A few pics of Dana's wedding

Dana, the gorgeous (and very relaxed) bride.

Me and the kids.

Dana and mom looking awesome.

My family,which is getting very large! Ellie, Rob, me, Leila, Dad, Mom, Dana, Jon (my new brother) Karla, Regan and Nathan.

Ellie having a blast with Nana.

Ellie happy in the arms of her handsome Bapa.

Regan looking beautiful. It was quite the task trying to keep these flower girls clean for the ceremony!

Dana and her step mom Liz admiring the wedding wheels.

My sister Leila, a bridesmaid.

The girls drawing attention to themselves as always!

(I didn't have time to take photos during the ceremony or reception, but it was beautiful. Dana and Jon's vows had most people in tears; Regan and Ellie actually both came down the aisle looking like little angels (and then Regan ran back UP the aisle:) and Rob did a stellar job of MCing the reception. It was an incredible day that I'll never forget!)

Priceless moment

Ellie and Regan (flower girls) at Dana's wedding on Saturday.
Does it get more precious than that?

Trip to Vernon Part 2 - the Beach

One of my top priorities during our trip to BC was to get Ellie to a beach. Here in Manitoba the beaches aren't close and many aren't lovely, so sadly we haven't been to one with her yet. I was curious how she'd respond to the giant sandbox and swimming pool.

The day we ended up going was kinda chilly, so we didn't even have our swim gear on. Like that makes a difference to a toddler!

Ellie's first reaction: whiny observance. She wasn't crazy about the feel of sand on her feet (she's kinda girly that way) but she was too busy watching other kids to break out in a serious declaration of beach-hatred.

Then when Dada began to swing Ellie's legs through the water, she was sold.

If it hadn't been so chilly she could have done this all day.

Yup, beaches are great.

But how do I get all this sand off my hands?

Trip to Vernon Part 1 - Our 5th Anniversary!

One of the best moments of our trip to Vernon last week (at least for Rob and I) was the opportunity to really get out and celebrate our fifth wedding anniversary. Grandma and Grandpa Balfour jumped at the chance to have Elianna to themselves for a night, and Rob and I jumped at the chance to get each other to ourselves...a rare occurrence!! As with nearly every important occasion, I tried to documentate the whole thing with photos:First we drove into Kelowna, about 25ish minutes from Vernon. Rob is actually a very uh, tame, driver. He likes to overcompensate for his inability to drive over the speed limit with mean facial expressions. :)

Then we spent like, over an HOUR at Chapters, just BECAUSE! Just because we're both book maniacs (especially Rob) and just because there was no one stopping us. It was awesome. I sat down on a bench with a stack of baby name, parenting, and nursery decorating books (yeah, still had baby brain even on a date) and Rob perused his favorite section: history and war and guns and stuff. Not everyone's idea of a great time, but certainly ours.

Then we checked into our hotel, one that we chose because of its location in downtown Kelowna, 2 blocks from the lake and right smack in the middle of the cultural district. The name was a bit deceiving, however...there weren't very many 'royal' characteristics we could find, except for maybe the fact that there was red carpet. The red carpet in our room had a big iron mark burned into it. Huh. A very average hotel, but we're kinda average folks ourselves. Great location. We walked to the rest of our destinations that night.So after check-in we hung out with Ogopogo for a while.

We have similar pictures from when Rob and I started dating, only that time some car full of punks drove by yelling curses at Ogopogo. Ogopogo is a very misunderstood sea monster.

And we took lots of self portraits and even kissed a little bit, too. Hey, it was our anniversary!

