More Soccer Pics

As promised, here are Mason and Dakota's soccer pictures, it kind of took me a while to get them!  It has been a lot of fun watching the kids play this season, but I must say it will be nice to have our Tuesday and Thursday evenings back!  Only a couple more weeks!  This school year has just flown by, it's crazy!

Mason was lucky enough to get a few of his friends on his team - he's got Mikey Holland, Tyson Smyth, and  Hunter Murray in the picture. Mason did quite well since he is one of the older boys, and he sure practices a lot at school and at home!  He scores quite a few goals for his team.

Dakota has one friend from school on her team, but she is in grade 2, since Dakota is kinda on the younger end of her team! (Not to mention the smallest by far!)  She held her own though.













And I couldn't resist putting in a picture of their biggest and cutest fan!!  Ha ha, Scarlett!

Before and After

I don't usually like to post pictures of myself, but I just got my teeth redone and wanted to post the before and after!  Hopefully you can tell which is which!  I had veneers before, but they were getting old and cracked so it was time to redo them, and I was very happy with the change!  My dentist was able to make them all longer and thinner, not to mention whiter!  Pretty cool.

A rare and exciting Visit!!

We were very excited to have a visit from Grandpa Loewen yesterday!  We haven't seen him for at least a couple years, and the kids were starting to forget who he was!  They seemed confused in their minds that we were talking about "Great" Grandpa!  But it didn't take long to win them over again, and they loved him all the same when he came to visit!  It was actually an unfortunate set of circumstances that led him to come to Alberta - Lee's sister Shauna had to get surgery for her Collitis, and unfortunately it didn't go very well, and she was bleeding internally and they couldn't seem to stop it.  They were worried they were going to have to cut her open to try to repair the damage, but thanks to everyone's prayers - I'm sure - she recovered on her own, and is now doing fairly well.  Everyone was worried for her life for a while though, so Ernie came to see her in the hospital.  That probably helped her spirits as well.  Anyway, we are all happy and relieved to hear she is doing better now - hopefully she'll recover fully soon.  And we were happy that Ernie stopped in Calgary on his way home to see us.  He came for a nice dinner, got to watch the kids play soccer, and had some good bonding time playing games and stuff with the kids.  It was nice to see him again, and he said he and Donna were going to try to visit more often.  We'll try to do our part with the visits as well - it's a long drive with a baby, but we're getting close to being out of that stage of life!
By the way, I just had to post BOTH of these pics because I love how the wind is blowing Scarlett's hair in the second one!  Ha ha, it looks great!

Ishy Squishy Hands and Feet!!

I absolutely LOVE baby hands and feet, they are so soft and squishy, and the little lines of chub are so darn cute!  I can't help but smooch them!  I don't know if I've been admiring them even more than usual since Scarlett is my last baby and I am trying to savour every last bit of her!  But seriously, these are really cute, right?!

May Long Family Vacation!

We haven't got to go on a whole lot of trips with the family this year, because of Scarlett being too young and difficult for one thing, and also Lee's work has made it hard to get away.  But it has sure been nice to at least get away as a family for a few days down to Montana!  We made the trip again for May long weekend, and it was a lot of fun!  We brought the quads, which the kids all LOVE to ride!  Mason and Dakota are pretty fearless on them, and Griffin usually starts out pretty fearless, but due to a little bit of lack of control, he inevitably crashes into something and loses a bit of confidence - which is probably a good thing!  He has definitely improved this year though over last - last year he somehow drove through a mass of trees, over some lawn chairs, and into the fire pit!!  Thank goodness there was no fire going!  We were pretty surprised that he managed to do that though.  He also loves to ride on the big quad with Mom or Dad.  We even took Scarlett on for short little rides, and she was one happy girl!  She absolutely LOVES to be outside, so the whole weekend, she was seriously a sweetheart and just happy to be part of the action!  Lee also took the kids "worm hunting" and then fishing for a bit - unfortunately unsuccessfully, but they still had fun trying!  We had fun hot tubbing, exploring, playing some games outside, and also sitting around the campfire!  The kids loved roasting hot dogs and making Smores.  If you notice in some of the campfire pictures, the kids are wearing life jackets.... no, that is not because we are some crazy over the top parents who think life jackets will keep them safe from fire, but simply because they just finished fishing on the paddleboat and forgot to take them off!  Looks kinda funny though!  We also went to feed the ducks after church, which turned out to be a real hit for the kids - especially Griffin, he didn't stop talking about it!  Some of these ducks are bigger than I have ever seen, and will bite you, but that didn't stop Dakota from getting right up close and letting them eat out of her hands and get nibbled on a bit!  She thought it was hilarious.  My boys are not quite so brave, but they loved chasing them and trying to get them to eat their bread.  Griffin jumped up and down cheering every time his bread got eaten!

