Annual Gingerbread creations 2013

Every year Gram does gingerbread houses or trains with all of the grandkids.  Unfortunately not everyone can make it to the Gram & Papa's house for the gingerbread event.  For Christmas the boys received gingerbread train packages and they wanted to put them together on New Year's eve.  Here are the boys, hard at work.

Happy 7th Birthday, Jay!

December was a very long month so far.  Jay has been counting down to his birthday and was really anxious for it to come.

 The last time we were in Calgary we let him pick a Lego set from the Lego store for his birthday.  It's been almost 2 months since then and he was beside himself to open it.

Jay with some new sweats!

Jay got to open his presents before school.  After school we had to be organized to go out for dinner, to Jay's choice of restaurant, which was of course Hat's, a chinese smorg close to the house, and then off to the Christmas party at the school.

We then came home to have birthday cake.

All in all it was a good day.  You can see the Lego set in the background, already half built!

Kindergarten Christmas adventures

The Kindergarten classes make 'gingerbread' houses out of graham wafers every year.  Today was the day.  Nathan has been excited for this day for the last week.  We planned all week so that mommy could be there to help.  

Nathan with his finished project.

Rose had wanted to come as well and was kept busy helping some of the other kids.  Nathan was very specific though that only mommy could help him.

On the lower edge you will notice what looks like colored popcorn but is actually chewed up gum balls!  I asked him why he pre chewed them and he replied that they stick better that way.  Uncle Jason pointed out that it is an environmentally friendly house because of the pre chewing as he was using recycled products for construction!  Yep, Nathan the environmentalist at age 5!

Nathan was the star of the week.  Good thing I went in to school to help today or I never would have seen his poster or know that he was star of the week!  I like Nathan's blue hair.  I have the most hair.  It is actually quite an accurate rendition of the family!

Santa visits 2013

 We decided to try venturing to the Mall to see Santa.  Last year we wired in line for over an hour.  Today there was one family in front of us.  The boys and Rose were all excited for the visit this year.

 Nathan asked Santa for a cat this year.  Santa told him that unfortunately the elves won't let him bring live animals on the sleigh anymore as it gets too cold and sometimes they are afraid and they poop in the sleigh, leaving a mess for the elves to clean up!  I appreciated his honesty!

 I actually managed a picture of all 3 boys with them looking at me and no one with their eyes closed!

                            Rose likes a picture to send out to her friends each year as well.

                                  I didn't hear if she asked Santa for anything in particular.

 Jay asked Santa for a life size Lego car that he could drive with a Lego Chima on top!  Santa wasn't                  sure he would be able to find one of those but did say that he would try!

                              Carson asked for an assortment of Lego sets this year as well.

Halloween Excitement

The Halloween adventures started with FHE on Monday.  We had pumpkins to carve.  The boys enjoyed the adventure and also introduced markers and paint to the excitement.  Rose had never seen a pumpkin carving and also seemed to enjoy the adventure.

Carson made his pumpkin into an angry bird pig.

The Blues Brothers at school - Carson allowed me to paint side burns on but Jay wouldn't.  Absolutely refused in fact.  He also wouldn't let me colour his hair black.  

Nathan was to have been a minion for Halloween, but started to dig his feet in and found this costume on sale at Costco.  He loved it, and although I wanted him to be a minion, for $7 I decided to choose another battle. 

The boys came home from school in their costumes and it took everything in them to not run out to go trick or treating right away.  I made them wait until 5:45.  They ran out the door, so very excited.  They missed out last year as we were on the way to Disney World so they were going to make the most of it this year.
Rose had also never seen Trick or Treating so we took her and Lady out with us.  I walked a couple of blocks with them all and took some pictures.  Then I went home to hand out candy and the kids kept going out with Rose.

We tried to dress Lady up as a puffin in her costume.  She tried rolling and scratching it off.  It was actually really entertaining to watch her trying to get it off!

The Loot after 2 blocks.  The boys emptied their bags and headed out again!

Showing off the regular sized bars.  They each came away with 4 regular sized bars and 30 bags of potato chips!

Christmas in October

 Thanksgiving weekend I had taken the boys up to Calgary with me for a meeting and to spend the weekend with Grandpa and Grandma.  Seeing as they are away every Christmas they wanted to spend Thanksgiving and Christmas with us so we had a Thanksmas weekend.  The boys helped Grandma decorate the tree on Friday night and Sunday morning before church they got to open their stockings.  After church they got to open presents from Grandma and Grandpa.  Nathan was a little stressed out on Saturday morning as he thought that was supposed to be "Christmas" and there was nothing under the tree.  He cried.  We also had to be careful to explain that Santa would be coming for Christmas in December at our house and that Grandma would just be helping out Santa over the weekend.

The Christmas tree on Sunday morning.

The boys in front of the tree.

The boys opening a 'group' present

After the opening of the gifts we had Thanksgiving dinner.  We had to head back to MEdicine Hat on Monday so we could have the kiddos set for school on Tuesday morning.  They had a terrific "Thanksmas"

Jake & Elwood

Uncle Jason has been influential in the planning of Halloween costumes this year.  Here we have the Blues Brothers, Jake and Elwood, getting ready for church!

Carson's Baptism

Carson chose to be baptized as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on August 24.  He was very excited for this to occur.  We had tried a couple of dates to accomplish this and it finally came together! 

These are copies of the two invitations that he handed out to friends and family.

This is my favorite!

Carson & Daddy right before the meeting.

Gram & Pappa, Grandma & Grandpa and Uncle Jason were all able to come and celebrate along with numerous friends to make this day perfect for Carson.

The raspberries are finally ripe!

The raspberries started to turn a little bit red last week.  For the last 7 days I have heard 14 times per day how badly the boys wanted to pick the raspberries.  I told them if I caught them they would be cut off from TV for a week!

Finally today they are ripe, a lovely deep purple.  They picked berries to their hearts content.  And ate berries to their hearts content.  I will make jam tomorrow, after they have eaten enough that they don't want to eat anymore.

You can see in the pictures as well that the grapes are doing well this year.  I am somewhat scared of the fall for all of the grapes I am going to have to deal with.  I cut them back to what I thought was half last year but they obviously love to get cut back.

I want to ride my bike!

It's official, all of the Imes boys can now ride a two wheeler without training wheels.  Jay insisted we needed a video as proof for Nathan's posterity!

Jay's big day

Jay has been a little scared of riding a bike without training wheels.  One of the families from church that has 4 boys came by last night and offered us some of their old bikes.  Jay shyly asked if he could have the blue one.  I reminded him that it didn't have training wheels on it.  This morning before school he got up and rode his new bike.  No help and no training wheels!

To add to the excitement, Jay got his first loose tooth.  Unlike Carson, who can have a loose tooth for weeks! Jay wiggled it and wiggled it all day long and it came out at supper time!  Yay, Jay!

What we learned this week at school...

Jay had a productive week.  This is what he learned at school.

Sunday afternoon Snowcones

Nathan is proud of his 10L of snow!

Nathan was so excited for the new snow fall as it makes a good supply for his snow cone fetish.  After church, Jay has taken to changing in to his pyjamas and then heading downstairs to beg to watch movies.  Carson just changes and begs for movies.  Nathan typically changes and begs for movies but today he asked to go play outside.  About 1/2 hour later he rang the doorbell so I would help him with the door and he had his "ice cream bucket' full of snow to make snow cones.  His intention was that he and his brothers be able to finish all the snow in his bucket!

Thankfully they are restricted to 2 flavors with each "cone".  They each had about 5 of these things though!

(I left for work shortly after this sugarfest)