2013 & Parks turns 5 years old!!

I've got to be honest, I have desperately been trying to catch up on my blogging...i was 8 months behind...apparently I went on blogging strike! I regret it tho and now only have 5 months of catching up to do..yay! My memory is shockingly horrible and i'm only 29 years old but for the life of me I cant remember what we did on New Year's Eve, i'm pretty sure Grace and I were really sick and I fell asleep at 10pm...Matt was working his night shift??? Not a big deal clearly:) BIGGER news my precious little baby boy turned 5 years old!!! I keep telling him to stop growing up, but nobody ever listens to me:(  SO i threw him the party of all parties...haha We invited way too many kids and kept them way too long (3 hours but parents came early cuz they knew I was crazy!).  There were 11 in total, and I do have to say #1 I'm sooooo glad Matt was off work and home and #2 they were all super awesome kids that played so well with each other.  We kept them busy with pizza and chips at first than  did the good old fashion games that were a huge hit!...pin the tail, hot potatoe, musical chairs, walking thru the laser force field and than jumping off beds and doing flips and tricks for the camera:)  We fit present opening and cake in there too!  Parks is such a sweet boy that has made lots of great friends from starting school and going to church.  We think the world of him and his funny little personality, he is always up for learning and loves to talk talk talk!  We are so proud of our son and grateful that he is in our family.  Grace is a very lucky sister to have a big brother who takes pride in protecting her and playing with her whenever he's home.  Its so heartwarming to see these two as best friends.

Looking Back at 2012!

This is something I try and do each year, it helps us look back and be reminded of all the fun and see just how blessed we are...

-Parks turned 4 years old! (Learned how to draw our stick family for the 1st time)

-Grace at 19 months old, started POTTY training!! (good at #1s not #2s)

-Early in the year is when the kids really started 'playing' with each other instead of 'fighting' with each other.

-Parks finished up his 2 playgroup classes (had no problem being away from Mom for 2 hours twice a week).

-In March, we went to UTAH for Matts 2 week holidays.  I got trained in Eyelash Extensions and we bought Boat #1 of the year! (sadly the trip ended with Mama getting strep throat and double ear infections...and than Grace with the same)

-Watched General Conference with Rob, Tammy and kids at Grant and Sue's

-Celebrated Mum's 65 Birthday with an adults only Restaurant night out.

-Went to Tammy's Sister's Wedding in Lethbridge

-Parks started writing his name at 4 1/2 years old!! (and finally not needing naps)

-End of April Nana flew out for a visit! (We got Grace's ears pierced with Nana for her Birthday!)

-Early May Grace still taking 1-2 bottles of milk and was starting to do #2s in the potty!!

-After only 2 months since my Eyelash Training, I made all the money I put in back!!! 

-May long weekend was our 1st time back to the Lake this year (the whole family was there)

-End of May Grace started sleeping in a BIG GIRL bed, only 1 hour naps, no more bottles and officially POTTY TRAINED! (1 week before her birthday)

-Gracie turned 2 years old!!! (Had 13 kids at her party w a balloon twister)

-In June, I received a new Church calling as the Mia Maids Advisor

-Flew out to Ottawa mid June for 2 weeks (Matt had to leave 5 days earlier for work)
-Boat #1,2 and 3 SOLD!
-Got a FREE trampoline frame, so we bought a new mat and pads...we love it!
-Matt and I went to the Calgary Stampede 2 times this year
-Had fun on our boats at Little Bow and Chestemere Lakes with friends
-Hill Family Reunion week was fun (we were up at the lake for a week and half)
-Boat #4 SOLD (the last one)
-Out of DEBT for awhile;)
-End of August we stayed home for 3 weeks straight (gardening, putting up fence in backyard and watching Rob in the Waterskiing Nationals Competition).
-We did our traditional once a year ZOO trip:)
-In September Ammo had ear cleaning procedure done
-Parks started Pre Kindergarden in September!!!
-Matt had his Birthday end of September turning 28!!
-October we hiked in the Kananaskis
-Nana visited for a week (brought her thru the Calgary Temple Open House)
-I had my BIRTHDAY and turned 29!!
-Halloween the kids built their 1st SNOWMAN of the year:(
-Grace was a Mermaid for Halloween and Parks was Transformers Bumblebee
-Hunting was a SUCCESS for Matt this year, shot another Bull Moose (4th year in a row) and shot Alberta's Largest Mule deer Buck in 2012!!!
-We had our 1st Family Photo shoot for Christmas time
-Christmas was real as ever this year for the kids (meeting Santa was fun)
-Started our 1st year with the 'Advent Chain' (Definitely be our family tradition)
-Also had sweet little Snowflake enter our family this Christmas (new tradition now)
-Parks learned to skate on ice!!!
-This was the Hill Family Christmas Year (everyone was together at Grant and Sue's, even Cam (Matt's Foster brother who we all havent seen in years) it was really busy and fun)
-Ended the year by going to the Calgary Temple with our good friends for our first Session there!

