Wednesday, February 29, 2012

An Extra Day

So today is February 29, a leap day. And what did we do on our extra day this year? It's best described in pictures so sit back and enjoy. Or whatever :)

Rachel was dressed and ready to go to Kindermusik,
so she sat and played while Sam and I got ready.

We had to stop at Wal-Mart to buy exciting things like
diapers, baby laundry detergent and puffs for Rachel.

Sam checked out the mailboxes outside of Kindermusik.

Sam and Rachel enjoying lunch.

Sam just wanted to play a lot today, so he did!

His latest play involves moving the couch cushions to make
"a train track" for all his many trains.
(When I read this caption to Sam he said, "There's a road beside the train track for Bertie [the bus]." Good to know!)

In between contacting A LOT of moving companies for quotes,
I did a lot of dishes.

Rachel swung while I did dishes and made her some food.

Sam and Rachel had a pre-dinner snack.

Rachel had a bath and sat all on her own.
(With many hands nearby to catch her if she fell.)

Dave and I did a work-out video and Sam joined in at random times.
It was pretty funny actually!
It turned out to be a pretty busy day actually. I think we made good use of our extra 24 hours this year :)

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

What An Exciting Day!

So over Christmas I thought about all sorts of exciting field trips I could take Sam on. One of those was to a fire station. I mentioned this to New Mom's as something we could maybe arrange for a group of us. Everyone was interested so finally a few weeks ago I checked with a fire station near us and they agreed to tour a group of eighteen (!!!) of us -- six each of adults, toddlers and babies :)

We all walked from our house to the fire station and made quite the train with strollers! I wish I had taken a picture. When we got to the fire station they mentioned that if they needed to go on a call then we should gather in a certain area and then they would tell us what to do. Since them going out on a call was possible, we asked if we could get a picture of us with them before the tour started.

This picture is from Marcia.
And do you think there are enough of us?!?!?
Next we got to see two of the trucks in quite a bit of detail. It was super-cool!

This is the water-console on the ladder truck.

The kids gathered around listening to
the explanation about the saws.

The wheels are as tall as the kids.
And these saws are soooo cool!

The computer console on the water truck.
Then the kids got to go INSIDE a truck and a firefighter showed them awesome things like...

...gas masks...

...an infrared sensor...
(This picture is also from Marcia.)

...and the alarm on the breathing apparatus.
Sam was not so sure about that one and headed
out of the truck in a big hurry!

Firefighter Lance agreed to hold Rachel and Sam so I could get a picture of the kids with him to show Dave (who was very envious that he couldn't be along on the tour!). Saagar joined in for a photo too.

All in all, it was an awesome tour, the firefighters were very accommodating and the kids, although shy at first, LOVED it and had a great time. Thanks again City of Edmonton Fire Fighters of the station near our house.

Monday, February 27, 2012

Carter's at Costco

So at the end of December, Mom and I were shopping at Costco and we were looking at the kid's clothes, of course! Mom found a cute purple plaid outfit for Rachel and then we found a cute guitar outfit for Sam. So today I noticed that both kids were wearing their outfits from my mom. And it was unintentional. So I tried to get some pictures.

Rachel was pretty cooperative:

Sam, on the other hand, was not, and this was the best I could get of the two of them:

Someday it will get better and both my children will want to pose for pictures at the same time, right?!?!?

Sunday, February 26, 2012

Exercising

So this past Fall I started running. However, I hurt my knee and that ended up not lasting very long.

So then at Christmas, at Mom and Dad's, I got excited about walking on the treadmill. And I thought in January I'm going to start going to the Kinsmen Centre and work out there. I can do a class, I can run on the track, I can even run on a treadmill there. But that also didn't work out. I was too lazy and it was quite expensive and then I didn't make time for it.

So I've been walking as much as I can using our awesome Chariot but on Wednesdays the kids have Kindermusik in Sherwood Park, and on Thursdays is MOPS which is on the other side of Edmonton, and Fridays is gymnastics which is also too far to walk to. I've done a good job of walking to swimming on Mondays (except when I can't go) and Tuesdays (except when New Mom's is at our house) and sometimes we go for a walk on the weekends. But I've still been feeling that my exercise is lacking.

So I decided to get a bunch of workout DVDs from the library. They had the advantage of being 1) free and 2) easy to do at home when I had a few minutes. So finally this past Friday I previewed some of them and picked four to try at home.

Today I did this one:

(Image from here.)
And I have to say I LOVED IT! It's more like an aerobics class than just straight walking and it was about 45 minutes long. Perfect! The only problem is that it was the only DVD I couldn't renew so I had to put a hold on it so I can get it back. Thankfully it should only take a couple of days because I can't wait to be able to do it again!

