The wise man..

built his house upon a rock...

Did you ever sing that song when you were little? I was one my of favorite Sunday School songs, the wise man built his house upon (up on ?) a rock, and the foolish man built his on the sand. Silly man.

Well from what the backhoe opperator told us, we are definatly building on rock! Or at least some VERY hard dirt, which I guess is just as good in building terms.

It's getting so exciting to drive out to the new house and see the progess! We still haven't sold our house, but have had some very positive feedback from people interested, so here's hoping that happens soon!

A couple pictures to tide you over, and yes, there will be more coming this weekend, because there are a bunch on my camera that haven't quite made it to the computer yet!

(and again, still no spell check in blogger, someone, anyone??? other then typing it in word and pasting it over here, is there a spell check shortcut that I'm missing somewhere???)

I cannot tell you how much fun I am having picking out paint colours. Markibly MORE fun then Jamie is incendently.

And I leave you with some picutre I took last weekend of Jamie and Donovan checking out the pond that our property boarders. I LOVE these pictures. My problem now is trying to decide which one I like the best!!

There should be pictures with this post, but then I would have to go to the other computer...

So you may or may not be aware of this, but I have a two year old! How the heck did THAT happen?

We had Donovan's birthday party yesterday (Monday) and it was a great time. The weather was actually perfect, I was hoping for it to be warmer outside, but it turned out it was the perfect temperature, that we were able to keep the backdoor open, and the outside and inside temperatures were about the same!

We kept his party small this year, with only a few friends and family invited. It was great, it was a long day, and a busy day but great.

Last year I was "super mom" and made his cake from scratch (it was an elephant) and we bbq'ed burgers and hot dogs, and made salads, and well, did everything. This year, as we were flying home from Arizona, I was talking to Jamie about all that we had to get done in the next three weeks (the deadline being when we leave for PEI). We are putting the house up for sale, so we have all the work to do in order to get it ready for that, we are finalizing plans with the bank and the builder, and getting all that ready, so there are no delays to the start of construction, we are packing and getting ready for our trip, oh ya, and I'm still working both jobs and taking care of Donovan. So ya, we were going to be busy. Add in his party and Jamie said, "why don't you just order a cake for him this year?" and I thought, well that wasn't such a bad idea. Next I thought, "well if we are ordering cake, why not pizza too?"

So that's what we did. Bought a couple bags of chips for the table, ordered the cake (a super cute, and CHEAP race car cake, which Donovan LOVED) and ordered Pizza. It was easy, no stress, and most importantly, Donovan had a mom and dad "present" at his party and not stressed out about everything they had to "do".

There is so much competition among mothers out there to plan the perfect party, to make everything from scratch, and you better not ask for help. And you know what? None of it matters! Did anyone care that I wasn't the one to make the cake? Nope, not one of them! In fact everyone asked me where I ordered it from, so they could get their next cake there too! (Sobey's by the way, in case you were wondering) and the pizza, well I didn't hear any complaints, and there was only a couple pieces left over, so I guess that went over well too!

What matters most, is that we got to celebrate another year with Donovan. Another year together as a family, and look forward to the next year together. What mattered is the time we spent together.

Happy Birthday Little Man, I feel so blessed to be your mom, and can't wait to watch you grow over the next year!!

And by the way, the only thing terrible about two, is how terribly GREAT it is!

Phoenix

So, you may have noticed my absence last week? No? It's ok, my blogging hasn't been exactly regular these last few months (although I have been making an effort to blog more regularly, so you know, when you make the effort to click over here, there will actually be something new to check out).

Anyway.... last week Jamie, Donovan and I, took what would be his last free flight down to Phoenix (more specificlly Fountain Hills), Arizona to visit my parents at the vacation home they reciently purchased.

They bought this home last summer, and yes, it took them THIS long to convince us to go down there. You see, Phoenix was never on my "must go see list". For some reason I never really understood the big excitement about it. I thought it would be much better to go to Mexico for a week and relax at an all inclusive, or go to I don't know, there are a number of places Jamie and I have talked about, and Phoenix was never one of them.

That all changed when we got off the plane a couple Thursdays ago (my birthday actually) and felt that Hot Hot air on our skin (Jamie and I are both hot weather people), saw all the catus' and the rest of the beautiful environment, walked into my parents beautiful home, and then stumbled into the backyard to see this:

Of course, shortly after seeing that, we did this:

And we sat back, relaxed, enjoyed ourselves, and well, life was good.

