Bridge Family Reunion

Every three years the whole Bridge family gets together and has a wonderful fun filled weekend.  This is a tradition that I have never missed out on in the last 29 years.  I have been to 10 family reunions in my life time and I remember all but one (I was 2) with fond and warm memories.  When Pat and I met I warned him about these family gatherings. He experienced his first one the summer before we were married and was amazed at how everyone welcomed him with open arms.  The Bridges are a warm and unassuming bunch and being with them really makes me miss my Grandparents. 
Alex was only 10 months when the last reunion took place.  She obviously doesn't remember it and was a little confused when I was telling her about where we were going.  After a couple of minutes of trying to explain what a family reunion was, I just said "all of our cousins will be there".  Well that was all I had to say, she automatically associates cousins with Connor, Charlie and Keiran, so she was excited to have kids to play with. 
We arrived at Shady Nook Hall at 10am and she immediately went searching for "cousins" she found Jess and Dylan (her 5th cousins) but told them they were the wrong kind of cousins and kept searching.  I apologised to them and said "you guys are just too tall" ;)  Jess is 17 and Dylan is 15 (I think lol).  So they were too old to play with her I guess.  But eventually she found a cousin that was just right!  Mia is her name and she is 2 months younger than Alex.  Well they are now the best of friends!  Then Finley arrived, she is technically speaking Alex's step-cousin.  That would be Joann's granddaughter.  So there was another girl to play with.  Then Elyena showed up, so there was 4 of them crammed into our sunshade tent, playing and coloring. 
Alex even got to participate in the kids games, she was in the 3 legged race with Mia, and then was in the sack race.  She loved both but was very disappointed that she didn't win.  We are not sure why she was focusing on that, but she was very serious when she told Daddy "It wasn't good enough Dad, I didn't win!"  We were astounded that she would say that, and made a mental note to watch what we are teaching her with our actions lol.
Joe had a good time hanging out with Keiran and their 3rd cousin Aurea.  He spent most of time time rolling on them and yelling in their faces, but he seemed to enjoy every minute of it!  Enjoy the pictures!

Just hanging out with his toys

Joe with his name tag on

Alex and Mia in the 3 legged race

Super cute Keiran

Evidence that Pat does in fact "belong" to me ;P

Daddy didn't like the whole hat being backwards but oh well lol

sack race!

Keiran and Joe spending some time together

Joe hitting and yelling at poor Keiran, who was crying :(

waiting for pictures

we used to be the smallest family but we are getting to be one of the biggest because of all the kids, and we are even missing Jer, Eroca, Raoul, Jamie, Seth, Anja, Brian, Lisa, James, Danya & Trevor

the famous tent!  Best $60 I ever spent!

BYE!

Joe's Baptism

We were so lucky to be able to have Joseph's baptism when all of our family was down from BC.  It was the first special occasion that they were able to share with us and we were beyond pleased.  Joseph's baptism was preformed at Camrose United Church, the same church were Pat and I were married and where Alexandria was baptised. 

Choosing Joe's godparents was such an easy job.  Richard, our dearest best friend, is Alexandria's godfather and there was no other choice for a godfather for Joseph.  He is such a wonderful person and adores both Ally and Joe to the ends of the earth.  One time he ever said to me that he's not sure if he could love his own kids quite so much!  I assured him he could and would lol.
And Robyn was again an easy choice.  She is such a wonderful Auntie and a great sister to both me and Pat.  She got so excited about Joe's arrival that last Christmas she kinda forgot that he wasn't actually here yet and bought him a Christmas present!

It was a blessed day for us and we were so happy to share it with our family.

Papa Randy & Grandma Jo

what a big boy in his suit!

Grandma Linda

Uncle Richard & Auntie Danielle

Joe and his Godparents

Uncle Zac and Uncle Matt

Joe's baptism cake, the little cake topper is off of Pat's baptism cake from almost 30 years ago!

I have some more pictures from June and will try to post them next weeks, have a wonderful Canada Day weekend!

Grandpa and Grandma Kulmans 60th Wedding Anniversary

On June 18th Joe finally got to meet his great grandpa Jake, who he is named after, great-grandma Jean, Auntie Dee, Uncle Zac and Uncle Matt!  We were all SO EXCITED when they decided to make the trip to Alberta to celebrate J & J's 60th wedding anniversary!  It was a busy weekend for us but we loved every minute of it. 

So happy to see Uncle Matt

Auntie and Joe

cute little Charlie!

smelling the flowers!

