Out like a lion, in like a Lion

I have spent most of this morning scrolling through reflective and celebratory posts of 2019 and some post filled with hope for the new year.

I am coming off an epic year. 2019 in 1 word was a party. It’s was carthadic for my extroverted soul. It felt like a coming out of sorts.

 The past decade and a half my life had felt not totally my own but my resolution of 2019 was to let go of my need for praise, to let go of my need of perfectionism, to let go of self importance, to say no to things I didn’t want. But most importantly, do the things I want to do and not wait or put it off or have it feel less important. 

I end this year perfectly happy and content that I have put most of those to rest. 

Some highlights of my year was my trip to see my sister, camping with a wonderful group of friends, and watching the girls show at synergy but in between those events for me was a plethora of other momentous events like celebrating birthdays with friends, parties, dances, road trips, my sister’s birthday, Christmas, hockey games, basketball games, horse shows etc.

Last year we rang in New Years exactly how we lived 2019.

We booked the curling rink and just let the night play out.

My goals for 2020 

- literally and figuratively clean out my closets

- knit more

-walk more (we have a couple family hikes planned)

- skiing dec 2020

- 

A Short Sweet Month to remember

We really have been having the best February.

We have been very busy 

but

I have been trying especially hard to slow down and do some extras with the kids

(and having a friend to encourage that is a huge bonus)

We wrapped up basketball and Ellie did great 

and 

I had a great time hanging out with moms that I don't normally get a chance to visit with.

We went to a trampoline park and the kiddos had the best time.

 Dusty took the girls to 4-H foods and they learnt about cake decorating 

AND

seriously we may have discovered ANOTHER hidden talent that Penny has!!

You can expect a bakery to open any day now....

 OH FOR THE LOVE OF HOCKEY

AND BOYS

ESPECIALLY THESE BOYS

Oh man! Dusty gets a gold star because he took ALL the kids to the hockey game SOLO 

and it was with school

SO

ALL of their friends were there.

It was CHAOS

and these two were Captain Chaos and Lieutenant Loud

It's been a great month and we are ending it by playing play-off hockey against a great team and it's been a blast ending our month this way!!

basket ball and trampolines

Oh man! what an awesome weekend!!
Jam-packed as usual but there was some great highlights!

Penny and her little hockey team got to go watch the university team play. They got to be in the dressing room for the pep talk and go out on the bench and watch the team warm up. She hung out with her hockey bestie and came home buzzing. The next day their team won their game and solidified their spot in playoffs.

Lucy was the sheep queen this weekend. She stayed home and hung out with Gramma and Andy and made sure all the new born lambs were up and doing their thing. She also took charge of bottle feeding the bottle lamb and got to have a friend over to play on Saturday.

Ellie was in a basketball tournament and they ended up winning!!! She had a great time hanging out with all her friends and I had a great time watching them play ball.

Andy.... well, his Gramma came and saved him from being toted around all weekend. He had the best time reading books and watching movies.

This week we had a PD day so I took Lucy, Penny, and Andy to the trampoline park and we met Stacey and her mom and the kiddos there and it was an awesome hour and everyone was PLAYED out.
Came home and headed to hockey practise with Penny and she had a surprise pizza party after. It's so much fun to be apart of such a great little team. Her coaches and other players and parents are really great!

This next weekend should be filled with awesomeness too..... 4-H, more basketball, AND the Superbowl!!!!!

Public Speaking

We had an awesome weekend!
The kids had a full schedule and I had a full schedule but theirs was full of things they love!

Dusty came home early so he could curl with our team and we did so great!!
We actually had three ends in a row where we scored points and I made some crazy shots!!

Ellie had a Young Women's activity with everyone in the area. She said it was like a carnival and then she look off to her friends house for the day to play basketball!

We had our first "with horses" 4-H horse project meeting and we measured and weighed everybody's horses. It was actually super fun and we have such a good group of kids.

Then the next day Dusty and I went to Penny's first game at 8am and she did so great.
It was a really close game and they beat Cochrane by 1 point.
I went home and did the older girls hair for 4-H public speaking...
I should of taken a picture of it!!!
We rushed back to the rink to watch Penny's second game against Med Hat.
She won so then they were on to Semi-finals against the grey Lethbridge team.
Dusty stayed with Penny (and Andy... oh Andy)
and I took off with the older girls to public speaking.

