Halloween 2012

Sorry for the lack of blogging lately. The next post I had wanted to do was about our trip to Phoenix. But I had soooo many good pictures I wanted to post, and it takes sooo long to upload them that I got overwhelmed and thus unmotivated. So I've decided to skip the Phoenix blog. I've already posted them on facebook. For those of you without facebook (cough Mom Wiens) if you want to see them I'll gladly bring them over next time.

 

On to Halloween...

 

As usual, Mark declared "NO MORE PUMPKINS!" And, as usual, we bought one and made him carve it anyways. :)

 

Logan and Katie are super big into Power Ranger Samurai right now. So we carved our pumpkin into the Red Ranger's mask. (Just incase you couldn't tell from our awesome masterpiece haha)

On Tuesday night the Bouwman's had all of our friends over for a pre Halloween party. We wanted to get all the kids together in their customes for a picture .

 

From Left to Right: Cyrus V (dragon), Caiden K (spider), Carter B (tiger), Beckett B (peas), Payton B (monkey), Katie (Pink Power Ranger), Jaden N (dino), Logan (Black Ranger), Carson (bat)

Logan and Katie obviously insisted on being Power Rangers this year. We thought the bat costume was fitting for Carson this year as he only had 2 teeth up top - the "fangs". However, of course a week before Halloween Carson would have to get a 3rd tooth up top - ruining his fangs. But, it was still super cute. Carson only went to a couple of houses this year as it was way too cold. The other two toughed it out and went for blocks. Though we did lose the masks after about 2 houses.

First day of KINDERGARTEN

Ever since his last day of preschool, Logan has been counting down the days until kindergarten. He missed his friends, the crafts and getting away from Katie. He was so excited to start school again! He had his very first day on Thursday - and LOVED it!

 

 

As we were just about to head out the door Auntie Bobby told him to have fun, to which he replied, "We get TWO recesses Auntie Bobby, duh!" And so far it seems recess was his favorite part of school!

 

Logan's closest preschool buddy Theo isn't in the same class this year. I was a little worried that would really upset Logan and put a huge damper on the first couple of days of Kindergarten. But thankfully Logan's Sunday school friend Kaleb is in his class! He found Kaleb first thing in the morning before school even started and didn't even hesitate to leave me and blindly follow his new teacher. (The parents were not allowed to go into the school with the kids at all, which for me was sad as I had hoped to take a lot more pictures, but I see how it would be easier.)

8 Months

 

Carson is now 8 months old. I am proud to report we can now cross one item off of the 7 month wish list - Carson is now sitting on his own. He is a lean, mean, sitting machine. Ok, maybe not lean - he's still pretty chunky. And he's not really mean. In fact, this past week Carson has been soooo very happy! Except for at night.. which bring us to the 2nd item on the wish list - sleeping through the night. These past couple of nights have been brutal. He has been getting up every few hours. AUGH! But, I think he's going through a growth spurt, so he needs some extra little bed time snacks. Hopefully we'll be able to cross this item off the list sooner than later! 

Katie's trip to 'Amont"

At the beginning of the month my mom took Katie to visit The Brandses in Vermont. This was Katie's first trip away by herself with grandma. She was very, very excited. However, once she got there she was very, very shy and somewhat homesick. But thankfully it only lasted 2 days and she was back to her crazy random self.

 

 

On the plane to Montreal - it took them 2 days to get there due to a cancelled flight and full flight loads. Katie did very well on the flight there - she snacked practically the whole way! The flight home was a different story...

 

Hanging out at Auntie Donna's house.



 

Chasing the chickens and pea hens. 



Looking for eggs - Katie loved the eggs and insisted on having eggs every morning for breakfast!

Not wanting to play with Kaya and Keira

And the star of the trip... Rocky! Like Logan, Katie fell in love with Rocky and talked about him non stop when she got home.

Swimming at a lake close to Auntie Donna's house.

Swimming at the pool.

 

Katie came home hopped up on sugar! Grandma let her have her OWN frappacinos!

 

Katie sure is a city slicker. They went and visited Zac's pigs (Zac is my cousin Rachel's fiance) and Katie was not too sure about them.

 

She refused to go into the barns because they were too "stinky" for her. So the only cows she saw were these ones hanging out outside.

7 Months

As usual, this post is a couple days/weeks late. We have just been too busy enjoying the beautiful weather outside! But since its raining today we figured we may as well dress Carson up and take a couple of  "7 month" pictures.

At 7 months Carson is a very happy little boy. He loves to watch his big brother and sister play. He LOVES Duke and squeals whenever Duke comes near him. He is a very LOUD baby now. ESPECIALLY when he's hungry. If you're not shoveling food in fast enough he will let you know! And once he's had enough food and is no longer hungry - he'll let you know by locking his lips shut. This is one of Carson's favorite new looks - he almost always has his lips pursed like this!

 .

Carson's newest "trick" is rolling ALL the way over. For a while now Carson has been able to roll from his back to his tummy.. but thats it. He would then lie face down in the carpet and scream until someone would come to his rescue. But this week he FINALLY figured out how to roll from his tummy back to his back. And now he's a rolling machine! He rolls all the way across the living room floor until he gets himself stuck under a piece of furniture.

Next on the agenda, sitting up! That or sleeping through the night!

Summer Hockey

Logan received a hockey slip and slide for his birthday from Uncle Louis and Auntie Niki. Sunday was the first time he got to set it up and play with it, and he had a BLAST! We set it up on our front lawn and they played with it all afternoon! Thankfully my cousin Shaylynn was staying with us for the weekend - so she could play in the freezing cold water with Logan rather than us!

