A Bit of a Fright

Just had the **** scared out of her! Our smoke detectors starting going off then would stop. Ended up having to call 911 and waking the kids up. Thankfully everything is ok. Seems like our main floor detector was wonky and so the hunt for a new and better one begins. Whew! Very thankful that everything ended up being ok!!

Movie Day

So, we were lucky today and got free passes to go see Alvin and the Chipmunks plus we got free food at the movie.  It was very cute and as always Katie did great.  Kyle has now been to his second movie and seems to be getting better.  The key for him is to have LOTS of food;)  After the movie we went to Hooters for lunch.  HAHAHA, I know it doesn't seem like the best family restaurant but they let the kids eat free and they have hot dogs for lunch.  My kids love their hot dogs plus I had won a $25 gc from CJAY 92.
Overall, it was a very fun day.
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Thanks:)

Prince was AMAZING!

I have to say that I had a BLAST at the concert!  What a performer!  Sang, danced, played guitar and the piano.  He engaged the crowd the whole time.  I liked Prince before but I love him now!  I will post the quick videos that I have soon.  Just also wanted to say thanks to Di for coming with me:)  She and I had a really good time chatting and dancing.
It was a great birthday gift:):)

More of December

Chris had his Kids Christmas party on sat at Heritage Park and it was AWESOME!  Hot dogs for lunch(my kids loved it) and a magician and then the Big Guy in Red came for a visit.  Katie LOVES Santa as you will notice in the pictures.  The kids got gifts too.  Kyle got Elmo's Tickling Hands and loves them and Katie got a Groovy Girl doll, dog and an outfit.  She named the doll Dina and the dog Silly.  The kids also did their letters to Santa.  So CUTE!  We are going to mail them out this week.  Also sent off some xmas gifts this past week.  Hope everyone enjoys them.  Chris and I skipped the adult xmas party this year and good thing we did.  Chris was super sick over that weekend.  I had the stomach bug that was going around and Kyle got sick once but Chris must have had something different because he was sick much longer.  All healthy now and thankful for it!  I finally bit the bullet and decorated the house.  Not that I mind decorating early but since Kyle is 2 and anyone with kids knows what that means...Terrible Twos.  I was worried about our tree.  We decided to just put up the shatter proof ornaments this year and also changed the location of the tree.  Hopefully nothing gets broken. 

Today it snowed again...so we decided to make the best of it and take the kids for a sled ride on our cul de sac.  The kids really enjoyed it and then while we were putting up the outside xmas lights Katie asked to ride her bike.  Why not right?  She loved it and did pretty well in the snow.  Kyle then wanted to ride his trike.  My kids are TRUE CANADIANS!!
Also I included a picture of me as a child(please note that I took a picture of the picture with my phone) and I think that Katie and I look a bit alike.  What do you think?

It's Christmas Time!

Oh how I LOVE Christmas!!  I'm loving it even more now that I have kids.  We are starting some new traditions and one of them is The Elf on the Shelf.  "Benny" is our Elf and he reports back to Santa every night to let him know how the kids were that day.  I'm sure Santa finds that to be very helpful;)
Katie named him and Kyle approved.  We started it December 1 and Christmas Eve will be his last night here until next year. 
The kids love looking for him each morning and Kyle points to him multiple times throughout the day.

Katie and her Daddy on their way to see the play Sleeping Beauty

Kisses for Daddy

My silly Kyle

We are also doing the advent calendars.  I'm hoping to get a homemade one done for next year to give it that more homey feeling.  I still have my stocking from my childhood that my Aunt Marie made for me and it has my name on it and everything.  I actually bought Katie 2 stockings because I felt the first one wasn't homemade looking enough.  I'm hoping to find a place to get everyone else's names on them.  We also did up Santa videos for the kids.  Here is the link for both of theirs.

 http://www.portablenorthpole.tv/watch/gSffw5ErrouKY1KfmfT3lqA
 http://www.portablenorthpole.tv/watch/gFdfQP0UVSG_jybw_cEdlkw

I think they are pretty cute.  Katie was more impressed than Kyle but I'm not surprised.

Since winter is here, I decided it's time to change my hair color again.  Violet it is!  Funny story...I had been thinking of what color to do for winter and a couple days before I went, I was talking to Katie and she said she wished she had pink and purple hair!  So when I came home, Katie was very happy to see the purple hair but I have to say...she did seem a little jealous;p  HAHAHA  Just wait until she sees my hair in the spring!!

A Funny Story about Kyle and his Daddy

Ok, so anyone who knows Chris or his parents, I'm sure that they have heard the Fish and Dinky story.  For all of you who haven't heard it, here you go...
So, when Chris was 3 yr old he went with his Mom to a friend's house.  They had one of those big fish tanks.  They had lots of cool fish including a shark.  Well, I guess Chris thought the shark was bored of swimming around and needed another form of transportation.  He dropped in a car and ended up killing the shark.  No one noticed and when Ann's friend's husband came home he saw his shark and said "I guess Chris was over today"  HAHAHAHA
Well, my little Kyle was having a play date with some of his friends and they have a big fish tank.  Kyle was sitting at the table and then noticed the fish tank and started saying "hi" to the fish.  Later on he went over with a dinky and started driving it up the wall of the tank.  I laughed and was surprised at how much Kyle and his Daddy are alike. I'm also glad that I stopped him before he killed their fish:p

PRINCE!!!

