A 2 Year Old....

Well my two year old..

- Is one of the bravest kids I know, she has no fear when it comes to doing anything. Some of my favorite moments have been going down the Lloydminster water slide all by herself and going sledding down the hill in Ponoka all by herself.

- There is no question she is a strong willed kid. She doesn't have any problems giving us attitude and making sure we know what she wants and when she is upset with us.

- Is saying so many words it is crazy, she can say anything we say, and her sentences are coming along nicely. Some of my favorite words and sentences are... gong show, OK, Gampo and Papo (Grandma and Grandpa), Oange (Orange) Come on Daddy, Please Thank you your welcome all said at the same time.

- I don't think I can say it enough, but this girl LOVES swimming

- My Little Munchkin weighs about 24 lbs

- She is great at sharing food and it depends on the situation and the person weather or not she decides to share her toys.

- She wants to make lots and lots of friends but struggles a bit with kids her age as she is so loud and in your face, she gets along best with kids a couple of years older then her.

- She loves to sing especially Popcorn popping, Once there was a snowman, Wheels on the Bus, I am a Child of God, and My Little Pony

- I am sad to admit but she loves her shows. We try and stick to no more then a couple a week but since having Wade there has been almost one a day. I will admit it is nice for when we travel she is so good and just watches shows. Some of her favorites have been,  Finding Nemo, The Lion King, 101 Dalmations, The Jungle Book, Tangled (my favorite to watch with her) and My Little Pony

- She got her colors really fast especially yellow and blue, she is also really good at orange, pink, purple, white and black. Red, Green, Brown and grey are a sturggle for her but when she really focuses she can get any color when she doesn't almost every color is Yellow.

- Has been a great big sister to Wade and is so patient with all his crying, and the amount of time mommy has to give him.

- Is almost ready to be done with naps, we only nap her about 3 times a week

- Has one of the best laughs and smiles ever, although she almost always refuses to smile for a camera she melts hearts with that smile of hers

- Still has crazy blonde hair, I love curling it for her on Sundays, she looks so adorable.

- She definitely loves her play time, especially when mom and dad get right in there with her.

- Next to playing she really loves painting, playdough, and stickers.

- Is still my picky eater and I am trying my hardest to be patient with her, but it gets hard some days. It blows my mind how she can eat next to nothing some days and still function and such a high level.

- What else to say, so much. This girl is incredible and I love her to death she knows exactly what to do to make me smile. Her hugs and kisses are the best and even when she is giving attitude she is still fun.

Life changes

This year has a couple big milestones for me. My 30th birthday and our 10 year anniversary. Before we had kids it would have been a huge event with a good chunk of money spent. A two week vacation, someplace hot and some big gifts. The wordly joys we got to experience while being a double income family with no kids, I can't lie were awesome. However they were all short term gratifications. This morning as I was playing dress up with Macie and snuggling with Wade it brought me such peace knowing the joy and love I was feeling towards my kids was eternal. The vacations, nice clothes and toys, although they were fun will do nothing for us in the hereafter. I have so many goals for this new year, but the most important is to focus on being a good mother and nurture my children in the gospel and make sure they feel my love. That my children are getting my full attention. I do feel it is still important for me to have time for me and do some things I love, like workout, read, and dates with my hubby. However when I am with them I am with them and not focusing on 100 other things, just them. It has been interesting since I cut some stresses out of my life how already my relationship with Wade has gotten better. I am so blessed to have such beautiful children and thankful to my Heavenly Father for giving me the gift of motherhood. 

The Wood Cutters

This last weekend,October 12,Shawn Trainer, Jeff Jeanotte and I went up to Tuliby lake to cut some wood. The weather was perfect. Nice fall day to be in the woods. In conversations with one of the land owners, we were told about an awesome pile of spruce that was all piled up beside the road. All we had to do is cut it and split it. How nice and easy could it be? Two trees, two chainsaws, two pickups, one axe, and three hours later we had all the wood we could handle. It was a fun time with the boys, playing with our manly toys. In the end, we didn't need all that wood so we decided to donate it to a family in our Branch. That was a good feeling as the family members came out and thanked us for all the fire wood. I haven't done something that gratifying in along time. I don't know the extend to which they needed it, but it can help them heat their house this winter and save some money. I am grateful for opportunities to serve, it truly brings me closer to God.

Christmas Adventures!!

