Happy 7th Birthday Mya!

My dear Mya Pat,

Happy 7th Birthday! Today..as we are driving the last part of our trip home, you turn 7! Very hard for me to believe though that you are 7 years old already! You are turning into such a nice little lady...here's a little of what you're like right now!

You just finished up 1st grade (or grade 1 as they call it here!) You were a fantastic student and were friends with everyone. You were a super helper to your teacher and to the other students. Your favorite part of school is writing and art. Somedays, you say you want to be an art teacher which I think would be wonderful! Other days you say you want to be an Olympics girl which would be fine with me too:)

You are loving gymnastics these days and just can't get enough. (except for the conditioning part...that you could skip:) The other night you were at the gym in 90 degree temperatures with no AC and then came home only to go on our trampoline for another 30 minutes practicing your moves! You are able to do an aerial, a flip and a back hand spring! You loved your coach Allison, and are looking forward to having Aimee and Melissa this next year! One thing I love about you is your patience when teaching others gymnastics. Our neighbor Anna is really interested and you're always doing routines with her and helping her out with her moves. You are constantly doing cart wheels and hand stands. I walked out of my room the other day and you were watching TV upside down!

You are still an awesome eater. I think I can count on 2 hands the number of times your lunch came home from school and wasn't completely gone. You love bread (more specifically buns), waffles, noodles, drumstick chicken, yogurt, and ice cream. You love your ice cream the same as me...microwaved for 6 seconds and then whipped up like soup! You still have hot feet and sleep with cold washcloths wrapped around them when it's hot, you prefer to sleep with no clothes on, your favorite shows are iCarly, Austin and Alley, and Lego friends. You do your own hair everyday except when you want french braids. You have lost 2 teeth and the adult teeth are coming in really nicely so far. Unfortunately you just had your first bee sting. You are a total mosquito magnet and you worried right away if you were a bee magnet too, but I said those two things were not the same. You're getting less and less particular about your clothes. Just when I thought it would start to ramp up, you've calmed down and now don't really care what you wear as long as it's not too big on your arms. You're in size 5/6 pants and size 6/7 shirts.You love to play babies, house, barbies, legos, you love to build with blocks. you're pretty good at your chores..cleaning your room, folding towels and some clothes, and setting the table. When I asked you who your best friends were you named all of our neighbors in Canada, Maggie, Maeli and Kalissa from Dubuque and all of your cousins! You are also a knuckle cracker and a hair twirler! Unofficially you were 44.2 pounds and 42 inches. We will have your physical when we are back in Dubuque and get the official stats! You are working hard at being able to whistle and blow bubbles! You are also working on not saying the first thing that comes to your head if it's not a nice thing and using a really kind voice with Ivy and Max when they upset you.

You are a great big sister to Ivy. She wants to play with you all the time and most of the time you do so willingly. It's still tough for you when you have friends over or when she messes up your room. You and Max bond over the PS3 and netflix. You have email now on your iPad and you love to email your grandmas and aunt Tara.

We love you Mya! Thanks for spending your birthday in the car!

Love, mommy

July 18, 2008


July 18, 2009


July 18, 2010


July 18, 2011

 

July 18, 2012

July 18, 2013


July 18, 2014


July 18, 2015 (actually this one was taken on the 17th..I'll add the one from your actual bday when we get home!)

Marie and William visit!

We had our final visitors for the summer this past week! We sure feel lucky and blessed that so many friends/family were able to come and visit us this spring/summer. Each and every visit was wonderful and we made so many memories! My good friend Marie from Dubuque and her almost 8 year old son William came a couple of weeks ago to spend some time with us! William and Max became friends within 2 weeks of us moving to Dubuque in 2009. Max had just turned 2 and William was 18 months. It was so fun to have the boys back together and to talk to Marie in person instead of over the phone or text!

They were able to celebrate Canada Day with us on the 1st. We went to a spray park in the morning, took naps and then headed to the Japan/England semi-final World Cup game in the evening! It was a super exciting game that unfortunately ended with England scoring an "own goal".

