Happy Thanksgiving!

So, we had a pretty great Thanksgiving weekend. We weren't able to make it up to see my Grandpa's and the whole family, so that made me sad, but we just weren't able to afford to go this time. We'll hopefully go at Christmas time. But we had a great weekend out at my parent's farm. We spent Saturday afternoon at my brother's and his wife's place. We enjoyed time with my nieces -ages 5 and 1- and watched the Rider game. Had a BBQ and played pool. Then went out to the farm. Visited with my other brother and played cards. HOWLED with laughter! Oh my goodness, we laughed so hard we were crying, and our guts just ached from all the laughing! It was a fun time. We don't get to spend time with Tim that often, so that was super nice for us! Sunday morning I spent at the cemetery. The Dyck family was killed exactly 11 years from this Thanksgiving Sunday. I go there often as I miss them and it's still a process for me that I need to go through to handle it all. Sunday afternoon I spent doing a photo session of my younger brother with his horses and with his dogs. I will post some tomorrow. Then all afternoon and evening on Sunday I spent CARD MAKING!!!! :) Grandma and Grandpa have a fenced in wonderful "playground" so Janessa was outside with her cousin most of the day with Daddy and her 2 uncles playing as well! :) I had a LOT of time to devote to my cards! Mom and Dad and the kidlets all came home after supper and we had a good visit. My Mom and I visited after everyone else was in bed while I was still in card making heaven. Then today, we had our family dinner! A good time and lots of good food as always! :) When we're all together there is 16 of us now! :) There used to be only 6! After our bountiful dinner, headed out for another photo session! This time it was of my sister, her boyfriend and his son. They turned out pretty good too. I will post some tomorrow of those as well.
Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend enjoying family, friends and food, and most importantly being reminded of all you have to be thankful for!

Family Photos as promised!!! :)

These are my favorite ones of the bunch! I know there are so many!!! I'm so happy I can finally share them with you! :)

A tearful moment..

So, our lovely photographer posted a few of our family photos on her group on facebook. My friend had texted me saying how good they were, and I was like, they're up!? So of course, I had to hop on to my computer and check them out! They made me cry!! They turned out soooo good! I can't wait to see the rest of them! It's going to be very very hard to choose which one we are going to be giving out!!

Fun afternoon

We had our family photo session this afternoon! It's a beautiful afternoon! Sun is shining, clear blue skies, and a breeze. A touch too breezy but overall not bad. We had a wonderful photo session and I soooo cannot wait to see our photos! She showed me one of them while we were in the midst of it and I started tearing up; it was such a great photo of my little girl! I can't wait to share them with you in about a week's time! :)

New prospects are FUN!

Well, we went and looked at two houses this evening!! The first one was very nice but a fair bit smaller than our current one and there is not too much there for a backyard. The interior of the house was very nice. The couple has done A LOT of remodeling and it was very very nice! It's just too small. It did have 3 bedrooms, but only 2 were upstairs which Owen did not like, and there was no real room for a dining table. It was in the living room. Weird. So after supper we went and looked at another house which I'm trying really really really hard not to fall in love with so that I am not going to be disappointed if it doesn't work out! But it's sooo perfect! I know all the neighbours in the bay and they are all awesome people with little kids too! This house is 2 stories with a finished basement. On the main floor is a living room, kitchen, foyer, laundry room, dining room, front and back entrances and a bathroom. On the second floor are 2 bedrooms, a bathroom, a huge linen closet, and the master bathroom with ensuite (eek!!). In the basement, is 2 huge rumpus rooms, a huge storage closet, another super large storage room, and a really big cold room. There is also a double attached garage and Owen would LOVE that as he would have somewhere to do his woorworking projects as we don't have a garage at this house. There is also a huge garden, a garden shed, two level deck, lots of trees, completely fenced LARGE backyard! There is a grapevine snaking up the one wall of the deck and looks absolutely gorgeous especially in its fall splendor! The backyard is SO big!! It's probably 3-4 times bigger than our current one and its completely fenced which means Janessa could be free to run anywhere in our backyard! Our current backyard is only half fenced in and that's annoying for us. Anyway... I know .. I have my hopes up already. But both of us could just see so much in this house and we would be so happy with all that space to have our life in! In the first house we looked at, Janessa just kind of went with the flow and walked with us. At this second house, she made herself right at home. She was jumping and running on the deck, running in the backyard, laying on the steps, watching tv, sprawling out on the couch.. it was so neat to see her just involve herself in the house! She just loved it! Seeing her love the house like that was really awesome for us to see. It made us feel really good about possibly owning this house. So we would LOOVVEEEE prayers in this situation! Thank you in advance! :)