This year Christmas was full of traveling, shopping, eating, swimming, sledding and of course seeing family. We headed to Ponoka from Saturday until Christmas morning to hang out with my parents. We did a quick trip to Airdie in there to visit my brother and a day in Red Deer at an awesome swimming pool. We also took Macie sledding for the first time as the weather was gorgeous and there was tons of snow. Macie loved it and of course had no fear. Christmas morning was fun and Macie loved opening presents and also being Santa and handing everybody else there presents. After the excitement of Christmas morning we headed to Calgary to my sisters house where all my family showed up for dinner and visiting, even my Grandma Prive was able to make it. It was such a great time and my sister did such a wonderful job hosting. That night we then headed to Lethbridge and stayed a couple nights at the Holiday Inn where we meet up with Mark's family and did some swimming at the hotel, dinner, and mini golf. I always love visiting Mark's family, it is always too short of a visit, they are so good at always planning something fun to do when we come visit and taking the time to drop everything going on in there busy lives to hang out with us. We then headed back home on Saturday and I have got to brag for a second about how amazing the kids where for the way home. Macie just snuggled into her car seat with Nanie's (her blankets), apple jack, and lily JR (her stuffed puppy) and watched a ton of shows and didn't fuss once, and Wade slept, ate and had one 20 minute cry season. They were little angels. Christmas was definitely a good one this year, it was nice to not have it just be all about the presents, but mostly about visiting family, having fun, singing Christmas Carols, watching Christmas shows and being with our children. I hope we have many more Christmas's like this in the future.

The best pic we could get of Wade in his Sunday Christmas outfit

and the best pic we could get of Macie in her Sunday Christmas Outfit

ready to go sledding

This brave little girl went down all by herself and had smiles on the whole way

finally starting to give us some smiles this week

Many naps were in her carseat

TURNING TWO!!!

 The day started out with being a total nightmare for me, Wade was crying and fussy all day. I literally could not put him down for a second without him losing his mind and even while I held him he was losing his mind. I was on the brink of a nervous breakdown and to make it worse I got my period the day before so I knew I wasn't even going to be able to go swimming with Macie for her birthday which made me so sad. However some how thorough all the insanity and frustration the swimming party turned out to be awesome and even my cake that fell apart ended up being delicious. We ended up doing presents for Macie when Mark came home for lunch as we asked that no presents be brought to her birthday party as she already has so many toys. We mostly just got her books and puzzles and also ended up being bad parents and gave her her big Christmas present that we couldn't fit in the vehicle, to take with us at Christmas, to her as a Birthday Present. Good thing she wouldn't know the difference this year. Then that night we headed to the pool where we invited all of our friends, a good chunk of people showed up. The Isackson's, Kuehn's, Jeanotte's, Fyfe's, Bennett's and the Swendsen's. Then we headed back to our house for cake and ice cream, the Passey's showed up for that part. Even though Mom was stressed to the max, thankfully the Birthday girl had a great day and loved everything about getting spoiled with presents, swimming, friends and cake. I am so glad I kept her party low key and easy this year, I couldn't imagine if I had planned to go all out and my day ended up like it did how I would have done it all. I am really starting to like this outlook on life of making things simple and stress free.

someone is in slide heaven

she knew exactly what to do

MEETING SANTA!!!!

This little munchkin was to die for cute yesterday at the Devon children's Christmas Party. We started with some snacks and a show and Macie snuggled on my lap and munched on her treats the whole time. She was such a good girl. Then Santa made his appearance and Macie was so excited, she ran right up to him. I told her she had to wait her turn and every time they pulled a new present out she would get a little closer, she was so good though and waited so patiently especially when her name was almost called last. She got right up onto Santa's lap and was not scared at all. She of course though wouldn't smile for me, she wouldn't even lift her head up. She then carried her present to an open spot and knew exactly what to do, and started opening it up right away. She was excited that it was "color" and can't wait to play with it tomorrow with her.