                                                         Max participating in the wave!

Thursday the 2nd, we got up, dropped my girls off at the neighbors and headed on a little Alberta road trip! We first stopped in Drumheller and did some really cool exploring. We hit up the suspension bridge, saw the hoo-doos, did some hiking, went to the dinosaur museum, hiked to the bottom of horse thief canyon, and the boys did some hiking on their own at horseshoe canyon! It was a busy, but really fun day and we got to see so much. Drumheller is the Canadian badlands..you're driving through fields after fields on flat land and then all of a sudden, you're in a canyon with rocks everywhere you look!

                           We had a list of things Marie and William needed to do/try and ketchup chips were one!                                                    William liked them...Marie, not so much:)

That evening, we drove a couple hours over to Banff. We stayed just outside the park in Canmore and even got there in time for the boys to do a little swimming while we enjoyed the view!

Friday we got up early and went to Johnston Canyon and hiked to the Upper Falls. Afterwards, we hit up Lake Louise, Moraine Lake, the Lake Louise Gondola and interpretive center, dinner and ice cream in downtown Banff and then Mount Norquay before heading back to our hotel in Canmore and doing some more swimming! The weather and the views were both just beautiful. I've been to the mountains several times in the past few months and I can honestly say, I'd go back every weekend if I could. I just love it there and it never gets old.

                             Below, Max and William are "Cheers-ing" to their water they got out of the creek:)
                                             

                               
                            It was such a beautiful day we let the boys go down by the rocks and                                                                                         William accidentally fell in!

Saturday morning we slept in a bit and then did the Banff/Jasper highway. We made a few stops, saw the Athabasca Glacier up close, hiked up to the top of a really cool waterfall along the road, ate an awesome sandwich in Jasper, saw some wildlife just as we were exiting the park and then drove home! The boys did amazing..they probably watched 8-10 movies, ate whenever they were hungry, hardly complained at all and made the trip so great for Marie and me!

Sunday we hit up the Telus World of Science museum which was really fun. Then we watched the World Cup Final (USA vs Japan) and had so much fun cheering on the USA! After the game, we went to a canola field and took some family pictures. The canola is in full bloom right now and I'm sort of obsessed with it. It's so beautiful to see fields after fields of bright yellow flowers. I'm so glad we got some pictures with it that we will have forever. I feel pretty lucky to have such a talented friend! And her side kick was pretty good at making my kiddos smile:)

Monday we did one last thing on our list and that was to go downtown to the legislature. Edmonton is the capital of Alberta and down by the government center, they have fountains that people can swim in. It was a little chilly so I didn't bring swimming suits, but I did bring an extra set of clothes for each kid so they dove right in and had a blast. Afterwards, the kids asked if we could get a tour of the Legislature and we happily obliged! It doesn't happen everyday that kids ask for a tour of a government building! They were great on the tour and I learned so much.

                  Poutine also made the list that they had to try:) French fries with gravy and cheese curds...a                                                        Canadian favorite or should I say favourite:)

Tuesday we had to say goodbye to our wonderful friends, but we will get to see them in a few short weeks when we head back to Dubuque. Thank you Marie and William for a great visit!

Mya's 7th Birthday party!

We had Mya's birthday party yesterday! We ended up having it at the gym that she does her gymnastics and they all had a blast. We invited as many girls from her class that I had phone numbers for and also a friend from gymnastics and one neighbor. The other neighbors were out of town and a few friends were gone, but we still ended up with a great group of girls! The club had two coaches there organizing the day and they did an amazing job. Chris and I just sat back, got food/drinks and took pictures! 