It's the perfect combination for Logan - water and hockey!!

 Katie also had a lot of fun with it, although she preferred to play around the outside of the rink.

I could barely get them to sit still long enough to take their pictures!

Even Mark had to get in on the slip and slide action! (Even though the box said NOT for children over the age of 10 - NOT for people over 5 feet tall and NOT for people over 110 pounds.)

Happy 5th Birthday Logan!

It's hard to believe that Logan is already F|I|VE! It feels like just yesterday that I was 3 days over due and camping in Kananaskis. And ever since then Logan has been celebrating his birthday there!

Right now Logan and Katie are big into Madagascar. (Both the first and second movie were on YTV last month, so we now have them saved on our PVR and they watch them frequently. And they absolutely FREAK OUT when they see a preview for Madagascar 3 on TV. Katie tells everyone who will listen "When its in the cheap theatre we get to go see it!") So my Aunt Nancy made Logan this awesome Madagascar cake with whipped cream and oranges inside. (Logan asked for a grand marnier cake, but I thought it would look bad when ordering a grand marnier cake with "Happy 5th Birthday" on it.)

We celebrated his birthday with a bbq with friends after the annual Kananaskis golf tournament.



All of his gifts were so different, but were ALL big hits this year.

And just because every post needs a little bit of Carson cuteness....

In my CD player...

One of the things that I love about my "new" car (I still call it new even though we've had it for over a year and a half) is the fact that it has a working radio and, get this - a CD player. Not just any CD player, a 6 disc CD/DVD player. What a HUUUUUUGE difference from my jeep! Now I have a choice in what to listen to while in the car. Here's what I am currently listening to...

1. WOW Hits 2012
When I listen to the radio I usually listen to Shine. This CD has a lot of my current favorite songs on it - like Lead Me by Sanctus Real and I Will Follow by Chris Tomlin. The one thing I can't stand about Shine is Stephanie Nicole's annoying voice - the way she talks just drives me bonkers! This way with the CD I get to listen to all my favorite songs, with no annoying djs!

2. Carly Rae Jepsen's Curiosity.
I thought about quickly ejecting this CD and replacing it with something less embarrassing. But you've got to admit that Call Me Maybe is EXTREMELY catchy! It reminds me of something my friends and I would have listened to in high school and belted out at the top of our lungs driving around in Jackie's car. To be honest, I couldn't sing you a single line from any of the other 5 songs on the CD. We only listen to Call Me Maybe over and over and over again. Logan and Katie LOVE it! They're actually the ones who begged me to buy the CD (honest!).

3. Paul Brandt's This Time Around
A throw back to my country days. I used to ONLY listen to country music (and not just because AM1060 was the only station my jeep could get). But now that I have all these different options I no longer find myself choosing country as my first option. But after seeing Paul Brandt preform at the grandstand show last week I am finding my love of country music being restored. Paul used to be one of my favorite country singers (mainly because when I was younger he put on a private concert for the Kids Cancer Care Foundation so we got to meet him and get his autograph.)

4. Praise - Where Kids Get Down and Lift God High
Logan and Katie brought this CD home from VBS a couple weeks ago. We showed up to VBS early one evening to pick them up and found all the kids at the front of the sanctuary singing and dancing like crazy to this CD. Both Logan and Katie were up on the stage (with Aunt Geraldine) bouncing around like crazy. Katie loves the Sunday School Swing song and Mark and Logan LOVE I'll Do My Best.

5. Veggie Tale's Josh and the Big Wall
Ok, so it's not a CD. But this movie is always in my car's CD/DVD player. This movie was given to our family as a gift from my Uncle Jerry and Auntie Geraldine as it was Connor's favorite movie. The kids and I now know it by heart. Logan's favorite line "We were in slavery!"

6. Laura Story's Blessings
I love, love, love her song Blessings. I really didn't think much of it the first couple of times I heard it on Shine, but when Carson was in ICU back in January this song was constantly on my mind. I would randomly wake up in the middle of the night singing it and played it for Carson from my phone probably twice a day. It was a real source of comfort and reminded me that God is with us through the good times AND bad.

There you have it. That is what I am currently listening to. The list would probably be a lot different if Mark never drove my car and had no say in what CDs I bought :)

Sulphur Mountain

My mom is always looking for a hiking buddy. She loves to go out to the mountains and go on hikes - but the rest of us aren't as enthusiastic. However, she may have just found a new hiking buddy... Logan!

Today she and Logan went out to Banff and hiked Sulphur Mountain. I did some research to see what the web had to say about the hike.. it's 5.5 km. Elevation gain is 742 metres. Hike Alberta categorizes it as a Strenuous hike and says it should take anywhere between 2-5 hours.

It took Logan and my mom 3 hours from bottom to top with very little complaining. 

Logan loved his first hike. And apparently he did awesome. He was by far the youngest hiker there (the next youngest was 9 years old). Everyone they passed was in shock by how little/young he was and what a great job he was doing. There - that's the end of my little brag session.

He did make grandma stop and take a break to throw rocks in the waterfall for a while though. And they also had to stop for a snowball fight! (It's funny, Logan was just talking yesterday about how he was excited to make snowballs in the winter).

Once they reached the top they settled down for a picnic lunch and enjoyed the views from 7,402 feet. Logan decided to share his cheesies with an overly friendly chipmunk.

My mom had found coupons for a free ride down the mountain in the gondola. (I don't think Logan could have hiked back down!) Logan was yelling out the window to all the hikers down below: "You can do it! I did it! So can you!"

Once they got back down the mountain Logan burned off the last of his energy by playing with his new slingshot grandma bought him.