Cookies and Crayons

Last week, we had what will hopefully be our last ultrasound before the baby is born. In fact, we had two. Because of the growth issues we had with Dougie, they wanted to be sure that the baby was growing appropriately.

The first ultrasound showed that the baby was measuring a bit on the small side (3rd percentile) so the doctor decided they wanted a second opinion. The next day, we were into the maternal fetal medicine clinic for another ultrasound. Apparently, they are the best of the best around here. They re-did the same test as the day before and everyone was much happier with the results. The baby is still not big (30th percentile) but totally an acceptable size. So, we will continue to monitor but have been told not to worry.

The best news was we got a cute picture from the first test. We had the kids there so the technician turned on the 3D view so they could see their new brother/sister.

Cute little face there. It’s looking like Scott didn’t win the genetics pool on the nose – again.

As of yesterday, we are officially residents of Bearspaw, Alberta.

The kids are very excited about the new house, as are we! It’s a great setup for us and the dogs. I think we’re all going to be very happy here. We wanted to share a few pictures of what it looked like before we moved in (since pictures with all our boxes just don’t do it justice).

Front of the House

Kitchen

Eating Area

Family Room

Office (for Kim and the kids)

Sunroom (off the kitchen)

Laundry Room – this room actually makes me want to do laundry

We have four bedrooms upstairs but only pictures of the master.

Master Suite 1

Master Suite 2

Master Bath

Master Closet

In the basement, we have one additional bedroom as well as a sitting area

And small kitchenette

On a clear day, we have a killer view of the mountains.

We have a great setup for guests and hope we can entertain lots of friends and family in the new year.

This was Kim’s first birthday in Calgary (last year we were down in Texas for the big event) and there’s some things that you just can’t do in a warm weather location. After a year of hikes and mountain climbing with the kids, I figured something outdoorsy was in order, but she needed something a little bit more adventurous… and cold!

So, we left the kids with a sitter — a birthday present unto itself! — and headed out on an ice climbing adventure. (Can’t do that in Dallas, right?) We had a half-day of instruction and climbing, to a place delightfully named “The Junkyards”, beautifully set in the mountains near Canmore, less than an hour from our house. (For those of you interested in following in our footsteps, we booked through Banff Adventures Unlimited)

Kim modelling her skiing duds and her ice climbing gear — notice the lovely footwear

Close-up of the crampons — these boots are NOT made for walking on your hardwood floors…

The Junkyards — for perspective, the wall is just under 100 ft tall… are we really climbing up that thing??

The view from the Junkyards. It was a great day, though a little bit chilly (minus 15 Celsius) Evidently this makes the ice a bit chippier than normal, as if we didn’t have enough challenges!

Kim strapped in, getting some last minute instructions — and, I suspect, still half expecting that she’s on Candid Camera:

Away she goes!

She’s getting there — check out the feet — that counts as a “climb” right?

Hey, how’d she get up there?!?

Take THAT, scary ice wall!

Almost at the top!

Here she is on her way back down. It took us 15-20 minutes each on the first run while we got the technique down — and under 10 minutes the second time. Getting down was very quick — less than a minute rappelling down the ice face.

Here goes the husband… that knot will hold, right?

This is just like skiing… except uphill.. and more vertical.. and hey, this stuff isn’t exactly powdery… where’s the chairlift again?

I swear, this place reminded me of Superman’s Fortress of Solitude

How’d I get up here?

On the way up…

Woohoo!

The kids survived the stint with the sitter — we picked them up and had a nice dinner in Banff before heading home.
Happy birthday Wife!

We had a particularly beautiful sunrise this morning that we wanted to share — this photo was taken from our back patio. Normally, we only get red over the mountains at night but then they are all back-lit and don’t photograph well. We were lucky this morning that the entire sky was red.

