Update!

It's time for an update! I'm going person by person this time around starting with the youngest!

Ivy: Most often called Iverson these days...a nickname given to her by none other than the king of giving nicknames, Uncle Brian. She has one more week of school and then it's onto half day kindergarten for this girl in the fall! She's pretty excited. Right now she's involved in a lot..more than I planned, but it just kind of worked out this way. With her school getting out a month before Max and Mya, it will be good to have things to do during the day. She has art class, gymnastics, dance, ice skating lessons and soccer! Her soccer is a little bit of a joke, so we go when we can make it and skip when we can't:) She is pretty funny these days....her favorite pop is ginger "oil." We were stopped at a red light on our way to church and she told Chris to go through it. He said the light was red and she said, "I know, but there's no one coming!" We could be in trouble with this one. She also calls saliva "suck" which I think is hilarious. She'll hand me a balloon that she blew up for me to tie and say.."I wiped off my suck."  Also, last week I bought bread that had seeds in it and she refused to eat it because she thought the birds might try to fly into her mouth to get the seeds. She was dead serious.  The biggest news is that we are no longer having to sit in her room while she falls asleep. Only about 4.5 years late on that one.

Mya: She is loving life right now! 2nd grade is going really well for her. Just finished her spelling tests for the year and she got them all right the entire year. She has been going on tons of field trips and has the most wonderful teacher and friends in her class. She is also doing soccer right now for the first time since she was 3 or 4. She is on an all girls U8 team and is doing really well! We had no idea going into the first game, but she is very aggressive (she's on the ground more than any other kid on the field) and just knows what to do and where to be. She's still in gymnastics, but isn't going as often, which has been a great change of pace. She is losing lots of teeth these days, but doesn't like the idea of a tooth fairy coming into her room so she doesn't put her teeth under her pillow! Our tooth fairy may rank up there in the worst ever (she forgets a lot of the time) so it's great that she doesn't even care about the money.

Max: He is having a busy month as well! He has soccer games two nights a week and is doing really well. He loves playing and working on new things. I wish he had a better team/coach, but there's not much I can do about it if I don't volunteer to coach! We are 5 games in and the coach has no idea what the kids' names are except his own and is on his phone most of the time anyway. Max has his guitar performance tonight and then his piano recital in a few weeks. He was in chess club on Fridays over the lunch hour at school this year and had a tournament this past Sunday. He got 3rd place for his group and was very pleased to get a medal after watching  his sister get lots of medals in gymnastics this year!

Chloe: She is going strong! She has been going to soccer games with us and is loving all the attention she gets. Lately we've been able to walk her without a leash if there aren't many other people out and about. She loves the weather where she can just lay in the sun all afternoon!

Beth: I can't believe today is May 17th. April and May have flown by! I just got home Sunday from a girls weekend in Chicago with some Dubuque friends. One of my friends has an apartment there so we stayed at her apartment, went to a Cubs game, did some tourist stuff and just hung out. Super fun time and I'm thankful Chris was able to take some work off and stay here and take care of our schedule! It was a busy few days for him for sure. I've been helping with lots of field trips, put together a few pages in the school yearbook, planning summer travel, and just trying to get everyone to where they need to be on time! I got a new bike for Mother's Day so we've been doing some bike riding around the neighborhood which has been fun.

Chris: Like I said..he was super dad last weekend with everything we had to do. 3 soccer pictures, 1 soccer game, 2 gymnastics practices, and 3 birthday parties. It was a little nuts! He has a big few weeks coming up at work..June 8th the John Deere corporate jet comes to town to do their annual visit. Between work and our evening commitments, he plays with the kids as much as he can and tries to get to golf league when it works!

In other family news...my sister and her new babe are doing really well! Alexa Louise was born on May 2nd. She is darling and big sis Quinn is doing well too! We are all anxious for them to get home, but they have lots to do before then. Adding a second child is stressful, moving across the world is stressful, finishing up a job and saying goodbye to people who have been your family for 3 years is stressful and she and Tony are doing all of that at the same time! I tell her all the time...if they can do this, they can do anything.

At pretty much the exact time Lexi was born, our goddaughter and niece Olivia was celebrating her first communion! Bummed we couldn't be there, but she was so beautiful...I had to include a pic!

Spring skiing

Last weekend Chris's brother Jeff came for a visit! He flew in Friday and we basically picked the kids up from school and headed for the mountains. We stopped for dinner on our way and got to the hotel around 8pm. Saturday morning we headed to Sunshine Village for some skiing. Chris had some ski passes he needed to use so it was a pretty cheap ski weekend! We swam Saturday night at the hotel and then Sunday headed back to Sunshine for one last day of spring skiing for this season.

After skiing, we took the long way home via the Ice Fields Parkway. It took us 7 hours to get home (normally 4 if we take the highway) but we had 3 stops that were at least 30 minutes each. One at Lake Louise, one for a hike overlooking the North Saskatchewan River and one on a dried up lake. In the video below, when you see the GPS putting us right in the middle of the lake, that's where we were driving! We got out and walked down to what was left of the lake. Hopefully we get some rain and it fills back up soon.

We had a great trip! Too many pictures and videos to post, so I made another video. Enjoy if you have 3 minutes to spare:)

Saturday update

Time for a random update and get these pictures off my phone!

1. Last Wednesday Max and Mya had a spring concert at their school. Both grades performed and then Max also performed in the senior choir. They did a great job! I especially loved the South African song they sang which you can see in the video below. The two male teachers from the school sang the bass for the choir and it turned out great. School concerts get me all choked up!

Mya's class below

2. Yesterday Ivy and I ate lunch with Max and Mya. Once or twice a month you can order lunch from a restaurant and they deliver it to school. It's my favorite day of the month...I don't know why, but I absolutely hate packing lunches. I don't count the number of days of school left, I count the number of lunches I have to make. I volunteer each time they do a fun lunch because it's easy to bring Ivy so I don't have to find someone to watch her. Here she is sporting her Earth Day shirt handed down from Anna Miler to Mya to Ivy:)

3. Speaking of Earth day...it was also Chris's birthday! He had to work all day, but we surprised him with a little party when he got home. I invited a couple people from his office and we made homemade pizzas and one of his friends brought a DQ ice cream cake! It was a fun night for sure.

4. #truth. Honestly, there are so many days I still get caught up in what my kids are involved with...is it enough, is it too much. Should they be learning another language? What camps are they going to do this summer? Are they falling behind other kids their age? And then I see a quote like this and realize none of that is super important. We are just trying to raise nice people.

5. There was a guy that worked with Chris who had a ton of trees fall down in a wind storm and was going to just burn the wood. Chris offered to take it off of his hands so he delivered it one day last week! All split and everything. Lots of fires in our future....if we get some rain and they lift the fire ban that is.

6. Our weather has been so so nice lately. We've been going on bike rides and having some fun park time. Ivy has moved up to Mya's old bike. We got new tires, put some bling on there and put some new duck tape on the seat and she thinks it's brand new! Her little legs can keep up on long bike rides. She thinks she needs to be first so we need a little work on that, but for the most part she does pretty well.

7. One day last week after Mya's gymnastics practice, she asked me to stay and watch a new skill. This is what it was.

Spring break, Grandma visits and gymnastics!

I have lots to catch up on! Here goes...

We had Spring Break the week after Easter. With Good Friday included, the kids had 10 days off of school! We all needed it. It was filled with Easter activities, some indoor playgrounds with friends, and lots of relaxing and catching up on stuff around here! (except blogging, clearly:)

(Max zip lining, Max and Mya trying out their new rollerblades the Easter bunny brought and my view every morning on spring break when I woke up..the three kids snuggled up watching Full House on netflix!) 

Last Thursday my mom flew in for a few days! We haven't seen any family since Christmas, so it had been awhile for us! I dropped Max and Mya off at the door and they waited inside while Ivy and I drove around so I didn't have to pay for parking! The parking there is super inconvenient and also it's $8 even if you're there 10 minutes! The three of them came out and Ivy was so excited to jump out of the car and see Grandma Pat!

Friday we explored around the city a little bit, did some shopping on Whyte Ave...a place I've wanted to go since we moved here, but just hadn't gotten around to it!

Saturday we drove 2 hours south of here to a little town called Olds for a gymnastics competition. My mom really wanted to see Mya compete at some point and this one worked out for her schedule! (even though it's still tax season!) Mya did great...placing 1st in all four events (vault, beam, bars and floor) and got 1st all around. Definitely picked the right meet for my mom to be at! I'm also so proud of Max and Ivy. It's hard to see your sister win 4 medals and a trophy, but they were so happy for her. Max gave her a huge hug and said great job!

There's lots of waiting at gymnastics meets so Max kept busy with 2 iPads:) 

Sunday my mom and I went to church and went dress shopping for all of the weddings coming up this summer. We both found 2 dresses so we should be set! Monday was a hard morning because the kids were going to school after 10 days home and had to say bye to Grandma. Can't wait until we see everyone this summer!

Speaking of seeing everyone....my sis is so close to having baby girl #2! She's due May 4th and so we are entering the window of "my phone will be on at all time just in case!"

Friends, Snow Dogs and Fun!

Last week our friends from Dubuque, the Arlings, came to Edmonton for a visit! It was so so good to see familiar faces and spend 6 days with them! They flew in on Wednesday afternoon. Max couldn't wait to see the boys so he packed up his backpack after the afternoon recess so all he had to do was grab his coat, bag and run out the door! He came sprinting to the car and was pretty pumped to see Henry waiting for him. The kids picked up right where they left off almost 2 years ago when we moved here.

Thursday was Max's birthday so the kids went to school for the morning and I picked them up at lunch. We spent the morning at the Italian grocery store and driving around the city a little bit. In the afternoon we went swimming and skating at Millennium Place in Sherwood Park and that night Max requested Peter's famous pizza for his birthday celebration! Chris and I took Max and Mya to their conferences while Peter and Kate made us pizza back at home.



Friday morning we got up bright and early, had donuts for Harrison's birthday and then hit the road to Banff! It was super foggy the first 2 hours of the trip and I was so bummed because I wanted them to be able to see the mountains. Then, at exactly the time you can see the mountains, the skies opened up and it was a gorgeous, sunny day in Southern Alberta!

We drove to Canmore, had a quick lunch and then headed to our first adventure. Peter and Kate treated us to a Dog Sledding adventure! It was honestly one of the coolest things I've ever done. The guides were amazing, the dogs were amazing, the weather was amazing, the views were amazing...just everything. The kids all go to "drive" the dog sleds, knew all the names of the dogs on their line, and got to feed them all treats at the end. My kids were so sad to leave...they wanted to take the dogs with them! Very very cool thing and we're so thankful that we got to do it!




We spent Friday night at our condo enjoying the view and cooking dinner together. Saturday morning we got up and hit the ski hill..Sunshine Village in Banff. It was again a cloudy day, but around 3:30, the skies opened up and it was gorgeous! The kids all had a fantastic day skiing. With the temperatures we've been having, I wasn't sure there would be enough snow, but it was great.



Sunday we did some shopping, ate lunch and drove home. The drive home is so long from Banff. On the way there at least you can see the mountains for the last hour and a half, but the way home is sooooo boring! We just unpacked, the Arlings packed back up and went to bed! They left Monday back to Dubuque. It was an awesome week!