Sylvan Lake, School, and September

I have been meaning to post for a long time about our holiday to Sylvan Lake at the beginning of September. But since it has taken me so long, I will also have to include the activities of the rest of the month as well. So here goes, a hopefully not-too-wordy post, with lots of pictures of the month's events.

We enjoyed a wonderful 5 nights at a cottage in Sylvan Lake at the beginning of this month. The weather was nice the first couple of days and then ended up being a little cool, but it was nice to get away as a family and spend some quality time together. Matt would have been able to do a lot more if he was not still on his crutches, but still enjoyed the get-away. The cabin was really cute, and the bunk beds were possibly the highlight of the whole experience for Jaina. She also loved exploring and playing at the beach. Here are some pictures:

Jaina started preschool this week. She is going 2 mornings a week. She's only been two days, and always claims to "forget" what they did all morning (we're sure it's because they have been going to the jungle gym for the last half hour and it's so exciting that it's all she can think about). She will tell us with a little prompting. It's interesting to be the parent and not the teacher, and be hearing our rambunctious little girl described as being "very quiet" at school. But we can tell she loves it because she has been playing school for the past few days, lining up all her imaginary students to explain rules to them and take them to the jungle gym. Here are some pictures of her this first week:

The first day of school:
Ready to go:
At school:
New school dress:
Here are some other pictures from the past week or so.

Cool clouds that came in one night before a rainstorm:Jaina and the "big mountain" at the Zoo:
Using the homemade "binoculars" at the Zoo (Devun is in the background):

Lewis Turns One

Well, officially he's no longer a baby, but a "toddler". Although this would be a better label for one who already toddles, so it gives me a good reason to call him my baby for a little while longer. Lewis turned 1 year old on August 31. Already. How fast a year can fly by, and how much a child can change in that time! We celebrated his birthday on September 1, with some family members (those that didn't live too far away!). It was so much fun to see everyone, Lewis and Jaina had a blast, and even the weather cooperated for the BBQ (the only uninvited guests were the bugs...). Lewis caught on pretty quickly to the gift-opening, thanks to/despite all the "help" from Jaina. And thank goodness for grandparents - the party never would have gone off without them since Matt was still unable to do much being on crutches. It was a great day and we enjoyed the company of all the guests very much. Here are two photo collages, one of the birthday boy doing his thing, and the other some of the pictures of the guests.

Lewis is now enjoying playing with all his new toys. (I, however, am slightly less enjoying cleaning them up daily...) It kind of surprised me how happy he was to have some "boy's" toys, like fire trucks and cars, to play with. Or maybe it's just that they are his, or new. One of his other new favourite things are books, which he loves to crawl over to and look at (and empty from all the bins), often bringing us one to read to him. It's so cute and we're glad he is interested in them. He has started to crawl in his own weird way (seems both our children didn't want to crawl in the conventional manner - Jaina bounced around on her bottom and really never crawled). He uses his arms to pull himself and one leg, dragging the other one underneath him. I tease Matt that it must be from watching him use only one leg all the time!


He has changed soooo much over the past month. He is so interested in everything and much more active. He is always noticing things and pointing to them with his questioning "umh?" sound or his "oooh" sound that sounds like he is trying to say that he both noticed something and is super curious about it. Seeing more of his personality and seeing him more active makes me wonder what he could be thinking so much of the time now. For example, he is in love with Jaina's play kitchen (and we all know he loves to eat...). He will go over there and open all the doors and empty drawers. When he gets his hands on the play utensils, he puts them in his mouth as if he's trying each one to see if there will be any food on it. He sometimes tries them in the play bowls too. It's very cute. But now that he can move his favourite game is, as my friend Kim puts it, "crawl and dump". Which is very tiring for me always cleaning up! We are again amazed by the changes that take place over that first year, and know that this next year is also a whirlwind time of growth, changes and new accomplishments. And I don't want to miss a minute of it.

