Winter Retreat 2011

This past weekend, we hosted the Southridge Junior Youth for their winter retreat.  Long story short is where they were supposed to go didn't pan out...so Steve and I opened up our home/lodge for their event. 

It was a fantastic weekend - tiring, loud, noisy, cold, warm, great food, sore feet, sore back, wonderful fellowship, exhausting...BUT A FANTASTIC WEEKEND.  We had 35 people in our home from Saturday 9:30am to Sunday 1:30pm.  And we can't wait to do it again! 

Here are some pictures of the weekend!  

Ezra having a looksey at the mayhem that hit our house at 9:30!
The teens came in and dropped their stuff off and then headed outside for some sledding.

Steve and I gave up our bedroom.  I'm pretty certain that
I won't see this in my bathroom again for a long time.
The girls hung their wet clothes up to dry! :)

A quick picture of what 35 glasses look like on my bar top :)

This is a calm picture...what till the next one a few pictures down!

Since the boys went paintballing....the girls did a spa and watched a chick flick.  

And even through it all...while making cupcakes, popcorn for snack, spaghetti sauce,
I was able to take time to watch Matt Kaminski play the gold medal game at his
tournament.  All at 10:30-11:00ish at night!

Watching my husband and his little counterpart (Andrew) :) try and get the
bonfire started.  

10 females slept in our bedroom...4 on the bed, 5 on the floor and 1 in the closet :)

And two in Ezra's nursery

And this is what our entranceway looked like Sunday morning.....

Breakfast time Sunday morning...the girls always ate at this table.  

The boys and a few female leaders took over this table.  We put a few at the
bar top, and the rest ate sitting on the floor.  

Sunday devotional time.  

Heading out to the sledding hill again. 

Special HUGE THANK YOU to Rick Murphy (our neighbour) for lending
us his tractor.  We used it A LOT - between the sleigh ride and pulling the tubes,
the kids had a fantastic time!

The mode of transportation to and from our home!

A HUGE thank you to my mom for taking the three little dogs and also Ezra and Zeke for us for the weekend.  I'm sure that she had the hardest job all weekend :)

I was reminded this weekend of how great teens are!  They were so respectful and polite...I can only hope that we do as good of job raising our children, as the parents of these teens have done.  

Winter Retreat 2012...I'm sure that you will bring many highlights as well..

Now....off for a nap I go again :)  

Mature Subject Matter :)

This past week has been a crazy busy week!  On Thursday night, Steve and I spoke at the Christian Women's Night about Quickload, so Thursday morning...my mothering skills were not strong, as we still had lots to get ready.  So, as much as Ezra wasn't happy about it, he had to keep himself busy.  And busy he did!  

At one point in the morning I happened to look to the left of me (I was sitting in the pink office chair) and noticed that the toilet paper came around the corner from the bathroom.  After turning the chair all away around, here was Ezra sitting cleaning up a Jade accident (thankfully just pee!!).  

You can notice in both pictures the little bits of toilet paper to the left of him as well.  When it got to dirty, he ripped it off and pulled some more toilet paper to him.  All the while he was doing this he was making his "yucky" noise.  

I did take the time to grab the camera and snap these two pictures.  I then promptly picked up my son and went and disinfected him :) 

He was keeping himself busy :)

Favorite Game to Play With Dad

Ezra loves to play with Steve!  And I love to watch the two of them play!  We had just got home from Church last Sunday and Ezra gave Steve "the look" and the game of catch me started!

He looks like such a little man in this picture - growing up so quickly!

Big Shoes To Fill!

This photo makes me smile :)  

When I look at it even now I think of two things:

1) How someday that will probably be me trying to wear Ezra's way to large of boots!

2) My baby shower speech by Amanda Block and how boys where different size of shoes and her analogy on the different size of shoes and the different stages of life that they go through.  

Ezra blesses me so much!  I can't believe that he is just about 18 months in this photo.  

Week 23/24

Pretty certain that I look WAY better in week 23/24 than I did in week 22!  

Must have had much more sleep this week :)

The Past 4 Years

Here's just a glimpse of a few of the things that we have been up to.  

Our wonderful wedding day - Feb 17, 2007

Our first Christmas (Dec 2007) as husband and wife.

My brother married Nikki Penner in August 2008.  The wedding was in Manitoba.  

We started building our home (RTM) in late winter of 2008 that would get moved out in July 2009
to our little piece of heaven on earth.

December 23 2008, I found out that we were expecting our first baby.
I told Steve Christmas Day! :)

Jan 2009, we made a trip to California and visited many friends in San Fran.

We celebrated our 2nd Anniversary in Banff.  

FINALLY!  Our house sold after a year and a half of being on the market.
We sold it in the spring of 2009.

Our lives changed for forever on August 28, 2009.
Ezra James arrived after a long hard delivery weighing 8 lbs 7.5 ounces.  

Our first family vacation in April 2010 to Southern California.

We went as a family up to Camp in July 2010.  I directed Intermediate Camp,
Steve was a counsellor and Ezra was the CUTEST staff kid :)

We celebrated Ezra's first birthday in GRANDNESS!
A plane, train, and automobile theme capped off by taking place in
one of the airport hangers.  

October 2010, we found out we were expecting baby #2 :)
We are very, VERY excited about this arrival!

Late winter of 2010 we purchased a lake front cabin at Murphy Lake with
two other couples.  I can't wait to spend time there this summer!

A family photo favorite!