Finally December

I'm so glad it's finally December so I can post about more Christmas stuff. We had a festive holiday week-end. On Saturday I took the kids to the festival of trees while Gibb was working. It was pretty small, but still fun for the kids. Jayna loved looking at all the trees, this one with the mermaid was her favourite.

About half way through looking at all the trees, this guy dressed up as a frog came into the room and Jayna was so scared of him. So we moved on to Santa's workshop, where they had all the kid's stuff. But then she saw Santa and was even more scared. She didn't want to do any of the fun activities, and couldn't stop looking over her shoulder and eyeing Santa. It didn't help that the frog kept coming into the room too. Poor girl was so stressed. I finally convinced her to decorate a cookie, and make an ornament.

That night there was a tree lighting and the Santa Claus parade downtown. Jayna almost missed it, since she didn't think she needed to wear any clothes in the nice -10C weather we had. I think she was also scared since it was a Santa Claus parade and she's scared of him, makes sense. Luckily she joined us and we had a pretty fun, but cold, night with our friends the Pratt's. I didn't pull out my camera once that night, but luckily Lindsay got all of us in this picture with her mad photography skills! Kepler cracks me up in this picture, he was so cold and pretty much stayed in this same position the whole night.

The highlight of the night for me was when Santa came at the end, and Jayna was really excited. But then Santa turned around to the other side, and I had to yell so loud for him to turn back around and wave at us. When he did Jayna yelled to him"Santa, I want the Cinderella with the sparkly bottle and books!" Ha ha, I think she knew this was the closest she would get to Santa and had to let him know while she had the chance.

November

Gibb and Jayna's version of a dance party

He's getting big, but he's still my snuggly little guy

Every little brother has to have a few pictures like this

Jayna's starting to outgrow naps...

Being silly

Jayna and Kepler play great together, as long as Kepler does whatever Jayna wants (and he's usually more than happy to)

Jayna's having a pool party with her doll Leah. At first just Leah was going to go swimming, but then Jayna couldn't pass up the chance. Ha ha, watching her try to get up out of it was hilarious!

That in a nutshell has been our month. In some ways this month has flown by and I'm so excited that it's getting closer to Christmas. But we've also had snow on the ground for a month, we put up our Christmas tree last week-end and I'm pretty much done Christmas shopping. I have one more thing to buy when we go to Edmonton next week-end and then just stocking stuff. Also since the beginning of October Jayna says this to me a few times a day:

Jayna: Mommy, guess what?
Me: What?
Jayna: It's almost Christmas, I'm so excited!! (Said in a really high voice with the hugest grin)

So in a way I feel like Christmas can't come soon enough this year. But I am very excited to have nothing else to do this month except celebrate! I'm hoping this will be a very stress free Holiday season!

Birthday time!

Last year was the big 30 for Gibb, but this year feels even older because he is now in his 30's...yikes! He could have a heart attack any day now, especially the way he eats.

We had his favourite german chocolate cake that night.

The next week-end we went out for his birthday and saw 2012, if you haven't already seen it, don't bother! We made up for it with dinner at the Keg after.

Pack, unpack, do laundry, repeat...

I feel like this is all I've done the last couple months. We've lived here in Fort McMurray 2 months now, but I've only actually been here about half of that time. Since the beginning of September I've been to Toronto, Las Vegas back to Edmonton 4 times, and then we just got back from Calgary and Barnwell. And my sister Mona also came to visit for a week. It's been so fun, but I'm so ready to be home for more than 2 weeks at a time...which is good because this time we have 3 weeks before we head back down to Edmonton, I'm getting tired just thinking about it.

The reason for this last trip was to go to my cousin Bailey's wedding. The kids and I flew to Calgary and stayed with my brother/sister-in-law in Airdre for a few days, before driving down to my grandparents in Barnwell. It was so fun being in Calgary and getting to catch up with some friends there that I never get to see, but I'm sad that I barely took any pictures the whole time. Here are some highlights.

Jayna was in heaven at the wedding and loved carrying around the bouquets. Weddings are a 3 year olds dreams come true.

Kohl and Kepler

Bailey, the beautiful bride and me
Jayna was so excited to go to a wedding. The night before the wedding this was Jayna's bedtime prayer: Thank you for Bailey's cake, Thank you for Bailey's dress, and Thank you for Bailey's wedding hat (aka her veil).

