Road Warriors to Fort Mac

Had a little road trip up north last week to visit family. 

 There was a lot of cousin time.

Kingston is pretty adored by my ladies, he is definitely that cool older cousin. 

Also very popular was his kitty Princess Leia, the girls were all over that poor kitty. 

It was super busy with lunch dates, dinner dates and play dates but we all had a blast.

Always nice to see friends and family.

 

 

The traditional s'mores with Grandpa, fires in the fireplace ROCK!

 Grandma had these music makers which are super cool....and surprisingly not that loud.  Best ever listening to Kingston sing a Jason Moraz song with his.  Took us a minute to figure it out, we were like; "we know this tune, we know it"!!!!

Mac Island is seriously a great facility and Fort McMurray so deserves it!  They had fun ice sculptures out front and YES both of my girls licked it. GROSS! The facility has a fantastic library, indoor play gym and swimming pool. My ladies asked to go to the library because they remember it being so fun, sadly the program was running another day.

 

 

 Lunch at FUJI's is a fav!!!!  It is a must when we go up, so good. 

I can almost taste it looking at the pictures yum.

 

 

Love this shot of the ladies with Auntie Leslie, can you tell they were really into the FROZEN movie Les had on her computer.  I wish I had snapped a picture of them with Auntie Jenn too, they love their Aunties.

 

Good times, good times.

They traveled the highway like champs and obviously the company was worth it.

 

~ Mrs. P

Parental Pride

There are sometimes moments as parents that make you want to hide or run away.  Tantrums in public, nose picking and the like fall into that category (of course we never run but the thought may cross our minds). Ok but here is the thing, there are totally moments that make your heart burst with love, moments where you think you may be hugging too tight because love is abounding for your child and then there are moments of such pride when your kiddos shock you with what you consider near genius.  The other day I asked Stella if we should call Dad and she grabbed the phone and counted, pressing the numbers 1-9....I almost fell over!! So so so proud of her. That isn't her dad's number at work but who cares. We count randomly in play and have a few counting books but I have not specifically worked with her.  So proud of our big girl.

 

~ Momma P

Sunday Morning

These photos of our ladies are just to darn funny not to memorialize them all on our family blog!

 



 

These little goofballs are awesome!!!!  I may need to come and look at these pictures periodically because Sunday mornings never feel this fun to me.  I often feel rushed and frustrated because I don't want to roll in late to church. Their faces though, so happy.  I have kind of realized though, it is me, my attitude, I can be annoyed or not and as silly as it sounds I alone control it duh.   If I had been grumpy and pushing my family out the door these moments above wouldn't have happened.  Just for the record we made it to church on time.

 

~ Mrs. P

30 going on 13



 

These two are turning 30 this year, even if they do act like a silly 13 sometimes :)

Jon in January and Alyson in March, so obviously they needed to celebrate.  It is no secret these two are super fun loving and always up for a good time.  Leslie and I hatched a plan to throw a party 80s style, sadly Les couldn't make it down but the idea of going all 80s spawned some fun stuff.  Mikey did come down for the party so that was special. We requested that people dress up because after all 1984 was a pretty rad year!  I copied a bunch of movie posters to make a display and get people reminiscing but perhaps my favourite was the 80s men's moustaches I found and printed off.  It was actually rather ridiculous, quite silly but oh so fun...I printed off men from the 80s who had awesome staches and then covered their faces moustache up with a piece of paper so people had to try and guess who it was.  SO FUN!  There were yummy snacks and then we all headed downstairs about half way through the night to play 'Name that Tune'.  Alyson and Jon had collected lines from songs of the 80s and had us try and guess, if we had a hard time they would play the music on Youtube. The game was sooooooo fun!  It was a super fabulous night!  Kinda funny though is that I forgot their 'cake' which was actually squares, it wasn't until we were packing up the food that I opened the fridge and remembered. Just a few of us who were left sang to them.  Oh well, such fun to be together with friends and family. 

