Party Party!

Better late than never! 2 weekends ago Braden's cousin Trinity turned 2. She's only 8 weeks younger than him, so it's pretty neat that they'll grow up and go to school together! Here's some pictures from her party. I can't believe how big all of these cousins are getting!

 

Poor Luke was having a rough day and Trinity was not going to share her precious new treasures! Up next is rounding up all the kids for a cousins photos. I love these photos!



Note to self...I desperately needed a Speedlite for these among many other of my indoor photos! Good news? With birthday money from my mom and my in-laws, I found one on Kijiji that I picked up on my birthday! I'm so excited to learn how to use it!

 Hope you enjoyed! For the Christmas picture there will be 10 kids in this picture!

Trinity's First Birthday

A happy belated blog post to our youngest niece, Trinity, who turned 1 on Saturday!

She, by far, did the best at a first birthday of anyone we know! Braden was so mellow, quiet, and tired at his...had no interest in presents or cake really... But Trinity just really played up the part and had a great time. Was very sociable and even waved and said "bye bye" to us when we left! Here's some of my favorite pics from her party...

New chair from Grandma & Papa - a big hit.

Hey look who woke up from his nap and joined in on the celebration!

 

I love the huge smile on her face!

Ready for cake!

Singing happy birthday and clapping for Trinity!

NOM NOM!!

I love this "pirate" face! Just like when he was little!

A really nice pic of Mark & Trinity...

And one last pic of Luke

We had a wonderful time and look forward to celebrating Danika's 3rd birthday with her this Sunday. Aaaaaand, then of course there is my 28th birthday on Saturday, which I just want to celebrate with Jay! We're going to Ruth's Chris Steakhouse and then to a movie while Jonny & Jaden Hamm babysit Braden! I'm so excited to go on a date and for Braden to have some fun with the Hamm boys!

A Family of 5...for 5 Minutes!

Well, to our credit it was longer than 5 minutes, but we had 3 kids one morning. It was like having "twins" Braden 11.5 months and Trinity 9.5 months, and Danika almost 3. Danika had a sleepover with us on Wednesday night. I've wanted to try having her over, as a way to help out Joy with the twins. So we picked her up on Wednesday afternoon and she had her bags all packed since the morning and was very excited to come for a sleepover. We picked up pizza for supper, and Danika and Braden had a lot of fun playing and they had fun taking a bath together too!

Love the look on her face!

The sleepover went really good. Danika was asleep by 8:45PM after trying to pull a few on me that I remember used to doing to babysitters! The old "I'm hungry", "I'm thirsty", "one more story"...routine. I have no idea how she knows how to do this already? It must be instincts??? hehe Anyway, she was soooo good all night and well behaved and didn't make one mention of home or her mommy until I was lying down with her and she said quietly, "I want to go home...". So I looked at her all sad and said in a more quiet and more sad voice, " But I really want to have a sleep over with you!" Then that got her excited and she said "Let's have a pajama party!" And within 5 minutes of a little back rub, she was out like a light. She woke up and came to our room at 6:30, so I took her back to her room and told her it wasn't time to get up because the sun wasn't up yet. It actually worked and and she slept til 8:30! I read that little tip in my "SleepEasy" book once upon a time and I can't believe it worked! Definitely won't work in the summer, but I feel more so like getting up early in the summer when the sun truly is awake!

So then Trinity joined us at about the same time Danika woke up and we had pancakes for breakfast!

Mmmm!!! Chug-a-lug, I love my milk and pancakes!

I wanted to take a picture of Braden and his cousins, but...

He did NOT want to sit still and take a picture, he wanted to play! So, we did!

The kids were all well behaved, no one cried (except Braden briefly!), they played well together and it was a lot of fun. Here's a few other pictures I took last week...

Look how BIG Braden's hands are! He's gonna be a big guy, just like my late Grandpa Throndson! He learned to drink from a straw sippy cup in about 5 seconds!

And here he is "helping" Jay to baby-proof the Blu Ray cabinet. Later that day he would try to open it, grunt in frustration and let out a few cries and carry on with something else!

And, look how big. 11 months, 3 weeks...!

Well, that's about all the blog binging I have for tonight! I hope you enjoy catching up, sorry it's been so long. I've got a VERY busy week for us leading up to Braden's birthday, which is in FIVE DAYS!!! I am very excited for his party! :)

May Long Weekend

Mom is here for the long weekend and she got another great picture of Braden smiling at the camera! What a cutie, just melts my heart! He has been sleeping MUCH better now. Waking only once, maybe twice, a night for the last few so I feel more human now.

 Deah and Trinity have finally gone home to be with the rest of their family. They had been staying with my in-laws ever since Deah got discharged from the hospital, and Trinity has spent pretty much the first 8 weeks of her life there! Deah is looking so much better and I hope that she does well adjusting to life at home again. Mark is also better and has mostly recovered from the cellulitis in his leg and is done his IV treatments. Deah and Trinity came for a visit before they went home yesterday and Mom took some pictures of them:

To me, Trinity looks like a Serious Serena baby here! Serena, was a very serious little one who rarely cracked a smile, from what I can remember. Here's a picture of Serena about the same age as Trinity:

So I went over to the house yesterday to see what progress has been made. The siding is coming along slowly, but surely, probably about 1/3 of the house/garage is done. BUT, when I was their the sider guy told me that they wouldn't be there all next week because there is a house in Saskatchewan that needs to be Tyvek'd as it's ready for drywall. I felt like screaming at him that OUR HOUSE was ready for drywall 3 months ago and they never came to wrapr OUR HOUSE so why are they leaving now?! Whatever. I expect they'll be back in a few weeks to finish the job, I highly doubt they'll be gone for just 1 week, I've been there and done that before! Our whole great room is now drywalled and if people actually show up when they say they are going to, the rest of our house will be drywalled starting next week. Our drywall guy was supposed to start 2 weeks ago but keeps putting us off. Same old, same old! Our kitchen cabinets are sitting in our basement just ready to be installed. Hopefully (fingers crossed) these next stages of house building will be much less of a headache...

As for a farming update, the boys are still seeding. It seems to be going really slow this year...but maybe that's just me! Jay figures they still have another good full week to go (with no hiccups) until they finish. Then there's spraying (if the wind would ever stop) and some stuff to take care of after seeding. Braden and I will be heading to Edmonton yet again next weekend, most likely sans Jay, for Allie's baby shower. I am so excited to meet her and to visit with all my nurse mafia friends again!