Out for a walk

Posted on March 31, 2010 by Troy

Spring is here and the weather has been nice, so, like many Canadians, we are emerging from our winter hibernation and are trying to get outside with the kids some for some walks and puddle jumping.

Ellie is Five

Posted on March 12, 2010 by Troy

Today was our big girl’s fifth birthday! Sometimes I look at Ellie and think I am too young to be the father of such a big girl, then I remember that my dad had three teenagers by the time he was my age…

Ellie has been asking about her birthday every week for at least 8 months. She looks forward to it sooo much each year. For the last several days as she has been counting down, every few hours she would proudly say that she will be five. Finally the day has come and she was almost vibrating with energy.

We had just a small family celebration tonight and have a bigger party planned for her with one of her friends, Evan, whose fifth birthday is only a few days later. It was so much fun for us to see her excitement for her special day. Today she also started the countdown to # 6 when she asked how many days were left until her next birthday. For us, we are hoping that sixth birthday doesn’t come too fast.

Happy birthday Ellie. We love you!

On White

Posted on March 10, 2010 by Troy

As a gift for Naomi’s 30th birthday, I wanted to give her some nice photographs of herself. So one day after work I dragged home a ton of lighting equipment and set up a studio in our living room after the kids went to bed.

My beautiful wife:

The next day I dug out the white paper background again to get some pics of the kids. It was a challenge getting the kids to sit still and smile, but we managed to get a few photos of the munchkins that are keepers.

The perfect family:

But of course, photographs lie.

The reality was more like this:

Squinty eyes, big eyes, bye byes.

“Enough of the cute stuff, I’m outta here!”

For this one I asked friends on facebook to come up with a caption.

My submission was “Why are girls so weird?”

A few others were:
Becky: “What are they so happy about?”
Nichole: “uh oh, my sisters have gone stepford!”
Adam: “There are two of them, and only one of me…this can’t be good.”
Scott: “Smile and wave… just smile and wave.”

Ellie

Adelaine

And Ethan Buddy

We got one of me too, trying not to look like my usual grumpy self.

Welcome to the big 3, Adelaine

Posted on December 29, 2009 by Troy

On the 28th, our little princess turned 3 years old!

It wasn’t such a great day for us as we spent 3 hours at the hospital trying to diagnose a bad cough in all three kids. We did finally get out of there and made it home for supper, and a small birthday party. We plan to have a party with her friends sometime after the whole Christmas season is past – alas.. the down side of a late December birthday. Anyway, we did want to have a little celebration on the big day with Papa, Grandma and Uncle Dew.

After the birthday cupcakes it was apparently time for wrestling. This went on for quite awhile with many giggles and squeals.

All the commotion drew Ethan Buddy in to see what was going on, and despite being sick, he got in on the squishin’ act.

The birthday girl giving a big hug to grandma.

Then it was time to get down to business: tearing paper. She gets lots of practice at tearing this time of year.

“A TUTU!!” I think she has about five tutus now, and wears at least one a day.

Here Adelaine receives yet another princess toy. We are suddenly swimming in princess paraphernalia around here, much to Adelaine’s delight.

Happy birthday, our dear, sweat little Adelaine! Daddy and mommy love you so much.

Summer in one weekend

Posted on August 15, 2009 by Troy

When your summer is as cool as this one has been, you have to cram in your summer activities whenever you can, and that was exactly what we did the first weekend of August!

We had been wanting to go camping with friends, but with daytime highs of 14C (mid 50s F) and lots of rain, camping would not be fun. That just isn’t right for the first week of August. Thankfully the forecast changed to something resembling summer and so we hastily made some plans. It was also rodeo weekend here in Olds, which we didn’t want to miss. So, we went to the parade and rodeo on Friday, and Saturday we headed east to Drumheller for our first big camping adventure.

At this age, the kids are pretty easy to entertain. Just give them a big enough area and they chase each other around. The campground we stayed at was pretty nice. All the individual camping spots were taken, so we ended up getting a “group” spot. For two families it worked out to be cheaper, plus we had a huge are for the kids to run with with grass (normal camping spots were pretty much empty of grass), and we were away from the crowded main area! The downside was the pool. We got in and it was a bit murky. I joked about how you couldn’t see your feet in the pool, then I stopped laughing when I looked down and realized it was actually true. Just before we got out I noticed this thick, slimy stuff floating in the corners. I pointed it out to Alan and made a comment about how it couldn’t really be more gross when we noticed Adelaine holding someone’s band-aid she had found in the pool. That was the final straw and I was desperate enough to overcome my cheapness and use the pay showers.

We had a nice fire and stayed out late talking to our friends quite late after the kids went to bed. The night was pretty cold (10C!) and Ethan and the girls woke up in the night, but isn’t that all part of camping?

Drumheller bills itself as the Dinosaur capital of Canada and the place had lots of dinosaur figures, paintings, stores, and activities around town. So after breaking camp in the morning we went off for lunch and then to Fossil World, a kids mini museum and activity place.