And people, I am not lying when I tell you this, I am a Phoenix Convert. I LOVE Phoenix, and I can't wait until our next trip down there!

First a word or two about the weather. People, it was HOT, I'm talking +44'C (or 118'F) hot. And it was beautiful! The pool heater was turned off (obviously) and from just the heat of the sun, never dipped below 88' and most days stayed around 92' (one day it even got as hot as 97'). And it was WONDERFUL. We were in the pool, at least twice a day, and the first dip usually being somewhere between 6 and 8am, depending on what time Donovan got us up at, and how quickly we ate breakfast.

We spent most of our time around the house, which was perfect, as the intention of this trip was to relax and unwind. Jamie and I like to travel with no schedule, to get up in the morning and decide what to do that day. That by the way, drives my dad NUTS, and I think it almost killed him to not have a plan. So for his benift, we did make a tentive schedule, and would even go as far as to suggest what we might be doing the next day.

And on Sunday, that ment Jamie and I taking off in the morning on a little adventure.

(please note, these next few pictures are over exposed. Donovan dropped my camera onto the tile floor while we were down there. On inital inspection I thought just the UV lens had cracked, but after using the camera for about a day and a half, I realized there was some pretty serious damage done to the lens, which resulted in my loosing the last 35mm of the lens (it would no longer focus at that range) and also the sever over exposure of my pictures. I think a mechanisim jammed somewhere that caused the apature to be stuck at a wide open setting. Anyway, I really wanted to get this post up before things got too busy around here, so I haven't had a chance to photoshop these pictures into a better image. Also, after relaizing what had happened to my lens, I got a new one, so you won't have to put up with the crappy pictures for long).

Of course, we had to get a little shopping in, and I have been dying to get to a Carters Childerns outlet store for, well how old is Donovan? Two? Yes, well that's right, two years then! Being down in Phoenix, we finally had the oppertunity, and we made it to this one in Scottsdale. And people, it did NOT disapoint! Jamie and I had to practice some real restraint in this store, and even had to ban ourselves from the little girls section after getting our niece a couple shirts, had we kept looking, well she would have got an enitre new waredrobe.

That same day we decided to try to check out a boxing gym that was near by in Tempe. Unfortunatly the gym was closed, but since we had made the trip all the way over there, we thought we would drive around and check things out a bit. And we were THRILLED to find that ASU was mear blocks away from the gym!

We had a great time looking around the campus (or what we could see from it), only wish we weren't there on a Sunday, so a few of the buildings (read gift shop) would have been open!

Donovan took the liberty of learning how to swim while we were down there, which simply amazed us! I can't believe what a great water kid he is! I guess taking him to the pool when he was 9 weeks old started something! Becuase he absoultly LOVES the water. Every day he was larning something new, from just floating on his own, to doing the doggy paddle from one end of the pool to the other, to putting his head down and trying to swim (with eyes open under the water I might add) to LEAPING into the pool, he was absoultly GLOWING around the pool (and not just because we kept him covered in a layer of SPF70 sunscreen!)

Jamie and I also took another trip on our own to try to go to a boxing gym, that was, well you know, OPEN. And we were lucky enough to find the best gym in Phoenix, Central Boxing. It was a dream come true for Jamie to walk into the gym, and I almost had to drag him out by his ear to leave. It was the perfect boxing gym, both Professional and Amature boxers trained there, and Jamie was able to watch them train for a bit, to talk to the coach and Ms. Margret (who LOVED us) and to make some contacts. He is hoping to get down there to fight in the near future.

It was a wonderful week over all, and we can't wait to get down there again. Although somewhere along the line our baby turned into a little boy...

and I couldn't be more proud!

(also, I got to look at this all week, which wasn't so bad either....) ;)

(sorry, I just HAD to share that, lol)

Two Years

Two years ago today we became a family when Donovan was born.

Two years ago I learned that my heart could hold more love then I ever thought possible.

In two short years, he is growing up to be such a big boy. Swimming on his own.

Jumping into the water (sorry about the over exposed picture, my camera was dropped and the lens got jammed, and I haven't had a chance to photoshop yet).

And making our lives happier then we ever thought possible.

Happy Birthday Donovan! Love you and am SO proud of you!!!

