Jayna and Travis' wedding

Jayna and Travis are married! Maira was their flower girl and Shae was one of the junior bridesmaids (the other one was Bailey, Travis' little sister). Here are some pictures from the beautiful wedding:

Apron for Jayna

Here's my latest edition of my favourite pattern, the Emmeline apron:
This is one of Jayna and Travis's wedding gifts (well, this one's more for Jayna, obviously)! The apron is reversible and it looks cute tied in the front as well:
Isn't Shae a cute model!

I just noticed the stripe of green grass in the background - isn't our lawn pathetic! We just re-sodded that green patch and now the rest of our lawn looks terrible...

Blog Makeover and I finished my 10k

I've wasted way too much time this evening doing a blog makeover - but it was so fun! Maybe my blog will get a makeover more often...

I ran my first 10k yesterday since Hudson was born. Jess and the kids and my Mom were there at Churchill Square in downtown Edmonton to cheer me on. The weather was perfect and the route was nice and flat. There were 750 other runners and the atmosphere was great. I'd been having a really painful stitch in my side the last few days of running and I was worried that would happen again. But I had heard that eating bananas helps and I realized we'd run out of bananas a week ago so I bought a whole bunch and ate 5 the day before the race...and no stitch at all through the entire race. My knees also didn't hurt, it was basically a pain-free race - I was so happy!

I've found it really hard to find time to run with 4 young kids so I didn't except to do better than 1:10 but about 2 km before the finish line I realized I was slightly ahead of the 65 minute pace bunny - I couldn't believe it! And I decided then that I wanted to stay ahead of him. That was so hard. If he hadn't been there, I'm sure I would have slowed down quite a bit but I kept hearing him getting closer and closer so I kept pushing harder and harder. Here I am just less than a minute from the finish line and there he is on my right, in the blue:
And here I am, sprinting for the finish line with him behind me:
And I did it! I crossed the finish line in just over 1:05, just ahead of the pace bunny (you can see his shadow behind me!)
Before we left for the race, Connor gave me a hug and said he hoped I won my race. Succeeding at running faster than I thought I would even though my legs felt too weak to take another step felt like winning the race to me.

I think Connor was impressed with my medal (received by which everyone who finished) :

While I was running, there were jumpy castles and a jumpy slide for the kids:

One reason I liked having my whole family there was for the support but the biggest reason is because I want my kids to have memories of me running races so that they know they can do hard things too. At the end of the race, Shae said she wants to do the 5k next year and my Mom said she'd like to too so that makes me happiest of all.

Storytime with Hudson

Tonight at bedtime, I decided to try reading a story to Hudson, I thought he might be old enough now. And he loved it; apparently the story I chose has some pretty funny baby jokes in it because he laughed at every page. So cute!

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Baby Quilt

While I was in Raymond a few weeks ago, of course I had to check out the local quilt shop: Sugar Town Quilts. And while there, I came across a new idea for a way of making a quilt that I hadn't tried yet. And I really wanted to try it! So, I called my sister to see if maybe her new little 19-month old foster daughter might be in need of a quilt (I couldn't think of anyone else at the moment who might need a baby quilt and I really wanted to make it!) Luckily, my sister said that yes, she could use a quilt for her bed so I happily bought the supplies needed and here is the finished product:

(Click to embiggen)

And here's Maira happily modelling it for me to give an idea of the scale:


The technique involves using one large piece for the background and then cutting out a bunch of small squares (mine were 3x3, I believe) with pinking shears. Then you use a glue stick to glue them in place (after marking out your grid with a disappearing marker) and then sew up and down the quilt in a grid pattern to sew the squares on. The zigzag edges keep the unfinished edges of the squares from fraying too much but they still fray enough to look really cute. It was a quick project that I'll definitely make again sometime.

Our Trip to Raymond

We just got back from a fun 2 weeks in Raymond. We stayed with Jess' parents and the kids had so much fun spending time with their grandparents, aunt and uncles.

On our way to Raymond, we stopped at the Calgary Zoo.
It is a nice zoo but it would have been more fun if Maira hadn't been so sick and miserable! She had a fever and a runny nose that day.

One of the highlights of the trip was Raymond's annual Canada Day Parade (or 1st of July, as they say in Raymond).

We all prefer Raymond's parade to any parades in Edmonton for two reasons: first, they throw candy, and second, we know lots of the people in the parade. In fact, more often than not, one of Jess's siblings has been in the parade. This year it was Paul, marching with the Raymond High School band.

Connor was very serious about catching candy this year. He didn't even seem to notice the floats, he was just intent on watching to see if they were going to throw candy or not. He definitely collected the biggest haul out of all the kids.

It's been a few years since we've seen the Kissing Cousins at the parade but this year they were back and they got Jess' dad as well as Jess' Uncle Faris who was up visiting from Boise. These are ladies who dress up and wear bright lipstick and look for people in the crowd to kiss (we call them the Kissing Cousins since some of them are Ron's cousins). See the resemblance between Ron and his brother? Their own grandkids often get them mixed up with each other.
Another favourite part of the parade is the truck that shoots candy off a conveyer belt:

After the parade, Spencer helped Maira check out her candy from the parade.


For lunch, we convened to the backyard for the annual Walker family picnic. Here is Hudson, chilling in the hammock with Grammy, and Connor and Maira enjoying creamsicles from Uncle Fay.

Later that week, Shae and Connor went fishing with Jess and Grandpa Ron. Connor brought his new fishing rod he got for his birthday. Unfortunately, the fish were not biting and so they have still never caught a fish. Jess got some pretty pictures though!
On Saturday, we went to Waterton. Our day there involved splashing in Emerald Bay, floating around in the dinghy, ice cream cones, and horseback riding for me and Shae.

Another fun daytrip was when we went to Writing-On-Stone park on the Milk River. We spent some time wandering the hoodoos with Grammy and Grandpa and then went to cool off in the river.
The kids also spent time playing with Lilia at the park, eating banana splits with Grandma Jane, playing with Grammy's amazing stash of dressups, and playing with the funnest uncles ever, Spencer, John and Paul.