Cousins

(Can you tell I'm having fun playing with my new flash???)

Sisters

I bought Abby and Rachel these matching pajamas quite a while ago and thought I'd better take some pictures of them together before Rachel grows out of hers!

Mr NoTeeth

In yet another milestone for our little boy, Gavin has now lost not just one, but TWO teeth! His bottom teeth have been a little bit loose for a month or more, but Greg had really been working on them lately, and then last Thursday while he and Gavin were watching junior high basketball, the first one came out! Gavin had been eating an apple and noticed a bit of blood on his apple from where his loose tooth had been biting it, and Daddy decided it was time to get that tooth out. :)

The second one fell out two days later, so Gavin's piggy bank is getting pretty full from tooth fairy money!

Where have I gone?

It seems I haven't had time to blog lately...what have I been up to???

- Work! I'm back to work, spending one morning a week in the office and then working about 10 or so more hours at home. It's working out pretty well, but even ten hours is sometimes hard to find when there's so many other things to be done!

- Painting! I finished the top part of the window wall, and after a few days of indecision have decided that I do, indeed, like the colors. Greg cleared everything off and away from the big long wall for me and I've filled all the cracks (no small job on that wall!) and am almost done sanding. Hopefully will get to priming and painting soon, and then there's just one more fairly short wall to finish.

- Website! Most of you know that I've been part of a band that has led worship at our area youth conference for the past four years. After the conference this year, our group really felt like we should continue playing together - and starting in February, we will be leading a city-wide worship night in Grande Prairie each month. We are really excited about this new opportunity and I was able to help design our new website - I've learned a lot and look forward to adding more to it! Our site is at http://www.downpourgp.com/ if you want to take a look. :)

So that's what I've been doing lately (well, and changing diapers, wiping noses, refereeing arguments, feeding babies...the usual). ;) Gavin does have some exciting news regarding a couple of his teeth that he wants me to share, so I'll have to post about that soon.

Making progress!

Slowly but surely I will get the family room downstairs painted! Things got off to a slow start because the first job was to remove the wallpaper from the one wall that still had it. May I just say that wallpaper removal is one of my least favorite jobs!

But that's done and I've finished the two full walls in the darker color, and one side of the lower wall. We were in town yesterday and picked out the color for the top half of the walls (you can see a little patch of it in one of the pictures - it's just two shades lighter). Tonight I'm hoping to start painting the top half...at least the window wall so Greg can put the blinds back up and passers-by won't see right into our basement!

Big girl bed!

On our trip to Calgary last week, Abby ended up sleeping in a regular twin bed rather than her playpen (and slept fine), so we decided it was time to get rid of her crib. She was so excited about her 'special big girl bed' - kept asking if it was time to lie down yet! She went right to sleep and hopefully will stay in bed and sleeping all night. :)

All set up and ready for Abby to climb in. (Some day I need to make her a quilt that will cover the whole bed!)

Saying prayers in her new bed.

5 days and 1900km later...

We're home! We had a wonderful trip down to Calgary - we spent a few days with friends from Briercrest who we haven't seen for almost ten years (!), took all the kids to the U.S. consulate to register them as American citizens, and then attended the wedding of one of our former youth.

The kids were amazing throughout almost 2000km of driving, we now have three new little U.S. citizens in the family, the food and fellowship and much laughter with our newly-rediscovered friends was such a blessing, and we were honored to be able to attend a very special (and beautiful) wedding. Who could ask for anything more??

We do have some pictures from the trip and I'll try to get a few up (and maybe share a few stories of the kids' antics!) over the next few days. It's back to the grind tomorrow - I've got an audit course at work all day and Greg's looking after the kids (I'll leave it to you to decide who has the harder job!)