An unwanted new stress..

So.... we're house hunting. There has been too much crap lately on this particular section of our street and I no longer feel safe in my own home. Especially when I came home after a meeting last night and there's cops on both sides of us!! We recently found out that our one neighbour is a drug dealer. So not okay. Ever since we found out, I have not been sleeping. I keep having nightmares of people shooting up our house, or breaking into our house and shooting us. I know. It's weird. But hey. I can't help what dreams I have. Anyway, I just don't feel safe in my own home now. Sure we love this house. BUT - it's just a house. We can make any house into our HOME. I told Owen after we moved into this place that I wasn't moving again for a very long time. Well that very long time is here and its only been two years. At the same time though, I cannot stay somewhere where we don't feel safe, and I am not willing to have my daughter exposed to what is going on next door. I am her parent and I will protect her at whatever cost. We so don't need this additional stress in our lives, but I can't live with what would happen if something were to happen... ya know?! SO... anyone have any places for sale/rent?! :)

Busy bee I am..

I have a very busy week ahead of me! I had a meeting tonight, I have another meeting tomorrow night, I have a dr appt Tuesday, I have another appt in the city on Wednesday, Wednesday night scrapbooking, Janessa has her first gymnastics class on Thursday, Janessa has playschool on Friday, and I have my card workshop on Friday night. AND in the midst of all this, I have a household to run, meals to cook... AND all the prep work to do for my card workshop on Friday night!! Thank goodness that Grandma is watching Janessa few hours on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday AND Friday so that I will be able to get a bunch of this stuff done!
In the midst of my busyness, I went to Church today. It's been awhile. I'm just still not quite ready to deal with the 'how are you' and 'how are you feeling' questions. I went today mostly to appease my husband. I was doing not bad.. and then I just sunk. It was all I could do not to high tail it out of there and go home. It didn't help that Janessa was not sitting still (like she usually does) and the lady beside us thought it was funny that she was acting up. THEN, she asks me if Janessa can have a sucker. Um. NO. I'm not going to give her a reward for being bad! What's wrong with you woman!? Anyway, so yeah that didn't help at all. No sooner was the service over and I was all but cornered with questions and people wondering what was going on with me. So what did I do? I LIED THROUGH MY TEETH. Egad! I lied in Church! Not the first time. But seriously, some of the people who were trying to ask me how I was, are the last people I'm going to confide in. One of which being a gal who started rumors that I was pregnant over something she saw on facebook. Anyway. I left and came home and wondered why I went. I feel like if I do go, I will go straight out the the van and not talk to anyone afterwards. I don't know. I just need space and NO questions. (unless those of you who attend my church and read this blog are my friends :) and yes you know who you are).
Anyway, just was not an overly great morning today. And another thing, my counsellor is moving to another position. Just when we were starting to really get somewhere and she was really helping me, she's leaving. sigh. She is trying a different job, and if within 3 months she wants her old one back, she can have it. She said that I can be put to another person in her office, or wait it out, or find a new one altogether. So I guess what I'm going to be (and have to be doing) doing is thinking a lot. How much do I need to be seeing her still. Do I really need her... do I think I need her.. sigh. This is just a little too much to have to process in too short a time. But I'm going to try. When she leaves, I won't be just left to 'deal'. There will be someone else who can help me. But still. sigh.