Happy Halloween!

I love this holiday! Today is going to be Kepler's first Halloween and Jayna's first year trick-or-treating and she gets to go with her cousins. Jayna, Kepler and I are visiting my sister Cassandra and her family in London. It's so good to see everyone and Jayna is having so much fun! We're just sad that Gibb isn't here with us.
Jayna is going to be a spider and Kepler is a pumpkin, so cute!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Halloween Spooktacular

I'm posting about this a little late, but I figured I'd put it up anyways. Every year the Orthodontist in Gibb's building rents our Galaxyland in West Edmonton Mall for a night and sells tickets for a charity. Jayna didn't wear her spider costume here because we thought it would get in the way for riding rides, so she had to squeeze into this monkey costume that really looks like a boy costume, but it was still so cute. We met up with Gibb's cousin and his wife, Ryan & Jody and their 2 kids.

Jayna could have spent the whole night in this play area. They had balls and a jumpy room and tunnels and slides.

Riding the train

Coolest cotumes ever, Jasper & Alice! (like our fangs?)

Jayna loving the cars, she did NOT want to get off this!

Jo & Luke

We had lots of fun, but kept the kids up WAY too late. Kepler is ready to crash!
Jayna had tons of fun, but we're thinking of making it a date night next year and leaving the kids at home!

4

Kepler turned 4 months old today. He weighs 14 lbs. 8 oz. (50th percentile) and is 2 feet tall (25th percentile). He is the exact opposite of Jayna in so many ways. (I know, I know, I shouldn't compare them, but how can you not?) He is super fair skinned with light hair. He is short and chubby. He was so happy at his doctors appointment today and didn't cry at all. He is so friendly, he smiles and talks to everyone we see. He is really easygoing and can chill by himself in his chair for up to an hour at a time sometimes. (You might think from reading this that Jayna wasn't a very good baby, but that's not true, just different good.)

Some of Kepler's favourite things:

• Eating
• Sleeping
• Chewing on his hands
• Drooling
• Being adorable
  
• Grabbing toys
• Holding his head up, especially when he's laying on his tummy
  
• Making our day by giving us huge smiles and laughs with almost no effort on our part!

Gibb and I were just talking about how much we love having Kepler in our family. We can't imagine our little family without him.

Green Smoothies

Smoothies are by far one of Jayna's favourite foods. She'll eat almost anything in a smoothie, including tons of spinach. This is one of the only consistent ways I can get Jayna to eat any substantial amount of veggies. Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Cereal Please

Jayna loves cereal. Usually as soon as she wakes up in the morning she wants to "Eat!" and when we get downstairs she says "cereal please". This is what we have for breakfast almost every day at our house. Unless Gibb makes waffles.
This is what happens if we don't put the cereal away after breakfast. Jayna hides under the table and eats as much as she can before we find her. She's getting pretty good at being sneaky!

Thanksgiving Week-end

Thanksgiving week-end could pretty much be summed up in 2 words:

cousins & delicious!

We love it when Scott & Erin come to visit! We pretty much camped out at Chris & Pat's to spend as much time with them as possible. Jayna loves her cousins, especially the baby girls. She gets so excited when we tell her that we're going to see cousins.

We had a delicious turkey dinner on Sunday, courtesy of my wonderful mother-in-law, Pat! She makes a mean turkey and sweet potato casserole. This is by far my favourite meal of the year!

Monday we headed out to the Edmonton Corn Maze, and this time we actually went through the maze! Just in time too, because it was getting kind of cold and then it started to rain.

I love long week-ends like this, so relaxing, but so fun.

Thank you!

Dear Samantha, Brett, Jesse, Nathan & Clara,

Thank you so much for all the Princess stuff and books. I was so excited when I opened the present because those are 2 of my favourite things right now. I've barely taken off any of the jewelry since I opened it. I love you guys and I can't wait to see you soon!

Love, Jayna

Birthday Dinner

Today I turned the big 2-8. I'll save the part about how I feel so old, and just say that it was a low-key, but fun day. Of course the spa was so awesome, the perfect gift! I thought that Gibb was going to be working the rest of the day and then have a meeting after that. But it turned out that he only had a couple patients and then his meeting was canceled, hooray! So he told me to choose a restaurant, any restaurant, and he would take us out to celebrate. So I chose Red Lobster. Yes, you read that right. First of all it's kid friendly, very important. Second of all it's pretty much my only chance to go there when Gibb has no veto power (he's not crazy about sea food). Two highlights of the night were:

1. When the man in the booth beside us told us that our children were very well behaved!
2. Gibb cracking all my crab legs for me, because I think it's disgusting to crack, but so yummy to eat it!
   

Me & my sweet little girl

The whole family

We wore Kepler out and brought him home way past his early 7:00 pm bedtime
(Kepler never stays asleep in his car seat, this is so rare for him)

La La Land

I just spent the morning getting massaged at the spa! It was so relaxing, I felt like I could barely drive home. Have I mentioned lately how amazing my husband is?

