Friday, December 31, 2010

The Calon/Foss Christmas

Since Linda was going to Vancouver and Robyn, Nolan and the Boys were going to Okotoks over Christmas we had our family Christmas with them a week early.  We had a nice day just relaxing and playing.  Ally and Connor were of course OVER JOYED to play together all day and there were the usual tears when it was time to go home.  Here are some pictures of all the fun and craziness.
Joe really liked hie sisters pink purse, we tried to take it away from him because Ally was upset he had it, but he was relentless in his pursuit of it lol.

Joe was much more interested in the paper vs the nice new dump truck, I'm sure that won't be the case in a year or so.


The kids were TRYING to take turns with the piano but it was a hard thing to do.  Linda gave Ally one just like it and we are being treated daily with its "wonderful" music ;)

Pat and Ally were having allot of fun with Joe's presents

it is pretty hard to get Charlie to stay still for anything lol

Sous Chef Connor Foss!  He loved his chefs outfit

Ah so sweet




Next will be the pictures from Christmas eve and Christmas day.
Everyone have a safe and happy New Years, Pat and I are having our first night by ourselves!  Ally and Joe are going to Martine's for the night and Mama is going to party like its 1999 ;)

Monday, December 20, 2010

pictures!!

There are lots of pictures to show so sorry for the pic overload ;)













I'll get the pictures of our Christmas with the Calon/Foss side in the next couple of day!

Monday, December 6, 2010

Hello December!

Wow I can hardly believe it is already December!  This year has gone by unbelievably fast!  Ally and Joe grow so much every day and reach new milestones by the dozens.

Ally's milestones are not near as obvious as Joe's but they are just as remarkable.  She has reached what we call 4 going on 14.  Her speech and affections are totally that of a teenager.  She gets this little Hollywood twist to her voice, you know the one, "um ya whatever!".  And looks at us like we are the most uncool people to ever grace the planet.  She also does this supermodel pose and asks "how do I look?" or "do you like this outfit?".  I am stuck between hysterical laughter and tears of knowing that she is growing up SO FAST!  All she talks about is going to school when she is 5.  Apparently 4 is the new 30 and no one wants to be 4.  3 is much better, probably cause you are still a little kid, and 5 is the best cause you are a big kid and can go to school.  But 4, well is really a nothing year.  Too big to act like a baby and to small to go to school and have lots of friends. 
That is another stumbling block for us.  Our baby is going to kindergarten next September...  When did this happen, and yes I realize that its not going to actually happen for another 9 months but we have to start to process very soon.  Maybe most parents, with an option, pick the school that is closest and just go with that.  Not Pat and I.  In January we are interviewing 3 or 4 schools.  There are 2 public schools, 1 catholic and 1 christian.  We are not too keen on the 2 public because they are in the not so great part of town.  And the catholic one is just on the border of it.  We are defiantly leaning towards the Christian one.  But we will interview them all, inspect them with fine tooth combs in hand.  And ask all the pertinent questions because guess what, Alexandria is bright, exuberant, friendly, stubborn, and easily distractable.  We need to find the perfect setting for her to grow and learn.  Hmmm look at that, I'm trying to control everything again :(  I know there will be things I can't control and I'm not sure how I will handle those things...  So school will be a learning experience for all of us.