A Series of Unfortunate Events (and some happy ones too)

One of the reasons I haven't posted for a while is that the past month has been a little, well... crazy. Lots of not so good things have happened, and I wasn't going to post about them because I don't like to be negative. But then my friend Kim and I were discussing how when people blog and post pics on Facebook it's usually good and then everyone's lives look picture perfect and all rosy when really we've all got our ups and downs. And let's face it, the downs do make us stronger and to appreciate all that we do have, I think. So let me try to sum up the past month, and don't worry, it's not all doom and gloom, there have been some fantastic events as well. It really has been a month of high highs and low lows. It's life over the past month:

In the middle of July, we were upset to find out that my mom had a cancerous tumor in her colon. She receives really good care in Lethbridge and the doctors were quick to schedule surgery for the end of the month. Her surgery went well and they were able to remove the tumor completely by just removing a small section and she is recovering well from her surgery. She had some scary moments being taken to the ICU with irregular heart rhythms following surgery but got that all straightened out. Scans did show however that she has some cancerous spots or lesions on her liver as well. So she will be starting chemo next week for that, we've been told this treatment will be ongoing for 6 months. We are all very optimistic about it, because my mom is otherwise healthy and a very strong person, and she continues to have such a positive attitude which can do nothing but good for her.

So, while the kids and I were staying in Lethbridge, so I could visit my mom in hospital post-surgery, I get a phone call from Matt (who's living the bachelor life in Calgary while he works for 4 days). He's in the hospital because he had gone out for a walk late one night, decided to jog through a "park"/field to get home, and has fallen and broken his ankle. The poor guy rolled it, then fell on top of it, then tried to stand up on it, and then dragged himself to the curb where he waited 3 hours for someone to stop and help him. (I guess 6'5" guys don't feel nervous enough to take their cell phones with them when out walking in the dark...) He had to have surgery on it - 6 pins and a plate. So I left the kids with my in-laws (thank goodness for them!), hopped in the car and drove back to Calgary. Matt spent the night in the hospital, and after sleeping off the anesthetic and pain meds, and some lessons on using his crutches, we were in the car headed back to Lethbridge (his aunt and uncle were visiting from BC and he wanted to visit, and he wanted to see the kids that night). He now has an air cast (but still crutches) and is back at work for a few hours a day. We've been driving him and picking him up downtown because he can't drive or take transit. (From our house to downtown, 2 round trips a day, and they're only letting him work 4 hours. You do the math - it's not pretty). But we are glad he's ok and it wasn't any worse. On the bright side, we've spent lots of time together as a family this month. Here's a picture of Matt at his parent's house a couple of days after surgery:
Back at home. Cheesecake made 'specially for the patient:

Matt with the new air cast:

Anyways, it was the day after Matt broke his ankle that our very first nephew was born!! Oscar Philip Olfert was born August 3 in New York. Congratulations to Jason and Michaelia! Michaelia was 10 days overdue and was finally induced. Oscar was born by C-section after a long labor and had some water in his lungs, and somehow ended up having Strep B virus. So he had to stay in the NICU for 10 days for his antibiotic treatment. (This, just to add to the series of unfortunate events, we find out via cell phone call as I am driving hop-along back down to Lethbridge, shortly after he was discharged from hospital). But we are very happy and thankful that Oscar is healthy, and he has been home for a few weeks now. The new mom and dad are enjoying their little boy very much. We are excited to be a real Auntie and Uncle and we can't wait to meet him - not until they visit at Christmas though. Here's a picture of Oscar. He's so cute:

So we have a couple weeks at home to get our heads on straight, and a nice visit to Taber to spend a few days with my mom at home. (Right before we arrived, my Granny's close friend Joe passed away which was very sad for her as they spent a lot of time together. But my Granny was there with him, and he had been unwell for a while.) Last weekend we went to Wetaskiwin for a Mayer family reunion (my dad's side). It was a nice visit with family that we do not get to see very often. I did miss my dad, and thought how he would have enjoyed it too. I was so busy visiting (and keeping up with my kids) that I did not even take any pictures. I should have given the camera to Matt while he was sitting there with his foot up! We got home Sunday, and to my surprise Wednesday get a message from my cousin that my Auntie Marg had suffered a heart attack Sunday night in Edmonton. Last I heard though she was due to come home from the hospital and to take it easy at home, so fortunately she is alright.

