Halloween Hooligans

This post contains an over abundance of Halloween pictures,

in my defence we did have a good run of festivities last week.

 

 

This picture cracks me up!  Stella's face is hilarious and Mia is posing all sweet as pie, whilst in reality just moments later fighting ensued because Mia wanted to hold Stella's hand for a picture and Stella would have none of it. I wanted to get a picture of them in their Halloween shirts.  This is the position they presume while I am in the shower.

 

 PUMPKIN Carving

We had the Bird family over to do some carving. We feel fortunate that they live so close and really wish the rest of our family could just pop over so easily. It was a blast and the girls enjoyed designing and I think Graham and Alyson enjoyed the carving.  Other then Jacey, no one was a fan of the pumpkin guts.

Can I just note that I LOVE getting festive for any holiday!  When Mia was a baby I found these Jack-o-lantern baby legs and then last year I found the Ghost baby legs, such adorable festiveness.

 

 HALLOWEEN Day

For the actual 31st we had a busy, busy day!!! Rhyme n Story Time in the morning was a costume party, we then came home for a quick lunch and nap.  In the early afternoon our Joy School group and other friends then met up at a Senior's Centre for a costume parade which was a BLAST!!!!!! We plan to go visit again at Christmas, honestly any excuse to go visit would be great. Directly from there we hit our Joy School friend's house for a Halloween Party which was awesome! There was crazy food, fun games and the yummiest pumpkin soup to fill our bellies before we headed out for the night.  We quickly came home and had a little snack (we were stuffed from the bone bread, rat meat loaf, pumpkin soup, snake veggies and sugar cookies).  Nathanial joined us for the third year and we stayed out nearly an hour visiting our neighbors.  Such fun!

Finley's flower costume was spectacular!!!!! Her mom actually made it, super impressive!  There were some great costumes.

The bird ladies were; a parrot and an owl. Adorableness!!!!!  Stella was excited that her and Neely got to match.

Before we headed out we had some orange smoothies in our Halloween cups with our orange straws (yeah Target!)

 

All ready to head out.

Another year in the books! It is such a pleasure to be able to enjoy the holidays and traditions with our little ladies.  They bring a joy and excitement we would not experience otherwise. Pretty thankful!

 

~ Mrs. P

Prince Kingston Hits 5

The little man in our life affectionately know as 'Prince Kingston' turned 5 this past week!  Last weekend his parents held a little party for him at an indoor play place and the kiddos had a blast climbing, sliding and bouncing.  Fun times! Cousins are absolutely automatic friends and I am so glad that our cousins live near.

 

An adorable minion cake with five candles for the big guy!

 

A ton of fun stuff to do.  The smiles speak for themselves!!!





 

 Getting to celebrate together with family is totally part of the fun!

Kinda funny when present opening time came the birthday boy didn't really want to sit and open so Auntie Leslie snagged Mia to help open a few.  A minion hat to go with his party theme, so cute!

 

Loved celebrating with Prince Kingston!  He is such a charming guy, super handsome and just wins over your heart with his deep voice and brown eyes. Love him!

 

~ Auntie Jenny

home bodies

 We seem to be fighting the sniffles that never ends at our house!  For a group of ladies who keeps quite busy, being sick means we have slowed wwwaaaayyyyy down this past week.  We have become home bodies.  So no pumpkin patch as planned, no final Plunge n Play class for Amelia basically just a whole lot of hanging at home.  I must say though the slow paced days have been nice.  They allow us to read more stories, watch more movies and enjoy our home more. I love that the girls wanted to wear their big flower head bands and jewelled rings!! They REQUESTED to match headbands and I LOVE IT!  Oh how I adore them.

 

 Our big girl looking so cute watching a movie on the iPAD while I do laundry.

 

I personally feel better after I am dressed and ready for the day, even if it is just a day at home. Kind of a mental health thing for me I've discovered.

 

P.S. Really sick days do require full out PJ days though!

 

~ Mrs. P



Heart Check - two thumbs up

I have something called muscle fibre disproportionate myopathy which basically means - my muscles have typical initial strength just limited endurance.  I was born a floppy baby, it was concerning to my doctors and parents but my development was fine so there was really no intervention. I was followed yearly but my parents didn't have me do a nasty muscle biopsy. Other then being a small woman with not a lot of endurance my life has not really been affected. I have just slightly adapted really hard things and have clearly never taken up marathon running. Life has been good!

