Spring Walks - 2015

One of my favourite things to do, once the snow has melted, is drag my kids out for walks, usually on Sunday evenings. They almost always complain and drag their feet but they sure seem to have fun once we get started...

At this one nature reserve we went to, there were a bunch of hay bales so the kids invented "Hay Bale Parcour".

Scripture Graffiti, a Beautiful T-Shirt Redesign, and a Walk in the Woods

I may or may not be getting slightly carried away with decorating my home with vinyl. I've been feeling overwhelmed lately at my new church calling (I was sustained today: I'm the new primary president in my ward) and I found some comfort in this scripture from Isaiah:

But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint. (Isaiah 40:31)

And so, I decided to put it up on the wall in my dining room:

You can call it scripture graffiti, I call it inspirational decor. : )

We just got back from a great little family reunion in Raymond last week. I don't have any pictures to post from it. Even though everyone else was taking pictures the whole time, I never thought to pull out my camera. Oops. But, we did get a professional photographer to take our picture so I'll post those when they come back.

But while we were down there, Jess' sister Bee gave Shae a t-shirt that was too small for her, thinking it might fit Shae (I think it was Bee, or was it Caley?) Anyways, Shae's into embellishing t-shirts lately, this was her third one, I believe, and I couldn't believe how beautiful it turned out! She did it completely on her own, I just came down to my craft room one day and there it was, all done. I'm not sure how she's going to wash it since the sparkles are glued onto the flowers, but we'll see!

She also made the turquoise bracelet, following this tutorial, and that too, just appeared. I sent her the link for the tutorial, thinking it would interest her, and the next thing I knew, there it was!

Edmonton is beautiful right now, all green, with all the fruit trees in bloom. We decided to go on a walk to the off-leash park yesterday and we all had a great time, especially Howie. Hudson spent most of the time collecting as many sticks as he could:

Connor didn't want to go at first, he said it would be too BORING but we had to keep reminding him while we were there to stop having fun, this was all supposed to be boring!

When we were in the woods, I saw this great log that I thought would make a really cute picture of the kids so I asked them to all sit on it. BUT, we never did get a single picture with them all looking at the camera. Especially since Hudson decided too soon that he was ready to get down and Connor had a little meltdown. Oh well! At least it made me laugh to look at the pictures afterwards!

The light of the early evening was beautiful and trees were sending out their fluffy seeds so thick that in places it looked like snow. Now if only there hadn't been any mosquitoes, it would have been perfect.

Connor's 6th Birthday and other June happenings

On June 17th, my sweet little Connor turned 6. Here are some pictures from the big day.

As you can see, he really likes soccer. He's on a community U6 team this spring called the Blue Lightning and he absolutely loves to play. He's definitely a competitive kid and you can see it when he gives it everything he's got in every game, running hard and fast the whole game to try and score as many goals as he can (we're working on passing...). He's also a very fierce goalie when it's his turn to be in net, he's not one of those kids who gets bored or distracted in net, he's always got his eye on the ball.

Right after Connor's birthday, we celebrated Father's Day. Here's Jess after we brought him lunch in bed (none of us, including him, are interested in waking up early enough to do a fancy breakfast in bed on a morning with 9:00 church!)

The kids worked hard on some artwork for Jess which I printed out onto an iron-on fabric transfer and then ironed onto a black t-shirt for him.

And these are some shots from a Sunday afternoon walk to our favourite neighbourhood green spot, Muskrat Pond.