Thursday 24 July 2014

Our Edmonton Summer (Part 1)

It has been about 2 months since my last post so I should probably do a little update on Grant to catch you up to speed.

Grant loves...



  • Laughing and waving at strangers
  • Blowing kisses
  • Running down the long hall outside our apartment
  • Dancing to any type of music, in any situation. 
    • He has 4 different moves. The first one, he puts both his hands up and bounces. The second, he puts his hands up and does some sort of square dance with his feet. The third is where he just runs around and spins in circles. And fourth is his car dance.
    • We walked by the chapel one day at church while the congregation was singing a hymn and he immediately stopped and started bouncing.

  • Climbing on our bed and the couch and running around on it. No matter how many times I tell him not to.
  • The park

  • Bubbles. He is fascinated with them
  • Drinking the water in the bathtub
  • Pulling pots and pans out of the cupboard
  • Sticking his hands, my wallet, debit card, kitchen tools and anything else he can find in the toilet
  • Water. Between our morning swims at the pool, afternoons at the spray parks, his evening baths, and our weekly visits to the legislature fountain, he never ever seems to be out of the water.
  • Climbing up the slide at the park. I feel like I am always nagging him not to do things at home so when we are at the park I just let him do his thing.

Grant is...

  • weighing in at 28 pounds 
  • wearing 18-24 month clothing for the most part


Grant has...

  • started throwing mini temper tantrums when you take something he isn't supposed to have, But they last like 10 seconds and then he forgets and moves onto something else.
  • developed quite the tan from being outside everyday! You can tell because he has lots of tan lines in his pudgy, wrists, ankles and of course belly.
  • started to mimic words that you say. It is so cute and so exciting!
  • 14 teeth
  • gotten really good at drinking out of a waterbottle, and he prefers it over his sippy cups.
  • learned how to climb down stairs. It took lots of bumps and bruises to get there, but now my life is a little easier!
  • been mistaken for a girl over 10 times now since he has been born and 7 of those times have been since we moved here. I don't know if it is his long eyelashes or his coral shorts that he often wears but I don't feel like he is a very "girly" looking boy.
  • been compared to Prince George by everybody! I've had lots of people come up to me in person and send me messages about how my baby looks so much like him. I definitely see it in some pictures.

New words...

  • Mama
  • Dada
  • Jess
  • Bubble
  • No
  • Please (although it sounds more like "tayyyyys")


Moving to Edmonton has been fun and crazy. This is our third Vivint summer and for the first time it feels like we are getting the hang of things, almost like we've got it figured out haha. We are living in the same apartments that we lived in last year, so I don't really need to post new pics because it pretty much looks the same with a bit of a different layout. (See here)

Garth is having a great summer, he loves the office and is working very hard. I know he is going to have his best summer yet!

The Girls

Because our husbands are always working so hard for us all day, most of us have lots of free time to fill up and we like to do that with each other.  We stay busy with dinner dates, birthday parties, trips to the park, spray park days etc.





Our Sundays

Sundays are very precious because that is the only day of the week we get to spend as a family this summer. We always go to church in the morning, take naps and then go to the legislature building or walk down cool neighbourhoods together. Evenings are usually filled with card games or movies. I seriously can't get enough Sundays around here...

Mother's Day

Father's Day

Ready for our naps...





The Family

Nathan (Garth's oldest brother), Deb and their kids live in Edmonton so we got to go see them and celebrate Samera's 12th birthday with her.



My Dad has been living and working in Edmonton this summer which has been great for us because we get to see him a lot more! He loves coming over to spend time with Grant!


My Family has come up twice now to visit us. The first time worked out perfectly because my Dad was able to come over nice and early to watch Grant so I could finally go get my hair done. After that we went shopping (and some people went swimming) at West Ed. The next day we got to go spend some time at my Uncle Doug's house and have sunday dinner with him.

My dark hair is back!

Grant was really happy that night
The second time they came up was a lot longer and less rushed because they came on the long long weekend. 

It had been years since any of them had been to the legislature building so I had no hesitation taking another trip over there with them Saturday afternoon.










Sunday was the BEST day because we all went over to my Uncle Doug's house and had a Japanese feast of Yakiniku and Gyoza. I ate more that night than I had eaten in weeks. Grant really liked the "magic sauce".

Monday we went to the Muttart Conservatory. It consists of 4 different pyramids each representing a different climate. There were hundreds of different species of plants from all over the world. The different climates were arid, temperate, tropical and then the 4th one was a feature, which they change up every couple months. This time around it was Canadian (to celebrate Canada Day).

Arid

Temperate

Tropical




Afterwards we went shopping and had a BBQ. 

My little shopper sifting through the sale rack


Canada Day we went to Millwoods Park to celebrate. There were lots of fun activities going on but none that any of us really wanted to participate in. I decided to wait in line to get Grant's face painted. There was a girl that was painting the most immaculate, perfect Canadian flags but we someone wound up with the worst painter who not only didn't know how to paint a maple leaf but also decided to put it in the middle of his forehead. After I died laughing for a couple of minutes, I took a picture and then scrubbed it off.





We went out for dinner as family to Olive Garden and by the time we were home Garth got off work early! My family headed home and my Dad babysat Grant so Garth and I could go to the Vivint BBQ. My favorite part was definitely the water balloon toss. Unfortunately I was having too much fun with Garth to take any pictures. Darn it.

Grant and I

Even though we have lots of fun times with family and Vivint friends, the majority of the summer is Grant and I spending quality time together. He is so sick of me that when Dad is home, he won't even acknowledge me haha.

Here are some more random pictures, as if this post wasn't long enough already.

Edward Cullen


Sick babies are the worst.








That pretty much sums up May and June. Hopefully I will be better at documenting through the last half of the summer :)


-A.