the swing of things. He's a really valued member of his staff and even had to help the tech support guys who did a presentation at PD day!


I am now the secretary of the Malmo Prekindergarten Parent Association. Which basically means a tape recorder could do my job since all I do is take minutes. It's fun to be a part of it though. The whole association is very technical though, with bylaws and motions and official seals, etc. It should be interesting. Our annual general meeting is next week and then preschool starts the following week. I'm so excited for Claire. She's going to have a great year.

Party time, excellent

Olivia, Ryan's sister, just had her first baby yesterday at 9:50pm! It's a boy - name yet to be determined. We're so excited! Hopefully we get to meet him soon.

There is a great program put on during Capital Ex that we went to this year. It's called Monday Morning Magic and they open the kids' rides for a couple of hours before the gates open, for kids with disabilities and their families to enjoy a low stress environment. Normally it's quite difficult to get around with wheelchairs when it's so packed and it's hard to wait in line and often it takes a longer time to get situated in each ride - this was so great! I think we'll go every year. They had lots of mascots and Eskimo players and we even saw some Oilers there who would ride with the kids. It was just such a positive environment. I'm so grateful for programs with this.






















The girls and I checked out a fun spray park down town and had a blast.







We attended one last ward party before we moved and it was lots of fun. Playing at the park, a rousing game of kickball and freezies. We'll miss our old ward but are looking forward to a good experience in our new one.










We've gone swimming downtown at the YMCA with kids from the CNIB. It's been great fun. Here's a picture of the girls after the last swim:




Here's one of our last excursions out on our spacious deck.



I'm so grateful for our new backyard. It's such a luxury!

To cut down on the pictures and space taken up by this blog entry, I will just post a link to an album on Facebook for people to check out if they want to.

Move/new house/family reunion pictures link

The move to the new place came with some surprises - he had taken the window coverings which had been written in as part of the contract, he hadn't fixed a bunch of things that he said he would, he only had a key for the back door and had lost the one for the front door and we keep finding other surprises. I guess that's what owning a home is all about, right? Things falling apart constantly?! :)

All in all, our new place really feels like home. It's good to invest in something that you know is yours. I feel so indebted to all the people who helped us get the house and who helped us move and who have supplied us with things we need.
Our move went well.

I braved going to the dentist, the first time I haven't gone to my dad. I ended up needing quite a few appointments to get everything done. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.

It's been a very busy few weeks. I'm glad that we are getting settled and I don't miss managing our building at all! I miss having our family in the same building though. Luckily we've had lots of visitors all ready so it's been good.