Family Pictures

One of my old roommates from when I lived in Calgary takes pictures, so I asked her if she would take our family pictures.  She said yes, so we headed in to Lethbridge to the Indian Battle Park.  It's been years since I've been there and Lennard and the kids have never been, so it was fun to explore too!  We were there a few minutes before Marla got there, so I snapped a couple pictures with my iPhone.  

 I snapped a picture of the kids behind Marla.  I'm hoping she caught Ben's smile!

 Emma is such a little poser that it doesn't take much to get her smiling in a photo!

I can't wait to get the pictures back from Marla!  Here's hoping they turn out!

Friends

My friend, Shannon, got to come home with her baby on Monday (finally)!  I popped over and saw her for a few minutes that day, but today we got a nice long visit in!  Ben was SO excited to get to hold Gwen all by himself.  She is such a little doll.

After spending the afternoon with them, we got home so that we'd be there for Emma getting back from school.  I had to laugh when I was cleaning up things and found this note that Emma wrote.  Ben has professed his love for Izzy more than once, and even asked Cody if he could marry his daughter.  lol.  What a boy.

A Call You Never Want to Get

Lennard had a planned outage today at work.  I was at home with the kids and had got them breakfast and had them dressed for church when I got a text from Lennard saying that he was at the hospital.  That's never a good way to start a text... After asking what happened and if he was okay, I got this text: "Fell off the pole."  That's it... no details.  Yeah... that's just what I wanted to hear.

I texted him back a couple times and after a few minutes he finally wrote back saying that he'd hurt his wrist.  I tried calling a couple people to watch the kids, but the phone calls wouldn't go through for some strange reason.  I finally walked over to our next door neighbors and asked if they would watch Emma and Ben while I went down to the hospital to find out exactly what was going on.  Thankfully, they were okay to watch them and I headed down.

This is what I saw when I got there... Lennard looked so impressed.  He was so incredibly lucky that he didn't have any major injuries.  He figures that he must have kicked out and fell about 15 feet down the pole and only stopped when his wrist hit a stand off bracket and got caught between it and his safety belt.  Then he had to try to get himself righted and climb the rest of the way down the pole.  He is pretty scraped up and bruised, but it could have been SO much worse!

 I got there just a few minutes before the doctor came in to give him the all clear.  The x-ray didn't show anything broken and we were told it was just a bad sprain.  He got his wrist put in a splint and was told to get another x-ray in a week.

 He was in so much pain, but guess what he had me do... yup... I was told to take him back to the work site!  They were in the middle of an outage and he wanted to make sure it all went according to plan.  There's a dedicated employee for you!

I went home after dropping him off, got the kids and finally got ready for church.  We headed off and, after about an hour, finally got a text saying that he was home resting.

I hate seeing him in pain, but am so grateful that it is only his wrist.  After working in a rehab center out East, I had visions of brain injuries, spinal cord injuries, etc.

Store Room Shelves

We've had some adjustable shelving in the back of our storage room that is just about ready to collapse under the weight of cans.  I have been nervous about putting anything else on the shelves, so things have been stacking up on the floor.  We finally decided to just go for it and get some shelves built.  We only needed a few 2x4s so it only cost us $35 to do all the shelving.  We had leftover OSB at the hangar.

The kids helped us empty the shelves and then enjoyed playing while we installed the shelves.

By the end of the night, our new shelves were built, installed and loaded again!  Now we can see exactly what we have (or don't have).  It's nice knowing that the shelves won't break.

Primary Presentation

Well, my fourth Primary Presentation is done!  I was really nervous this morning about how it would go as last weeks practice was wild!  We all went up early so I could get kids into the right seats, but the choir was practicing until about ten minutes before the meeting started!  Argggg!  Oh well, thankfully most of the kids remembered where they were supposed to sit, so that helped. Amazingly, we were only missing two kids from our entire primary. One was sick and the other was with her dad this weekend. They did such a great job. I was so proud of them. Many of the kids had their parts memorized.  Emma and Ben did the majority of their parts without help. The kids sang all of the songs so beautifully. It was definitely a good moment. 

The rest of Primary was a little wild.  The kids were definitely done sitting still. Jen had a great activity planned for them in stations so they got to move around quite a bit. We had a little craziness in Nursery with not being able to find a parent, but hopefully we'll get at resolved quickly!

I am so very thankful for such great counsellors, teachers, music people, nursery leaders, etc. I have heard so many crazy stories from other wards and we are blessed to have dedicated, loving teachers. I love our ward. 

Birthday Party

Since Landon's party was held on Ben's birthday, Ben got to have his party today!  He was so excited for his friends to arrive.  He wanted everything Star Wars, so we played 'Clone, Clone, Droid' (Duck, Duck, Goose), Musical Chairs - to the Empire Strikes Back music, shooting lasers (silly string) at a target, keeping BB8 (orange balloons) from touching the ground and a few other silly little games.  The kids thought it was hilarious.  They jumped on the trampoline, played on the playhouse, and ate cupcakes.

Huntly, Jet, Jonah, Emma, Ben, Landon, Nash

Then, when it was time to open presents, we had the kids roll a die to see if they could get a six.  If they did, then they got to give their present to Ben.  It took up a little time, and the kids loved it.

Ben is so lucky to have such good friends.  It was a fun afternoon.

As soon as we got everyone gone, and cleaned everything up, it was time for Lennard and I to leave for the Volunteer Appreciation dinner down at the Reunion Center.  The babysitter was about 15 minutes early, so she entertained the kids while we got ready!  It was a great dinner - corn on the cob, beef on a bun, salad and butterhorns.

Piano and Martial Arts

Another quiet morning for me.  I was told that the school was going to be making a presentation of blankets to all the Grade 1 students this afternoon, so after lunch, Ben and I went to the school to watch.  As soon as Emma walked into the library and saw me, she started crying!  I pulled her onto my lap and she quickly told me that she wasn't feeling well.  I could tell that she was running a fever.  I ended up holding her throughout the presentation.  The school division sewed a blanket for each student in grades 1-3 that the kids can use when they read.  They are really cute.  When the presentation was almost done, I decided to just take Emma home with me.  We grabbed her backpack and headed over to Kaci's so Ben could have his piano lesson.  Emma and I hung out in the van while Ben had his lesson.  Unfortunately, Emma's lesson that she was supposed to have at 3:30 just won't happen.  Good way to start the year out!  

After a quiet afternoon with Emma snuggled in my bed watching movies and Ben off playing with friends, we ate dinner and then got Ben ready to go to his first martial arts class! (Korean sword martial arts)  To say that he was excited is a definite understatement!  They hold the classes in the gym of the United Church.  Lennard took him so that I could stay with Emma.  Thankfully, he took pictures and texted them to me!

First Day of School

Such an exciting day for Emma and Ben as they got to start school today!  As we've done every year, I took a picture of the kids in their 'Grad' t-shirts and then one in front  of the garage.  They were so anxious to get to school that they wanted to leave at 7:30!

  We dropped off Emma at her Grade 1 classroom first.  She found where to hang her backpack and her desk.  After a quick hug and kiss goodbye, we left her to go to Ben's classroom.  She was a little nervous, but she did okay.

 I got to stay in Ben's classroom for the first ten minutes or so.  He already knows Mrs. Bennett from Emma being in her class last year, so it was a super easy transition.

I think it was harder for me to leave him and go home to a quiet house!  Not sure what I'll do next year when they're both in all day every day!

Happy Birthday, Ben!

Our sweet boy is six years old today!  Wow!  He has been SO excited for his birthday to come that he was in hyper drive as soon as he woke up!  We've been invited over to friends this evening, so we decided to let Ben have a birthday breakfast and open his presents.  It was a good thing that he didn't have to wait until evening... it would have driven him (and us) crazy!

 Ben loves anything to do with Star Wars right now, so he got an X-wing die cast figure, Star Wars decals to decorate his room and then - Grandpa Nichols' gift to him - a stuffed BB8 (from the newest Star Wars movie).

 He hasn't let go of it all day!  Definitely a hit.  Thanks, Grandpa!

It happened to be Landon's birthday party this afternoon, so Ben and Emma got to go play at the Elementary School for his party.  Then, when they got home from that, we headed over to Henline's for dinner to 'test-taste' a brisket that James smoked.  YUM.  So delicious!  I brought Ben's cake over for dessert and everyone sang 'Happy Birthday' to him.  He didn't want any of the cake, but he was very happy to get to blow out his candles!

We sure love you, Benny boy!

Early Birthday Fun

Grandma & Grandpa Murray came to have dinner with us this afternoon and celebrate Ben's birthday.  Ben was so excited to open a present that it was torture to eat his dinner.

 He was excited to find 'wings', but he was even more excited when he discovered that it was for a remote controlled 'Dusty' airplane!

 He played with it constantly after that... even after we asked him to take a break!  'Dusty' speaks as he flies and it is a bit loud.  What a fun day for Ben.  Thanks, Grandma & Grandpa!

Twenty Minute Project

We bought a new bathroom fan for our main bathroom a week ago and we were so impressed with it that we decided to try to figure out how to install one in our bathroom.  We have always been told that we didn't need one because we have a window in the bathroom, but it's always so humid in there and you can even see water dripping on the walls after we shower.  It was a little more than the '30 minute install' time that the box said!  Lennard couldn't get down far enough in the attic to access where we wanted to put the fan, so we cut a hole in the ceiling large enough to work with.  We also changed out the plug we had and moved it up next to the light switch.  It cleans it all up and looks so much better.  We now have some patching and drywalling to do, but it's already been nice.  The fan turns on automatically when it gets to a certain humidity level.  It's a great addition.

Toys

Lennard has been wanting to work on the plane for quite a while, but he needs an extra set of hands to help him rivet and by the time we get things done after work and dinner, it's time for the kids to go to bed and I can't leave!  So, today, Lennard took work off at noon and we went out to the hangar to work!  We got a lot done and to a point where Lennard can keep working by himself if necessary.  I got to hold the bucking bar while he riveted the skin on.  He even had me do a couple rivets, but I'm way too scared of ruining things and didn't like it.

 While he was working on a few other things, I made a mad dash to Babb to pick up a bunch of packages that I'd sent there.  I had a couple presents for Ben, so we needed them for the weekend!  I also had a new 'toy' for me!  I've been researching an electric programmable pressure cooker called an Instant Pot.  I can't even remember where I saw it first or why I started looking in to them, but it's all that Lennard has heard about for two weeks or more.  I was given some money for taking family pictures, so I decided it was a good time to do something for myself with the money.  Since I've been talking about it so much and watching videos of all the different things you can do with it, the kids have gotten right into it too.  They have been asking all week if we could go pick up the Instant Pot!  They were just as excited as I was to open it up tonight!  In fact, I couldn't get them to go to bed until I had done the water test so that they could see how it works!  Ha! Ha!  I can't wait to try it out tomorrow.