And I'm not exercising to lose weight; I'm exercising because I want to be a healthier me. And I think that's a good goal.

Saturday, February 25, 2012

Winter Has Flung...

... a lot of snow at us since last night.

(Sidenote: I asked Dave today, "You say 'Spring has sprung' and all that's been going through my head is 'Winter has won!' but I don't want to give it that much power, so what DO you say?" and he responded with the title of this post!)

Here are some pictures from this morning before I shoveled.

And here are some pictures from after I shoveled. The picture on the left is from when I shoveled at 8:30 this morning. The picture on the right is from when I shoveled at 2:30 this afternoon.
Our front walk.

Leading to our backyard.

The sidewalk in front of our house.

Our car, which we haven't even begun to uncover yet!

It reminds me of this weekend last winter when I was pregnant with Rachel and poor Dave was so sick of shoveling. I actually like shoveling so today has been a lot of fun. I'm just starting to run out of space to put all the snow!

And the snow is STILL falling and we are under a "Heavy Snowfall Warning" so I don't think we've seen the last of this yet. Stay tuned...

Friday, February 24, 2012

Gymnastics

So three of Sam's New Mom's friends took gymnastics in December and January, and this session Sam and I decided to join them.

There is no required uniform but Auntie Jenelle is super talented and so she sewed these outfits for our budding gymnasts. And yes, Auntie Jenelle is the same person who sewed this dress for Miss Rachel.

Sam is so funny at gymnastics because all he wants to do is run around and experiment with all the equipment. But mostly, just run around. And he wants to do everything HIS way, or no way at all :) At least it makes me laugh. Most of the time.

Date-y Goodness!

So after last week's date night fail, we had a much better date night tonight. First of all we went to Shopper's to get some eye ointment since this morning I was diagnosed with a stye. How fun. Or not. We ended up buying a few extra things like vitamins for Sam (Dave needed some for him and we thought maybe it was time to introduce a multi-vitamin for Sam)...

...and some treats for us!

Add in some good TV shows on DVD (the only kind we watch these
daysyears!)...

...and you've got a pretty good date-night going on!

And we even managed to do a bit more organizing and getting rid of things in anticipation of our move! Yay!

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Moving On Up!

Miss Rachel no longer eats...

...in the bouncy seat.

She has moved on up...

...to a highchair!

Watch out world!!!

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Family Day: The Complete Story

While it is true that our Family Day got off to a slow start with laundry, blogging and Sam playing downstairs, we did eventually have a little more family togetherness. My friend Martha posted on her Facebook page that it was her son's first Family Day and she was looking forward to introducing him to Family Day foods! Ha ha ha! That made me laugh because there is no traditional Family Day food so I thought I would share some of our food today. Who knows? Maybe it will become our tradition :)

Tonight Sam was thankful that "Daddy stayed home today." I was thankful too because Dave made grilled cheese for lunch and he makes the best grilled cheese ever! Yum! I'm happy to have this become a traditional food for our day :)


Sam and I made coffee filter flowers and ended up having to wipe A LOT of marker off the coffee table and off of our hands. And I loved Sam's manic-flower arranging technique and sniffing of the flowers so much I had to video it. Ha ha ha! I hope you enjoy it as much as I did :)

And eventually we did get outside today and walked further south in the ravine than either Dave or I had before. Dave had never gone past the Mill Creek Pool parking lot and I had never gone past Jason and Marcia's house. It was a lovely day for a walk and we ended up walking for about two hours in the ravine.

Heading off into uncharted territory for Dave! In the left picture below, you can see the Whyte Avenue overpass.

This bridge is beautiful as is the scenery below it. And Sam enjoyed walking/running for awhile.

The middle picture is the hill heading up to Jason and Marcia's. The picture on the right was uncharted territory for both Dave and I.

And the left picture is a view of condos we pass and the right picture is the hill heading out of the ravine by Jason and Elena's. It's the route in and out of the ravine we are most familiar with. It was an awesome walk.

Then we came home and enjoyed some smoothies (for Sam and Dave) made with strawberries, yogurt and oj and milkshakes (for me) made with strawberries, ice cream and milk. Dave drank all of his before I could get a picture :)

And we also picked up some chocolate at Wild Earth. Sam wanted his own chocolate bar and picked it out by himself. Can you guess which chocolate bar belongs to who? And Sam was quite mad that we only let him eat four squares today!

Tonight we had beef stew which was a last minute addition to the menu because Wild Earth didn't have pine nuts. It was actually perfect after a long winter's walk.

And Miss Rachel had exactly what we had to eat today for the VERY. FIRST. TIME!!! I just put some of the beef stew in the food grinder and she ate it all up! Yay! Maybe I can stop making special food for her now. These milestones go by soooo fast. (And feel like they last forever when you're in the middle of them!)