Changes!!!

Well, a lot has changed in the past couple of months. I find change exciting but this has been too much too fast and I and constantly scrambling to keep up with it all. We are settling into our house and even though I am really happy to have a house finally, I am still not totally comfortable here yet. I know that it will become "home" soon enough.

Talia is loving Grade 1 and enjoys her bus ride so I am relieved and happy about that. She has adjusted to the new school and routine better than I expected. To my surprise, I think I miss her way more than she misses me.

Alex has started playschool two mornings a week. It is a much better school than the YMCA Fun Factory last year and I think he's really enjoying it there.

Maisie is... still a baby. She is quite delightful and sweet and soooo cute. We just adore her. She was blessed on Aug 31 (4 days after we moved in).

I am babysitting 4 days a week (well 3.5) and it's crazy, my house is a mess and I can't really get my house set up the way I'd like with all this going on. BUT it is going much better than I expected. The kids seem to get along pretty good most of the time and since I gave up on trying to keep my house clean and protected from damage, I am much less stressed. Although, my brand new house is taking a beating and will take a lot of putty and paint to fix whenever we decide to make it nice again.

Curtis is doing pretty much the same as before except his commute is a little bit longer. And he now has Cubs every Thursday evening. Here is a picture of Curtis standing in front of a project he worked on.

Talia and Alex are both in swimming lessons Tuesday nights and Art Classes Saturday mornings. They both LOVE the art classes and tolerate swimming. I think we'll cancel swimming at the end of October if they are still bored with it. Here is a picture of Alex wearning the hat he made at his first art class.

We have been busy, busy, busy but things are falling into place and in time we'll be able to relax a little more and enjoy where we are more.

So much catching up to do!

Wow, it's hard to keep this blog up to date. It's not because there is nothing going on either. There is too much and I get overwhelmed everytime I think about how much I've missed here. So, I'll try to sum up as much as possible before Maisie wakes up.

My 30th Birthday Bash!!


Thanks to my sister-in-law Jackie, I had a great birthday celebration. I don't like a lot of attention so it was a wonderful balance. Not too much but enough that it was obvious the party was for me.


Aleena Rae Layton

On July 2, at 3:05 am, Shelley gave birth to Aleena Rae! She was 7 lbs 11 oz at 20 inches long. It will be fun to have these two little girls grow up together. Actually, it will be fun to watch the fun and drama that will happen when Lysandra, Eliza, Maisie and Aleena get together. Here's a picture of Maisie with Aleena. Aleena is not even 12 hours old and Maisie is 4 weeks.

And here's Lysandra meeting Aleena for the first time.


Our house... We have a possession date!

We got the phone call today telling us that our house will be done for August 28. Hopefully, they stick to that date because it works out GREAT for us. It gets us in before the end of the month, before Talia starts school and with enough time to get set up for company for Maisie's baby blessing. Now, I can start making the doing the things I have been anxiously waiting for like phoning utilites, booking a moving truck, changing our address and PACKING.

There are still some problems with our house that they seem to have been ignoring (although they are probably aware and just not taken care of yet), so we are not entirely at peace with this yet. We really want to make sure we move into a complete house that is free of major defects and I don't know how they will accomplish that in the next month but if they think they can do it then I'll trust them... well, I'll try really hard to trust them.

Charles Heber Dudley Sr. Reunion

This past weekend we were in Magrath. On Friday there was a Charles Heber Dudley Sr. Reunion. That is my Great-Great-Grandfather. Needless to say, I knew very few people and basically spent my time with the Blumell family (my mom's siblings). It was great fun. I love being with family.

Talia and Alex had a really good time too, which suprised me because there weren't kids their age to play with very often. Talia spent a lot of time with my cousin Janine who is 20, I think, watching her play a computer game. She really enjoyed this and kept asking Janine to play. I hope Janine had fun because Talia really appreciated this and felt like they were good friends. I love that my 6 year old considers herself good friends with a 20 year old.

I would love to post more about this event but I have really been at this too long and kids need to be fed. Thankfully Maisie is still asleep. What a dream child I have!

Late Birthday Post

I'm finally getting around to posting Curtis's 34th birthday (June 8). I've been preoccupied with life and Maisie but here's what we did to celebrate.

I wanted something simple but still fun for his cake so I decided to make 2 round cakes and let the kids decorate them how they wanted. I went really simple and bought store icing, colored it and put it into the decorating bags and let the kids go crazy. Well as it turns out my kid's aren't really the crazy type, so the cakes actually turned out really well.

Talia's is on the left (notice the "T" in the center) and Alex's is on the right.

Here they are -- so proud of their creations!

