Busy, Busy Weekend

And the boys did great! I'll start off by saying that. We went on Ethan's first road trip, our first trip as a family of four, to go to my mom's for the weekend. We celebrated my Grandma's 80th birthday and it was wonderful to see all of the family!

Braden and Jay sang happy birthday to GG and she looked so beautiful! She had all three of her great-grandbabies there!

It was really special to see GG meet Ethan for the first time, he was wide awake at the party!

And that little Abby is such a ham!

Not only is my little Abbykins a ham...she is such a little beauty and a daddy's girl at 7 months!
 

I love seeing my brother as a dad. He's such a wonderful daddy to Abigail and an amazing uncle to my boys!

 Uncle Steve even got in on some Ethan snuggling action!

And Auntie Jess got some Ethan lovin' too! She's been dying to meet him and I'm so glad we finally all got together and that the weather cooperated!

Speaking of Auntie Jess, she threw us a "Meet Ethan" party on Sunday! In Canada, at least where I'm from, we don't typically have baby showers for every baby, only our first...but I really wanted my Edmonton friends to be able to meet Ethan, so it was really nice to have a "shower" for him - thanks again, so much, Jess!

It was so great to see my girlfriends and all their babies! That's one of my forever besties Natalie and her little boy Reid. He's only 6.5 weeks older than Ethan! That's the part that is the hardest for me living at the farm - the most bittersweet part of my life - is being away from my girlfriends and their babies, and Ben & Jess too, especially since they've had Abigail. Sure, I've made friends here and they have kids my kid's age...but it's just not the same. I wouldn't trade my life on the farm for anything, it's just very bittersweet sometimes!

The spread was amazing! And just check out these adorable whale cookies!! They were so cute I didn't want to eat them...but then I got over it and did!


Thank you again, my beautiful girls, for this awesome party! And Ben too...he did a lot and I know that! And just a few more pictures from the festivities...


None of my candid pictures from the party worked at all - but thank you Natalie, Keri, Katie, Marjorie, Mom, & Mrs. N for coming as well! I loved seeing all the babies together (Abby was the only girl) and missed everyone who couldn't make it!

And, for my friends who love Friends...a little humor featuring Reid & Ethan!

Thanksgiving

This is actually the first year in many many years that I've had 2 Thanksgivings. I usually end up working and then just stay at home to celebrate with my in-law family. Well, now that Abbykins is in our family, I think I will always make an effort to celebrate this holiday with both families, though it does involve quite a bit of traveling! But, the awesome thing this year is that we celebrated with my family Saturday and Jay's family Monday afternoon so we weren't rushed at all which is always a huge stress relief for me!

So it was great to see Ben, Jess, & Abby at my Mom's house. My Uncle Steve was there for the day and we went to visit Grandma on Sunday. She's doing really well and her personality hasn't changed a bit since she had her stroke.

It was busy, busy, busy at my in-laws on Monday. It always is, and it always will be. The whole family was there. That's 10 adults and 9 kids under 7!

But the bird was great, all us kids always bring a dish to contribute to the meal to help out so it makes the load a lot less (I hope!). Here's a pic of Grandma teaching the girls how to make gravy and Uncle Jay whispering in their ears "Ask Grandma if she's sure she knows what she's doing!"

The kids all got along great, and for the first time ever Braden actually played with his twin cousins. For some reason Braden just always seems to avoid them, but maybe now that they're 22 months and getting older he likes them more? Not that he ever didn't like them, he just always avoided them!

 It's really nice that the Uncles/Daddies of the family can take over playing with the kids while the gals tidy up. Some of the guys help clean up, but mostly if the kids are taken care of...that's all I care about!

Grandma turns 60 on October 17 but has a busy busy week that week so we celebrated early. Here's Grandma with all her grandbabies except for Blake because he was having a good snooze...and we all know better than to wake a sleeping baby!

I've said it before and I'll say it again and again...Braden is so blessed to have ALL of his cousins live so close to him and be so close in age! Luke is 19 months older, Chaz & Nolan are about 10 months younger and he's a bit over 2 years older than Abby.

So? What am I thankful for this year? So many things...too many things that I don't deserve and that I know I can't possibly write them all down. But it looks a bit like this:

• My freedom, both that Jesus gave me and that I have as a Canadian
• My health and my family's health
• My beautiful home with an almost 1/2 finished basement now
• The anticipation of changing our life and family forever in a mere 4 weeks or so!
• My family. My side has been through some really tough times with my Dad over the last year and we have all stuck together and it has brought us closer together, and for that I am SO thankful. I'm also thankful that my in-law family has been so supportive, loving, and caring to me through all of this and that Braden has such an amazing bond with his Papa and has strong male role models in his life.

Only 2 days left to vote so please help a girl out! :)

Papa's 60th Birthday

Today is my father-in-law's 60th birthday! We got together on Saturday to celebrate and all the grandkids were there to celebrate with him!




What beautiful kids, hey? Well...maybe these ones are a bit scary in this picture but it really makes me laugh! This is what 5 & 6 year olds do when you ask them to make a "cheese" face!

Braden and his Papa!

We had a wonderful time, Braden was excited to finally be out of quarantine, with one little intact blister left on his finger that he happily let me cover with a Bandaid. I have been eating really good lately, but I pigged out on junk and paid for it with a big bellyache later.

Hope you have a wonderful birthday, Ray! We love you very much!

Cousin Lovin'

This long weekend has been great so far! Ben, Jess, and Abby made their first road trip together to come see us for the weekend. They spent 2 nights and Abby did wonderful! She slept the whole car ride here and back home. Braden wouldn't stop talking about Baby Abby coming to visit, and he absolutely adored her!





He oh, so gently crawled in next to her, pointed up at the musical star, tried to give her toys, read her the books on the play gym. Heart officially melted. And then he disappeared to return to me like this:

We have been soother-free for over 3 months, he hasn't even mentioned it at all, but we gave Abby a few of his newborn soothers to use and he found them!

Then this was the look I got when I told him to give it back to baby Abby and that he doesn't use one anymore!

I tell ya...these kids are just amazing! Then we went over to the farm for a bit to celebrate Marchella's 5th birthday, so Braden got to see all EIGHT of his cousins in one day!






Sometimes Braden gets sick of being around a lot of people and would rather spend time with the tractors!




A great weekend spent with the cousins! Also, a little potty training update - for the last 2 days Braden has told us "go pee potty" and has not had one accident! He was very happy and proud to show Uncle Ben that he could pee on the potty, wash his hands with his Elmo soap, and get a potty treat. I could not be a more proud mama of how well Braden has adapted to potty training!