Present #1

So Atalie got to open one gift early, on account of Grandpa & Grandma coming to visit. They bought her a little blue sleigh (too big to wrap - hense the green plastic bag). She was quite pleased, as you can see;) She watched some hockey with Uncle Tyler... ..and finally got to try out her sleigh on the frozen lake infront of our house. Chocolate...mmm! Atalie has a new best friend. His name is Zack. He moved here with his Mom & Dad (Devon & Ethan Baltrus) just over a week ago and Atalie could not be more pleased! She squeels with delight every time she sees him;) We're also quite happy to have some friends to hang out with! A mouse update, for those who were following: We have killed one mouse. Apparently there is yet another (Dad, yes, you were right). My brother saw him scurrying along the floor when crawling into bed on the weekend, which means this one is living in the basement... so we're on the hunt again. To kill!! This one is quite noisy at night and has an appetite for some nasty things, including old wasps nests which we discovered when taking a peak in the basement ceiling (eeew). He also almost ate right through the packaging of a Christmas present we bought for one of our nephews(rrrrg!!!) - he is going to die!

Christmas is coming!!!

Today was a giant leap towards Christmas for mankind - well, in our house. As you'll see below, we have a fake tree. Now there's no shame in fake trees, infact they have many benefits including: no messy needles in the carpet, no sap on your hands, no dripping water from the base, no need to anchor it from all angles, no worries of it falling over (unless tiny hands tug on it of course) and no cost to purchasing a new one each year. On the other side of the benefits you have your cons: time consuming branches which need to be adjusted when setting it up/taking it down, no trek through the wintery woods to pick out the perfect tree specimen and no evergreen scent. Those last two are pretty important, memorable, if you ask me. However we've made the sacrifice on behalf of the tiny hands which like to the stick tiny needles into their tiny mouths. Better safe than sorry. You always know what you get when you take it out of the box each year. We think once our kiddies are old enough to appreciate the beauty of a tree instead of just trying to eat it, we'll vouch for a real one, from the real ground, from a real forest. Yay! Speaking of perfect specimens ;) ;) here is Kevin, making sure every branch is perfect... right.. down.. to the needle. Kev's told me that his Dad is quite the perfectionist when it comes to doing the Christmas tree each year. I think I have him to thank for the outcome (of both specimens;)) Ta ha. Ha ha ha. Thanks Dad! Don't let the fakeness fool you - it's bristlee! Last year we both got rashes on our hands and arms b/c we didn't use gloves or longsleeves while setting it up. We both decorate the tree, however it's strictly Kendra's job is to put the lights on. Funny how Kevin is so good at spending hours to individually pull out each branch so that it looks perfect, yet when he goes for the lights they wound up looking like a spring on a pole. Well, no hard feelings love :) we each have our gifts and yours just isn't the lights. No matter, the tree looks fantastic! Here we go, another thing you're good at Kev! (I'd better make sure and throw that in there, aye?) Play away! You're great!! We took a few pics outside today b/c it was a perfect snow day! Here's a few of Attie being cute, as always:

... .. sighhhhh.. ..... .

Okay. We've tried doing it the "nice" way. The humane way. But it seems these creatures desire a more painful, disgusting manner of death. So be it! We discovered, some days ago (okay, maybe more like a month ago when we moved in) that there was evidence of a, or some, mouse, or mice in our house. Little black specs in corners of the laundry room and under the sink to be exact. So we did what anyone might do... we set a trap. No mouse. However, Kevin saw the ugly creature scurrying from the closet, around the corner and back to his hole in the laundry room (we've never seen his hole, but it's there!). Apparently he's not the cute grey mouse I immagined him to be - he's big, fat and brown. Ew!! How gross. So we set 4 more traps and baited them with peanut butter-covered breadcrumbs and cheese. Still no mouse. Instead, the sneaky rascal stole the bread and cheese, and ran off with a full stomach. We've now been waiting for a dead mouse to turn up in one of our peanutbutter-only traps.. and still, nothing. To top it all off, just tonight we were watching a movie with a bag of chips... when we finished the movie and had eaten the entire bag of chips (sour cream & onion by the way, rather scrumptious), we discovered a hole in the bottom of the bag. !!!!!!!!uuuuuuuuughghhhhhhh!!!!!! I checked another full, unopened bag of chips, both of which were kept on a top shelf in the basement, and sure enough it was also chewed through. So... he wants food does he? This is 1 of 5 traps. It is beneath the kitchen sink where we find new mouse droppings daily, yet no mouse. We thought this one was sneaky. Apparently not sneaky enough. This is a dual-dose of temptation. Kevin invented it incase the mouse decided to hop from the soup to the garbage bag. And here you'll see our new method of madness (let me interupt this segment to mention that we do not actually use the sponges or dish-drying rack you see here, beside the mouse poison!!!). Pure poison potpourri. I hate to admit that I do feel somewhat bad for the mouse/mice who are about to ingest this stuff. One feeding and they start to bleed from the inside, comletely dehydrating themselves. Pretty nasty stuff if you ask me. I'm wondering where I'll find the little sucker belly up next. Ughh. I shudder to think of the moment I open a door somewhere to find a smelly surprise. The lady at the Hardware store told me to watch for them in places where you'd find water b/c they become very thirsty. Does this mean I'll find one as I climb into the shower one day? Or perhaps open the lid of the toilet, only to find one floating around?? Seriously. Awwww. Geez. Wish me luck.