Curtis's brother and family (Eldon & Jackie and kids) came by on their way home from Calgary to visit Maisie and to have cake with us. We were really happy they came and made his day feel more special. Even if they were really only coming to see the baby :)

Funny story:

So Friday night or Saturday morning Talia has "a great idea". She decided that they (Curtis and her) should do something special for me to help me out since I had just gotten home from the hospital. She suggested that they make me a special breakfast... so sweet! Curtis liked the idea but our Saturdays have been crazy with soccer, open houses, swimming etc. and that Saturday was worse because she and Curtis were to go to a Father's Day Picnic with her Kindergarten class so he said that it wouldn't work but that they could do it on Sunday. Talia said, "But that's your birthday, Dad!" Curtis told her it was okay so they made me a special breakfast on his birthday. How sweet! And funnily enough for supper we had a frozen lasagna that Curtis had made weeks before and he helped me make his cakes the night before. And he even ended up buying his own birthday present. Poor guy. I'll have to spoil him extra next year to make up for this year.

Maisie Jane Gibb

Well, she's almost 2 weeks old now and as cute as ever. Maisie (rhymes with Daisy) was born at 12:14 am on Thursday, June 5, 2008. She was 8 lbs 2 oz and 20 inches long. Here are some pictures.

Updates on our Life

Well, I do cave to pressure. So thanks Cheryl (and Andrew a couple of months ago). I must say that blogging is not on the top of my to-do list these days. And even if it was, I still wouldn't get to it. I am sooo tired all the time! But I have time now and I'm not tired and my kid's are playing together nicely. I do, however, have to start supper in 20 minutes so you'll get what I can accomplish in that time.

BABY - I'm 36 weeks and my doctor is predicting that I will be early (I've heard that one before... I was 4 days late with that one) We have picked a couple of girl names that we like but are really, really stuck as to what to name a boy. So, we are really hoping for a girl just to make things easier. Plus, Shelley's ultrasound tech said it looks like she's having a girl. Both the baby and I are healthy and fine. The only complaints from me are about being tired all the time and not being able to bend over. That is tricky when your house is on the market and must be clean most of the time. Which leads to the next update.

SELLING - We are finally feeling some pressure to get our condo sold so we lowered our price to a more reasonable one and are having open houses every Saturday. Hopefully, we'll start getting some more action now. It would be really nice to have an offer before the baby comes but I won't hold my breath.

HOUSE - Sadly, there is little to report. After a 4-5 month hiatus on construction (unplanned and unexplained as yet by our builder) work is finally starting again. They installed the heating stacks and some plumbing stuff, including the tub and shower but there is still no evidence of shingles or that there every will be shingles. Even though our framing was approved by the city on Nov 27, 2007. And the house down the street also by the same builder got shingles a month ago. The fact that the house down the street is a spec home, yet to be sold, has no bearing on why it got shingles first (yeah right!!) according to our builder. But, no, no, we are not at all concerned with this. Actually, the delay wasn't that big of a deal to us when they told us our estimated possesion date would be moved to July but that was months ago and like I said they haven't really done anything since. So, we are anxious but trying to believe it will all work out for the best.

FAMILY - I am insane. I like having a laid back, easy going, spontaneous lifestyle but I have completely over scheduled us for the next couple of months. Thankfully Curtis is VERY supportive and helpful. We have enrolled the kids in soccer and swimming for May/June. Yes, I did this knowing that I would have a baby in the middle but I didn't expect to be having open houses every Saturday too. So, Talia plays soccer every Mon/Wed evening and Alex plays Saturday mornings. So, every Saturday after rushing the kids home from soccer and eating a quick lunch, Curtis will take the kids off to swimming while I stay here for the open houses. I'm not sure what he will do with the kid's after swimming but I suspect I will be having him do a lot of grocery shopping and other errands to keep them busy until 4 when the open house ends. Great man!! Thankfully, I have been released from my calling as RS Secretary and am now a RS teacher. I have to teach only once a month so it's a low stress calling. Curtis is still a Ward Missionary and that is going well. He also is quite happy at work. Plus, he is able to get home at a decent time on a regular basis so that helps a lot.

I was going to take time to post some random pictures from the past month or two but I have run out of time. I have to get supper ready early so we have time for FHE before soccer. I will try to get some pictures up soon and if not you can be sure there will be pictures in the next month when the baby is born :)

Alex is 4

Well 2 weeks ago, Alex turned 4 (Feb. 26). We had the Layton's over for dinner, cake and presents-- the kids don't get a friend birthday party until they are 5 and Alex suprised us and didn't seem to mind. He still got cake. He still got presents. He was happy.

I made him a cake the depicted the final battle with Darth Maul. It's certainly not without flaws but Curtis and Alex loved it so that's good enough for me.