So, our family and friends are in our thoughts and we hope that the rest of you are safe and sound and well. I am also very glad at the moment that I decided to stay home from work this year too, I can't imagine my state of mind if I had just had to start back teaching too. On a positive note, this weekend we celebrated Lewis' first birthday with a BBQ at our house, with lots of family. I will post the pictures when I get them off my camera. I can't believe a whole year has gone by already and how much he has changed. We are so fortunate to have such a healthy happy little boy (and for Jaina too, who is a wonderful sister).

We are off this week for a vacation to Sylvan Lake. We had booked it a while ago and Matt decided he still wanted to go (that it was actually better than riding in to work every day for 4 hrs), and that we could use a little R&R. So when we get back hopefully I have some nice pictures to post from that too.

You do the hokey-pokey and you get your sunscreen on...

Has anyone else ever tried to put sunscreen on a 3 1/2 year old while they are doing the hokey-pokey?? Brought on by the fact that you said, "stand still, I need your left leg"? Ahh, summer fun. Enough said.

A Visit to the Farm

I've been trying to get to posting this for a while, so I'm going to try and make it short and sweet. A couple of weekends ago, we traveled to Swift Current to attend the wedding of Matt's cousin Heidi. It was a nice weekend, seeing lots of relatives and having time to catch up with them. One of the highlights for Jaina was staying at the hotel, which had a pool. I think she managed to go swimming 5 or 6 times during the weekend. She's a regular fish. The other highlight was the first visit for Michelle and the kids to the Olfert family farm. We visited on Saturday and then again Sunday for a hot dog roast with all the family. Jaina had lots of fun discovering all the farm activities with Papa. Here are some of our photos from that weekend:

Around the farm:

The big machines:

From the mouths of babes

It is too bad that we can't really remember much from the times when we ourselves were very young. It would be so interesting to know what we understood and thought about the world as we were figuring it all out. I have noticed Jaina saying some pretty funny things lately as she begins to notice the world around her in more and more detail. Like a few weeks ago, when we were about to head off to Lethbridge the next day, she said to us as we were in the car, "Your legs are going to be really tired by the time we get to Grandma and Papa's house so far away!" "Why is that?", we asked. "From pedaling all the way there," she replied. We had a good giggle in the front seat and I went on to try to explain cars in a basic way to her. It went something like this: "Oh, honey, we don't pedal the car. It's not like your bike. The car has a motor in it and it is like a machine that makes the wheels turn and the car drive. All mommy or daddy has to do is push down on the gas pedal..." and suddenly it didn't seem like such a silly conclusion for her to have come to after all. In fact, she must have been paying some attention to car talk to pick up on the pedal bit at all. And then there was the time when she watched me change Lewis' diaper, nurse him a bit, and then he spit up. Noticing that the spit up was white, she said matter-of-factly, "it must be the bum cream that you just put on him, because it's white". To which I had to explain that what I put on his bottom would not come out of his mouth, despite the fact that vice-versa is true for the human body. So anyway, I had noticed her making some funny observations and also dispensing what she thinks is novel and invaluable information to the rest of us. So here is some more from the mouth of a 3-year-old:
- Whispered (thank goodness) to me as we had lunch at the Zoo, next to a table of elderly ladies: "Mommy! Those ladies all have the same hair!"
- Earnestly, to Matt's friend as he and Matt played a driving game on the Wii that he had never tried before: "Uh, Sarah's daddy? This game is better if you drive on the road."
- To Lewis, who is listening with rapt attention: "You're a BOY, Lewis. NOT a girl!" (to which he squealed his agreement or perhaps his excitement at this tidbit of info).
- To anyone who will listen: "After I'm six, I'm gonna be seven." (never mind that she is only 3. These are the ages to which she aspires. When she is her make-believe alter-ego, named Akra - we don't know why - she is always 6 years old).
- When I giggled at the fact that she groggily came downstairs one morning wearing a pair of her panties on her head and I asked why, she grumpily and matter-of-factly replied "I just needed a hat!"

