Edmonton...again

I've been to Edmonton 3 times this month. Twice with the whole family and one quick trip by myself for an ortho appointment. And now we're on strike...at least until my next appointment in November. Even though it's been crazy, we've had some fun times.

Kepler being a pirate

Kepler and his cousin Holly were best buddies

Me & my girl

Kepler also LOVES his cousin Evan, and Evan is so sweet to Kepler

cute little 4 year olds: Gabby & Jayna

Jayna with the newest cousin Adam, so tiny and sweet

Kepler with Great Grandma at her 90th party

I'm so glad we have family so close and somewhere to stay whenever we go there and so glad we don't have to make that drive again for a while! Thanks Pat and Chris for letting us take over your house whenever we come, we really appreciate it!

Cute faces and an embarrassing story

The Oil Sands Discovery Centre had a free family day, and it was a perfect way to spend a Saturday with the kids when Gibb was working.

They got some cute face painting done and they had a few kids activities inside.

They also had some big trucks out, an obstacle course and a few bouncy castles!

When we went over to see the big trucks I noticed that only one of the guys had a name tag on it and it said "Guy". So I stupidly thought it was a joke and tried to joke with him about his name tag saying Guy on it. He did not laugh at all and looked at me like I was crazy. I then realized that there were other people with name tags on and that Guy was actually his name. I don't know what possessed me to even say something about it, I was so embarrassed.

Jayna's first day of preschool

Jayna had her first first day of school today.
She's going to preschool Tuesday and Thursday mornings this year. She is very excited and so ready for this.

Her cubby

Jayna loves doing puppet shows, she was so happy there was a puppet theatre there
TA-DA!

love her little smile

I got to go with Jayna to preschool today, it was fun getting to have some one-on-one time with my big girl on her big day. She loved the sand table and the puppet show the best, and getting to see Teacher Donna again. No tears for mama or daughter, but on Thursday when I actually just drop her off for a real school day it might be a different story...for me.

I love to do ballet!

Jayna's first dance class.
It's not officially a ballet class, but don't bother telling her that. One of Jayna's favourite things to play is "Ballet Class", where I'm the teacher and I teach her ballerina moves. And then she performs those moves "on stage" for Kepler and I. One of her other favourite things to do is is dance around singing "I love to do ballet!" to the same tun over and over and over.

She loves her teachers Miss Megan and Miss Mahogany and her favourite part of the class was "skipping and marching with my friends and saying thank you to my teacher". She's already been asking me when she gets to dance on stage, it's going to be a long wait until May for the year end show ;)

Jayna is (finally) 4!

Since we decided to go camping instead of having a party for Jayna's birthday this year, I thought it would be a little more low key, but it ended up being a week long celebration instead. All her friends have already turned 4 so this has been a highly anticipated day.

Having cupcakes with Grandma & Grandpa the night before

and opening her gift from them

On her actual birthday we had breakfast with our friends the Lows in the morning

Then swimming at Servus Place in St. Albert (it has the best pool I've ever been to) before driving back home to Fort Mac

Opening presents from the family once we got home
and putting them to good use

The next week-end we were back in Edmonton again and since most of the Fitzner cousins were there we decided we would wait and have cake then

According to Jayna being 4 is SO much better than being 3 already. She has decided that she is now practically a grown up. And a big part of being a grown up is to stop sucking her thumb!! And best of all it was her idea.
2 days after Jayna's birthday she told Gibb "Daddy, I'm a big girl now that I'm 4, so I don't suck my thumb anymore and I don't need my blankie anymore either. You can throw it in the garbage." For any of you that know Jayna, this was HUGE! She had been very attached to her pink blankie since she was a baby and I thought we would have to pry it away from her if she was ever going to stop sucking her thumb. I never dreamed she would stop sucking her thumb before she was 6 or 7 and I thought it would be a battle, since she can be very stubborn. So we just went with it. We put away her blankie and she has gone to bed without it for a week now with no problems, no crying and NO thumb sucking! Wow, when this girl makes up her mind to something there's no stopping her. The only downside to this is that her naps are also gone now too, but I'll take it.

Camping

For her birthday this year I asked Jayna if she wanted to have some friends over for a party or go camping with Daddy. She chose camping, so that's what we did on Labour Day week-end. At first just Jayna and Gibb were going to go, but last minute Kepler and I decided to join the fun.

We went out to the lake earlier in the day so the hard core people (read: crazies) could go skiing.

Jayna, Jordyn, Luke, Kepler
cute little bums

Kepler cheering for Grandpa to go faster! He's obsessed with "Grandpa's sweet boat"

Gibb finally using his Christmas present from last year. He was wearing his jeans and shirt under the dry suit

Kepler said his favourite part of the camping trip was watching Daddy water ski, he wishes he was big enough to go to!

Luke & Grandpa

Jayna and Luke's silly faces

Jayna's favourite part of camping: "Marshing (roasting) the marshmallows all by myself!"

Just a little excited to be sleeping in the tent!

We got lucky and picked the only day with decent weather to go. This was the first week-end that Gibb was off that it wasn't raining for a month. I'm glad that we all decided to go camping, Jayna was too. When I told her that Kepler and I were coming too she said "Oh good, we'll all be part of the family!" I'm not a big camper, but I can handle it for a night. Especially since we were staying at a friend's cabin so Kepler could sleep inside and there was a kitchen! This coule become a tradition, it was really fun!