I'm not sure how Joe is going to deal with Ally going to school.  He adores her.  They play together so well and when Ally is downstairs playing by herself you can tell he is lonely and wants to be entertained lol.  He really does look to Ally or Bruce even to be entertained.  He will spend 30 minutes sitting beside the gate, with Bruce on the other side, yelling at, stepping on, kissing, hitting, and talking to the poor dog who just sits there and occasionally gets in a lick when I'm not looking.  I can always tell when it happens though cause Joe screams at the top of his lungs, not in distress though, in pure happiness and glee.  Along with the screaming there has been lots of yelling and "talking" coming from Joe's larger than life mouth.  Baba is still the word of choice.  He uses it for everything but Daddy and Up.  He has been saying up for a couple of weeks now but Dada is new as of last week.  And on Saturday morning while sitting in bed with Mom and Dad Joe pointed at Pat with both hands and said "Dada!  DADA!"  He has never really pointed at anything before so of course Pat and I were beyond excited lol.
Joe is also walking, or attempting to at least.  He will take about 3 steps by himself then slowly lower himself to the floor and crawl the rest of the way.  He was doing really good and getting very brave until about 2 weeks ago when he developed a really bad fever and spent 3 days laying around and sleeping.  I think the fever took allot out of him and he is just starting to recover.  We never did figure out what the fever was caused by but I think it was his teeth.  He had no other symptoms and the only thing going on was his two top teeth were coming in and taking their sweet time I might add.  But thank the lord they are finally in and things are getting back to normal around here. 

Did you know that there are only 18 more days until Christmas?????  I sure do!  We have 4 advent calendars in our house and they are all counted every day.  Ally is so very excited about Christmas this year.  She got the concept last year but actually can understand the passage of time and the value of anticipation.  She tells us all the time that she CAN'T wait until Santa's comes but knows she has too.  It is said with such a mixture of happiness and disappointment. 

I know I have to update the monthly picture and I need to post some more.  I'll try to do that by the end of the week!

Lots of Love!

Monday, November 1, 2010

Trick or Treat

We had a great time trick or treating with Auntie Des, Uncle Matt & Keiran.  They came over and we made our way to Colin, Lisa and Kaden's house.  Then we walked back home hitting a couple more houses before jumping in the truck to go visit Rick and Ann (Pats boss and his wife) and Jacquie (Pats co-worker).  Then we went out to visit Grandpa and Grandma Bridge.  Joe and Keiran had a great time riding in the wagon and Ally really got the hang of the whole trick or treat thing lol.

Enjoy the pictures :)

Daddy & Ally carved this very happy pumpkin the night before Halloween
 both kids loved the pumpkin
 the cutest monster, witch and turtle ever to grace any ones living room!
 Grama with 3 out of 4 of her grandbabies

 RARRRR!
 *Turtle sounds*
 best budies riding in the wagon together
 Grandpa and Grandma with their grandbabies
 family picture!

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Oh where oh where did October go???

I can't believe it is the end of October already!!!  I blinked and it was gone.  We were so busy with so many different things I'm not surprised I missed it.  The beginning of the month started off with our anniversary.  Pat and I went to Restaurant 27 here in Red Deer.  It is a semi-upscale place with REALLY good food.  It was also REALLY expensive and the service wasn't as good as I think it should have been, but we enjoyed ourselves.
The week before Thanksgiving was beautiful so we spent allot of time at the park.  It was so nice that Auntie Susan came home from Nova Scotia.  She spent a couple hours at Rotary park with me, Des and the kids.  Ally, Joe and Keiran all LOVE their Grama-Auntie, as Alex calls her lol.



 The is one of Ally's favourite things at the park, the first time she went on it she fell pretty hard but has since mastered the intracacies of this device.










The weekend after was Thanksgiving and as usual it was VERY busy.  Saturday we spent with our family in Camrose.  We love going up there and visiting Linda, Robyn, Nolan, Connor & Charlie.  It is always so relaxing and comfortable.  And the kids have the best of times.  Ally and Connor play together so well, they are best friends.  We just send them off to their room at the back of the house and every once and a while we hear a scream or a yell but for the most part they are happy to play by themselves.  Charlie is walking like a mad man!  And he LOVED baby Joe.  Joe loves that Charlie can walk and spends allot of time watching him, as if to study just how its done. 
Sunday we spent with the West family.  Ally and her 3rd cousin Jacob have a great time whenever they get together.  They are only 15 days apart in age so they have allot in common.  Joe had a good time staring at Jacobs younger brother Issac, who is 5 days older than Joe.  I find it really funny that Jennifer and I had all of our children so close to the same time.  Poor Pat had to work on Sunday so he couldn't make it to the West supper.
Monday we went to my Auntie Patty's and spent the day with the Bridges.  Now that is the place for LOTS of kids.  Our other family functions usually only has a couple of kids and a bunch of adults, but not the Bridges.  In total there were 12 children under the age of 10.  It was a very loud and wonderful day but oh I missed my Grandparents and my Uncle Brian who unfortunately passed away at the beginning of September. 