 

  Before we started trying to have children I decided it was important for me to find out more about my muscle condition if I could. I had a full work up and I did that nasty muscle biopsy, met with geneticists to have genetic counselling. I was told the chances of us having children affected was super slim. Low and behold after 6 years of trying I was able to conceive and wouldn't you know that supposed slim chance produced our delicate woman Amelia Ann and then two years later Stella Charlene.  During my pregnancies my heart and uterus were followed more closely then the norm but my body worked awesome (aside from the severe nausea I experienced).  After our sweet delicate baby Amelia was born we were referred to the Glenrose Hospital where they followed her bi-weekly for almost two years. What an amazing resource they were, with common sense suggestions for encouraging and adapting things in aiding her physical development. Simple things like where to place your hands to give the best support for sitting, learning to walk tips and the best was that we would get handouts with pictures from the day or drawn out stick person diagrams. Sooooooo good!  We still adore our physical therapist Lucia.  We now see her and the team only once a year.  When Stella was born she was clearly less affected so hasn't been followed by the Glenrose, however we used the folder full of awesome handouts so were able to encourage our Stella Bella the best way possible.  We also always bring her along to Amelia's yearly visits...just so they can see her :)

 

(Just a bit of history before I shared about our heart checks!)

The heart muscle is a MUSCLE so has always been a concern for me and now for my girls.  I am followed every 4 years and them every 2 - as a precautionary measure.  The day these pictures were taken we had hit the Stollery Children's Hospital for double ECG and Heart Doctor visits.  The girls were troupers and although I wasn't really concerned I had a moment as we headed back to our vehicle.  A moment with tears in the elevator actually.  The appointment went great, just as I expected the girls have great little tickers and the specialist said to come back in two years. The walk from the elevator took us past the school rooms, the oncology aka cancer wing for children and just walking around you walk by many little people facing various battles.  I thought of my powerhouse niece Jacey who has been there numerous times, for different things.  We are beyond lucky to have this amazing place so close. As I walked down the hall by the school rooms they had framed poetry written by patients.  I think the tears were a combination of reading those poems, a great apt for my ladies and memories of my sweet Bird Girl!!  My elevator tears caused me to say a little silent elevator prayer of thanks for a few different things.

 

 

Naturally a doctors visit requires some kind of treat after so we opted for some mini blizzards from DQ.  Classic goodness!  Likely the last day till spring were we could eat ice cream outside, it was 15 c on this day.

 



HE'S BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



 

I can speak for our whole family when I say that we are PUMPED UP that the big guy is done his shutdown!!!! He woke up after a days sleep to find a text on his phone that he didn't need to come in, he was done nights. BEST.SURPRISE.EVER!!!!!

He has worked over 120 nights between the past spring and then this fall's shutdown, but we are done!  The dude has a crazy work ethic and is valued at work, we are proud of him.

We sure do love him and are grateful that he will be around the house more.

 ~ Mrs. P

Celebrating Friends

 

My sweet friends Jody & Kristi (in party hats) had birthdays last week. I hosted a little shin-dig at our house and it was such a blast!!!!  We kept it simple putting up the birthday banner, pretty doily banners and making them wear party hats.  Drinks, a few treats and ice cream cake made for a lovely, casual evening. The best part of the night was having our friends pop by to give a little hello and write on the Birthday Girlies Backs!!!!! That is right, each lady had paper taped to her back and we wrote bday wishes or things adored about each.  I was the one at the end of the night to pull off the papers, fold and put into little envelopes....I took a glance and nodded in agreement to each comment.  They are WONDERFUL WOMEN whom I feel privileged to be friends with!  Good friends are good I say!

 

~ Mrs. P



Gymnastics Girls

 

These chicks, I tell you they are pretty special.

We kind of have a sweet deal for gymnastics this fall, both girls have class....wait.for.it....at the same time YEAH!!!! It worked out fabulous and is turning out to be pretty fun, because Stella is just two I didn't know how it would go but it is great. We were sick and then in Fort McMurray for a week so missed two classes and the ladies had a few comments from their friends.  I think it made Amelia feel special to know that she was missed.  As for Miss Stella, missing classes meant it was a bit of an adjustment even though she stays with me in the parented class. Change and new things are tough yo!  It is great to get to do this and I love when we are working on an area near Amelia so I can be sneaky and watch her. Today she did great bum drops on the trampoline and flashed me a smile, with two big thumbs up - love it!  At one point after walking sideways along a beam Stella says to me, "mom thumbs up".  Perhaps I use thumbs up a lot?!

I know I say it often but I adore them.

 

~ Momma P