Puzzles

Today Macie finished her first 100 piece puzzle all on her own and the other day Wade did his first 64 piece puzzle all by himself. These kids love puzzles and I love how proud they are of themselves when they finish one. 

Her first 100 piece puzzle

DANCE CLASSES!!

This year Macie had Ballet on Wednesdays and Jazz on Thursdays, she is not super obsessed with dance classes, but once she gets in there and gets going she loves it. Her favourite part though, and mine is the end, when we get to dress up in cute recital clothes and do her hair and make up, get her pictures taken, and then in one month from now when she does her recital pieces on stage. This little girl is such a performer and loves singing and dancing in front of people and has no fear at all. I'm excited to see her pieces this year, as she was in actual classes and not just a tiny tots program, and to see the improvement of her dancing and the actual recital pieces. Pirouette has been such a great dance studio and so happy we made the move this year to Pirouette from Fame.

TIEBREAKER GOES TOO!!

GIRLS!!!!!

On Friday I had an Ultrasound and we still didn't know if we were going to find out or not, Mark of course didn't want to cause he is awesome and loves the surprise, I like the surprise but there has been so many uncertainties with this pregnancy that I just wanted some exciting news, something to make me feel better. So we all went together and at the end when it was time to tell us, the technician went and got Mark and the kids and told us all together that it was a baby girl. I was pretty excited I have kind of been hoping for a girl, and from the moment we got pregnant I had very strong feelings that we were having a girl. Macie was super excited when he told us, and Wade had a pretty big frown face, although once she comes and he see's how cute and little she is he will fall in love with her. We already have a name picked out well 90% picked out.  Kansas Grace, I got it from watching a Kansas game over a month ago on TV, and I just fell in love with the name. So in 4 months and hopefully less we get to meet our little sweetheart.

Bed Time

I think it is pertinent to remind ourselves of the efforts put in to help our children to go to bed.
Each and every night we prepare for bed by, reading scriptures, books, praying and family hugs. Then the lights go out and we sing songs. Wade, without question will require "Doggy in the window" or the Funny Song (John Jacob Jingle Hiemer Schmitt). I love that Wade enjoys Doggy in the window. That was one song that his Grandpa would sing to me as we rode in the tractor feeding cows or driving through the mountains on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. Macie is pretty consistent with "I love to see the temple". I hope that song will help her in those difficult times in her life to help lift her up.  These moments will be missed when the kids get older and no longer wish to have mom and dad spend that much time with them....I dread the day.

MOMMY/DAUGHTER ROAD TRIP!!

One of mine and Macies favourite time of year happened on Feb 11th,  our annual mommy/daughter road trip. Last year was Annie, the year before that Disney on Ice, and today was Lloydminster to go and see The Little Mermaid Jr. The drive up was awesome, we sang songs and talked the whole time. When we got there we got a little Booster Juice, then hit up Carters for some baby clothes, then off to the show. It was so good and the kids did a fabulous Job. After the show we went to Spiro's for dinner and Spiro (the owner) is just the nicest guy and he came to visit with us, and brought Macie a home made xylophone that he made himself. Macie had the biggest smile on her face and played it the whole way home. We finished up with a stop at walmart as I promised Macie she could pick out one toy, and she choose a stuffed animal. It was such a wonderful trip together, and I can't wait to see what we do next year together. It might have to include a baby, or something closer to Cold Lake, but definitely will make sure it happens. My hope is when she is older that we do a trip together to New York and see Les Miserable or Phantom of the Opera together.

FEARLESS!!!

Macie has been fearless in the pool since she was a baby,  jumping off the side of the pool where the drop was as high as a small diving board at 18 months, going down the waterslide all buy herself at 2, jumping off the rope and diving board at 4, and today she topped it all. She watched this women doing flips off the diving board, and then saw this boy jump backwards off the diving boards, so she got up to the diving board, faced backwards and flipped that tiny little body off the diving board backwards into a full back flip. My heart sank the second I saw her flip back instead of just jump off the boards. The whole deep end of the pool just froze for a moment, cause nobody could believe this little 5 year old just did what she did. The lifeguards came over and asked if I was OK, and said she couldn't believe she just did that. I asked if they thought it was safe, and they said she did great and she can keep going. So she did it another 3 or 4 times. She then started to get tired and was trying to do flips but only did backwards dives. I love that she is fearless and is such a strong swimmer, but I don't know if my heart can handle it. She is swimming all on her own now with no life jacket in the deep water, and today she went off with friends well I stayed with Wade, and I couldn't take my eyes off of her to make sure she was safe.

TUBING at the SKI HILL

One of the children from Macie's preschool class invited the class and their families to his birthday party at Kinasoo ridge Ski hill for a tubing extravaganza. The weather was perfect. The sun was shining and the wind was hiding.
Macie and Wade are two opposites. Poor Wade was scared of the magic carpet ride to the top of the hill. I figured this day was going to be a disaster starting out like that. Macie went to the highest tubing run and went down all by herself, no hesitation at all. Wade and I rode together on the smaller run and Wade was a bit scared but he came around and we ended up having an hour and a half of a great time. The last run in was a train of tubes, going down the fastest run of them all and Wade ended up loving it.
Macie and Wade also enjoyed the pizza and cup cakes for lunch.

GYMNASTICS

Little Wade has completed season 2 of Gymnastics. His first year, Wade absolutely loved his coach. He would always ask about Coach Cody, Wade even wanted to name the new baby Coach Cody.. Wade  loves Gymnastics and always asks when he gets to go to Gymnastics. This year he had a new coach, Coach Leslie. Wade did not take to Coach Leslie as fast as Coach Cody but after a few sessions he warmed up and enjoyed his time there. Wade loves the bars and the trampoline, or any time he gets to bounce around. He has improved his summersaults, and bum drops. He also is strong and able to swing on the bars. 

HEARTBEAT!!

Today I had one of my monthly Doctor check up's. Macie came with me and when it was time to check the heartbeat Macie got to help. It was a pretty neat experience hearing the heartbeat with my first born with me. The heartbeat was 154BPM's, and we booked my 20 week ultrasound (although I will almost be 22 weeks) for March 24th.  Everything so far looks good and we are just deciding on weather or not to have the baby hear in Cold Lake, or travel to Lethbridge and have the baby were we have lots of family to help us and a bigger hospital.

Little Skaters!!

In January we went and bought some used skates from sport check and decided if we were going to invest in skates, even used ones we need to make sure we use them. Every time Mark is on days off he tries and takes them 2-3 times. Yesterday was about there 6th time going and wow they were finally taking off. Macie is full on skating, and Wade with the plastic helper is a machine and for the first time yesterday was skating without any help. The kids have had a blast with Dad going skating and I have loved watching them gain confidence and get better every time.


These pics are from the first time they went.

These pics are from yesterday