Avoiding the dump site

We got home from our trip to Grande Prairie at 11pm last night. After driving all day (we left Grande Prairie at 9:30am), we were exhausted so we just unloaded the van and dumped everything in the kitchen and went to bed. Normally that wouldn't be so bad, except that we also have stuff dumped in the kitchen from two previous trips. Friday, Saturday and Sunday we were in Lethbridge because my little brother Garth(not that he is so little anymore) was giving his farewell talk in church(He's entering the MTC on Wednesday the 20th). We arrived home on Sunday just in time to put the kids to bed empty the van into the kitchen, from our Lethbridge trip and start packing for our camping trip to Writing on Stone for the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. We arrived home on Wednesday with enough time to unpack the van into our kitchen and garage, and repack the van for our trip to Grande Prairie. We left Wednesday afternoon to go to Lethbridge (Daniel had some work stuff he had to do Wednesday night). Thursday morning we left for Grande Prairie and Arrived home last night(Monday) and once again unpacked our stuff into the kitchen...it's a mess. This morning I just pushed stuff around on the table to make room for us to eat cereal for breakfast. Now I am simply avoiding it(and everything else) by playing around on the computer with the many pictures that have been taken, and of course blogging about all the excitement and fun that we have had this past few weeks. So lets got on with the exciting and fun stuff....in a fresh blog.

Bonanza Days

Who doesn't love a small town pancake breakfast and parade? Today was Milk River Bonanza Days. Kathryn was on the verge of hysteria that we were going to be late for breakfast and the parade before it was even 8am. We made it down to the civic centre before 8:30am for the pancake breakfast, apparently just when the line was getting long. We were sitting and eating our fabulous breakfast by about 9am. Kymberly really loved the pancakes, and though I took the camera with me(I actually sent Kathryn back to get it), I completely forgot to take any pictures of the kids enjoying their breakfast.
After breakfast we headed back home briefly to get our camping chairs we needed them for the parade. We weren't going to be watching the parade however, we were lucky enough to be in the parade. The theme for Bonanza Days this year is "Be a Green Machine, Help Save our Planet", so our church put together a float that said "Recycle Old Fashioned Family Values", and me and my adorable children were asked to ride on it.

Bonanza Day Parade

The girls were thrilled with the idea and couldn't wait to get going. Our float even won first prize in the "Church Float" category. I credit it to my incredibly irresistible children. Who could resist these kids?

Before the parade started we walked around to see all of the floats and things that were going to be in the parade. Here are some of our favorites.

After the parade we came home for lunch and naps so that everyone would be revived for some free swimming at the outdoor pool in the afternoon. It wasn't really really warm, and kinda cloudy and breezy, but as long as you were in the water and moving it was nice. It was also nice if you just stayed dry and sat on the grass, Kymberly and I did a little bit of both. Tansley and Kathryn basically lived in the water for 2 hours. But it was tonnes of fun.

Now here we are at home waiting for time to pass so that we can go see the fire works at 10:30pm, that is if the kids are still awake by then.

My baby is One.

Wow! Where did that year go? Kymberly just celebrated her first birthday yesterday. We had previously celebrated her birthday in Waterton on Monday with a very large Paxman clan. We had been out there all day playing with cousins and second cousins and aunts and uncles and so on and so forth. We then had a big potluck dinner and since my family was camping in Waterton for the remainder of the week and Grandma Kaye was still away on her big trip, we decided to just do cake with who ever was out in Waterton. It was the biggest 1st birthday party any of my kids have ever had.

Here are just a few of the guests at the big party. It was a fabulous day, I love my extended Paxman family. We are pretty close to some of my moms cousins and their kids(who live in Washington), and it is always fun to get together with them every summer. My grandpa's brother always come up too, and that is such a treat because he reminds me of my Grandpa(Grandpa passed away almost 11 years ago). I remember the summer I was working in Waterton, Uncle Ross(my Grandpa brother) and his crew had come up for the first time in a really long time, Grandma had called me and told me to go find them in the campground. I had no idea where they were camping, but I just started walking and there in the distance, I saw my Grandpa...well actually it was Uncle Ross. It felt so good to see him. And then on Sunday at church Ross was sitting behind me, and as he sang, it brought such warmth to my heart because he sounded so much like my Grandpa. Grandpa had only been gone for 3 years at the time. I just love so much that they continue to come every summer.