Paige, Jayna and Konnor

Kepler with AJ

Uncle David holding Jayna and Mallary's gorgeous new baby Kytara

The happy couple Robbie and Bailey. It was a really fun wedding, I'm so glad we got to be there for it. As soon as we got there and saw them, Jayna told them, "We got you a present, it's not a blender, it's a toaster!"

Aunt Sue & Uncle Rob

My Grandpa with Kepler & Jayna

Jayna with my cousin John

My Grandma was in the hospital that week-end, but she was still able to come to the wedding.

Ella & Jayna
We got to see one of my besties Jody and her 2 cute kiddies. These 2 girls had so much fun and played so good together. It was so fun to catch up.

Jayna threw one of the hugest fits ever when we had to leave, she had so much fun!

We also got to visit my friend Alysha who used to live in Edmonton with us last year. It was such a fun low key day. The babies both slept, Alivia & Jayna and Ella playes so good together, and Alysha and I got to gab away the whole day! It doesn't get any better than that.

Alysha took these adorably cute pictures of Jayna while we were there. Check out her photography blog, she is so talented!!

Thank you to all our family and friends who had us over and let us stay with them. It was a great trip and we miss you already! I'm so bummed I didn't take more pictures. I didn't get any with my friend Melissa, or with Scott, Erin and their kids who we were staying with most of the time. Next time...

Halloween in the snow

Well if anyone still isn't convinced that we live in the North Pole, let this picture do the talking.

We were supposed to have a ward Halloween party and trunk or treat that day, but it was canceled because there was a blizzard and the only road to the church (which is a long steep hill) was closed. So they rescheduled and had a simple trunk or treat in the parking lot of a school right by our house. Jayna was so sad the party was canceled so she was happy that we still got to do something, but even she wasn't so sure about it once we got there. She kept crying that the snow was getting in her eyes.

And Kepler wasn't really loving life either, in fact he spent half the time in the car, where he was way happier.

And then we were still crazy enough to go out again at night. But at least it had stopped snowing and the wind had died down. It was still freezing though, and there was a good 6 inches of snow on the ground at least.

My cute little trick or treaters!

Jayna excited about the candy or "trick or treats"Jayna was so cute, every time we saw other trick or treaters she would say "Oh look, there are my friends!" She loved yelling "trick or treat" at every house, and was very good at remembering her manners. She loved all the houses that were decorated, or "the happy halloween houses", as she called them. I thought she would be scared of them. At every house she wanted to stay and chat and we had to drag her away to the next house. So funny. She has had a total personality change in the last year or so. She used to be so shy, quiet, scared of everything and wouldn't talk to anyone. Now she says Hi to everyone we pass and won't stop talking.

My little monkey, a very fitting costumer for Kepler this year. You can see his new haircut here, we went a little too short :( At least I won't have to cut his hair for a while!She's flying!
My cute little bee!We still had a fun night, it was just more of an adventure!

The best night of Jayna's life!!

Happy Halloween...

...from our little munchkins to yours!

I was just looking back at some pictures from last year, and our kids now seem so grown up to me. I can't believe how much has changed in a year.
I can't wait to see all the pictures of kids dressed up as cute little animals. I love this holiday!

Rockstars!

I just got back last night from my week-end of amazingness! This is one of those times where I just won't really be able to explain everything that happened, but I will do my best. And here is my official disclaimer that this post is super long and full of shameless boasting about our trip. And if you don't care about or don't know what So You Think You Can Dance Canada is, you will probably be super bored and should skip it.

First I have to explain how we got so hooked up to come to the Finale. We LOVE SYTYCD and Alysha's husband got really lucky and got tickets for us online to go to a taping of a results show in the beginning of September. Me, Maren, Sarah and Alysha all went and it was super fun! After the show we started to talking to this guy Josh who does the pre-show and was so funny. (We didn't know he was the associate producer at the time). He was so impressed that we came all the way from Alberta and he introduced us to the executive producer, who also couldn't believe we came all that way and that we all had kids too! She told us that she could get us tickets to the finale if we could come back and would put us right up front. That is the very condensed version of what happened, but Alysha blogged about the whole thing.

So...we flew in to Toronto on the red eye and so we were pretty tired all day Saturday. But we still managed to get in a few hours of shopping! We went hot tubbing and planned our outfits, make-up and hair for the next day. It was the perfect girls day!
The next day was the concert. We got there a couple hours early and hung out in the VIP lounge for a while. We saw Luther's and Tre's families in there. It was so funny because most of the CTV and SYTYCD staff was super nice and friendly and knew who we were. They kept calling us the "Alberta Girls" or those "Young Moms" or some combination of the two.

