Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Back! *long, sorry!*

We're home! Okay... so we've been home for a few days. But it's been CJ's days off, so we've been playing family.

We. Had. A. BLAST. Oh wow, it was so great to see people I haven't seen in ages or have never seen face to face! The kids loved auntie Peggy within hours of arriving at mum's house, and she loved to cuddle and play with them. They got spoiled rotten. A *ton* of clothes, and all from my favorite store EVER, Roots. {they're a Canadian company, they make the Olympic clothing for the USA teams} My favorites are the matching shirts that say "My Roots are Canadian" on them. Dang skippy they are!

Not sure why M's legs look so pale in this picture... probably the flash.

Yes, that's a Chicos catalogue P is looking at. He's helping his grandma pick some things out.
Oh gosh, J looks so big in this picture! Sniff.
We got a pic of all three kids in their shirts for Sarah, since she couldn't come. Next time, I hope!

Peggy and Sarah also got the kids some great toys. These awesome stacking blocks that all the kids love, a My Little Pony for M {I think they avoided Strawberry Shortcake because of Sarah and I's history with the doll *teehee* that's a story for another day}, the newest Robert Munsch book {Sarah and I used to get to see him read his books at our local library as kids}, and a gorgeous growth chart! I know I'm forgetting some things, forgive me.

Mum's new house has a great little park and playground, and also a pool, so we spent some time there. Peggy and I pushed the kids on the swings forever {little addicts} and then they discovered the rest of the playground...

P saw this and just started climbing it all on his own. He's never been on one before, so I was color me shocked when he just went on up as if he'd been doing it forever! Little monkey...
The playground had this neat little musical pipe scale that M loved! Such a creative idea to put on a playground!
After the park we went to the Mad Hatter Cupcake store {YUM.}, hit up the Greatland Target by mum {uh, smack my tush and call me jealous! It was huuuuge} and then took a drive to Red Rock Canyon (I think it's called that), so gorgeous.
J trying to help mum finish off P's cupcake {shhh...}

We also hit up the Gymboree outlet. Let's just say we did not walk away disappointed!! It's probably a good thing we don't have either an outlet or a regular store in this town... Checked out Carters (J sleeps in footed sleepers, has to have the feet or he wakes up) but I didn't like any of the ones they had, even tho they had some good sales. M got to ride a carousel at the outlet mall, and that's all she really cared about. Ha!

We also hung out at the pool at the park. They had a neat wading pool for the kids that was only 1.5 feet deep. Perfect for M, who could easily crawl along the bottom, but not poor P. He had a scary incident. We just got there and mum and I weren't quite in the water yet, but M got right in so of course P followed her. He was walking around it fine, having fun, but he tripped and fell forward. Well, he's big enough to walk around it, but not big enough to crawl. He could get himself back up! Really, one of the scariest moments of my life seeing him face forward and not getting his head out. I dropped my camera on the chair and jumped into the pool next to him and grabbed him out of the water. Luckily he wasn't under very long but honestly, I've replayed it so much in my mind that I couldn't honestly answer you how long he was under, because it seems like it was hours to me. I think he only gulped some water down, because when I hauled him out he coughed and spluttered some water out, but then started sobbing. My poor poor bubby! I wrapped him and cuddled him and calmed him down, and we tried to get him to put his feet back in the water {I don't want him to be scared of water because of this} but he wanted nothing doing. So I bundled him onto the lounge chair to watch M and mum in the water, and sure enough he finally got up and walked over to sit by the pool. Then he'd put his feet in the pool. Then he'd splash a bit with his feet. Then he'd sit in the water. He never got brave enough to walk in the pool again, but he'd scoot around the step on his bum. We couldn't help him, he wanted to do it all on his own, which was probably a good thing anyways. So that was our scary moment of the trip.

Poor P-man after the incident. A bit shy and unsure.

M, so NOT shy in the pool.J's first time in a swimming pool! Look at the rolls, LOL!!

We got to meet up with Sam, Mandy, Zach and Jackson on Saturday!! Woo! It was like no time had passed. I love friendships like that, where you don't see eachother for months or years, and when you get together it's like time never passed. Zach's speech is incredible... I wish we'd stayed in Utah because I bet he would be a great influence on M's speech. Usually M is really shy around people she doesn't know very well at first, but with Zach she grabbed his hand and they were playing almost right away, it was so nice to see! Cutest moment of the day: Sam, Mandy and I were sitting and talking at the park (we had a picnic) and Zach comes up to Mandy and says "mommy, those big kids are being mean to me!" You could see Mandy's momma bear instincts rearing up and she asked him which kids, and he pointed to the ones playing on the playground. She asked him what they were doing, and he goes "they were being mean! They said tag, you're it!" Oh my gosh, we just started cracking up laughing. It was so cute!! And, of course, all the pics are on mums camera. She's going to get them on CD for me, but there's a really cute one of M and Zach jumping on the couch laughing, I wish I had that!

I also got to meet Gaily for breakfast on Monday, before we headed home. I only brought J so that I wouldn't scare them with my insane children, and J charmed them up at the beginning. All smiles and flirting. Then he got grumpy, but Gail and Brian and Tracy were so great with him. Brian even walked him around a bit to try to calm him down! J finally got happy after I let him try a teensy bit of whipped cream from my fruit bowl, lol. She and Brian are so sweet, I really hope we get to Santa Barbara this summer so I can bribe them into taking pics of the kids for me. :o)

For a parting shot, here's J and Richard, my stepdad who he's named after {Richard is J's middle name}. J was just fascinated with him!


I think they kind of look alike in this one:

And my mum and Peggy, in the kitchen cooking up a delicious roast beef dinner on Sunday. mmm!

I realized as I was typing this up that most of the pictures I seem to have taken must be on mums camera! Sucky. Hopefully I'll get my hands on the copies soon...

9 comments:

Karin Hopkins said...

Looks like you guys had fun! I love visiting with fam!

Jesse Edwards said...

CUTE pics! So glad you had a great time and got to see your mom (mum)! Gracie has slipped in the bath tub and it is one of the scariest things. It's made her a little shy of the tub. Almost gave me a heart attack!

mandy said...

I feel so cool that I made the blog!! And it was great to see you and the kids!!! We also wish that you had not moved!!! WE love you guys and miss you!!!

The Wheelers said...

sounds like you had fun! you mom looks good too. we (the boys & i) are probably coming down to sv the end of may. hope we can get together...

Amber said...

Looks like you had fun. I love all the kids shirts. Lexi is saying "Mommy go back, I want to see my friends Mercy and Porter" We miss you guys!

Shy said...

How fun how fun!! Glad you had a GREAT trip! Glad your back lets do lunch :)

Anonymous said...

I finally found a Kodak machine that worked so you will be getting two CDs in the mail as soon as I can get to a post office! Love, Mum

Shy said...

I want your moms kitchen! Looks so nice. :D

Holmes Family said...

Looks like you guys had a blast! I want to go on vacation somewhere, ANYWHERE! Hope all is well, Jess