We didn't get much of a break in between Thanksgiving and Pats birthday.  On the 15th Pat turned 30!!  And he got such a surprise on Saturday the 16th when we stopped to give my "cousin" a baby shower present.  What he thought was a baby shower turned out to be a surprise party thrown by Linda and me.  Linda and I had been working on this party since the beginning of September and I was so happy it all went off without a hitch and no one let the cat out of the bag.  The best part was when Pats cousins from Vancouver came walking into the room and Pat looked at them and said "hey man."  like it was no big thing that they were there, turned away for a split second then turned back to them in shock "What are you doing here???"  It was a great moment and although I was a little nervous that he would be kinda pissed at me, he was really happy and grateful.  It was a great night.  I'm having a hard time believing that Pat is 30.  When we met he was 22 1/2 and we were so young!  Now he is 30 and *gulp* I will be 30 in less than 7 months! 

Pat had been SO busy at work.  Well Pat is always busy at work but this past month has been even worse.  It is not weird for him to work until 7 or 8 at least twice a week and Saturdays are supposed to be a half day but nope not for Pat.  On a really great point he got a great raise at work and there is some really awesome opportunities coming up this spring.

This weekend is of course Halloween and Ally is going to be a (try to follow this one) Princess-Ballerina-Fairy-Witch...  It started out as a Princess-Fairy but she has since added the other two.  I'm still trying to work out how I'm going to make it possible,  She has a really beautiful red and gold princess dress, so I'm trying to find gold wings and gold tiara and a gold witches hat.  I'm almost tempted to tell her the witch part isn't logical or practical but I don't think I can lol.  And Joe is going as a little Monster!  I can't wait for Sunday, it is supposed to be sunny and 8* so cross your fingers.  On Friday Pat is going to a Rebels game with Colin, the tickets were a birthday present from Robyn, Nolan and the boys.  And Joe and I are going to the craft show with Lisa and Kaden.  And on Saturday we are getting family pictures done!  We are really excited to get these done, we haven't had any done since well before Joe was born so we need some pics on the wall of him lol.  And we are also getting some with our furry son Bruce.  I'm really happy about this because he is getting old and well he is apart of our family and I want to have pictures for the kids to remember him by.  German Shepherds usually only live 8-10 years because they are so big, and Bruce is actually about 3-4 inches taller than the average and is about 20 lbs heavier.
So we have a full weekend ahead of us, but I will post some Halloween pictures on Monday or Tuesday.

Hope everyone has a wonderful Halloween! 

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

September Fun!

I'm not sure about every where else but Red Deer has been enjoying BEAUTIFUL weather in the past week or so.  On Monday it was a balmy 27 degree's!!  So we of course took full advantage of the playground.  In fact we have taken quite a few trips to different playgrounds around Red Deer.  Mostly ones where they have the rubber surface instead of sand because Joe likes to play too and I don't want to spend the whole time keeping the sand out of his mouth.  We love fall so much, it is too hot in the summer to do anything, we are all really heat sensitive so even if we have to bundle up (which we did last week) and go out and play we are more likely to do so than brave the heat in the middle of the summer.

