Our favorite baby

Katelynn is almost six months now, and she is still everyone's favorite baby. Laurel, Will, and Emma still can't wait to see her every morning. They want to hold her, and sing to her, and make her smile any chance they get. She of course loves them too. I kind of thought that after a couple of months her charm on them would dissipate, but they love her just as much as when they first saw her. Many people ask me if she is a good baby (which I think is a weird question because most mothers won't say "my baby is terrible!"), but I can honestly say she is a great baby. She is starting to get stranger anxiety but that is pretty normal. We love our "katey-cat"!

fun family nights

On a beautiful monday night in July, I decided to do an obstacle course for the kids. It was pretty fun for them, and hard for Nathan and I as we are a little too big to use some of the "course equipment" . Anyhow mostly good times had by all...as long as William got to beat someone in each race!

fun in kananaskis

We love going out to the mountains, especially with friends. So after the big church stampede breakfast in mid july, we went out to Allen Bill ponds in k-country, with our friends the Salmons.

The kids loved using the dingys and Will even took an involuntary swim off the side of one of the boats! It was an afternoon of great fun.

Laurel's post- library reading program

So me and Will started a reading program! At first Will got scared and did not want to go at all

but then he finally came to one and said 'oh I like it'. So now Will is reading for like one minute

and saying it`s two hours so that he can get a prize for reading. The summer reading club is fun!!!

free fun

So this summer we are trying to get the kids out and have some fun. We have hired one of the young women in the ward to help me at home three times a week, so I can take the crew out and not lose anyone. We go to the river park, the science centre, and today we went to the new splash park here in town. The kids had a great time.

This past saturday we all went to Spruce meadows for "the National" (a horse jumping competition) It was sponsored by everyone's favorite bank, TD. There were people there throwing TD shirts into the crowd, so of course the kids had to have them. They were an adult large size, so the girls wear them to bed and Will seems to think the shirt fits him just fine so he wears it with shorts, although the shirt covers his shorts entirely. Anyhow the kids really enjoyed Spruce Meadows and were sad to leave (it was about to rain), the best part was the day was free!

Nathan's Post - Mr. Mom

So on Saturday, Tracey took a flight to Manitoba to stay with her Grandpa for a few days. Back here in Okotoks, one of her uncles just passed away from cancer. Tracey and I were talking on our way to Red Deer on Friday night about the fact that Tracey's Grandma (her aunt's mother) was not going to be able to make it to the funeral as the grandpa has not been in very good health the last few years, and would not be able to make the trip. Grandpa needs 24 hour care, and Grandma provides it. We agreed that the aunt would probably appreciate it more if her mother was there than if Tracey was, so we decided to call up Grandma and have Tracey offer to look after Grandpa for a few days so that Grandma could come to the funeral. So Saturday morning it was all arranged, and Saturday night, on our way back from Red Deer (where we had a short visit with my parents) we dropped Tracey and Katelynn off at the airport. The kids have been great while Tracey has been gone. What has helped out is that Grandma Linda bought them a Wii. In general Tracey (more than I) don't like our kids to have video games, but I think that Linda appreciated what we were doing for her Mom and Dad, and decided to go and get the kids the present. Only bad part was that it only came with one controller. So I got on Kijiji and got a couple of used ones with nunchuks for $50 (new they would have been about $80 each for a controller with a nunchuk). The kids like it a little too much, hopefully the novelty wears off soon. But they are good at doing their chores and other jobs I give them before playing. I hope no injuries happen this time either (last time Emma got nailed in the head and got a cut over the eye by an overaggressive tennis forehand from Laurel). Right now we have one of Tracey's cousins, her husband, and 3 children staying the night. I don't know a lot of Tracey's family that well, but these ones seem good enough.

Summer is here!

The past week has been pretty fun. We had Laurel and Will's last day of school, Laurel received the "you can count on me" award (with a number of other kids in each grade) in her awards ceremony, we were very happy for her. Then on Wednesday was William's seventh birthday! We had a party at the gymnastics center here in town, we all had fun at that one, jumping on the tramps, swinging on the ropes, jumping in the foam pit (or for Nathan...throwing kids in the foam pit) it was great! Then today for Canada day we went to the church celebration in calgary, it was chilly but still a good time. Now we are tired and the house is a mess!