A New Basketball Season

Here is our large cheering squad attending one of Kyndal's basketball games.  Paul coached Kyndal's team this year and assistant coached Elliette's team.

At this game Deakin wasn't sure what to make of it, Baylor sat really nice taking it all in and Marshall yelled as loud as he could, cheers like "Yeah" and "Make some NOISE!!!"  His favorite kinds of cheering is non specific and loud!  He also did shout all the way driving across the city to the game, "Make some Noise, Noise, Noise." Repeated over and over and over.  It was loud and made him happy. Me? Not so much.

Dawsyn is such a sweetheart, waiting patiently for her time to get to play basketball.

Kyndal really has come a long way this season.  She is one of the tallest on her team, which isn't saying much, as she is not very tall in the basketball world. She has progressed in her skills in many areas.

 Here is a few pictures that I got in one of her games.  Kyndal is a bit of a defensive specialist.  She is often guarding the most skilled players on the other team.  These ones you can see the height difference. I am so happy to see how much she has progressed this year!

Here is Marshall having some fun at the game. I thought that he was totally trying to impress this cute girl in every way that a 5 year old boy knows how.  Saying 'Hi' 500 times, acting silly, telling her random things, sitting close to her, showing her some tricks such as walking backwards.  He laid it all out to get her attention.  It was very funny!  He is definitely an entertaining boy!

The Days Go By

Some sweet moments caught with my kiddos.  I try to relish the little happy moments, it can be really hard to do but these moments make the many hard ones worth it.  Here is some of the sweet moments of our life as the days pass by.

Marshall is convinced here that he has a wiggly tooth.  He is showing it off.  Dawsyn loves, above all else, to craft.  Here she is showing off one of her creations.  A baby holding a baby just is the cutest!

One day Deakin was found sucking his two middle fingers.  This is what Baylor always did.  So I found one of Baylor to compare their little baby faces.  Deakin has way crazier hair, Baylors always laid so flat like that.  Baylor was way chubbier with a very round face and Deakin has a much pointier little chin.  I love both of these little boys and it always makes me happy to look back at them.

Marshall being such a great big brother and trying to make Deakin smile.

Elliette is practicing her photography here.  She took this one below as well.  She did a great job.  Especially as I don't have as many pictures with me and my baby, it is nice to see.

Deakin is such a lovely baby.  His smile could melt the hardest of hearts.  He is adored!

Paul making Mr. Movember.

Happy moments with Kyndal doing her school work nicely, Elliete being a bookworm and my boys helping me in the kitchen.

I have missed this baby and his great hair.  It did mostly fall out.  I will share that another day.

While We Were Away

A few pictures of the fun that our kids had while we were away.

Marshall and Dawsyn both got to accompany Grandpa on different days to a hockey game.  They love these dates with Grandpa!

Elliette is such a great big sister to Baylor!

Playing at the park and in the yard. It made me so happy to see these pictures of my kids, happy and playing, while I was so far away from them.

Ottawa Part 2

Some more of our trip to Ottawa.

I laughed at this statue with the bird on his head.  It reminded me of the Piggie and Elephant book, "There is a Bird on my Head." In is one of my favorites.  Especially when I am away from the kids, I remember and smile about things that we do together.  So I sent them this picture.

Deakin and I had a tour on the Parliament together.  Paul was doing a tour with people at his conference. It was very interesting.  I love to see history!  There was so much history here.

The library of parliament. It was beautiful and bright with rich, elaborately carved wood.  This is the one area that survived the fire that devastated the parliament building in 1916.

The arches were so amazing to me!

The view from the top of the Peace Tower.

These three travelers on our way back home!

Ottawa Part 1

Paul had a work conference in Ottawa this year and Deakin and I had a great time accompanying him.  We had never been to our countries capital and loved the time together to enjoy the sights.  There is a lot to do in Ottawa.  We enjoyed walking around in pretty decent weather, one day of chilly and snow, the rest quite sunny and fairly warm.  It was beautiful.  The only thing that we were hoping for was some of the fall colors that we don't get to experience the same in the west.  It was an unusually late year for the leave turning color and we only saw small smatterings of color among the green trees.

Deakin spent the first couple of days in the stroller or sling, touring around the city.

We had a fun time seeing parliment, inside and out.  I love the look of this East block building.  The old wrought iron fence, the gargoyles, the blackened rock.  It was very interesting.  We didn't get to tour this building as that only happens in the summer time. It would have been fun to see inside.

A peace monument.  

Out for supper.  

The skeleton of a blue whale at the Nature Museum.

This beautiful building, built as initially as a museum is like an elaborate castle. It is an interesting old building.

Overlooking the prime ministers home and the Ottawa river.

On our tour of the Royal Canadian Mint we were able to hold this solid gold bar.  It weighed 28 lbs and was worth nearly $600, 000. Impressive.

Oh, this sweet baby face! He is a fun and happy baby!

My double D's, my Youngest Babes!

Oh, this baby!  Since I am behind in keeping up with this journalling, it melts my heart to look at how little and amazingly cute this boy is!  No wonder people stopped us everywhere that we went to admire that hair.  Even when he was in my sling and only the tiniest bit of his head poked out he got comments on his hair.  He is so sweet and cute.  

I did know that his hair wouldn't last.  It has not, but that is a story for another day.  Here he is so fluffy, wide eyed and cute as can be.  I adore this beautiful, little boy of mine!!

My dear Dawsyn!  She is so cute and so sweet!  My youngest daughter.  She is so filled with sweetness and spunk!  She is my most social child.  She loves to spend time with people.  One way that she shows this is through frequent phone calls to Grandma and Grandpa asking to have sleepovers at their house.  She wants to have time with them all by herself.  This is one of those days.  After her sleepover she got to have a beautiful walk through fish creek park before she had to come home to join the rest of us.

She was so thrilled with this opportunity to feed a little chickadee.  I am so in love with the look of wonder and amazement on her face.  She is one special girl!

One of my favorite things to do when the weather is nice, is going for a nice Sunday walk.  We have been so blessed to be steps from fish creek park and spent many Sunday evenings walking down to throw rocks into the creek.  It is so simple and beautiful and edifying!  I love to have more family around, like this day, to join us on our walk.  We had fun visiting, getting some time to enjoy the outdoors and have cousins play together and even just get out to move our bodies.  It makes me happy!