Shelley and Jason got him a great army set that he loves and we got him a Hot Wheels track with a loop which he also loves. This is truly a case of less is more. He would happily play all day with just those 2 sets and then get up the next morning and start all over. He didn't want to go to his playschool class the next morning because he wanted to play with his toys. So I let him stay home since it would have been mean to deny him a chance to really play with his new toys.

A week later, he was finally allowed to go to Toys 'R' Us and buy his present from the Gibb Grandparents and Yvonne who both sent money. Without any promting from anyone he decided he wanted to buy Star Wars Lego "like Dad's." He was adament. No matter what we showed him in the store, his mind was made up. So he got his first real lego set. It's for ages 6-12 and requires a lot of rebuilding from Curtis but both are happy with Alex's choice. Actually, I think happy is an understatement for Curtis. He's hiding it well but I believe inside he's quite elated and is looking forward to the many hours in the years ahead of playing and building Lego sets with Alex. In fact, Curtis decided to use some of his own fun money to buy Alex another little set so he'd have something to fight against.

I'm torn between loving the father-son connection and being annoyed at all the little peices that I have to make sure are cleaned up each day so he doesn't lose anything.

Ok, Ok, I'll take the time to post something.

Well, Andrew (aka Definately not Andrew) since you asked so nicely, I will take some time to post some of the many things I have neglected. With prepping our condo for sale, dejunking, cleaning, kids, my calling and of course, growing a baby, I really haven't felt this was a priority but I have had a productive day so far so I can take some time to blog.

I can't believe I haven't even posted anything about Christmas yet! So here's a few pictures from Cold Lake where we spent Christmas at Janae & Dean's with Mom & Dad, Shelley & Lysa (they came Christmas afternoon) and Rob (who came for Christmas dinner alone as Sheryl was really sick).

The kids had fun playing outside on Christmas Eve. It was a beautiful day and so warm that Alex came in early because he was all wet from melted snow and sweat :)

Alex and Will had lots of fun playing together while Talia really liked taking care of Eliza. Eliza loved all the attention from her big cousin. Talia will be a great babysitter someday AND a great help when our new baby comes this summer.


After Christmas we went to Richard and Kelly's for one last visit before they moved to London, ON. We planned to spend New Year's with them but Alex got sick at the church (where there was a farewell/New Year's party) and we took our kids back to Bunnage's and had a really, really low key New Year's with our kids in bed by 11 pm.

TALIA'S 6th BIRTHDAY

Ok, next event was Talia's Birthday celebrations. We had cake with my family on Jan. 5 and Talia had a party with friends at Telus World of Science on Jan. 12. I would write more but I'm getting anxious because I am spending too much time on this and I need to get back to work (cleaning, making supper, etc.)

Here's some birthday pictures.

Bunnage Family

Oh, yeah! I almost forgot to post this. The whole Bunnage Family - except for Benson :( went up to Cold Lake on the Rememberance Day weekend and we were able to take a long overdue family picture. We still didn't splurge for the photographer but thanks to Shelley's tripod and Connor's finger we were able to get a decent picture of the family (sans kids).

Announcement and Excuses

Ok so I am not as diligent with this blog as I planned. But honestly right now, I am quite tired and it is not on my list of priorities. The reason I am quite tired is because I am about 3 months pregnant. We are expecting at the end of May or beginning of June. The kids are really excited. Talia just about started crying when we told her because she was so happy. Unfortunately that excitment will also make it hard to be patient this time around. The kids excitement is contagious and it truly has been a while since I've held a baby of my own and I am really looking forward to that again. Plus, we should be in our new house by then (or very, very close to it) There's a lot to look forward to in 2008!

So, I will try my best to keep this up to date but if you are really bored you could check out Curtis's Blog (Ha Ha).

Oh and here's an update on the house...

Halloween - Better Late than Never!

As you can see, Alex dressed up as a Castle Knight and Talia was a Fairy Princess. We went Trick-or-Treating with Rolfson's around their block and then split off and finished by ourselves. It was nice weather so the kids were happy to stay out longer and they ended up with a pretty good haul. We got home late and the kids were thoroughly grumpy the next day but it was worth it. We had a fun night.

Lysandra was at our house all day while Shelley was at work, so we were able to get a picture of the 3 of them together before heading our own ways. Pretty cute!

As for school parties...

Talia enjoyed her Kindergarten Masquerade. They did the walk around the school which I think is so much fun for the kids and she came brought home a "sweetless" treat bag. Basically full of stickers, erasers and a lot of junk I had to strategically throw out over the next couple of days.

Alex had a little party at YMCA Fun Factory which I didn't realize was for parent's too. It's a good thing I was babysitting Lysandra and not planning to work out that day. When I showed up unprepared to stay for 2 hours, at least I was showered and dressed in real clothes. The party was pretty lame for the most part and hard with Lysandra there but Alex got to help break a pinata and that made the whole thing worth it.