Like Father Like Son

This picture was taken shortly after Jamie got back from England. Can you tell Donovan missed his Daddy?

If you look closely, you will notice that Donovan is imitating Jamie EXACTLY. Same hand in the air, same foot position.

It's so cute to watch Donovan look up to his Daddy and try to be like him. He even tries to "make" coffee just like Daddy.

He's Home!

Thursday afternoon/evening Donovan and I drove up to Calgary, checked into our hotel room, and went to sleep. Around 4am I heard someone at the door, and at 4:01am, I jumped out of bed, and ran to give Jamie a big hug! He was home!

Yesterday we drove back to Medicine Hat and had a nice relaxing day together as a family, and today, we are doing much the same. The weather has been beautiful, so I was out in the garden getting my weeds out of the way so you can actually SEE the flowers.

Thought I would update with a few pictures I took on Canada Day.

Happy Birthday Jamie!

Jamie left Medicine Hat last night, to start on a trip to England with Team Alberta Boxing! I couldn't be more proud of him.

The only problem is, well today is his birthday, and since he wasn't actually here, Donovan and I didn't get any cake! I think that is a problem I will have to remedy shortly!

So while Jamie is away, I told him I would try to update this blog regularly, so he could keep tabs on us... I mean know what's going on around here.

First, we had some people come and look at our house today, who are maybe interested in buying it! This would be awesome for us, since we want to start building our new house this summer/fall, and if these people buy it, it would be private, and we wouldn't have to pay realtor fees. The only problem I see right now, is this is a 3 bedroom 4 bath house, with a finished basement. Sounds all fine and good, until you stop to consider that they have 5 kids (all girls by the way) and number 6 on the way! So the space might be a bit small. However, they are moving up here from Mexico, and can't really afford anything bigger, so they might have to make the space work for them. I'm not really getting my hopes up, until I know one way or another if they are going to buy it or not. If not, then we will end up listing the house.

In other exciting news. Our master bedroom seems to have developed a black hole of sorts. Let me first say, it is not a very big room, so there are only so many places things can hide. Last week Donovan was playing with his wooden toy balls while I was getting ready. When I went to gather up the balls, the blue one was missing. Strange, but it is a small wooden ball, so I let it slide. But today, today the phone went missing! It rang this morning, and it was my Opa calling to wish Jamie a happy birthday. I remember putting it on the night stand and then I finished getting ready. This afternoon when I came home from work, MISSING! Like seriously missing, when I page it, no answer, when I intercom it, no answer, when I call the house number from my cell, I can't here it ringing! I have NO IDEA where it went to. I searched the entire bedroom, and the rest of the house, and even called the cleaning ladies to see if they saw it, and nope, phone = MIA. So as you can tell, the only logical conclusion to draw from this, is that our bedroom has a black hole. Well, either that, or I'm loosing my mind. But Seriously, that phone, where could it have gone to???? I searched EVERYWHERE. I even asked Donovan to "go get mommy the phone!" "Where did you put the phone?" and you know what he did? Ran into the hallway to get the phone that is out there! Which, YEAH! he understood what I asked, but um, NOT THE PHONE I WAS LOOKING FOR.

The great search/mystery continues.....

Mothers Day

How I spent my Mothers Day.

Hugs from the greatest Son a mom could ask for!!

Watching the men of my life go for a walk (one of my favorite pictures of them together. Only wish I had used the D80 rather then the coolpix to shoot this, would like to blow it up).

If only he didn't just shove whatever food he was eating in his mouth, lol. When you spend the day at Grandma's and Grandpa's, you are always eating!

How do you not LOVE this face???

My two guys! Thanks for making the day so special! (The gift they got me, I will actually be receiving on June 12th, I'll upload pictures when it's done, until then, you will have to stay in suspense).

It was a great day!

And even better news, the next day at the gym when I was weighed and measured, I found out, in the last month, I'm down 4.5inches overall!! Can we say WOOOOWHOOO! 1 inch of each thigh, an inch off the hips and some more loss from the waist and arms! I was absolutely floored to get those results, and laughed when I told the trainer, "no wonder my jeans have been fitting better!" Project Me, so far, huge success. I've also upped my training at the gym this month (still 3 times a week, but add about 5-10mins to the work out and upped the intensity) so I'm really excited to see my body start to change into a more toned one!! Summer here I come!!

I hope you all had a great mothers day!!!