Joe is loving his Grama Time

who knows what bullshit is being exchanged ;)

Ally and Connor LOVED the children's garden at the Camrose Railroad Tea House and Museum

look at all these beautiful blond babies!  Easy to tell they all came from the same gene pool ;P

60 years as husband and wife!  2 Daughters, 4 grandsons (including Nolan), 2 granddaughters (including me), 3 great-grandsons and 1 great-granddaughter.

 

It was such a wonderful time and we all had so much fun and were very sad when the weekend was over.

Some Catching up

It has been a very busy month in the Calon house.  As usual lol.  I am hoping it will slow down, but I know that as the kids get older things just get more hectic.  So where do we start...  Here are some updates on how the kids are doing. 

Ally is growing by leaps and bounds.  Everyday is a new adventure with that little spark plug.  She is FINALLY potty trained.  We have been working at the potty thing since last August and were getting seriously worried.  She was completely refusing to go.  No matter what we did, if we put her in panties she would pee and poop in them.  No panties would result in lots of messes for Mom to clean up :(  But at the end of May we resorted to horrible and blatant bribery.  There should be a lot of shame in these actions but hell they worked when nothing else had lol.  We told her that if she went poop in the potty she would get a boy barbie (she desperately wanted a new one).  So accident after accident we would remind her that if she went poop in the potty she would get a boy barbie.  Well the peeing in the potty came first and after almost 2 whole weeks with only 2 pee accidents the wonderful day came!  When she finally went poop in the potty she was SO proud of herself.  She had to phone Daddy, Grandma M, Grandma L and Grandpa R.  She was especially excited because as soon as she was finished we went straight to the toy store and bought her a boy barbie!!  We were very optimistic and even though she still had a couple poop accidents we pulled out another bribe (lol).  If she went poop in the potty twice in a row with no accidents she would get a baby boy barbie.  Well she thought that was great and tried really hard and voila it happened very quickly!  That was almost a month ago and she has only had 1 pee and 1 poop accident in that whole time!!  And on the 10th of July if she has no more accidents she gets a Barbie car!  The really awesome thing is she goes all by herself.  She just runs to the bath room and is SO PROUD of herself.  It is very wonderful to see.

The bonus of all this potty training is a content and happy 3 year old.  Ally and I were having a really rough time seeing eye to eye when the whole PT thing was going on.  She didn't like me very much and I was less than impressed with her attitude.  A couple of times she went as far to ask "for a new mudder!"  "you are not nice Mommy and I want a new mudder!  One that won't be mean and get mad!"  It really took all I had to not laugh my ass off at the time.  But all that tension seems to be behind us and she is once again back to my sweet little angel!

Now Mr Joe.  He is a wonder of wonders!  He is rolling like crazy these days.  Tummy to back, back to tummy.  All day long!  He is also trying very very hard to crawl.  When on his tummy he gets his knees under his bum and pushed with all his might.  He is actually learning that he can get around just by doing that and moves around the living room very quickly.  He is also sitting on his own for short periods of time!  I asked Dr. Keller about it and he said that it was very early for him to be doing that.  (Shameless Mommy/Daddy bragging ;P) 

Since he is moving around so much lately I was keeping a close eye on his weight.  So at the beginning of June he was 14lbs 8oz and when I went to weigh him again he had not gained any weight!  So I made an appointment with Dr. Keller and although Joe is still in the 97th percentile for height (he is freaking tall!) he actually dropped from the 61st percentile to the 50th percentile for his weight.  For those that don't know Alex did this when she was around 5-6 months.  Only with Alex she dropped to below the 5th percentile and we had to endure months of specialist appointments, ultrasounds and blood tests.   So I was very concerned that Joe would follow the path of his sister so I kept a very close eye on his weight gain.  So after examining him, Dr Keller concluded that it is just genetics.  Both of the kids were very active very early and while most babies have the ability to put on a lot of weight before they get active and burn it off, ours don't.  The funny thing is Joe still looks chunky!  He has fat little rolls and chubby cheeks but is getting so tall!!  So to put my mind at ease Dr. Keller and I decided to start little Joe on rice Pablum.  I was very nervous to do this.  I wanted to wait until at least 5 1/2 months because studies have shown that there is a greater chance of allergies if you start solids too early.  but Dr. Keller assured me that if we stick to rice for a longer period that everything should work out great.  And boy was Joe ready to eat solids!  He can pack away a feeding in no time flat and actually grabs the spoon and pulls it towards him mouth!  So after 2 weeks of rice cereal we went back to get him re-weighed and he is back on a growth curve, still the 50th, but at least he's not dropping!

I have lots more news but I'm going to do it in a couple of posts ;)