So back to Kymberly's birthday. On Monday she got her cake to eat in front of everyone. That was a fun thing, she wasn't so sure what to do with it at first. She has always been cautious of new foods, and cake and icing was no exception. However, she got right into it after awhile and made a nice chocolaty mess. Yesterday was her real Birthday.  It was a pretty low key day. We didn't open presents until Daddy was home form work and then she was just acting so silly. It was a lot of fun, as is the case with first birthday's.

Free Stuff, and Blessings Galore.

Last year after church a sister in my ward came up to me and asked if I had a serger, I said I had access to one, but did not own one. She then said that she had one that she hadn't used in 8 years and since I liked to sew she wondered if I would like to have it and everything she had to go with it. Ummm....YEAH! Thus began my trend of people offering me free things that generally cost quite a bit of money. The next thing to be offered was a piano. My friend who was getting their house ready to sell decided that they did not want to move the big huge piano to their new house and by getting rid of it, it would make the living room in the house they were selling look bigger. So she calls me up one day and says "hey, do you want a free piano?" Ummm....YEAH!! The only catch was that when we were done with it we had to pass it on to someone else for free. No problem, we can do that. Not long after that I was talking to my sister on the phone and telling her how strange it was that I had been offered these items, items that we had really wanted but just didn't have the money to buy. I then joked with her that all I needed now was for someone to call me up and offer me a free computer, since we didn't have one at the time. There is absolutely no exaggeration to what I am going to say(type) next. About 10 minutes after I got off the phone with my sister, another of my friends, who works for a bank, called me up and asked if I still needed a computer. Ummm...YEAH!! The bank was changing their computers out and she new that I had been wanting a computer so she had brought one home for me, with a printer! I laughed so hard and then had to immediately call my sister back to tell her what had just happened.  All of these free gifts were offered to me with in a 2 months. A friend told me that I should wish for a house and maybe I'd get one free....It never did happen(but we found one that we love for a really nice price). After we moved to our new house, we didn't have enough furniture to furnish both a family room and a living room, so our living room sat basically empty(except for our piano) for a few months until Daniels boss happened to have a three piece set(couch(hide-a-bed), love seat, recliner) that he was needing to get rid of, Daniel offered to pay him but he said to just take it. They are even in really good condition and match nicely to the colours in our living room.
So why have we been so lucky? I'm not exactly sure, but I prefer to look at it as blessed. Here we are trying to do the best with what we have. Doing what is asked of us. Serving in the church. Paying our tithing. Working hard. Trying to live with in our means. Does our Heavenly Father not promise us that if we are doing these things he will bless us with so many blessing that we won't be able to count them all? Yes, He does. And I know that that doesn't necessarily me monetary things, believe me, we have been blessed in far more important ways than just our few free gifts. But aren't those a really nice bonus? In the long scheme of things, they will mean nothing. It's the spiritual things that He sees fit to bless us with that will last. I'll need a whole other post to talk about those blessings.
But I've wandered from the reason I started this post. About a month ago I discover that Daniel is conspiring to give our piano away, and I just about have a real fit because we certainly don't have the money to buy a different one. So then he explains to me he was going to surprise me with a new piano for my birthday(even though I don't play, but I really enjoy listening to Daniel play). Where and How? The accountant at his work has a piano that she is needing to get rid of fast and asked Daniel if he knew anyone that wanted a piano. Daniel said that he did, so they worked out a deal (no this one isn't free...but a good deal) She would sell it to him for a very reasonable price, he could pay her what he could when he could until it was paid for, interest free, after all she knows where to find him and she cuts his cheque. So we gave our free piano(that I discovered, was found in an alley in Cleveland, and through various owners has made it's way to Lethbridge, Alberta) to the Bishops daughter and we now have a nice...no beautiful piano, that looks so fabulous in our living room.

Piano

Yes we are blessed!