On September 18th we really had to bundle up when we took the kids to the Lacombe Corn maze for Ally's birthday.  Since we had her party so early we wanted to do something nice with just the 4 of us to celebrate so off we went to the maze.  Ally enjoyed the maze part.  She got to tell us which way to go and she did a really good job, we only got turned around 2 or 3 times.  But it got old really quick and by the time we were done the 1st part of the maze she was done with it and wanted to play on the playground. So off we went to see the many things they had to do. We went to the "corn" box, the little houses, the playground, the speedway, the farm, the "corn"er store, and then ended up at the giant pillow.  Mom and Ally jumped on that thing for 5 whole minutes and had a great time.  Mom just about had to beat up some teenagers that were jumping a little to vigorously, but the "look" made them move away very quickly.  Of course I forgot the fully charged battery for the camera at home so we will just have to remember the experience in our imaginations.

We have spent the rest of September going to park and the doctors office for Joe.  I have been paranoid about his weight gain since he was born and when he dropped off in august I freaked and proceeded to drag him to the doctors office every 2-3 weeks to check his weight and confer with Dr. Keller.  Well at the last appointment he suggested a referral to the pediatrician.  So my meddling and anxiety got me just what I didn't want!  I figured I could keep up on his weight and then we could avoid tests.  And when the dr's office phoned with a Nov 29th appointment I figured Joe would have more than enough time to get back on his growth curve.  So when they called yesterday (Tuesday) and said there was an opening on Wednesday (today) I freaked!  I was so scared they were going to want to do every test imaginable and they would tell me I needed to start giving him formula, something I refuse to do (note; I have no problem with formula, it is great for people who need to use it).  I just don't feel that we need to use it, I worked very hard to nurse both of my kids and I plan to nurse Joe until he is a year.  So having to give him formula would be like taking something away from me.  So I spent half the day yesterday typing out all of his recorded weight and length measurements, the dates of all his milestones (crawling, standing and such) and his daily schedule.

Well we get to the doctors today and two interns were helping Dr. Mahood by doing the initial examination.  So I explained our whole situation to them and showed all of my recorded info to both of the doctors, who were, to be honest, a little amused at my level of "OCD".  It might have been the growth charts, or feeding schedules or even the point where I showed them Alexandria's growth chart.  But I could tell they were both impressed and amazed.  What a nut!  is what I'm sure they were both thinking.  And when they took the information to Dr. Mahood I'm sure they told him they thought I was nuts too LOL!  So he came in and told me that Joe is perfect.  He is just a tall, skinny boy and will probably be that way his whole entire life (and YES Pat did say "I told you so!" when I repeated this info to him).  The good doctor also said that I need to calm down and only weigh Joe at his appointed doctors visits and immunization appointments...  So there, a doctor confirmed it, I'm a anxious, neurotic, nut job with obsessive compulsive disorder .  So Joe weights 16 pounds 9 ounces and I will not find be weighing him until his 9 month checkup in November...  Hopefully!

As for Mr. Joe he is still astounding us all daily with his antics.  His new "words" this week is ba ba ba, and da da da.  And he loves to scream them while walking, yes walking, around holding onto the furniture of course.  All he does is crawl to something and pull himself up standing.  Fall down after a while then crawl to something else, stand and walk around it.  He also likes to "run" away from us when he goes somewhere he is not supposed to.  He will look over his shoulder, see us coming, turn really quickly and crawl away like a mad man.  Pat and I also pee ourselves laughing when he does this.

And Ally is adjusting well to being 4.  Although one morning she did tell Dad that she didn't want to be 4, she wanted to be 3 or 5.  Because at 5 she can go to school.  Dad then told her "well at least your not old like me!  I'm 30, now that's old!"  She looked at him and said "Dad you're not old, your tall...  Mom is old!"  HAHA funny little kid, she gets her mouth from her dad.

On another note, Pat and I are celebrating our 6 year wedding anniversary this Saturday!  Yay for us!!

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend, I know we will enjoy our anniversary supper, kids free thanks to Grandma Jo!

Ally and her best friend Alyssa enjoying the leaves!


Alex got really brave and went to the top of the jungle gym and couldn't get down, she was yelling at me to come and get her!

Joe LOVED the swing, he giggled for 5 minutes straight


Sweet little Joe drinking his juice, which we HAVE to give him to keep him regular ;P