It's Gone!

Parker lost his first tooth. His big tooth was coming in behind his baby tooth, so it doesn't actually look like he is missing a tooth. He was nervous about his teeth "falling out", but he proved he was brave and pulled it out himself!

Parker's New Bike

Parker has out-grown his little bike and was thrilled when he got to look at new bikes withWayne. He found the perfect bike. A blue, Supercycle, "Illusion" bike...his dream bike. However, it cost about $80 and both Wayne and I are of the thought that we don't want to just GIVE our kids whatever they ask for.

So Wayne helped Parker make this chart.

The deal was that he had to work extra hard and do some extra chores around the house in order to mark of the 80 squares on his chart and earn his bike. Things started out with a lot of enthusiasm and pride (the good pride), but after a couple of weeks, the work became tedious and Parker would often say, "I think I'm taking the day off today!"

With lots of encouragement and a lot of really hard work, Parker proudly walked out of the store with his new bike. (This is all great timing, since Cardiff's little trike has just recently broke into two pieces!)

I'm so pleased with how hard Parker worked to try to earn this bike. He hauled dirt, dug holes for 17 trees, planted 17 trees, watered 27 trees, set the table, cleared the table, loaded the dishwasher and emptied the dishwasher, did LOTS of recycling, played with Sawyer, ran "errands" in the house and so much more. I really do think he'll appreciate the bike more knowing that it was his hard work that got him the bike!

Busy House

This has been a busy couple of weeks at our house. Wayne and the boys planted 17 more trees. We shoveled a tonne of landscaping rock around some of those trees. We had the rock guys finally come and complete the exterior of the house and things are looking great!

We also had our sound guy around everyday for a week trying to get all of the "loose wires" connected and tidied up (no pun intended)! Our 110" screen and projector are up and running in the theatre and we now have sound throughout our entire house. It is great to just push a couple of buttons on our Control 4 touch pad and VOILA! The music plays in whichever room we choose.

Then to top things off, the fence guys started working on enclosing our .75 acre yard! Now we can let the kids out to play without them running onto the side street or playing in our ditches. I never thought I would love a fence, but I really do love my fence!

To top things off, Wayne made an impulse purchase today...

The kids already LOVE it! We would like to sink it down into the ground, but that will have to wait for another day.

Famous?

About a month ago, Cardiff, Sawyer and I got to be part of a new commercial for Chopstix.

Cardiff was so excited to be in a commercial, but he was a little unclear of how it all worked. When we got to the restaurant, the tvs in the dining area were on and he looked at them for a minute. Then he tugged on my jacket and said, "Mommy, I'm not on there yet!?" I had to explain to him that they had to make a movie of us first and then we would see in on tv in a few days. It was pretty cute!

Dad had asked a few of their friends to be in the commercial, but felt they needed some "younger" faces too. I tried to recruit some friends, but no one replied back, so in a last minute effort, I called Wayne's office assistant and asked if she could see if her daughter-in-law was busy and if they wanted to be a commercial. Chad and Shannon Leavitt packed up 2 of their kids and headed right over.

It was a 10am commercial shoot, which meant we had to (or were privileged) to eat Chinese food for breakfast. I'm not a fan of chinese food to begin with and eating it first thing in the morning was a sacrifice I was willing to make.

Did you see the nice close up of Cardiff? Did you see SoyaBean sitting on my lap? It was a lot of fun! Sadly, Parker, Azia and Emmy were all in school and didn't get to participate. Maybe for the next one... .

Lethbridge? Windy??

Lethbridge is notorious for windy weather. There are some days that are just down right blustery and miserable! I think the only time that I welcome our Southern Alberta winds are in the winter when the chinook winds come and melt all of our snow away in a day! However, today was not a day that I welcomed the wind.

We were eating our supper tonight and we were talking about something outside. I glanced out of the window and noticed our patio chair cushions flailing wildly in the gusts. Then all of the sudden, I noticed our patio table wasn't there! Where did it go? The kids looked out on the deck and didn't see it.

Could it have gotten blown off the deck? Well, that would be crazy...especially since we have a 4 foot glass railing around our deck and it seemed perfectly unharmed. Wayne went out to see what had become of our table. Sure enough, there it was - smashed into a bizillion pieces on the lawn BELOW the deck.

Wayne and I braved the wind with our jackets and touques on and began the tedious task of picking up as much broken glass as possible. Thankfully, it landed just inches from the kids' sandbox!

The question still remains? How could the wind pick up our table, throw it over the railing, not smash the glass panes on the railing and yet the chairs still sit on the deck with the cushions flapping like crazy? That's the Lethbridge winds for you....!