To the Young Women

I am so grateful for the young women in our ward. They are exceptional! I don't know them really all that well. I don't serve in Young Womens organization, I don't teach them Sunday School. But I know that they are exceptional. I see them at church, and I watch them. They intrigue me and make me smile. But most of all, they are great examples to my girls. My girls have been drawn to them from the very first Sunday. It started out with Stephanie and Natausha. They usually sit in the pew in front of us. That first Sunday in Coutts they shared some books with the girls. That was all Tansley needed, from that day on she has referred to the both of them as her "big friends", not only that but she would much rather sit with them and their family than with us. In fact on one Sunday they had all three of my girls, Daniel was sitting on the stand playing the organ and there I sat all alone, with out a soul to distract me...it was wonderful! At one enrichment activity the young women were baby sitting at the church and Christie and Chelsie made friends with the girls, Tansley has also be know to go sit with her "other friends".

 So heres to the young women in our ward! Thank you for being the type of young women that my girls are drawn to. They look up to you. They love you. They think you are beautiful. They are inspired by you. They want to be like you. So remember that my girls and others like them, are watching you. They are learning from you and what you are doing. Be strong. Be true. Be faithful. I want my girls to be like you when they get to be your age (and I realize that wont be that long). Thank you again for who you are and for being "big friends" to my girls. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!

New Fun Summer Ideas

Here are two fun ideas for summer that have worked out so fabulously for us so far this summer.
First, I subscribe to this absolutely fun website(Allrecipes.com) that sends me recipes of the day, and one of those recipes was for BBQ pizza. I was curious to see how it would work, especially because home made pizza is so easy and yummy but who wants to heat up their kitchen in the summer. So I gave it a try and it was incredible!!  We all enjoyed it so much I would recommend this recipe to anyone. Next time I would add a little more water to the dough recipe, it was a little on the tough side, and we just used what ever toppings we had on hand.

BBQ Pizzas

Second, I read in an kids craft idea book one time about making a wind sock out of old ties. My brother Garth had bought a whole tonne of ties on ebay, which inspired me to go look on ebay for a bunch of old ties. I ended up winning a lot of 50 for a penny however shipping and handling was $24.99, big deal each tie cost me a whole 50 cents. Some were even nice enough to keep for Daniel. So today Tansley and I decided to make a wind sock. I took a sour cream container and cut out the bottom, and then we stapled the thin half of the tie on to it, all though some of the ties were thin enough to use both halves. Then I wrapped the thin end of one tie around where I had stapled and hand stitched it in place to hide the staples. Tansley was absolutely thrilled with the end result. She oohed and awed about how beautiful it was.

Displaying the other side of the wind sock

displaying one side of the wind sock

The Simplest Things Can Make Me Cry.

Showing off the Koolaid

So today Kathryn came to me and asked if I could make her some KoolAid so she could have a KoolAid sale. She got some boxes out of the recycle in the garage and stacked them up at the end of our drive way. She wanted me to write on the box "Kathryn's Cold Koolaid, 10 cents", and then she drew some additional posters coping my writing and drawing pictures of Koolaid and put them on the house. She got all set up and sat out there with a jug for people to put their money in, she got out the binoculars so that she could look way down the street to see if anybody was coming. She also called out up and down the street "Koolaid! Come get your Koolaid!", "Delicious Koolaid!, come get some Koolaid!", "I've got Koolaid, 10 cents a glass!" and other such things. My heart was aching for her because there really isn't a lot of people walking around during the day, and she was so excited to make a little money to buy a new piggy bank she had seen at the dollar store. I was just about to pick up the phone and call a few people in the ward and see if they would come buy some Koolaid from her when she came running through the door all excited because a lady had stopped and bought a glass of Koolaid "MOM, I just had my first customer!". I started to tear up. The excitement and pleasure on her face was so genuine. I had to hold it back because I didn't want to confuse her with my tears. I was just so proud of her for getting her first sale, she was trying so hard. After giving me a hug she went back outside and continued trying to sell her Koolaid. No one else came by, I did go out and asked her if I could be a customer, she said "do you have a dime, that is 10 cents you know", I said I did so she agreed to sell me some koolaid. She was out there for over an hour. She never gave up, and she never got discouraged. She did get hot sitting out in the sun, so she came in and put her Koolaid in the fridge and told us all we were not allowed to drink it because she was going to set up her Koolaid stand again tomorrow. I hope she has some success tomorrow.

Calling out "Cold, Cold Koolaid! Come get it right here!"