The girls did so great.
Ellie was the very first speech of the day and you could tell she was a little nervous but she battled through and ended up with a great speech.
Ellie nailed her impromptu and got first's across the board.
Then Lucy spoke after the break.
and it was her day.
She delivered a wonderful speech and her impromptu was amazing.
She was beaming.

Lucy placed first in the Juniors and Ellie placed second in the intermediates!

We loaded up (with a few additions!!) and headed back into Magrath.
We dropped off the extra girls and headed to the rink to catch Penny's game for third place in the tournament.
Penny's team lost a really close game in overtime to the grey team so we played Cochrane for third. They played a good game but Penny was outa gas and they lost a good game.
What a weekend!!!!

Birthdays

This year dusty and I did more for our birthdays than I think we ever have done! Most of it was last minute and it was our friends that swooped in and helped change things up. It was fun and simple and easy!
I got to go out to dinner at Brown's and Dusty and I ate dessert while waiting for Jared and Jasmine. It is always so easy to hang out with them! Jasmine tried a spicy tuna roll for the first time and it was hilarious, she was NOT a big fan. We split up and went home and we played a game with the kids. Stacey texted the next morning and asked us to go and ride. Dusty's been wanting to go so we packed up and headed over. The ponies all did great. We invited Tom and Stacey over for dinner and it was a good thing because we had so much food. This year Dusty wanted Steak Oscar, roasted mini potatoes, salad, garlic bread, AND strawberry cream cake PLUS we got to eat my delicious chocolate cake that Stacey made. I was also surprised but a couple friends who brought me gifts and it was such a sweet birthday!!!

Now that our birthdays are over though, there's not many excuses to eat a little healthier! hahaha

All Things Baby

This week was all things baby...
and birthday
but I didn't take pictures of that...

Both my sister and my SIL had birthdays this last week
we ate
we visited
it was good.

but in between all the birthday stuff
was baby stuff.
  

 

This is our only ewe lamb.

Her name is Jackie...

you will see why tomorrow...

 This poor wee gaffer had a rough start.
He was rejected.
We are going to wether him and keep him for a companion.

 And this is the big boy.
he's a solid sucker.

and to top off all the babes at home...

a friend and I threw a little shower for another friend.

I should of gotten someclose-ups 

but the theme was camping and it turned out super cute!

Now we are on to the next week

and

Andy has a man cold

i think we will be hanging out at home!!

Wind

Sometimes life reminds us

{me}

To take a moment

{breathe}

Our bodies can be so frail.

And our minds delicate 

My thoughts the last couple of days have been with a couple of other women.

They stand in their own storms, just as we {I} have stood in our own.

As our bodies and minds can fail

I know that the strength of a mothers soul

Is the most resilient force on earth

And

We are changed after standing through gale forced winds

But somehow we still manage to stand.

My heart aches for theirs.

Annual Superbowl Party- year 2

Dusty and I both like to stay home. We don't often go out on dates or over to friends houses or to church activities. We do travel to see our families a fair amount but that's really to extent of it. Yesterday, however, we actually invited people over to our house. It was fun, in fact, it was a LOT of fun. We invited 3 other couples and their children over for football and food. I am so glad that Dusty got enough of the basement done that there was a "man-cave". I forget that I actually DO like people. I like talking to them and listening to them (mostly talking though.... I'm trying to embrace the listening part.... it's coming.... slowly...). The girls had so much fun playing and were very excited to have a party. I may actually have another.

The food was good.

I wish I had taken pictures.

I'm going to try to post some of the recipes.

I made...

cocktail wienies wrapped in bacon and baked in brown sugar

Tex-Mex dip

Shauna made...

spinach artichoke dip

PW chocolate sheet cake

Kim made...

peanut butter cup cookies

white chocolate covered popcorn.

Did I mention how good the food was?

A party just isn't a party without food....

OH and it didn't hurt that the Saints won....

Go Saints!