June one-photo-a-day

Day 152: My brother doesn't have an iphone so Amanda texted me this from him. (I'm Reba btw) I'm not sure if there are many people who love LeBron more than Brian and me:) Too bad they didn't win the championship, but we got to watch a few games together while they were here!
Day 153: Dusted off the old racquets and gave a tennis lesson on this night! So fun to get back into it.
Day 154: These 4 girls united again doing something they love...taking a bath!
Day 155: Happy Birthday to Brian! These girls loved making cupcakes for him. Unfortunately we ended up with a few less cupcakes than planned...pretty sure the cake batter licking had something to do with that!

Day 156: Max had this picture all lined up. He wanted the girls to be by the slide as he came down and posed. I'd say job well done. The next picture on my phone was a split second later and he was out on the water with the same pose!
Day 157: Mission accomplished! I saw my first bear in the wild. We saw it right next to the road on our way to Johnston Canyon.
Day 158: Amanda and her kiddos on top of Mount Norquay overlooking the town of Banff.
Day 159: When my kids were at school, I took Olivia and Grace to Mya's gym for open gym time. They had a blast and did not want to leave when the lights flickered!

Day 160: Ivy loved being the big cousin with Baby Grady!
Day 161: You would think Ivy would have a 50/50 chance of dressing herself with the clothes/shoes on right. However, she is wrong waaaaay more than she is right. On this day it was the jeans:)
Day 162: Ivy was in heaven at the spray park! Pure joy.
Day 163: Auntie Rachel is here!

Day 164: Rachel and I at Moraine Lake! Even though it was pretty cold and gloomy outside, you really can't beat this view.
Day 165: Rach snapped this pic of me as I waited for the bathroom during our scenic drive from Banff to Jasper. Pretty sure I'll never use a bathroom with this view again in my life!
Day 166: Some of Rachel's students gave her the game bean-boozled at the end of the school year. She thought it would be fun to bring here for us to play. It was all fun until the kids started puking! Just kidding...they didn't really puke, but just did a lot of spitting!
Day 167: My first real soccer game! Little did I know that night that we would go to two more games including a USA game and a semi-final game. Such a great time we had despite the fact that we got rained on and were not dressed appropriately!

Day 168: The expander is out! It did its job. He now has a retainer (which is currently lost and we have until Thursday at 4:30 to find it or we have to get a new one) which will hold the mouth in place.
Day 169: Mya is a master at the monkey bars, but these uphill monkey bars proved to be a little too difficult!
Day 170: Happy 11th Anniversary to us! Chris knows how much I've been missing my sirius satellite radio, so on this day I had a note on the counter to turn the radio to channel 83 and I was so so happy! We got a sitter that night and a had a fun night out downtown eating dinner. No pictures though so the radio pic it was on this day:)
Day 171: Max had a soccer tournament to finish out the year with the Red Bulls. It was a successful season!

                                  
Day 172: Happy Father's Day to the best daddy around! He requested popcorn and a movie and we all happily obliged:)
Day 173: An awesome date night at the Team USA soccer game!
Day 174: I helped with Fun and Fit Day at school and the kids had an awesome time.
Day 175: On this day I was folding laundry and Ivy wanted to watch Caillou on the ipad. The only way I'll let her watch that awful show is with headphones on.

Day 176: Most people count down the days until school is done, but I count down the number of lunches I have to make! I was not a fan of making 2 lunches every day. I miss hot lunch!
Day 177: Last day of school! So proud of Max and Mya for going to a school where they didn't know a soul and doing so well. Max pretty much melted my heart when he told me (after we talked about how far they came from the first day) that if there were any new kids in his class, he would play with them on the first day because he knows how that felt.
Day 178: Operation fill up the pool for a second time in one day. Ivy had a little accident...the kind of accident that requires you to dump out the water:(
Day 179: Sunbathing on the trampoline is how we spent most of the afternoon on this hot, hot day!
                                 
                                   


Day 180: One minute I look over and she's watching TV and the next she has gotten herself a pillow and is out for the count!
Day 181: Grocery shopping with these 3 is a sure fire way to add $50 to the grocery bill. It would be cheaper for me to pay a babysitter!