 

~ Mrs. P

cold beauty

image by my friend Karen

 

We live where it gets cold, real cold.  The kind of cold that makes your face sting and leaves fingers numb with minimal exposure. It was in the -30c last week, even more with the wind chill.  On those cold, cold days we often ask our selves; why we live here? why put up with the cold?  No answer, other then good jobs.  A friend shared this image on Facebook the other day, I thought it was so BEAUTIFUL.  Last week I took a drive in the country out to a friends house to borrow a few things, it was super cold, very windy and I packed a blanket and extra clothes for Stella and I (Amelia was at Joy School) just incase something happened.

 

  Although it was super cold and windy out it looked a lot like this picture...beautiful!

At one point when Miss Stella fell asleep I turned off the radio and just listened to the wind whistle, admired the snow blowing across the fields.  There is beauty everywhere.

 

~ Mrs. P



FROZEN fans





 

The new Disney movie FROZEN is all the rage at our house right now.  It is kind of all the rage everywhere actually.  With our ladies everything is FROZEN; singing the songs, watching the Youtube videos, our valentine's this year, hair style requests and general free play is pretty much all about the two sisters Elsa and Anna.  How cool it is that we have two sisters too?! I also love quite a few things about the movie and the messages it sends. Just to name a few... a strong sister relationship can be hard work at times, but working at that sister relationship is important to happiness and no one will have your back like your sister, running from your problems doesn't solve them, DON'T get engaged to a guy you don't know, the kind of love you think you need often isn't the one that makes things better, also the quiet hardworking dude is often a better choice over a coolio prince.  SPOILER ALERT: no prince comes in to make a rescue, no Sister Saves Sister and it is beautiful!!!!!  Honestly I just LOVE the movie right along with my girls.

 

We're going all frozen at our house and I couldn't but capture the adorableness of Amelia's hair. She mostly requests Elsa's "side braid, when she is on the mountain". We did have a request yesterday for "Elsa's coronation hair and a crown", seriously such fun girly-ness for a momma who likes girly-ness!!!   It lead to a great little discussion on coronations and Kings/Queens vs Prince/Princesses...oh my!

 Of course little sister is all into FROZEN too so she requests "Anna hair".  Wanting the hair style does help encourage sitting patiently while mom braids, a great motivator for my sweet Stella. The women got this book in Disney and we sit to read it daily.  I won't ever say I am sick of reading to my kiddos but a new selection would be appreciated. 

 I am not joking when I say they play FROZEN all.the.time. note Amelia pretending to 'slam the door' in the left, which is a line from a song in the movie. Hilarious!!!!  I have yet to video tape it and really need to because she totally gets into it.  Just this morning Amelia ran to her room and slammed the door (as much as my willowy daughter can slam anything) but Stella ran after her saying, "please don't shut me out again, please don't slam the door" - a line from the movie!  It makes me think about how important it is to monitor what they are watching because it certainly comes out in their play. I am actually probably on the crazy side of the spectrum for this in regards to screen time, my girls are likely going to rebel against me and my screen fear.

 I also had to blog their valentine's from this year because it was so adorable and the a picture from Amelia's little sketch book, we choose to call anything coil bound, (lined pages or not) a sketch book - Dollerama rocks!  She does a great job on drawing Elsa's side braids too.

 

Ultimately this is a phase and I just had to record the highlights from our life as of late, the obsession with FROZEN.  My more mature mom friends say often to 'write it down or you'll forget' so I really want to try and record things, for me and them.  They will never be 2 1/2 and 4 1/2 again and amidst the sassy talk and toddler meltdowns there is such fun, such creativity, such sweet memories that fill up our days too. Love them and love the privilege it is to be their mother.

 

 

~ Mrs. P



This is the coolest link, with the coolest article about the FROZEN movie.
http://www.mercyrivermusic.com/2014/02/what-frozen-is-really-about.html

Baking Beauties

I made a promise yesterday that we would bake cookies today, so had the follow through this afternoon.  They were pretty good helpers!  I have to try and stay cool when flour goes flying, but they love helping so I can't help but love having them in the kitchen with me.

 

 

 

Our ladies are huge fans of NUTELLA so we found a Peanut Butter & Nutella cookie recipe on Pinterest and it was scrumptious!!!!!!  I also loved the bare feet and mismatched socks going on as they shared the stool. I LOVE these chicks.

 

~ Mrs. P