My Adessa Mattie turned Five!!!

My baby girl turned five on August fifth and I just can't believe it! This past year she has really grown and is not a little girl anymore. She is my little ray of sunshine and has the best smile and laugh of anyone I have ever met. Her laughter is so genuine, that she makes anyone laugh when she starts! 

Her birthday was a very fun time this year and the lucky girl had three separate celebrations. One in Calgary with grandma Mattie, her actual birthday and then we did a joint party with her best friend kailey at fuller lake. 

The awesome Frozen cake grandma Linda picked up! 

My beautiful girl!!! 

Dearest Adessa ,.. I hope you had the best birthday in the world because you are the best five year old girls that  I know!!! Your special smile, beautiful face and daily enthusiasm for life make me sad when I am not near you! I hope this is the best year ever and God will keep your heart and life pure And strong!!!! Love you always and forever... Grandmaac

The Past Month

Ever since our vacation in Calgary I feel like I haven't had a moment to rest. Our time away was wonderful and I have a thousand pictures to prove it, but just no time at the moment to recall the time away. It felt like a blur- even though it was three weeks, but I really felt the difference this year with a one and a half year old. The trip was fun, and every day was packed with something, but it was exhausting. Steve flew in for our last busy week and the evening he flew in, we were out for dinner and got a call from our realtor that our house had sold! By one of the first people who looked at it, but needed to sell their home first. We were very excited and agreed to their terms of wanting possession on August 28th, because we were just so excited to have sold our home in the market. 

Reality of the situation didn't hit, until we got home. Our last week in Alberta was filled Dailey with events. Steve and I had the night away he flew in and then spent the day together while grandma and grandpa had the girls, then the next morning we had family portraits in okotoks and then that evening we had my cousins, Stephanie's wedding reception. 

Steve's family took Amara that evening because we were on the nw side of the city and the reception was very late. They offered to keep her as it was midnight by the time we were done and we agreed. Unfortunately the next day Amara was very missed and I still feel terrible as we did a joint party for Amara and grandma Mattie and she never got to see Amara. 

But that afternoon we had to rush off to cochrane to go see Steve's aunt and uncle who were visiting from Newfoundland and it was the girls first time meeting them, and my first time meeting Steve's uncle. We stayed in cochrane for a quick couple of days and then drove up to Edmonton to meet our new nephew Caleb! He is such a little sweetie and we were so blessed to meet him as such a new baby! Amy is doing so well and we had such a lovely visit. It was also much too short but at this point I was itching to get home and figure out where we were moving and to start packing our lives into boxes. 

These past couple of weeks I have been packing in between trying to find a place for us to live and taking care of three children. We just found out a couple of days ago that we got a place to rent... Praise God! So we will be renting this home for a year while Steve builds us a house. We have an offer on a lot in maple bay, and have a couple of weeks for those conditions to come off. So we are just praying for wisdom as we walk forward in regards to building and where. 

The past week all the girls had fevers on and off and have been quite sleepy. I am praying that whatever they have that it stays away from Steve and I as we don't have a day to just lie around! He has been extremely busy at work, which is wonderful, but means he is gone all day and into the late evening and then our weekends have been spent packing. Today we pulled everything out of our yucky garage and vacuumed thousands of spiders out and then re-packed it so I can start getting boxes out of the house to see what I have left. We get the u-haul on Wednesday and then move over on the Thursday morning. I am feeling quite excited about some more space! The house is 2400 sq ft compared to our 1500 sq ft. So the girls will all have their own rooms, with Danika's room being the guest room and then on the main floor an office for Steve. We are on almost an acre of land and the back is fully fenced so lots of room for Steve's trucks, trailers and boat. 

I am very much looking forward to being in the new home and unpacking... And then school starts on the second of September! I will be ready to send the girls and have some time to put my feet up! 

Awesome week!

A few iPad photos from the rest of the week. Tomorrow we pack up and convoy back to Calgary where I'll spend another week until Steve arrives. We had lots of fun the rest of the week. Yesterday we boated to Margaret falls and we have been playing tennis, and getting in loads of tubing and wake surfing. 

View from the condo each evening. 

Lins rocking the surfing... She is very good! 

Selfies! My poor baby and her bruised face. She fell on cement stairs again and smashed her cheek and nose. 

The wake surfing finally clicked for me today! Such an amazing feel to be able to throw the rope and just ride the wave! 

Beauties! 

My dad is awesome! He totally figured out the surfing today as well! 

Adam is just awesome.... He jumps the wake and does all sorts of cool things. 

The littlest cousins. 

Girls going tubing, while the ladies read books on the beach. 

Amara played this game for awhile- throwing the rock in the water, grabbing it, sitting on my lap and them repeat. 

Watching the three big girls play, but thankfully didn't want to go in after them

She attacked me with sand, it was everywhere! 

Morning snuggles in the condo... I miss my bed!!! 

