Beccas Early Birthday Celebrations.

Since we were in Nova Scotia for Becca's birthday, and Norm was gonna miss it, we decided to have a small celebration before we left.

We had dinner and cake with a few of her cousins, aunt, uncle and grandparents.

I thought this pic was too cute, goes to show that you're never too old to be read to by your mommy:)

Here's Sara waking up from a pre party nap.

 The birthday girl!

 Excited for her cake! I didn't have time to make her one with packing and stuff, so I just picked up a cheap one and some cupcakes. She loved it though and yelled "Elmo!" when she saw it:)

 Sara wanted to eat some cupcake too.

 The aftermath lol

Water Park and First Big Haircut:)

We had some hot days back in July.

One day we headed to the water park in Somerset with my friend Ashley and her daughter Jordyn.

Becca was more excited about the playground than the water park. Both her and J were scared of it at first.

 Then finally Becca took the plunge! She just ran right under a big waterfall and realized that it was just like a shower and had fun splashing away.

Later that night Ash cut Beccas hair. She did a great job!

Here's the before

 During..

 After! So cute!

Norms Dad's 60th.

Norm's Dad also Norm, turned 60 on July 8th.

We celebrated as a family on the 10th.

Wendy was away running a race Saturday, so asked me if I could make cupcakes for it, of course I said yes!

I love baking!

I decided on a Pina Colata Cupcake, since his dad loves pineapple, and a S'more Cupcake, cause it was summer and I wanted to try the recipe! They turned out great! and were a big hit!

The smore one had melted mashmellows in the middle too, so yummy!

Here's my girls dressed up for church and the party..so hard to get a good pic of the 2 of them..someone is always on the move..cough cough..Becca!

Here's a pic of the birthday boy and Wendy singing..The pic of the boys in the pic, is what we gave him for his birthday:)

Here's Sara with her cousin Mayley

"ummm..mom? she has my hand!"

Their cute baby feet!

And..finally...here's a pic of the whole family..minus Diana's husband George.

Our Trip to Utah!

So this one time we thought it would be a good idea to drive to Utah with a 2 month old and almost 3 year old. 14 hours in a car, good idea right?? ha ha

For the most part they were amazing travellers. 

We left around 3 and drove till we got to Norms cousins place in Montana.

This is what Becca looked like an hour into the trip...

She woke up as we were pulling up to the border.

Going through the border kinda stresses my husband out...ever since that time he went to jail going through..but thats another story ha ha So we're pulling up and Norms telling us the usual "ok, be calm" speech...and everything is going good. Then the officer asks for our passports, and then asks Norm to roll down the back window, so he could see the girls. At this point, Becca is tired of sitting in the car, so once that window was down she started screaming "Help me! Help me!" 

The officer asked if they were our children..looked at the passports and let us go  through.

Of all times to yell help me, not the greatest time ha ha

But it does make for a good story:)

An hour later..sleeping again ha ha

So we stayed with Norms cousin in Montana on an Air Force Base. 

We had to get checked in at the gate...It was so nice though!

Norm kept saying it reminded him of Pleasentville.

Right before we had to stop for a bunch of canada geese trying to cross the road! There were just as many on the other side too! crazy!!

We hit the road the next morning and headed for Utah!

I was so excited to see Reta and her family!!

We got there late-ish Thursday night, stopping every 2 hours to feed Sara made the trip sooo much longer!

The next day was Canada Day!

Here's some pics of us sporting our Canada wear!

Reta and I left the girls with the guys and headed out to do some shopping..the first stop was...

Let just say that Norms lucky we dont live in Logan;)

There was sooo much stuff I wanted...I tried to control myself though:)

After shopping...we had to head out to Bear Lake for Norms family reunion.

It was a beautiful location and great to see all the family..but let me just say that I dont plan on camping in a tent again any time soon ha ha

Next time we will fork out the money and get a condo or hotel room!

Sara was fine, she slept great, and was content...Becca..well different story!

She didnt get her naps, so she was a cranky sleep deprived monster!

And when she doesnt nap, she wakes up screaming every few hours at night.

We were sharing a campsite with Norms family, and its not like a tent keeps in any noise lol

I felt bad for everyone.

Also..with no real walls to hold Becca in, as soon as she got out of the tent, she would take off for the playground. I think we lost her only once lol but still! She also went streaking down the campground road once too.

I was so busy chasing her the whole time that I only got 1 pic from the whole weekend there!

Here's a lot of Norms cousins..I really wish we lived closer to some of them!!

We were supposed to stay till the Monday, but I gave up Sunday.

2 sleep deprived nights were enough for me!