Christmas DAY *SANTA*

Christmas morning the kids had to wait until Daddy got home from work (around 9am) before they could open presents...they were really patient and so very excited to see what Santa got for them:)  We had our traditional bfast (our favourite) eggs benedict...yummy!  Everyone got spoiled this year especially me:) Matt surprised me with a new Mac Laptop and the New Nutra Bullet that I've been excited about for making smoothies and shakes:)  Nana and Papa and Jeff and Robyn all sent gifts too so we were able to skype and see them too.  It was a great morning and so fun to see how excited and grateful the kids were:)  Merry Christmas!!

Santa pulled through and got Parks his Eco Dome Bug Catcher!!

Santa got Grace just what she asked for too...Pet Shop Playset!! Thanks Santa:)

Christmas EVE!!

Matt was home all day Christmas Eve, but sadly had his night shift that night and Christmas Day night:( We missed him so much, but were very grateful he could be back home Christmas morning for presents and have the day together again!!

This was the 'Hill' family year to get together for Christmas, so on Christmas Eve its the Hill Tradition to eat supper at the Big Rock Chinese Buffet...we took up half the restaurant!! After that we go to one of the Okotoks retirement homes and rein act the Nativity Story for the Seniors there.  Its pretty great;)  The cousins love getting all dressed up and being together...its a bit chaotic but always works out just fine:)

Everyone at the Restaurant... angle one...

...angle two...

Angle three...

At the Retirement Home: Our sweet little Shepherd boys

Our sweet little Angel girls

My most favourite picture of all...makes me so proud and grateful that these two cuties are mine:)

Our pretty tree on Christmas eve...before Santa comes...kids got to open one present each before bed...new pjs!!! 

Indoor Skating fun!

This was a fun idea that Sue came up with...it was too freezing cold to enjoy outdoor skating as a family so they rented the indoor skating rink in town and split it with the Lyons and Byam families.

 This was Parks' 2nd or 3rd time skating...Matt made him the trainer bar and he did awesome with skates that were way too big for him!

December is HERE!

December 1st it is our tradition to set up the Christmas tree and decorate it... and this year, thanks to our good friend Brooke Byam she introduced me to the 'Christmas Advent Chain' so starting Dec 1st until Christmas Eve the kids have a chain to open with a fun activity, craft or service to do together as a family:) The kids were pumped and it was nice to do fun things together and have the Christmas Spirit be with us even more!  So some of the memorable things we did were make a gingerbread house (which we failed miserably at, it collapsed with a candy overload so we pretended a tornado hit it;)) we had a 'San Francisco' supper with Gran and Grandad over..(eating spaghetti with not so normal utensils).  We had a movie theatre day (miss school) out, we saw Rise of the Guardians in 3D! We did a very sneaky anonymous cookie drop off at some friends houses'...the kids were so slow at running away that most everyone saw us...haha.  The kids made salt dough ornaments with their hand prints (Ammo ate Grace's right off the tree...).  We went to the Live outdoor Nativity Pageant with the Allred's... something we have gone to every year since having kids...I highly recommend it!  We did a swimming night out... Tim Horton's Donut and Hot Chocolate night out...where the cutest senior couple watched us chow down and told us we had the million dollar family:) awwww... a bunch more things...It really made our Christmas that much better getting to do these fun little things that we probably wouldn't have gotten around to with all the business of the Christmas Season.  Merry Christmas!!

This was my first year doing a fancy Christmas card...kinda fun!

Gingerbread Disaster

Silly San Fran Supper

Movie Day!

Outdoor Nativity Pageant 

I almost forgot about our other new tradition!! This little lady came into our family this year.  The kids named her Snowflake, she is from the North Pole.  Her job is to hide in a new place in our house everyday and watch over the kids...making sure they are being nice to each other...and every night she flies back to the North Pole and lets Santa know whether they had been nauty or nice;) BUT if anyone touches her she will lose her magic and not be able to fly back to Santa in the North Pole.  The kids adore her to say the least, and cannot wait to find out where she is and what mess she's gotten herself into...in this picture she got into the shortbread cookies and left a trail of crumbs everywhere!!

Parks and Grace all ready for church the Sunday before Christmas:) I really wish I would stop being so lazy and use my good camera instead of my crappy iphone for pictures like these..

Time to Meet SANTA!

The kids were very excited to get to meet Santa!! Luckily Santa was at Bass Pro Shop so Daddy was more than happy to bring us all the way out there to get some pictures with Santa Claus:) Parks ended up being a little shy once he had to sit on Santa but was sure to tell him what he wanted for Christmas:)