Matthew turns 7!

We have had a very fun, but busy, month with October birthday celebrations. After Emily's parties, we were on to Matthew's. Last weekend we had a party with some of his friends at a gymnastics club. After some gym fun, we enjoyed snacks and cake. He chose a "Hot Wheels" theme for his cake so we made a "7" race track road on his cake. He made "start" and "finish" signs for the cake, and put a few new Hot Wheels on the track. Yes one car has had a crash and is upside down!

The kids liked having time on the trampolines and jumping in the foam pits. Matthew wishes we could have a big foam pit at our house. I told him to ask Daddy about that request!

We had a family party for our 4 October birthdays, including Emily's and Matthew's, the weekend before. Here is lucky Matthew with one of his gifts, a cool dinosaur book, complete with a poster for his room.

Here is a good one of the boys in matching hockey jerseys before the party. The driveway looks a wee bit different today as we had our first snowfall last night, after a beautiful plus 25 day yesterday!

Emily Walking

I have been meaning to upload a clip of Emily walking. This is her preferred mode of travel as of late, though she still needs a chair or something else to hold onto. She likes to push something around on her chair and this can be a paper, a toy or as in this clip, a container from the recycling. She does laps and laps around the kitchen and then the whole upstairs. She is quite good at repositioning herself around the chair to change directions when necessary.

Mom, Mom, There is an Animal in Our Backyard!

Andrew can be kind of dramatic and often will tell me about an animal in the house even if it is just a little flea or piece of fluff. Today he came and said "Mom, Mom, there is an animal in our back yard", and of course I was expecting a squirrel, but look who we found! This has been quite a year for wildlife in the neighborhood as we've had bear sightings and one even managed to get into the hospital nearby.

Edmonton to Calgary through Matthew's Eyes

On the trip back to Calgaryfrom Edmonton Matthew took charge of the camera. I am always interested to see what catches his eye and he deems photo worthy. Here are a few of the shots. I left out the one of the bag of chips he bought with his allowance. This one of Emily at the rest stop was cute.

Here are some of the bunnies which have taken over the rest stop at the Heritage Ranche in Red Deer.

He took quite a few farming shots.

Andrew loved posing for the camera while we were driving.

Emily's Birthday

We went to Edmonton for a whirlwind Thanksgiving visit. We were able to get in some nice visiting and playing, though we are never able to catch everyone we want to, in one visit. Of course Emily is our Thanksgiving baby so here she is on her birthday. I am not sure if she is waving Hi, or trying to fend herself from the camera.

Emily was a good sport to go with the boys and friends to Chuck E. Cheese's on her birthday. This is an Edmonton tradition for Matthew.

There are three spots on the Carousel there, and we now fully get our token's worth as Matthew, Andrew and Emily can go on together.

Here is Emily riding her pony.

We had a pumpkin icecream cake for her after Thanksgiving dinner. We had to keep putting the cake further and further away so she wouldn't get the lit candle. She did manage to grab some of the pie and sample it first. She seemed to quite enjoy it. As you generally get to pick your favorite foods for your birthday we are really hoping her favorite is turkey dinner and pumpkin pie or we may have to alter our traditional Thanksgiving fare.

Emily has gotten quite good at opening her own gifts. She got the ribbon off this one before I could even get a photo, and you can see how carefully she is working at getting the wrapping paper off.

On other notes Emily loves doing laps around our kitchen pushing a chair. She has a new word, "uh-oh", and there are plenty of occasions to use it with her around! She went for her one year check today and she is still off the charts for height at 80cms. She weighs just over 23 pounds which puts her in the 75th-90th percentile for weight.

Emily is Turning 1!

Emily is turning 1 this upcoming Sunday. The past year has flown by! She will have a number of festivities, but we kicked it off last weekend with a kids' party on "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" theme. I uploaded the photos in reverse order. Here she is enjoying a birthday cupcake.

Here she is with Daddy enjoying a bit of birthday lunch.

Emily was hanging out before her party having some raspberries. These are a favorite, but we often have to do a quick change of clothes afterwards as they are messy for her to eat.

The boys loved looking at her cake. We made a caterpillar out of cupcakes with a beautiful butterfly in the middle. The boys enjoyed playing some friends at the party, and breaking open a butterfly pinata with them to get at a bunch of candies and toys.