We smiled a bunch...
...and enjoyed the great scenery. And THEN...
THE KEG.
We love the Keg. Rob's 'baseball' steak was like, a foot thick and man, oh man, that meal was just a pregnant girl's dream come true!
Then it was off to see "The Bourne Ultimatum". If you liked the first 2 you'll love the third. We did. I almost fell asleep as the beginning (not because of the movie but because of previous nights' sleep deprivation) so I got some Glosette raisins to keep me awake. They worked. Good movie!
Oh. This is Rob waiting for the theatre to open. He was excited. While we waited we tried to guess the names and occupations of the pedestrians walking by, but I don't think we were very skilled at it. One couple that we guessed were 'Andrew and Maryanne' came and sat right beside us so I asked them their names and we were way off...Daniel and something very un-Marianne like. Oh well. The time passed quickly and we made some new friends. :)

After a relatively good night's sleep (I still woke up at 5:30am, stuck on Manitoba time) we went and had an unexceptional but satisfying breakfast at Denny's (at least the company was good.:) Good ol' Denny's. All in all, we had a blast. Time together alone is that much more precious now that it's so rare. I was really struck anew by what an incredible husband God has given me, and what a precious best-friendship we share. I am truly grateful.

Home, happy, and bushed.

Hey Everyone...Just a quick post to let y'all (as my dear friends in Texas would say. Cheryl...er, I mean 'my friend' also says 'peenk' instead of pink. But I divert.) know that we're still alive. Barely. :) We got back from a week long trip in Vernon on Friday night. I worked all day Saturday, Sunday was spent catching up with family, and because of some co-workers being out of town I'm working every day but Thursday this week and Rob's working every evening, SOOO....the word 'blog' only hazily drifts across some obscure part of my brain as I'm dozing off to sleep at night. Except for tonight. Because I'm procrastinating baking brownies for my dear hubby who does an incredible job of fathering Ellie all day long. Now that I admitted that I had better go do something about it. Anyone wanna come over for brownies?

Elianna's Take on Fashion.

The older Ellie gets, the more creative she becomes with her, uh, outfits. I mean, hey, why wear pajamas on both shoulders, when it's way more creative to have one shoulder exposed?

Now let's try showing a little leg...Yeah, there we go. Much better.

How about just a cowboy hat and a soother? (Ellie's really digging her reflection in the mirror with this one.)

Add a necklace and VOILA! Oufit complete!

Later, cowboy.

Booger sucker

There's nothing quite as satisfying as sitting in a cardboard box and clearing the sinuses.

The Wicked Giggle

You look at a photo of sweet little Elianna like this one, and you would never in a million years guess what she sounds like when she laughs. See, Ellie's never been a huge giggler. It takes something really big or really bizarre (like when she was 5 months old and couldn't stop laughing at a ping pong ball) to get a real genuine laugh out of this kid. Smiles and shrieks are without number, but gut-busting laughs are few and far in between. So Ellie's decided to over-compensate and has made up something that to her, sounds just like everyone else's laughter...what I like to call the wicked giggle. And it sounds exactly like that. Imagine say, a gobblin's giggle, or a wicked little mouses giggle...add a bunch of manufactured force and a growling effect and you have Ellie's laugh. Her face even turns red with exertion. And she does this all the time. In fact, she's doing it more and more each day, I think because of the reactions she gets from anyone who hears it. Anyhow. I'll have to try to tape it and get it online because words don't really do it justice. The wicked giggle. What next?? :)

Regan and Ellie Celebrate Summer

My sister and I took the girls to Nana's house the other day for a little pool party. We learned that Ellie enjoys lots of water with a little bit of grass (she ain't crazy about the stuff), whereas Regan likes the grass with small quantities of water (preferably ingested).

(Just had to throw in some photographic proof that the child is indeed walking :)

Just dryin' off.

It's official!

Yesterday, two days shy of turning sixteen months, we realized that it is finally really true: Elianna is walking. She still crawls, but boy, does she ever walk. Today at church she was running around with her little friend Chloe, who also just learned to walk. And the other day we were visiting briefly with our neighbour when we realized that Ellie had walked off to the other side of the parking lot! This is going to take a bit of adjustment! But it's very exciting. My wrist is particularly relieved as it will get a chance to rest up a bit before the next baby comes along (tendinitis). So wahoo! Next stage of parenthood, here we come!