I'm not gonna lie we were so bummed that Nico wasn't there, meeting him is the only that could have made this night any better
That is Luther Brown's brother behind us

This is Josh, the associate producer, that hooked us up! He does the pre-show and is hilarious! We made him a t-shirt (and by we I mean Sarah) to say thanks, and he loved it, he thought it was "Brills!!!" Here is his reaction.

When we were waiting in the hallway to go into the studio we said Hi to Stacey Tookey walking by (I love her!) and Tara Jean ran past us. I think that's when it totally hit me that we were there and so close to all the action!

We got into the studio and we were right up front and centre, although they moved us around a few times, they never moved us from the front row. Everyone else would get shuffled around during commercial breaks so that they could have new faces up front. So we got moved around to different sides of the stage, but Josh made sure we never left the front row. Which is why we are on TV so many times. The show was incredible!! It's one of those things that I can't describe. But some things that I noticed that were different is that all the dancers are tiny. Even the ones who look taller or bigger on TV are still not very big at all. Seeing the dances in person you notice the dancers emotion and connection with each other SO much more than on TV. The lifts they do look soooo much crazier and more amazing in real life! I was SO excited Tara-Jean won, she is so good and her reaction was priceless! The energy in the studio was so overwhelming and exciting!

So after the show we head back to lounge where we were supposed to meet Josh for a meet and greet with the judges. But he was super busy and wasn't there yet and so the security guards were trying to get us to leave. We got it all sorted out and it ended up that we were going to be meeting everyone as they left the media lounge after their interviews. I totally thought that is was going to be a really formal thing with the judges sitting at a table and tons of fans there and they would be hurrying us along. But it was just us, we were the only fans there and everyone else was media, so I was feeling super lucky that we got to be there. Even though we were waiting in the hallway and meeting them as they left. The PR girl that was with us was so nice and made sure we got to meet and get pictures with everyone we wanted to. So here they all are...

This is PR girl, I can't remember her name

Tu est mon judge preferee!

Leah was awesome! She chatted with us for about 10 minutes and was so friendly and down to earth, totally different than she seems on TV!

This is Vincent meeting his 3 week old niece for the first time, so cute!

While we were waiting there this lady Susanne Boyce, that we had met briefly last time, walked by and asked if we were the Alberta girls. She was impressed that we had come back for the finale and told the PR girl to get us wristbands for the wrap-up after party! We could NOT believe our good luck at this point! Little did we know that she was actually the president of the CTV network. PR girl and the other staff were all shocked when we told them she was the one who got us into the party. They were like she doesn't even know my name or who I am, how did you guys get hooked up with her?

After a while of waiting and meeting people we were getting super tired of standing so PR girl got us chairs to sit in right inside the room. It was getting less crowded since lots of people were already done and at the after party. Then she told us to just go over and help ourselves to some food and candy. Tara-Jean, Vincent, Everett and Jayme Rae were all in there hanging out and being interviewed. It was so funny because we were supposed to just be meeting people quickly as they come out and next thing we know we're right in there with everyone eating the food and as we're standing there Jayme Rae comes up to us and starts talking to us about all the drama they were making about the injuries, and Everett was telling us what it's like to work with Mia Micheals! We got to talk to all the top 4 and they were so cool and friendly! PR girl was telling us that no one ever gets to meet the dancers. Sometime the judges will sign autographs or something, but very rarely does anyone ever get to meet or get pictures with the dancers. We were feeling so lucky. I don't know how we went from getting to be front row and meeting the judges to now being in the room with, meeting and getting pics with the final four and then getting to go to the after party with all the dancers and some from last year, judges, choreographers and their families. So crazy!

The after party was all gold and sparkly. It was funny to see some of the dancers and judges just letting loose on the dance floor. We saw so many people there and we just couldn't get pictures with everyone. But here are some from the party.

Kim chatting with Nico's fiancee

Cody is even cuter in real life, if that's possible

Taylor was super creepy

Our magic black wristbands!

We did not want this amazing night to ever end. We love this show and so this was such an awesome experience for us to totally meet everyone that we see on TV twice a week and feel like we were a part of it. As we were leaving we saw Trisa Deyot, who is the executive producer of SYTYCDC. We met her last time we went out there and talked to her for a while. She thought it was so cool that our husbands let us come out for the show and have a girls week-end, and was the one who told Josh to hook us up for the finale. She asked us if we would be coming back for Season 3? Ummm, Yes, I would got back again in a heart beat!! But that might be pushing our luck.

We were a little tired by the end of the night