Oh, to be three.

Anyways, also, if I posted more often these wouldn't have to be so long. But here are a few photos and a quick update on what we've been doing this month:

Working on the yard. We planted a couple rows of carrots and lettuce (a.k.a. "salad"), so that Jaina could have a garden. Here she is watering it.
We went down to Lethbridge on the Father's Day weekend to see the Papas and celebrate my mom's birthday. Here are the kids with Papa Olfert and Matt on Father's Day:

Matt had taken holidays during that week so we could work on the yard, but it was too wet to get much done. Even on sunny days the ground just was not quite dry enough. So we took advantage of a sunny morning and went to the Zoo as a family, which we rarely get the chance to do. Here are some pics of us at the Zoo:

Then the very next weekend we headed back down to Taber, to visit and also to attend a Klemen family BBQ to celebrate Nona's 80th birthday. It was the first time in a very long time that every single relative came to one event. The only present Nona wanted was a picture with her family, her grandchildren and one with her 32 great-grandchildren, who range in age from 2 months old to 16 years. It went off surprisingly well and hopefully the photographer got a good picture. Here is a picture of us, Veronica and Chris, and my mom and Steve.
We also had the chance just to get out and play at the park in Taber. Here are some pictures of Jaina and Lewis with their hats on and all ready to go out and play:

So we had a fun but tiring time over the past few weeks. To top it off, when we got back from Taber my mom called to say that we had forgotten Jaina's teddy bear in her room (we had rushed home from Taber at 8:00 that morning to make it to Jaina's last gymnastics class by 11:30). This, we knew, was a potential catastrophe. My mom went down to the post office on her lunch break and sent him back Expresspost to us. We concocted a story about her teddy bear's "big adventure" at the post office and through the mail, which was received with a minimum of tears . Luckily, he arrived the very next day. So that's life lately. We are looking forward to a less hectic summer, with no classes for Jaina (except maybe a round of swimming lessons). Hopefully we'll get in a lot more visiting with friends, playing at the park, waterpark, backyard, etc. as well as some visits to the Zoo and Heritage Park. This weekend we hope to work in the yard some more, and maybe take in some Canada Day festivities at a local park. Next weekend we are off to a wedding in Swift Current, and finally a chance to visit the Olfert family farm. So I'm sure we'll have some more pictures to post soon!

Fun in the Sun

Tonight as I write we are experiencing a massive thunder and lightening storm with pounding rain. It is one of those truly awesome summer storms which I love.

Other than tonight, though, the weather has finally been acting its season and we have had almost a week of hot, sunny weather. It has been so nice to finally have it feel like summer. Matt and I have been trying to work on our landscaping, weeding and putting in a garden and flowerbed in the back. Of course, over the past two weekends we have both been a little sick with colds and sore throats so we haven't gotten as much done as we'd like. It's also been nice to finally get outside with Jaina and Lewis. We have been to the park, played in the yard, and even made it to Heritage Park on Thursday with my friend Kim and her two children. Jaina is already the typical kid, she loves to ride her little bike, she asks all the time and rides it as much as she can. We also bought her these Fisher-Price beginner roller skates, which adjust for 3 levels of ability, for example right now Jaina is using the middle setting where the wheels are supposed to just roll forward. The first setting they lock so basically she could just walk in them, and the third setting is just like normal wheels. And I finally went out and purchased my birthday present from Matt and the kids, a brand new bike!! Now if I only had time to go for a big, long, fast(er) bike ride. Hopefully soon. I've only ridden up and down the street with Jaina - not very adrenaline-inducing. And we also finally got a little plastic pool for the backyard, which they enjoyed this weekend.

Anyways, the purpose of this post was really to put up a few slideshows of the kids having fun in the sun, so here they are:

Bike riding and rollerskating:

Playing at the park:

Trying out the new pool: