SNOW

The last couple of days we have had snow... its been beautiful. Mainly because Adessa and I have hunkered down in the house, baking and playing, not having to venture out far. Other than walking Danika to school. Its been fun... we have been bundling up and I get to pull Adessa up the hill to school in the little toboggan I scored thrift shopping last year. And then on the way home I push her down the hill! I LOVE living so close to school. I love that we run up the hill 5 minutes until school starts and enter the school as the bell rings. I love that there is mother goose at the school for Adessa and we get to wave at Danika in her class, and at recess as we walk past. It makes me feel good that we live just down the path. And I do not take that for granted, we are truly blessed. So even though the size of my house is feeling small or the yellow siding looks extremely dirty in the white snow. I wouldn`t trade it, because for know, it fits our little family perfectly!

Not to mention the towns tobogganing hill behind our house! Yesterday after school we got in some good time and then Steve got off work a bit early, so after our play date after school with a new friend from school (who lives in the Carruthers old house... so weird!!) we went out as a family, including the puppy and had a blast tobogganing! Danika became pro and was ripping down the hill all by herself, and running back up the hill and Adessa was even going down by herself with her eyes closed! I love my girls so much and I love my husband so much. It is so important to just have fun and laugh with your husband, and I am blessed to have that with Steve, he truly is my best friend!!! Oh and I can`t find my camera, so more pictures off of the iphone.

PRAYER

What do you think of when you think of prayer? For me it has been something I have always done, I grew up praying for meals and when I really needed something. I went through more spiritual times when I would pray much deeper, but my prayer life has always been something that is lacking in my life.

Prayer moves the hand of God. It is clear when reading the scriptures, yet why is it so hard to commit to. Why is it often our last resource when we are sick, or struggling financially, or have a heavy burden? I think in our comfy culture it is because we are fortunate enough to go with having our needs met, so we don't really feel that we NEED God to help us out.

We were fortunate enough to hear a guest speaker this morning from my sister in laws church in Spruce Grove. His name is David Chotka and he wrote a book called 'Power Praying-Hearing Jesus' spirit by praying Jesus' prayer.' Steve and I heard him preach this morning at New Life in Duncan and then went again this evening to hear more. And can hopefully go again tomorrow night to hear him again. That man has humbled himself before our Maker and has seen the hand of God move, and has prayed His hand into motion. I was blessed to hear the stories, I felt the Holy spirit fill the church as he proclaimed the power of God. My sister in law bought us his book a year ago, but I now hope that I may be able to read through it and grasp a bit better how to know Gods will for my life. I would recommend it so far. He shared stories that I will not get into- as I know many are skeptical.

But I feel the power in those stories, and want that for my own life.

It all begins with prayer. By saying 'yes' to God. To picking a time and spot each and every day to just meet with God. To be still before Him. To read scripture. Because God will always be there- and will meet YOU where you are at.

Tonight David outlined a wheel to use when seeking and discerning God's voice... something I value deeply, as when making big decisions in life it is often hard to differentiate whether it is our own will at work or Gods.

At the center of the wheel is the Word of Christ-to meditate and memorize scriptures and to know the promises of the Lord. Next is the Witness of the spirit- Is there peace in your soul? Then Workers in Gods work. If you are making a big decision in life seek counsel of someone wiser and older than you, who is not bias and who will seek God on your behalf. When talking with Steve about this later we both had thought of Grandma M when he mentioned this. She has been someone in both our lives who is the epitome of a 'worker' and we are so blessed to have her in our lives and to know that each and every day she is praying for our family, it blesses us dearly.

When you come to a decision you need to be able to Worship. If you are not drawn into worship you may need to re-consider. The last W in the wheel was Will of the Believer, to follow it through.

I know we are half way through January but I want my New Years Resolution to be a deeper prayer life, and to have a better relationship with my King. I want to dig deeper into the word and spend time with God. I want and desire to know Him more. I believe that Steve and I were brought to the island for a reason and have met the people we have for a reason and are in the church we are in for a reason, and I just hope that I can pray and seek how God wants to use me, because I am not living to my fullest potential as of now.

And now I have it on my blog, a hard post to post, but I am doing so as I would like some accountability as I know life gets in the way and before I know it, the day has whizzed past and I haven't even mumbled out a prayer. But I want this and I need this. And I want to be able to hear the voice of God. So that's my resolution and desire, may 2012 be filled with the Holy Spirit of God....

The swing of things

My blog has been quiet the last little while, and it is not because of lack of activity, rather quite opposite, my camera has been dead (so no pics) but there has been a lot going on in this home. We have been back home for just over a week now and every moment has been filled. I thought things would be slow after our busy (but wonderful!) vacation to Alberta.

Our days have been filled with the usual... school, playdates, dinner dates, church, church meetings, bible study, errands, getting my washer fixed, doing weeks of laundry once it was fixed, meeting a sweet newborn baby, getting back into a workout routine, cleaning and cooking! It has all been good things, but just trying to remember how to balance it all and 'get into the swing of things.'

Danika has been doing well in school, and her teach Mrs. Mitchell has noticed a major improvement in her counting and number recognition. On our road trip, just out of the blue Danika started to count down from 10 and asked us to look and she had written all of her numbers backwards with a rocket ship... that was a first! It all of a sudden just clicked. I got a call from Mrs. Mitchell this week and since Danika no longer needs speech therapy she has asked to put Danika into a special help group for her alphabet. Steve and I have noticed when trying to work through games or books with Danika, if it is not going her way she just quits and gets really frustrated and says, "i don't know." Which her teacher has noticed as well. So this group is designed to help Danika recognize the letters in the alphabet and start sounding out words, so that once she hits grade 1, reading will come much easier. Danika continues to love school, and the friends that she is making, and Steve and I couldn't be happier.

Adessa is also doing well. Her vocabulary increases daily and we can have full conversations with her. She is a very bright little girl... sometimes too bright, as she knows how to get what she wants! She is my strong willed little gal and since being home, she has not liked the word 'no' as she was quite spoiled by grandparents and aunts and uncles!

Things for work have been slow, but Steve has been persevering and has a few quotes on the go, now we are just praying the jobs come through. We have both been feeling peaceful about it however and want to keep trying this self employed route out. And until the door slams we will keep persevering!!!

Road Trip!!!

Our trip started at 6 am with an explosion out the wrong end from one little 2 year old, both blankets were out of commission and we were in a rush. Once on the road, we made the ferry in time, had a nice breakfast and play time and then hit the roads. Adessa did not fall asleep once as blankets were not usable, but thankfully the roads were pretty decent and the coquihalla was clear. We made our annual stop in Merritt at the DQ / Orange Julius combo, with the awesome play place and got our sillies out. We were pleasantly surprised at how gorgeous out it was remembering that last year it was in the -20's! We made a surprise visit at our good friends the Carruthers home and they fed us a wonderful dinner. And Adessa got to play with their sweet little puppies. We then stayed in Salmon arm for the night. We had the pool to ourselves and had so much fun with the girls. That night was not too fun. Adessa woke up in the middle of the night with the flu... covered the nice white linens and lets just say we didn't sleep too much. The next morning we gave Adessa gravol and she slept most of the way to Cochrane, it was so peaceful.

Steve was outside the van, Adessa was making her 'funny' face!

We made a game of Bingo up, Danika had to find things on our trip, and she loved it!

When she finally passed out....

Adessa LOVED the Carruthers puppies

The CrAzY icy, snowy Coquihalla

The first day of our trip home went well. Danika slept most of the day due to staying up late every night on vacation and waking up early so as not to miss any time with her cousins. We spent the night at the Carruthers home, Scott wasn't there as he was dropping his in-laws off, but Tammy was the most wonderful hostess... as always! We started out the next morning by checking out some puppies (they were pure bred lab puppies, for free) Scott had told Steve about them on our way out to Calgary and we had been 'talking' about it for the 2 weeks. I wasn't fond of the idea, but said we could go look. We got there, I got jumped on by the mother lab, then went and looked at the giant 'puppies,' said no, walked back to the van and slipped on the ice, just to have steve come over with his big eyes pleading for another dog, that we could breed... purely from an investment point of view. In the end we decided not right now, I just couldn't stomach another animal in my home... maybe when we get a better back yard set up. We then kept driving and the coquihalla was atrocious! It was a layer of pure ice and we crawled up that mountain behind a semi truck. On the opposite side of the highway we saw semi's jack knifed, cars in the ditches and at one point there was a ton of semis and cars just stuck, spinning their tires. The police had the rest of the traffic stopped at the bottom of the hill and we were just so thankful to have gotten to the other side, safe and alive!!!

We then cruised for the ferry, were about 15 minutes away (20 minutes until the ferry left) when we almost ran out of gas, made the right decision to fill up, pulled up to the ferry to watch it pull away. Thankfully the weather was nice to we played at the beautiful park in Horseshoe bay and had a nice dinner at subway (part of our after-vacation detox!)

We finally pulled into our driveway by 7:45pm and had been in the car since 9 am that morning! Were we ever glad to be home!!!

Christmas in Okotoks

This post is a bit backward. On one of our last nights with my family we went to the Calgary Zoo lights. The weather was perfect and we had so much fun together.

The girls highlight of the night... the carousel!

This was the frosty the snowman display with lights programmed to music... very entertaining. My camera died as soon as we got there so most of these photos were taken with the iphone so they didn't turn out too great!!

Watch out Danika!!!

Grandpa and Grandma with their 4 grandchildren... Max was on Adams back, he was ducking...

Danika... the little penguin!

Endless amounts of displays!

We went into the giant greenhouse and everyone was sweating!!

Joel and his beautiful Nikayla... she fits in so well with our family!

The 3 little gals on New Years Eve in their beautiful matching tutu's from Grandma and Grandpa

I did their matching braids... so fun having the girls together!

My sis and I

Auntie Linsey and the girls... sort of!

Trying to get a picture of all 4 kids was pretty tough, this is as good as it gets...

"We'll give you chocolate if you look at the camera..." (Still didn't work!)

"HAPPY NEW YEARS... lets get this party started!"

Bath time together, thanks to Adessa it didn't last too long....

Another picture from zoo lights!

Granparents and their girls

We arrived at my families on Boxing day, had a massive delicious brunch and opened presents with my parents, my sisters family and Joel and his girlfriend. Then my Aunt, Uncle, cousins and Grandmas arrived for Christmas dinner. We did our annual white elephant gift exchange, this year it was old board games and Steve and I lucked out by winning a brand new electronic 'catch phrase.' We played that late into the night, and had lots of laughs!

The rest of the week was pretty low key. My sis and her family came over every day and Danika and Ella disappeared most of the time. I LOVE that the cousins are all so close in age and I can't wait for all the memories that there are to be made together. One day the men took the kids and My mom, sister and I had a day together to go shopping. It was so nice to go shopping with them... I miss these times together, so really cherished being able to go with them. They make me enjoy shopping at the mall!!! And we can always find the best deals (mainly shopping at winners!)

We got out for a few walks and I had some much needed one on one with my mommy!

We were so blessed during our trip, Steve was given a mint condition work trailer, and we were blessed with endless amounts of food, gifts and time. On our last day Linsey and I took the kids to the play place in town and laughed our butts off! There was a giant bouncy castle with obstacles in it, and had fun 'gently' beating up our kids and each other, we both came out crying we were laughing so hard. It was so nice spending time with my sis and I miss being close to her!

We had the opportunity to get a bunch of friends together to meet one of Steve's best buddies baby, I was able to have a visit with a dear friend of mine from school who is going through cancer with her 5 year old daughter. Friends stopped over another night to watch the big UFC fights.

We were just so blessed! I can't say it enough!

Christmas in Cochrane

We really enjoyed every minute we had in Cochrane, we had lots of hang out time, baked cookies, ate way too much, played games and just enjoyed one anothers company.

Here the girls are making gingerbread men!

Concentration

My beautiful 8 year old niece... sweetest girl on the planet and we are so sad we do not live closer! Danika and Emilie are such great friends and enjoyed EVERY moment together... we barely saw them!

Beautiful best friends

All the cousins together... such special memories!

Hubby and I in front of his childhood Christmas tree before the Christmas eve service

Me and my gals

Amy and Chris

Grandparents with their grand children

Putting out enough 'Reindeer food' for eight tiny reindeer on Christmas Eve

The girls put on the Nativity story for us. Danika was Mary, Emilie was Joseph and Adessa was a sheep. It was so cute!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

Before opening presents, Emilie had a present for Jesus, since it is HIS birthday. She read us all the Christmas story and shared one of her devotionals... starting the morning out right!

After opening stockings we ate a huge breakfast... quite delicious! Right before getting so spoiled!!!

The weather in Calgary was exceptionally warm. We got out for lots of walks and were able to do a day of tobogganing, even though there wasn't a ton of snow!

Auntie Amy taking Adessa down the hill.. Adessa liked it more than Danika did!

The girls sporting their presents from their 2 aunties... 2 Little monsters a unicorn, and Toby (auntie sarahs dog)

We had such a wonderful time with the Fitzpatrick side of the family and made so many wonderful, special memories. We are so blessed to have such a wonderful, supportive family and we look forward to the next time we are all together!

Banff Date Night

After a long day in the car, a lovely visit/dinner with the Carruthers, a fun time at the hotel with the swimming pool to ourselves, followed by a very unpleasant night with one little 2 year old who had the flu, another long day in the vehicle, much more pleasant with 2 year old zonked out by gravol, we finally arrived at our first destination... Cochrane. Where we spent a wonderful week visiting and celebrating Christmas together.

Steve and I were very blessed with a couple of dates. The first one was a date to the mall with no children! We ended up spending a lot of time in the giant Bass Pro Shop and played a few rounds at the shooting range. Followed by my wonderful husband spoiling me by following me into every single shoe shop in the entire Balzac mall on the hunt for the perfect pair of boots! After spoiling me once, he then took me to Banff for a night away with no children... and we sure did enjoy ourselves! I have wonderful in-laws and the girls had so much fun with Grandma and Grandpa!

Eating Fondue at the Grizzly house with my best friend

I was pretty stoked about the chocolate fondue!

My new boots! Which I LOVE!

The cool hot tub underneath the hotel, it had a huge hole leading outside

The amazing Alberta sun sets... I sure have missed the endless blue sky, sunsets and mountains!

Leaving Banff... I had lots of fun with Steve's iphone and the program instagram... takes such neat photos! ... I also had an AMAZING time with my AMAZING, WONDERFUL husband. It was so nice to get away just the 2 of us and we felt very blessed to have that opportunity!