Anyway, we had a really great time just being together and away from everything, (especially Lee's work!) It's so fun to just focus on the kids and doing whatever you feel like!  We really need to take family trips more often!

Soccer!

How fun, soccer season has arrived and we've now got 3 little kids to watch play now!  That makes for a busy week!  But I really do enjoy watching my kids play sports.... as long as the weather cooperates!  We had a FREEZING cold game to watch last week that was just miserable!  Here's some cute pictures of Griffin playing last Saturday.  We were the last one on the team to arrive, so they had run out of the "Small" shirts, so lucky us, we got an "Extra Large", insanely big shirt that looks like a dress!  Oh well, at least Griffin is one of the bigger kids on the team!  But still, look at some of the pictures before and after we tried tucking it in.  It's huge!! Why they even make shirts that big for 3-4 year olds is beyond me!! That shirt would fit an adult.  Anyway, one of the pictures is Griffin with his best friend Jack, who lives a few houses down from us and goes to the same preschool.  They are so cute together, always hugging and super excited to see each other!  Jack pretty much follows us to our vehicle every preschool day and says he wants to come to "Yours" house! So funny.  Griffin's like a head taller than him too!  Then there's another picture with some of the other soccer buddies, I just thought they looked cute hanging out together waiting to go on.  Griffin is actually pretty good at soccer, he plays a lot with Mason and Dakota in the backyard, so he has scored a goal both games he's played in so far!  Not bad!  I will post more pictures of Mason and Dakota at soccer, sometime soon too.

Cubs, the Tooth Fairy and Rain!

   So here are some pictures of Mason being "invested" into Cubs! (And also one I thought was cute of him at the "Soap Box Derby"!)  He got his bandana neck tie thing, whatever you call it, recited the official "motto" and stuff, and got some badges that I need to sew onto his shirt!  Can't believe I have a boy old enough to be in Cubs!  Crazy.  It's so fun to watch your children grow up.  He is so shy in there though with all the bigger boys - he is the first of his friends to turn 8, so it will be nice when some of them join him!  But he still loves it anyway.  He says he really wants a pocketknife like the other boys!  Not sure that's such a good idea in my household, when other children - not to mention any names - might get hold of it!
  On another note, I am the worst Tooth Fairy ever!!  Dakota lost her second tooth yesterday - or rather, it was wiggly so she got her Dad to pull it out!  Lee gets impatient when the kids get wiggly teeth and just HAS to pull them out for them!  Mason usually is scared to death and doesn't really want him to do it, although he does want the money, so he lets him.  But Dakota came home from school asking a million times when Daddy was going to get home so he could pull her tooth out!  She was pretty tough about it too, not surprisingly!  Anyway, I totally forgot about my "Tooth Fairy" duties last night, so she was surprised and disappointed this morning when she woke up and there was no money!  I felt bad, but Mason told her that maybe she would get extra money and a note later on, since that's what happened when the tooth fairy didn't come right away for one of his teeth too!  Yes, that's right, this is not the first time I have neglected my Tooth Fairy duties.  I have forgotten twice!!   So to Dakota's joy, the Tooth Fairy had come while she was at school today, and she got extra money and a note explaining that she hadn't forgotten her, but that a lot of children had lost their teeth yesterday!  She was pretty pumped and told everyone all about it!  Crisis averted.
   And lastly, when is this rain going to stop?!  I am feeling cooped up and really wanting to enjoy some time outdoors in the sunshine!!  It was so nice a week or two ago and I totally got Spring Fever, and now this rain is such a disappointment!!  And of course, Soccer was supposed to start this week, but so far it's been rained out!  Actually Griffin did start his last Saturday, he had a morning of sunshine, and he had lots of fun!  It was really cute too, I'll have to post pictures another time!