So we packed up and headed back to Reta and Sean's.

It was great to be able to spend more time with them!

Monday we went to the July 4th Parade! So fun!

We hit the road around 2..and planned on driving straight through.

Well ha ha around 11 we were tired out and decided to get a hotel room in Helena Montana.

We pulled off the highway and grabbed the first place we could find, a Super 8.

After doing housekeeping at a hotel for a few months, they creep me out! ha ha

Dont touch the top blanket is all im gonna say! ha ha

We got to watch 4th of July fireworks from our 3rd floor room though, it was neat, they were going off all over the city! ( it got a bit old though when they kept going off until 2am though!)

Here's Becca the next morning..the whole bed to herself.

So we got up early..and headed down to breakfast...we were standing there looking for a table when we heard "Norman??"

Norms Grandparents were staying at the same hotel!

What are the chances!?

So we had breakfast with them before hitting the road.

And about 6-7 hours later we were home!

It felt so good to be home again..but the trip was so worth it!:)

Hopefully it wont be another 2 years until our next trip down, now that we all have our passports its more affordable:)

Sara 2 Month Pics.

Here's some pics of Sara at 2 months old!

At 2 months she perfected her smile and hasnt stopped smiling since....

 ...well except for the next few pics ha ha

She was just doing her serious model face:)

My Dancing Girl:)

Here's a video from our friends Diana and James' wedding...Becca busted out some moves that we had never seen before:)

Meaghan Smith Concert!

On June 21st we went to see Meaghan Smith and her HusBand and the Ironwood Stage and Grill!

It was such a fun night!!

We dropped Becca off at Aunt D's and took Sara with us as she was being a fussy pants all day.

So Sara got to go to her first concert at 8 weeks old! She beats Becca who went to her first one at 9 months:)

I reserved our table about 2 months before the concert, and we had a table front and center!

I was the only one there with a child ( even though the place was child friendly, I called ahead) so I felt like maybe people were judging me for it lol I went to feed her right before Meaghan came on, and she had just finished her first song when I came back. I tried to quietly sneak back to my seat, but got spotted by Meaghan ha ha She said " oh my gosh Ariel! Everyone this is my friend Ariel, she just had a baby!" After that I didnt feel bad about having Sara there:)

Sara loved the music and just stared at the stage the whole time.

Meaghan was amazing! I hadnt seen her in concert since back when she started out doing small gigs in Halifax.

I loved hearing all the stories about each song too!

 Here's the group of us:)

 Sara's first pic with a Juno award winning artist!

My 25th Birthday!

Can I just say that I have the best husband ever?!

He knows that birthdays are important to me, and even though they arent a huge deal to him, he went out of the way to make sure I had the best birthday ever this year!

First off, he got me the best present!

Since we moved to Calgary our car was a standard, and I dont drive standard, and refused to learn in Calgary during the winter, so Norm had to drive me everywhere.

This meant that when he was working I was trapped in the house with Becca.

So for my birthday he got me a new 2012 Honda Civic! I love it!!

This isnt the best pic, since it was taken on Norms phone, and it was before we had the windows tinted, but its the only one I have on here:)

So as if that wasnt enough, it gets better ha ha

Norm came home from work and surprised me with a dozen roses and balloons. 

Then we dropped the girls off at Diana's and Norm took me out to Montanas for supper.

Thankfully he didnt tell them it was my birthday, so I didnt have to wear the antlers lol

It was the perfect day!:)

Then a few days later on Friday ( Norms day off) he threw me a supposed to be surprise party lol

When he got up that morning he said he wanted to clean the apartment so we could relax later.

I thought it was a bit weird that he totally went to town cleaning, but didnt think much of it.

In the afternoon we went out and did our grocery shopping and errands.

He said he wanted to be home by 6 to relax.

On the way home he took the wrong exit, and when I asked where we were going he said, "oh crap, I took the wrong exit, but since were here by DQ wanna get supper?" I said I didnt feel like a burger for supper, so he said oh, well I have to pee so im gonna run in real quick.

I thought at this point that something was up ha ha

He came back to the car with an Ice Cream cake! My favourite! 

Then he said that I couldnt eat it, cause all my friends were coming over to share it with me in an hour.

He was gonna wait till they all showed up, but was scared i'd try to eat the cake without them ha ha

I was way impressed that he was able to invite everyone without me knowing!

I told him that he couldnt have invited all my friends, cause Laura had just moved to Calgary, so I sent her a text to invite her, and it turned out that she was already coming with another friend! so crazy!

It was the best birthday yet!! Thanks to everyone who came and made it special for me!!

Norm forgot to get candles lol

All the girls from NS at my party!