5 months

Kepler is 5 months old!

He weighs 15 pounds and 1 ounce and is 2 feet and a quarter inch long.

This month he went on an airplane,

went to Chuck E. Cheese,

and went swimming for the first time.
(his favourite part was snuggling up with Great Grandma)

Kepler loves a really warm bath,

his big sister,
and this new toy.

Kepler's personality is starting to come out and what a sweet little personality it is.

3 things I love about this video:
a. Kepler's expression never changes
b. Jayna making Kepler press the buttons
c. Jayna wearing a "princess skirt"

Kepler has the funniest little laugh, we finally caught it on video!

Jayna thinks her little brother is finally becoming fun.

Over the hill

The last 4 days has been one big long celebration for the day of Gibb's birth 30 years ago.

It started out on Friday night when Brett & Jenny came to watch our kiddos while we went out to this delicious restaurant to eat. Gibb had a steak and I had the lamb, they were both great. Of course we got dessert too, chocolate cake for the birthday boy and I had my usual, creme brulee...the pistachio creme brulee was incredible! We were going to go mini golfing, but dinner went too late.

So Saturday morning we packed up the kids and went as a family. Jayna had pretty much no interest in golfing, but was obsessed with the rocks and the water, she almost fell in a couple times. Kepler actually slept in his car seat for the first 10 or 11 holes (this is so unheard of for him), and so it kind of still felt like we were on a date...in a weird way. Gibb marked this momentous day by beating me at mini golf for the first time ever! Of course it had nothing to do with the fact that I had Kepler in the baby bjorn for the last 8 holes and I was going easy on him (I mean, he's getting pretty old).

Sunday we continued the celebrations over at his parents with the whole family. The night included a yummy home cooked meal by Pat, featuring Japanese Chicken Wings (if you haven't had these you're missing out), Gibb's usual birthday cake (the only kind he ever asks for) and Cake Pops (I got this idea from a friend and was hooked, she found them here)

Gibb was actually excited to get clothes for his birthday for once

This is how we feel about Gibb turning 30

Hooray, a picture with Pat's eyes open!

Just in case you missed it, Gibb's 30 now

Today, for his actual birthday I was worried it might be a little bit anti climactic since we've already been celebrating for 3 days...

So I had this delicious dinner waiting for him when he got home from work. And we're going to pee our pants laughing at this hilarious movie all night (seriously I can't remember the last time I laughed this hard for so long).

Gibb, I just want to tell you that...

I can't believe you're the big 3 0, that is so O L D!!! (but I still love you, in fact you're looking very distinguished these days...)

So sweet

Little things like this just melt my heart.

I love being their mom.

Remember

London

Jayna, Kepler & I flew to London last week to visit my sister and her family. I was a little nervous flying with both kids alone, but they did great, on the way there and back! This week went by so fast, we didn't do a whole lot, considering there were 7 kids, but it was so much fun hanging out all day and seeing Clara, my niece. Jayna was really excited about the trip, she kept saying "go airplane, see cousins!" We didn't take a ton of pictures, except on Halloween.

Jesse, Jayna & Nathan, probably watching Backyardigans

Jayna could not have been any more uncooperative for pictures this week

More Backyardigans!

All the kids wearing their Play On! shirts from Unlce Scott, as pajamas

Clara is the most snuggly baby and loves being held, I was in heaven!

Some highlights of the trip:

• Jayna had one of those animal backpacks on with a leash so she can't run away. Jesse said "Nathan doesn't need a string. He can walk all by himself."
• We got ambitious and went to a playgroup at the library one morning. It was a bit of an ordeal getting ready and out of the house before lunch. By the time we got there the playgroup was full. So we stayed at the library for a while and when we did end up going in to the playgroup, Jayna just wanted to steal everyone's snacks and threw a tantrum, and Nathan was saying "eat, drink" over and over so we didn't stay very long.
• Watching the funniest Seinfeld ever, and crying I was laughing so hard
• Staying up so late every night talking, and being completely exhausted the next morning
• Drinking tons of dessert herbal tea, because we all got sick
  

What a fun week, we miss everyone already!

More Halloween

I have so many pictures of Halloween this year, and I just couldn't decide which ones to post, so get ready for picture overload.

Samantha & Jayna in their matching Halloween shirts

First, we did a photoshoot with the babies in the afternoon.

My adorable niece Clara in her Halloween sleeper.

Clara & Kepler, best buds!

Not a very good picture of Kepler, but the most adorable picture of Clara's smile!

Clara & Kepler are a little scared of Halloween!

Just kidding!

My cute little pumpkin!

Then we did a photoshoot for Jeff & Lindsey, here is their adorable little boy Tyler, love his costume!

Finally it was time for trick-or-treating!
We took 7 kids out, and 4 of them were 2 and under. All I have to say about that is good thing Scott came home early from Toronto.

Samantha is the cutest cousin to Jayna, and Jayna loves her! She held her hand and helped her get her candy at the houses.

Jesse & Jayna were both spiders, it ws so cute, but this is the best picture I got of them together

The plan was that the babies would both just sleep in the double stroller, too bad things never go according to plan. At one point Cassandra and I were both feeding the babies in the van, with Jayna and Nathan running around in the back trying to eat candy. Scott took the 3 older kids ahead to keep trick-or-treating.

Jesse was so excited about Halloween and C A N D Y!

Nathan as the cutest scarecrow ever

TRICK OR TREAT!
(I made Jayna practice yelling it, hoping it would get me extra candy ;)
Kissing cousins

Pretty much the best picture we could of these two

5 babies on Halloween!

There are so many things I love about this picture, I'll just name a few:
1. We thought it would be cute to put the pumpkin in the picture, it was already hard enough trying to get all the kids in the picture.
2. Nathan and Jayna holding their candy
3. All the kids looking at the same exact same spot, but not at the camera. This is because Cassandra jumped and made the funniest noise ever to get all their attention, it was pretty funny!
4. In 94% of the pictures we took, Jayna's hand was in her mouth shovelling in candy. This was pretty much the first time she ever had candy. Yes you read that right, and I don't care if you think we're mean parents. It was so funny once she realized what was in her bag, she went crazy. The rest of the week randomly she would just say "I want candy", for example when she didn't like what we were having for dinner.

After trick or treating we came home and were watching Tyler, Cassandra & Scott's nephew. Now we were up to 5 babies 2 and under, we had to get a picture. Good thing all the babies under 1 are pretty much all angels.

Such a fun day, but we were sad that Gibb wasn't there for it.