PEI Addition

Jamie and I moved to Alberta 4 years ago (holy crap has it actually been THAT long?) And in the time, we have taken a LOT of trips to PEI, but we don't often get the joy of having someone from PEI coming out here to visit.

This month that changed. Jamie's Uncle and Aunt came to visit us for 2 days earlier this month. Here are a few highlights....

The first stop we made when they came to visit was Medicine Hat's landmark, the Worlds Tallest Tepee

Donovan "reading" the sign...

Jamie and his uncle on a walk to the park.

Walking home from the park, Donovan loves to knock on this fence and say "hello?" I could only imagine the look on his face is someone was there one day!!

My favorite picture from the day at the Tepee.

oh, hi there!

So it's been a while?? Sorry about that.

Things have been crazy around here as usual. I started working at my new job. I really like it so far, but it's amazing how being out of the house two days a week adds to the business! Donovan is adjusting to the dayhome. The girl that runs the day home says he is doing better each time, although he still isn't a fan of me leaving, and still bursts into tears when I come to pick him up, she said he is generally happy during the day. It's pretty cute when I pick Donovan up, if I can sneak in without him seeing me, he is usually happily doing, well whatever it is he is doing, and as soon as he sees me, he drops what ever he is doing, bursts into tears and RUNS for me. lol, I told Jamie you can just hear him saying "Thank goodness you are here, I've been holding my shit together all day, and I just can't doing any longer!!" It breaks your heart really, and within seconds, after a good cuddle, he's off playing again, or leading me to the door, saying "let's go home mom"

Of course, by saying that Donovan is "saying" these things, I should clarify, that's what his ACTIONS are saying to me. Because Donovan, well not so much with the talking yet. He has "uh oh!" down no problem, sometimes, rarely "no" gets thrown in, and he is working on "go" oh and "Dad" and "Daddy" are also heard regularly. I sometimes get called "Jackie" and rarely I get a version of "mom" but he is definitely taking the talking thing in his own, s.l.o.w. time frame.

The only problem we are having with Donovan in the day home, is on the days he is there, he doesn't want to settle down to sleep at night. Which is odd, because usually he is a rock star sleeper. But I'm sure it's just a transition phase he is going through, and I'm working on my patience.

We are away this weekend for another Boxing tournament. In a little city about 2 hours outside of Medicine Hat. It's been a good trip so far, but today only consisted of getting here! Jamie fights tomorrow and I will keep you updated on his progress.

Happy Easter everyone!!

Home and Busy!

Sorry for the lack of posting. Donovan and I got home on Friday afternoon. Then we spent Saturday and Sunday at a local hotel, as Jamie was boxing in the Alberta Golden Gloves tournament.
He fought two very hard fights! On Saturday he fought the Alberta Champ in the 152 weight division (usually Jamie fights in the 140 division), and he WON! It was a great fight, but very intense, and a very hard battle.
Sunday he fought the Sask Champ, and it was another hard battle! He ended up loosing that fight, but should be very proud by how he fought.

Which brings us to today (Monday). Donovan and I were back at the gym this morning, and this afternoon during nap time, I spent catching up on booking for work.

Speaking of work, I GOT THE JOB! The one I was telling you about way back in December! I start on Wednesday. Which means Donovan also starts at the day home this week. I'm taking him there tomorrow for a couple hours to get used to the place, and then a half day on Wednesday, as I only have to work a half day. Next week we will start with my two full days of work a week, and his two full days at the day home. I'm trying not to be nervous, as I know he will be fine, and that he will adjust and that this is a good thing for him. But still, it's hard, he's my baby, and it kids drives my bonkers knowing that he will be upset and someone else will be there to comfort him. I'm hoping it doesn't take longer then 3 weeks for him to start liking it there.

eeekkkk

So I'm off to the hot tub to chill out and relax! Hope you all had a great two weeks! I'll post some pictures soon.

Victory!!

Not sure why it took me so long to post this! Got caught up in all the excitement and completely forgot!

SNOW!!! and a visit with Santa

Well we got quite the dumping of snow here these last few days! Here are a few pictures of Jamie and Ruby shoveling the driveway (and yes, I did put down the camera and help out too).

And of course, the Santa visit. As you can tell, he didn't want to sit on Santa's knee, so this was the best we could do. So it's Donovan's second Christmas but his first visit to Santa.