Fall/Winter '09 Rundown

Or "The Past 8 Months (Part II)" but let's face it, it's been a lot longer than 8 months now!

But first... On youtube there is a video of a guy who sees a double rainbow. Well, I had my own double rainbow experience (this is from last Sept). I wasn't quite as excited as that guy but I did feel the need to snap a few pics. It was just sprinkling outside but there was the most vivid rainbow I had ever seen and when I ran outside to take pictures, I noticed there was a second one!

As mentioned previously, last fall was fairly laid back for us with Chris not working or going to school. We did a lot of hanging out around the house or we would just pick up and randomly go to Calgary for shopping or whatever. Trust me, the novelty wears off pretty fast.

I was trying to train Jensen to have his naps in the afternoon when Aubrey had hers which led to a lot of this:

OK, not a lot, but it did happen a couple of times that I can recall. I know it seems mean to force a little tyke to stay awake when he is clearly so tired, but it's for my sanity. Truth be told in this case we were all just playing and all of a sudden we noticed that Jensen had disappeared and then we found him on the other side of the couch fast asleep. I personally think it's quite cute when little kids fall asleep in random places. Maybe because it's very rare that my kids do. They NEED their beds.

At the end of October (the 27th I believe) Chris' brother Andrew and his wife Candace welcomed their firstborn into the world! Cute little Connor Delon Shurtz. Aubrey and Jensen were cousinless on the Shurtz side until he came along! And they adore him.

Aubrey was thrilled that she got to hold him!

I have been trying to encourage Aubrey's independence and I was very excited to see that she wanted to dress herself even if this was the result!

Chris was very good at watching the kids while I took showers. I didn't have to worry at all about what they were up to while I was having some personal time. Oh, wait, it's quite the opposite really...

Aubrey and Jensen love playing with "stickers." It's so great to come out of the shower and find this. Good thing this was a funny moment and no serious damage was done. The best part was when I opened the shower room door and Chris came running over to pretend he had been keeping a close eye on them! Ha! Gotta love him!

Jensen and Aubrey play so well together. There is nothing that makes me more happy then to hear them chatting away with each other and hearing their giggles. But their little fights can bring a smile to my face too.

I know I'm a horrible parent for thinking that Jensen sitting on his sister's head is so funny. In my defense, it started out fine! He was sitting on her tummy and she was laughing so I ran to get my camera but Jensen had gotten off. We called him back over and told him to sit on her again and the sweet obedient boy sat right on her head causing Aubrey to scream and cry! I had to snap a pic before I saved her...

One of our favorite places to go is the Parent Link Centre here in town. It's so fun for the kids and great for the moms to meet friends and visit. There are great classes for the parents to go to as well! I attended "Coping With Toddler Behavior" and a Parent Preschool class and we often would just go to Stay and Play. Every once and a while we would go to "Baby and Me" also.

I know it's wrong to covet, but I really want to own one of these play mat things one day! It was so perfect for my adventurous, accident prone boy. He would climb all over it and if he fell it was no big deal!

This is Jensen with his good pal Josh. Josh is only 2 weeks older than Jensen and they play so well together! We would often meet up with Josh and his mom at the PLC (and many other places).

We had some CRAZY weather this past winter which left us stuck indoors. Church was canceled one Sunday because of one of the snow storms we had! That was definitely a first for me! There were a couple of times where we were left without power for long periods of time. One time it was out for over 14 hours! Thank heaven for gas fire places to keep us warm! When there was power, being stuck indoors got me doing a bit more baking than I usually do.

Jensen and I got hooked on these ginger snaps. I liked to dip them in pumpkin dip. So YUMMY!

The aftermath of one of the snow storms was unbelievable! And the snow was wet and very heavy. It took poor Chris over an hour to shovel not even half of the driveway!

I know Christmas time is busy for everyone, but I feel it is especially busy for us. First there is Christmas itself, then there is Chris' birthday on the 28th, our anniversary on the 30th and sometime in there the Wests (my MIL's family) have a Christmas party. It's a pretty crazy week! Last year Chris and I spent Christmas with his family. On Christmas Eve we went to the Nativity in Lethbridge. It was really neat. Chris and Jensen stayed behind because it was so cold and Jensen was just getting over an illness (more on this in another post). It was a first for both Aubrey and me! I think it's a really great tradition. When we got back the kids got to open their Christmas Eve jammies...

and were put to bed so that the adults could enjoy fondue without worrying about the little ones.
Christmas morning we got up early so that Darcy and Jessica could leave early enough to go to her parent's house as well. We had to wake Aubrey and Jensen up and they handled themselves quite well. Once again we were way spoiled! Especially the kids!
We opened stockings first...

And then opened presents! I think this was Jensen's favorite one. He just wanted to play with it nonstop!

I really thought Aubrey would be more excited about this party kitchen from Santa than she was as it is her favorite thing to play with at the PLC. She loves it now but she didn't have much of a reaction at the time. Maybe because it was still in the box?

The rest of Christmas time is a bit of a blur to me... We didn't really do anything for Chris' birthday as per usual. The poor guy always gets jipped. And on the day of our anniversary we didn't do anything either. I think Chris went to sugar bowl with his brothers and uncle and I believe that night was when we had the family party as well. Chris definitely made up for it later though but that is also for another post!

P.S. This is the reason for the lack of pictures of Aubrey:

It's hard to take pictures of a girl who reacts like this when you try... She is getting better!