Monster trucks!

Gavin and Greg had a guys' day out on Saturday and went to the Ford Monster Madness World Tour in Grande Prairie. They had a lot of fun!! Gavin's verdict? "Super double fantastic!"

Abby's artwork (updated with transcript!)

(Who's that? Who's this picture?)

Who that picture? This is a blue.

(That's blue? Who is that? Did you draw a picture of Daddy?)

Yeah! Right there, you see! Down there! And I color the body, Daddy body. Daddy hair. Daddy so so pretty!

(Yeah?)

Has a pretty dress!

(Daddy has a pretty dress?)

Daddy pretty eye...

(Who's this picture, Abby? Who's that one?)

Color Abby.

Pretty eyes...pretty hair...pretty mouth...I just fall down, I just fall down. On my jacket! This one. There!

It's so pretty!

Casting Crowns in North Korea

I'm sure most of you have heard of the Christian band Casting Crowns - they are one of my favorites, and I really enjoyed seeing them live at Breakforth in Edmonton last year. I bought their new CD, The Altar and the Door, as soon as it was released. At the very end of the CD there is a hidden track which totally confused me the first time I heard it - it doesn't sound anything like the rest of their songs; in fact, I could have sworn it was Andrea Bocelli. It is a hauntingly beautiful piece called White Dove Fly High, and today I finally discovered the story behind the song.

Casting Crowns was invited to represent the U.S. at the Spring Friendship Art Festival in Pyong Yang, North Korea. Of course even if you know as little as I do about world politics, you know that a Christian band inside North Korea is no small deal. They performed this song in both Korean and English at the festival. It is a prayer for peace.

I found a slideshow set to the song put together by one of the band members after their trip:

Cousin fun

Abby gets to play with her cousin Mischa every Thursday and once they remember the concept of sharing, they have so much fun together! Here are some pictures from their fun today:


Playing some sort of doctor game - they take a medicine syringe and take turns fixing each other's imaginary 'owies.'

I often find them in Abby's crib reading books.

Mixing up some imaginary cookies together.

Me trying to eat my lunch...suddenly I had two little girls climbing all over me asking for "more salad, please!"

Rachel's four month stats

I think I forgot to post Rachel's stats after her four month shots last week. At four months and five days, she was 15lbs 14oz (90th percentile), 24 1/2 inches long (which I don't believe because when I measured her at home she was more like 26) and average head circumference (I don't remember the exact number).

Just for comparison, at 4.5 months Abby was 15lbs 6oz. At pretty much the same age (four months and eight days), Gavin was 16lbs 1oz and 25 inches long. All pretty close to the same (Abby of course was a pound lighter at birth and still was a little 'behind' the other two at this age.) :)

The funniest thing is how chubby Abby was at this age, and yet she was lighter than Rachel, who doesn't seem chubby at all to me. She must just be dense or something...

The streets of Grande Prairie

Isn't there a song like that, Streets of New York or something???

Anyway...there are strange things going on in Grande Prairie these days. Apparently the city has decided to put a big emphasis on stopping people from running red lights in the city, and have converted at least three intersections in town into giant surveillance areas. No joke, I have counted no less than 19 camera/sensor boxes at each of these intersections! I have no idea if they're trying to get photos of the offending vehicles from every possible angle, or what is going on. I have seen red light cameras in other cities, and somehow they only require three or four boxes to perform the needed functions. So I'm not sure if Grande Prairie is just so advanced technologically that they have some amazing new system that requires all these cameras...or if we're not so smart and it takes us five times as many cameras as anyone else.

And more from the 'not so smart' file...the lights have been changed at a couple of intersections in town, so that the left turning lane light, which used to have three lights (red, yellow arrow and green arrow) now have four lights (two reds, yellow arrow and green arrow). But just in case you thought two wrongs make a right, or two reds make a green, there are big signs indicating that no left turns are permitted on a double red light. Um, did somebody actually think 'well, ya sure can't turn left on a red light, but TWO red lights?!? That's just asking me to turn!' What is with that? I am seriously concerned for the intelligence of people in this area.

CONGRATULATIONS!

Congratulations to our friends Seb and Sarah Robert on the birth of their son Jacob Sebastien, weighing 6lbs 9oz - a little brother for Isabelle.

We are excited to meet him sometime soon!

Abby's Winter Wonderland

Ugh.

These trees are not supposed to be lying on the ground ten feet on our side of the fence. They're our neighbour's trees, and normally they stick up in the air like, you know, trees.

She's on a roll!

Yikes! Rachel surprised us yesterday and rolled both ways (front to back and back to front) for the first time! And the scary part is that once she rolls onto her tummy, she scrunches up her knees and actually manages to move a few inches forward! No, not yet! ;)