Fun Night

A couple months ago Macie and I started this fun little tradition at night. Not every night, usually about 2 nights a week. Macie sometimes struggles with falling a asleep at night especially if she has had a nap. I would go in to check on her and would ask her if she wanted mommy to snuggle, in her adorable little voice she would reply OK. I would crawl into her bed and sing songs and try to get her to fall asleep. In the beginning it worked, if she didn't fall asleep she would at least calm down and fall asleep shortly after I left. Lately though she has really been struggling to fall asleep if she has had a nap so it has turned into a little bit more of a bonding time with mommy. I will crawl into bed and we usually start with talking to each other. She talks to me about all her stuffies and there names, then she likes to inform me where all the parts on my face are. Then we proceed to sing songs, she is getting so good at singing them with me. Especially once there was a snowman. Macie's version is snowman snowman snowman, tall tall, sun he melted melted melted melted melted small. So stinkin adorable. Usually by this time I then leave and she shortly falls asleep, last night however she really didn't want to fall asleep and it turned into one of the best nights ever. Just as I was ready to leave I gave her a hug and kiss and we said our I love you's and then Macie started to tickle me. I laughed and tickeled her back. This went on for about 10 minutes and we started getting really loud, so Mark came in to see what all the fun was about. He opened the door and in a deep joking voice "What is going on in here" Mom "Macie, sh sh sh dad caught us oh no be quit or he is gonna get us. Macie jumps off my tummy and snuggles into my arms saying "sh sh". Mark "You to better get to bed". Mark closes the door and Macie has now discovered a fun game to stay awake. She jumps on my belly and in a super load voice says "tickle tickle tickle" and try's to tickle me, I laugh super load, then she jumps of my tummy snuggles into me and says "sh sh sh, daddy is coming". We laughed and giggled together for a good 15 minutes while we played the "Daddy is coming" game. Macie didn't end up falling asleep until 10:30 last night but for an amazing memory like that with my daughter who cares. I think I was having more fun then her, and I will remember last night and the fun we had together forever. 

Not Going to Sugar Coat It!!

A couple weeks ago in church we had a lesson on facing trials and challenges. Our Young Womens President Sylvia Franklin gave a comment on how as a society we are not as close to our friends and family as we use to be, and how we have less and less friends then we use to because of social media. She said how this article she read pointed out that on social media websites we only post good pictures of ourselves, only talk about the raises we have gotten or the better jobs, the bigger houses we have bought, the new fancy vehicle we are driving,  how wonderful our children are. Pretty much to sum it up how perfectly wonderful our lives our, and how everybody needs to be jealous of it. Because of these everybody is endlessly comparing themselves to everybody else, which when we do this it makes it hard to make true friends and grow our friendships within our families.  Such an interesting point and something that I had never thought about before, but it makes total sense. So with that in mind instead of posting a blog posts of a cute picture of my son and say how much I love him I am going to be real and raw about our life with Wade so far. It started out wonderful, we love him, he is handsome and adorable and wonderful to snuggle with. However thing after thing keeps creeping up on us with him. First having to stop breast feeding, although he is not projectile vomiting anymore he still spits up all day everyday. Then not wanting to sleep in his bed leaving night after night of not getting good sleeps. Once we fixed that the real stress came on, NEVER wanting to be put down. Unless he is sleeping he needs to be held 24/7. I never knew this could even be a stress with a baby. His cry is so loud and so deafening to our ears that it is almost impossible to let him fuss it out. He always looks like he is in so much pain and agony. It is hard to see smiles on his face, always this look of mom I don't feel good. I have never been so confused with my feelings. I love this little man so much and ache that he is in so much pain, but it is to the point now where even if he is not crying I can still hear his screams ringing in my ears. This past week in particular has been rough. Macie has had a wierd little stomach flu, we have been so busy with callings, vemma, Mark's work and trying to get ready for Christmas and you realize how it is impossible to get those things done with a child screaming at the top of his lungs all day, or having to hold him and then you really can't get them done. I actually feel the worst for Macie she is being so neglected and I hate that, we have such a wonderful relationship and have so much fun together and I hate that I have not got to spend any quality time with her this week. She plays by herself, or watches a show (which I hate more then anything), or is in my face (which I can't blame her )but add a screaming baby as well and I am about ready to go mad. I am hoping that this just turns out to be one of the worst honeymoon stages ever and things can settle down eventually. The only thing that gets me through it all right now is prayers to my Savior, and my amazing husband. I didn't want to write this so everybody could feel bad for me, it is life and we will get through it and when it is all said and done it will be an experience that hopefully only made me a better person and mine and Mark's relationship even stronger. I just wanted to mostly write it for memory sake, when we look back and see how we grew from this and how small of a challenge this was compared to what we will face in the future and like I said to not sugar coat it, to not show off to everyone that life is perfect because right now it definitely is not.

Wade's Baby Blessing

What a wonderful, peaceful, stress free day. We woke up, got ready took a couple pictures and then went to church and enjoyed the beautiful blessing Mark gave to Wade. He was such a good boy and didn't make a peep, which was so nice. I didn't think this colicky little boy was going to be quite for us but once again we had a no crying blessing. He looked so handsome in his outfit, and Macie looked so pretty in her dress. I just love my little family and moments like these in our life. I kept it so stress free this year and we didn't do any big events afterwards or the day before. Just a small dinner afterwards with my parents and I have to say I really enjoyed not being stressed and just enjoying the day and the importance of the blessing.