Don't forget

• To vote today, for all my fellow Canadians.

• It's my birthday tomorrow, which I have mixed feelings about.
  

Oh No...

I got tagged. I usually don't really like to do stuff like this, but I'll do it for you Caprice, only because I miss hanging out with you! But I might not make it to 7, we'll see how it goes...


1. I hum (or sometimes sing) when I'm blow drying my hair. I didn't even realize I did this until I got married and Gibb pointed it out to me. I think it's because it's loud and I don't think anyone can hear me.

2. Speaking of blow drying hair, I hate blow drying my hair. I feel like it is such a waste of time (except that it's absolutely necessary for my hair to look decent). It's my most dreaded part of getting ready and sometimes I just put it off until it's way too late and then I have to put it in a ponytail.

3. I really like the smell of gas, permanent markers, glue, etc.

4. When I get my picture taken I will only stand with my left side facing the camera, because I have a weird mole on my right cheek and I don't like it to show in pictures.

5. I've moved 10 times in my life, and that doesn't include moving to different apartments/houses in the same city. And I hate everything about moving, I hate packing/unpacking, saying good-bye to friends, being new somewhere, etc...

6. I tap Gibb's leg with my foot when I'm falling asleep. Gibb has "affectionately" termed this nudging and it drives him crazy, but I don't even realize I'm doing it. Some nights I fall asleep to Gibb lovingly telling me "STOP nudging me!"

7. I have always been a crazy sleeper, bed and blanket hog. When I was little I rolled onto my sister's side of the bed we shared, peed the bed, and then rolled back onto my dry side and went back to sleep (so I'm told, I don't remember this). I don't know how many times I did this, but it was enough times to get my own room, which is a big deal when you have 2 older sisters and only one brother.

There I made it to 7! I choose not to tag anyone, but if you do feel like blogging 7 random things about yourself leave me a comment and let me know, because I like finding out weird/funny things about people!

F A L L

I love this month! I love the leaves changing colour, I love pumpkins, I love Thanksgiving and Halloween, I love that Christmas is getting closer, and of course October is the best month ever for a birthday!

I just wish this lasted for longer, especially since I'm dreading what's coming next.

Edmonton Corn Maze

I love Fall activities, but apparently Edmonton doesn't have apple picking (my favourite), so sad. This was pretty fun, and we didn't even end up doing the maze.

We'll be back to conquer the maze soon!

Life at the Fitzner House

One of my friends always blogs about everyday life at their house, and I think it's a great idea. So this is what is usually going on around here...

Jayna loves to jump! Anywhere and everywhere, but her favourite place is probably her crib. When we go in to get her after naps a lot of times she is jumping up and down and yelling "JUMPING!". Half the time she doesn't even want to get out of her crib because she's having so much fun (fine by me).


Jayna could colour and do play-doh all day some days. Lately she has started "writing" the Letter A (she actually does a decent job). It's her favourite letter right now (probably because it's one of only five letters she knows). This is so OT of me, but I was so proud of her awesome grasp!


"Going shopping" (like mother, like daughter). That's what Jayna told me when I asked where she was going with her stroller. Jayna loves to get on all her gear and push her babies and stuffed animals around in the stroller.


Dance, Dance, Dance! Jayna has some pretty sweet dance moves. She loves music and singing and dancing to the songs on her leapfrog toy on the fridge.


This backpack was one of the best things I've ever bought Jayna. She wears it around all the time, and occasionally is allowed to wear it when we go out. She carries all her important things in there (you know, like her rocks, her necklaces and sometimes she sneaks her special blankie in there too).


"Goggs" (or goggles). Jayna loves to wear these around and also thinks it's funny for me or Kepler to put them on once in a while too.


We read books a LOT at our house. Some of our usual favourites are pretty much any Sandra Boynton or Dr. Seuss. The ones we've been reading over and over lately are One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, Hey, Wake Up!, Oh My Oh My Oh Dinosaurs and Wiggle Waggle.


Oh yeah, and our second child Kepler, where is he during all this? He is just busy being a total angel, he's such a good baby! He spends a lot of his time in this chair. He just loves it! He doesn't like his swing or anything else. He also spends a lot of time in his crib or the baby sling. I love this guy, I'm so glad he's part of our family!


One of my favourite things is to lay in bed for a while after I wake up. But this doesn't get to happen that often anymore. Once in a while I'll bring Kepler in to our bed to feed him in the morning, just to feel like I'm sleeping in a little bit. Then when Jayna gets up she likes to come into our bed for fun too. There is nothing better than our morning family snuggle (for the whole 5 seconds that it lasts).


We've also had lots of fun exploring our new town this summer. We love our library and have found tons of fun parks and playgrounds close by. Here are some of our favourites.


Wow, this post became really long! But that is pretty much what life is like around here right now. The other thing we've been up to the last couple weeks is dealing with a teething 2 year old (molars are brutal!), and passing around colds. I gave it to Jayna, Jayna gave it to Kepler, and I guess now Kepler will have to pass it on to Gibb.