Just a quick blog about my early birthday gift...Dianna and I are going to see PRINCE!!! As you can tell, I am beyond excited!  He is coming to Calgary December 14.  Going to have to download some PRINCE songs now.  Poor Chris...all he's going to hear for the next month is PRINCE music and me nattering about how excited I am to be going! LOL

A Recap of the Past Year.

Lots happened to us in the past year plus.  Chris's company merged and because it was a 50-50 merger, Chris was offered a buy out.  We took it since the future of film is going digital and after being with the same company for ever 10 years, it was time for Chris to move on.  We enjoyed our summer together and figured that Chris would get a job come fall and we could enjoy the rest of the buy out.  Well as we learned, things don't always go as planned.  Chris was getting  interviews but always seemed to be runner up.  We thought it would be best if he went back to school to get some extra education to go along with his work experience.  After over a year of looking, Chris got his job at SNC Lavalin.  He works downtown and is enjoying the job.  He still needs to finish up his courses to get his certificate and has been getting A's.  He's a smart boy:)  Chris has loved being back in the classroom and has been working hard for his high grades.  His last course he ended up working in a group with some people who didn't feel it was important to work hard at the presentation and it ended up being most of Chris's work.  I'm proud of him, going to school and working full time makes for a busy life but he is handling it very well.
Some of the other changes that happened while Chris was looking for the right job was that I ended up going back to work.  I ended up working for 6 months at EFW Radiology.  Worked with a great bunch of people and still keep in contact with some of them.  It was a rough 6 months not being home with the kids but we all got through it.  Some weeks were better then others.  It was nice to have a break from 24/7 kids but I did miss being at home with them and being able to enjoy their company and not feel so rushed to jam in a week worth of fun into 2 days.  I've always wanted to be a stay at home mom and am happy to be back.

All dressed up for his big interview!

Valentine's play date

Yesterday we were at Toys R Us and career barbies were on sale so Katie and I were chatting and I asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up and she said a princess.  I'm not surprised since she was dressed up as Rapunzel, crown and all:)  She had some bday money left over and we went to the Disney Store and she picked out a Rapunzel stuffie, a Rapunzel dress, 2 t-shirts and Pascal stuffie.  She also picked out some xmas gifts for Kyle from her.  Speaking of xmas, we have started our shopping in oct.  I love starting early and really do enjoy buying for the kids.  Katie is getting a "hot toy" of the year.  The Leappad Explorer.  We also got her the Tangled game.  In case you didn't know, Katie has a bit of a thing for Rapunzel.  Kyle is getting some Hot Wheels stuff, cars, books and some other things but not sure what his big gift will be. Some of the pictures are a year old.

Halloween 2011

I loved Halloween as a kid but find I LOVE it even more as a mom.  The kids were just soooo cute this year.  Katie had preschool and they had a party that day.  She had planned on being Rapunzel all day but after seeing the super cute witch costume I had for her, she decided to be the witch during the day and Rapunzel at night.  Kyle was a vampire during the day and a monkey at night.  I even got a picture of him with the teeth and it is beyond cute!
We carved our first pumpkins for the first time in I don't know how many years but it was a lot of fun.  The kids enjoyed it too.
Chris did his own make up for the night and did he ever look great!  Sort of shocked the kids at first and made a friend of Katie's not sure what to think of him.  I was so happy and proud that he took the time to do that for the kids.  I was a princess too.  Who would've thought that your wedding dress would come in handy so many times;)
Kyle and Katie loved the trick and treating so much this year.  I always had to slow her down or else she would've been 2 houses ahead of her brother.  Kyle loved it but was a bit slower then his sister.
We are all looking forward to next year!

Katie's 4th Birthday

My little princess turned 4 in October.  Seriously, why does it have to go by so fast????
I had told Katie at the beginning of October that I wasn't ready for her to grow up and at least every couple days she would ask me "mommy, are you ready for me to grow up now?"  So cute!  I have to say, I see so many similarities in Katie and me.  We both LOVE our birthdays!  This child never stopped talking about it.  Everyday we had to talk about it and 2 weeks before the big event she would tell random people when her birthday was.  Very cute.  She had school the morning of her bday and there was a field trip to the library that I got to volunteer for since Chris had the day off.  Chris and Kyle got to hang out at one of their favorite hang outs...Tim Hortons:)  I got to spend the morning with my big birthday girl.  Then home for a quick lunch since she was having her Rapunzel Birthday Party that afternoon.  Katie got a lot of Rapunzel stuff for her birthday and played the princess part perfectly that day:)  I wore my wedding dress because if you weren't dressed as a princess, you weren't allowed in.  The boys went out for the afternoon and 5 of Katie's princess friends came for a fun party 

The kids decorated cupcakes and had a tea party.  After that we went downstairs so that Katie could open up her gifts.  She got a really cool Barbie house and loves it plus some other fun stuff.  We decided since Katie isn't a fan of cake but just the icing that we would get her a DQ cake.  She loved it!!  Especially since it had her picture on there with Rapunzel:)  It was such a pretty cake that it was hard to cut into it but it sure was yummy. 
That night we had Katie's favorite...homemade pizza!  She had a great birthday and really enjoyed all the fun activities for the day.