Joy in Joy School

The JOY on this lady's face just melts my heart.

 

 

I showed up at the end of Joy School the other day, oh how I love the program.  I was sad that I didn't make everyone pause for a picture, just snagged these few goofballs who hadn't left yet.  The Joy School Program has a beautiful philosophy with a focus on discussing 'Joys' in the world around us, discussing character traits and much of it is helpful to being healthy and happy. We incorporated Animated Literacy into our lessons this year and the different hosting momma's have done a fabulous job.  I am sorta sad that this little group will be going off their separate ways to kindergarten next year.  It has been a good run.  We began when these little folks were 2 1/2 years old in January 2012, it began as a parented, once a week gathering and morphed into unparented this past year.  I have enjoyed the momma time and really enjoyed watching our littles learn and grow together.  We have certainly found JOY in Joy School!!!!!

 

~ Momma P



St. Patty Party with FAMILY & then FRIENDS

It is wonderful to celebrate, even the more obscure holidays like St. Patty's.  We had a fantastic time with family and friends celebrating.  I love hosting parties!  I love having people into our home, I love when there are smiles and laughs from people we care about.  The Polischuk gals hosted a cousin party where we made some leprechaun beards and shamrock hats.

 Of course we tried to stick to green food as much as possible. Tons of green veggies, green egg salad, green smoothies, green jello and some yummy green rice crispies for dessert.
Also some super awesome green apparel, especially from Gramma Hudkins.  That hat paired with the beards we made...awesome!

 

 

There were so many left overs we had an impromptu second party with our Joy School friends on the Monday.  Stella was brave and got her face painted.  It was super fun to celebrate again :)

 

It might sound silly but this celebrate holiday part of being a mother is something I LOVE!  I hope that our ladies will treasure the fun and silly things we do together in honour of St. Patty's or Christmas or Valentine's. I love holiday traditions.  It is so fun!!!! Man I adore them.

 

 ~ Momma P



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