a moment of bragging

sorry everyone - i can't help myself! look. at. this. baby.

of course i think she is the most beautiful baby i have ever seen. of course i think her blue eyes are fabulous. of course i think she has the cutest little grin. of course i think her hair is fantastic.

of course i think -

she. is. perfect.

and she is mine! i adore her! i can't get enough of her! she is my baby girl! my beautiful, wonderful, adorable, perfect baby girl.

i love my paige. my daughter.

summer so far

we spent the first week of our summer holidays down in montana, white water rafting for the lee family reunion. the lee's are brent's mom's family. needless to say, we had a great time!! HOT weather, TONS of kids running around, camp fires, games, visiting, and smores - we love camping!!

just a few thoughts - we spent both canada day and independence day in montana, rafting with family. how blessed i feel to live in such a beautiful and wonderful country as canada - to enjoy so many freedoms and have a great quality of life. i feel grateful that my kids can grow up in such a great country, full of boundless opportunity! how grateful i am for two great countries - and for the family i have in both.

hooray for canada and the usa!!

click here for the latest pictures!

ewwwww - be warned

so this our latest family adventure - or mishap rather.


this is a picture of burton's mashed finger. 10 days ago, we were hiking along a little river and throwing rocks in to it. so of course burton had to pick up the biggest, heaviest rock possible to try and make the biggest splash. but the rock didn't quite make it in to the water. burton dropped it and it fell....right....on....his....finger. blood everywhere. big gash. burton screaming. not fun.

burton basically "degloved" the tip of his finger - meaning that the cut was big enough and deep enough that the skin around the tip of his finger almost came off. gross. in the brief glimpse that i had of burton's finger, i thought the cut was between the bottom of his fingernail and his first knuckle. as you can see from the picture, the cut is actually right through the nail bed - it just looked like it was by his first knuckle because his skin, along with his fingernail, had been pulled that far forward by the weight of the rock.

poor burty! it has been quite traumatic for him! surgery to fix the whole thing, needles, stitches, bandage changing, doctor visits.......not fun as a parent to have to hold burton in my arms as he is screaming for the doctor to stop because he needs a "break."
the stitches came out today. it should heal just fine - maybe be a bit deformed but that's fine with burton. as long as he doesn't have to have anymore stitches or anything that hurts, he is happy.

i love you burton! you are so brave!

picture this

so, after the boys were done soccer last night, we stopped to get them slurpees on our way to cheer on brent in the last bit of his men's league soccer game. it was a beautiful night and the boys were hot so they took off their shirts. as we were sitting on the blanket, watching brent play soccer, and drinking our slurpees, evan says, "look at me mom." he had 2 of the lids from the slurpees - you know the big, bulbous ones - held up to his chest. he smiled and said,

"now i can feed the baby too."

picture it and tell me you're not laughing!

the passage of time

lots of things have happened lately that have had me thinking about time passing. here they are, in no particular order:

-i graduated from high school 10 years ago.

-my dad just celebrated his 50th birthday.

-my youngest siblings are graduating from high school and turning 18 this month.

-my youngest sister graduated from college in may.

-my older brother graduated from med school last week.

-brent has been a dentist for a full year. it has been 1 year since we moved to cranbrook.

-brent and i are celebrating our 9th anniversary in a few weeks.

-i gave birth to my 4th child 6 weeks ago.

wow - life happens!

do you ever look at your life and think, "is this really my life?" i have found myself doing that lately - do i really have a 7 year old? am i really old enough to have 4 kids? am i really married to a real dentist and live in my own house, one that we have bought and aren't renting?

are these rugrats really mine?

is this handsome man really my wonderful husband??

how did i luck out so much to have such wonderful blessings in my life?

whatever the reason, and even if it means i am getting older, how glad i am to have the life that i have!

click here for our latest pictures:)

footprints on my heart

Two little feet, ten little toes,

Leave their impressions today.

Soon they will wear two little shoes,

And be running and jumping at play.

Two little feet, too little time,

Before they are walking to school,

Kicking a rock, or skipping a rope,

Wading a puddle or jumping a pool.

Two little feet, One little child,

Will soon go their own way,

But footprints in my mind recall,

They stood here yesterday.

*ammendment to original post - i did NOT write this! the author is "unknown." if only i were that clever...you all should know better:)

3 week update

our little paige is 3 weeks old today! seems like she has been here forever already. she is such a little sweetheart and has joined our family effortlessly:) the boys adore her and are proving to be such great helpers - which i knew they would!

paige is an angel baby...truly:)

just look at her!

really - we are so in love with our baby girl!

besides doing the baby thing, we have travelled to red deer for rob and andrew's high school graduation, been visited by marion and her grace for a week (good times even though the weather was crappy!!!) and had the fam come out to cranbrook for may long when we blessed paige in church. we have had a fun but BUSY couple of weeks. it has been great to see most of our family and introduce our sweetie paige to them.

now we have a few weeks of relative quiet and normalcy before the fun and crazy summer holidays begin! for a look at what we have been doing, click on this link.

TTFN!