We’ve been a bit slow to get into the Christmas mood around here. We moved, we travelled, we unpacked… In truth, though there are lights on the tree, there are still no ornaments (this is more due to our lack of finding hooks). Anyway, the real sign that the season is here is that the stockings are up.

Connie has her official stocking so she’s is officially a Sharabura now. We’re a bit light on the “Woof” stockings – it’s been a hard year for us in that department. We forge on though.

Happy Holidays!

PS – for parents or pet owners – those stocking holders came from Rona and are THE BEST! They are totally stuffed. We had a stocking holder hit Dougie in the head last year and were thrilled to bits to find something that would hold the stockings and not cause bruising if they were pulled down.

I’ve often heard that when you’re a parent, your children’s happinesses are your happinesses. If that’s true, this would be the happiest day ever.

Today, we went to see Thomas. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Thomas, he is a stream train and Dougie loves him.

We had a ride on the first train out in the morning. We thought to grab a few pictures with Thomas while Scott and Connie held our place in line. Since I didn’t have anyone helping me with him, the engineer sat with Dougie.

After we did the “formal” pictures, the engineer took Dougie over to see Thomas better.

The train ride did three laps of the park. It only took about 20 minutes. From there, we got to enjoy the park and the various Thomas areas they had configured. Dougie found the train tables pretty quickly and started to play with those (you’d think we didn’t already have one at home).

After a while, Sir Topham Hatt arrived to take pictures. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Thomas, Sir Topham Hatt is the controller of the railway.

After listening to a story, watching a video and spending a bit of time walking around the park we headed out. Dougie had the time of his life!

It was Mummy’s time after our fun morning. We all piled into the car and drove to Canmore to do some geocaching along the river. It was a bit of a mixed day, sunny, snowing, warm, cold – we had a fabulous time and a nice walk with a great view.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mother’s in our lives. We hope you had a magical day as well.

As you may have noticed, many of our recent pictures of Dougie have had him less than completely dressed. We have been working on potty training – again.

Unfortunately, we’re still not having any luck. We keep reminding ourselves that this is not our milestone. Regardless, we still want it for him (okay, and a little for us). We’re trying a more relaxed approach now and hoping at some point, he’s going to get this.

We have been meal planners for a while. I don’t tend to do well at 4:00 when I’m suddenly faced with deciding what to have for dinner. What’s worse is we never seem to have the ingredients to make something interesting. So, we turned to meal planning to help. We end up eating better and shopping better. Since we know a few folks doing the gluten free thing as well, we thought we’d share what we’re eating this week. We’re also sharing with the nice folks over at OrgJunkie for their Menu Planning Monday.

Monday – Shepherd’s Pie
Tuesday – Slow Cooker Orange Chicken and Rice
Wednesday – Pork Fancy Pants (Herb roasted pork and veggies)
Thursday – Chicken Tikka Masala (from a jar) and Rice
Friday – Pulled Pork and Baked Potatoes
Saturday – Peppered Beef Filet, Rosti Potatoes, Broccoli
Sunday – Cabbage Rolls

We didn’t have links for a few of those recipes but if anyone would like me to post them, drop me a comment.

This time, it’s just our blog.

We have moved to a new domain.  Our blog is now located at http://www.cookiesandcrayons.com.  If you receive updates in e-mail (and you got this one) you’re all set.  If you use a feed reader, your reader should update the feed however, in the event it doesn’t, you may wish to resubscribe to the new feed.

We also have a new look! We’re very excited about all the changes and hope this makes the blog easier for people to find and more fun to read.

Dougie loves his sister. When we pick her up to bring her upstairs to change her or take her anywhere, he frequently protests “no, that’s MY Connie”, “lay the Connie down Mummy”, “Mummy, can I please hold the Connie.”

He loves just hanging out with her.

It makes it hard to get pictures of her without him.

We really hope they’re always like this.

She seems to feel the same way too. You should see her light up when Dougie comes over to see her (well, not in that last picture, she’s just trying to work out why he’s messing with her Jumperoo).