Dan & Leah pay us a visit!

I woke up this morning to a winter wonderland. It's actually been snowing all weekend, I'd say we have about 5-6 inches so far. The best winter feeling has got to be the crunch crunch of fresh snow beneath ones boots; the second is warming up infront of a fire afterwards ;) Our friends Dan & Leah came to see us this weekend. We had a very relaxed weekend infront of the fire, playing boardgames and watching movies. It was fantastic:) It was Dan's birthday on Saturday. We had birthday cake - that included Atalie. Who can resist mocha mudpie?? I guess you could say she liked it. What a face... hA! Birthday boy.

GIT-R-DONE!

So we headed out to Lethbridge this weekend to visit family & friends. As we were driving through town Saturday morning, doing massive grocery & Christmas shopping, we had a good chuckle at the initial overall scenery... first of all you can see for miles (I find that appealing, feels like home to me -Kev just gets annoyed that there are no trees), the air is dry, the fields are brown, the wind is howling through the crack of your car door and every kind of truck imagineable, including a couple tractors, can be seen on (and off) the road. Typical Alberta scenery. We were laughing at the chauchies: younger males who can be seen driving fast little cars, with music so loud you could blow an eardrum...they have a pasted look on their faces that reads, "ya, I'm hot - I know it, you know it, we all know it"; and rednecks: another group of younger males who think they're hot b/c they drive a truck with a paint job they've (obviously) done themselves and feel pretty high and mighty b/c they can see above everyone else, but can't get in or out of their trucks without a ladder...they generally have a face that reads, "i got me my own set of fancy mudstained wheels and da chics dig it". Anyway, as we were pulling into Costco there was this a truck in the parking lot that had some words painted on the back window which read, "GIT-R-DONE". Oh ya. Good ol Lethbridge. I think Texas might be the only other place in the world where you'd see that on the back of a pickup truck. Then again, I haven't been everywhere, redneckism may be contagious. Who knows. Good times. Good times. Aaaaaaaanyhoo, we got that done and visited with Kendra's family the rest of the day. Sunday morning we had our friends Buck & Leah over for breakfast, and Sunday afternoon was spent with Sam & Lisa (and little uns) watching the big game. YEAH BC!!! Here's a few pics of Sam & Lisa's family: Well, this one's ours. But she was there too. Atalie seemed to have lots of fun with her cousins on Sunday. The girls entertained themselves on the floor with a pile of toys for awhile, and then she had a go at the excersaucer, which she loves! Sam was literally stuck in the corner of the couch as we watched the Lions' victory on TV. Andrew & Alisha were zonked right out. Jerah is becoming quite the pretty little girl now! She's in kindergarten and loving every minute it seems. Lisa holds down the fort (sorry Sam, you're great too but Lisa stays home all day with 3 bretherick-blooded entertainers who barely slow down to have a nap - she wins). You'd never know by her easy-going smile though would you? And that was our trip.

Jumpin Cowgirl!!

Yeeeeeeeeee HAA!

The pookiest of them all..

What a monkey...

Deanne comes to town

My goodest friend Deanne Petker (also known as "Deezil" or "Deener" or "Doozle") came out to visit us this weekend! We had lots of adventures, including a visit to Radium Hot Springs, a leisurely drive through the woods and a walk along the lake. This is actually a view of our street from another point along the shore. We drove out to "SRL K2" Ranch this weekend, the location of a few projects Kevin's boss has going right now. Here's a cabin his work buddies built (this is all on 22,000 acres of private land, owned by a rather fortunate - and wealthy Calgarian). Deezil and myself on the dock. View from the cabin porch. Kev's work buddies built all the furniture themselves as well. Looks awesome!

New Toy!

The "Wide Tracker Activity Walker" was a baby gift from Kendra's coworkers at the U of BC before Atalie was born. It's pretty cool actually. It takes the shape of a mail delivery cart with plastic envelopes which fit into all kinds of slots and drops, complete with doobobs and thingamajigs to push and pull. Mom spent a good 15 minutes putting it together just right and Atalie could hardly wait to get her hands on the plastic wheels which looked so good to chew on!! Finally - done! What does Atalie do? She takes off her sock and sucks on it. Hmph. My kind coworkers could have bought her a string and she would have been just as thrilled! Anybody thinking of buying Atalie lots of toys for Christmas may want to reconsider:)

Playin around

This little monkey had squash for starters, highchair for dinner... ...and Daddy for desert! :)