These little gals rocked it on the tube. They went faster and faster every time they went out! 

Sister love! 

Co captain of the ship... She is an excellent boat driver

Evening dinner at the condo! 

Yesterday was a good day. Adam and Lins picked us up in the morning and we headed out toShuswap to find our own beach. It was a scorching day! High 30s. 

We set up our spot on the beach and had a blast doing every water sport. I got up on the slalom ski and forgot how hard it is on the body! I am still determined to master the wake surfing... It is very addicting. The girls went out for a long tube ride with dad and uncle Adam and at one point on the beach we could hear adessa wailing from the beach. Apparently they hit a wave and she got ejected about 6 feet in the air and landed in the water. But when they went to pull her back into the boat she said she wanted to keep tubing! So proud of her! 

The girls also tried skiing for the first time, but none of them had any luck. Ella was the closest to making it up. So we watched some YouTube vids and will try some new techniques this week, and can hopefully get one of the girls skiing! 

Good days at the lake! 

And we are off!!!

Sunday morning started the beginning of our three week vacation. We woke up at 4 am to catch the 6:20 ferry out of Nanaimo. Steve drove up his truck to come across with us forbreakfast... Best husband ever! And boy am I ever thankful he did, we ate breakfast together and then Amara just wanted to do laps the entire time. It was a gorgeous morning, beautiful sunrise with the full moon still out and 20 degrees at 5 am. 

After Steve loaded us on the van and kissed us all goodbye we were off! The girls and I are doing the first part of the trip solo and then he is flying into Calgary next Thursday to meet us for the second part. 

The girls did so wonderfully on the trip and from the ferry we drove straight to kamloops. Stopped for a much needed pee break at mcdonalds where I brought out our picnic lunch. It was much too hot to eat outside and the playplace was a perfect place to contain Amara. She still tried to escape every time the door opened and got my van keys twice and hit the vans panic button- which wouldn't turn off unless I went outside! It was a wee bit stressful! 

But once on the road again she was a little angel.... It's nice having her strapped down! We made really good time and arrived in sicamous at about 2:30 in the afternoon. The forecast is insane for this week! High 30's all week. We unloaded at grandma and grandpas condo and then Adam and Lins picked us up in their insane new boat!! It is amazing! We went ripping around and I got to surf behind it.... It's amazing!  

Last night Amara didn't sleep too well in my room, so praying she adjusts quickly and I get some much needed rest! 

This morning we woke up and then headed to Adam and Linsey's resort for a beach day. The second half of the day we were out on the boat where the girls tubed a bit and then I also tubed, wake boarded and surfed... Feels so good to be out there again! There is nothing like jumping over the wake.  

We sure miss Steve a lot and feel guilty that he is working his butt off while we are vacationing!!

"HURRY UP!"

I read an excellent post on facebook this week and wanted to share. You can read it HERE. 
It was so needed for this mama's soul to read. We are in summer... I am a stay at home mother. But I always feel like I am in a rush. Maybe I plan too much for us to do in one day. But I am always saying those 2 words, HURRY UP. I need to slow down and enjoy these days with my girls. So if you hear me saying those words... remind me!

Butterfly World!

The early start to our summer (because of the teachers strike) has taken a toll on my children's relationship. I have been pretty fed up with the arguing, screaming and disobeying. So something drastic had to be done! We were given the book "How to have a new kid by Friday," by Kevin Lehman, way back when Danika was young and we thought the principles would apply now. So Steve and I spent evenings reading it (it took much too long and we need to re-read once again) But basically the philosophy that we understood was that you say things once, and if they are not obeyed then something gets taken away such as a play date. So you don't get B until A is completed. Anyways, we started it and I felt like I was always mad at the girls and they were always in trouble. A friend asked what I was doing to reward the good behavior and I must have missed that in the book, because we weren't doing anything. 

All that to say, we started a reward star chart. The girls can pick something fun they want to do, or buy and they have to earn stars toward it. 

The girls chose butterfly world in Victoria for their first one, and conveniently it was on groupon. They had to earn 20 stars and they went to work right away! They were happily cleaning rooms, sorting laundry, Danika was cooking eggs for breakfast, unloading the dishwasher and helping so much with Amara. 

So after about 2 weeks of working, we took them on Sunday. It was very fun! Danika was a bit disappointed because a butterfly landed on everybody else but her! Even her baby sister! But we spent about 2 hours in the tropical room, finding all the species of butterfly's on the map. Having the birds land on our arms, checking out the geckos, fish, flamingos, caterpillars, turtles and one of the birds laid a few eggs we got to see. Steve had some fun with his camera and snapped some awesome photos. 

World's largest moth

The place was perfect for Amara, she walked around the place pointing things out excitedly, going up to people saying hi! It was perfect! 

At the end we walked across the street to a really cool park and played for another hour with the girls and had a picnic dinner. It was so fun watching Steve run around with the girls squealing with delight. 

I love my family.