Friday afternoon to Monday evening has amounted to a busy and fun filled weekend for our entire family. Monday was Family Day in Canada, Sunday Valentines’ Day and Chinese New Year… add to that Poultry and Rabbit show 30 min from my mom’s and we certainly kept busy!

In order to make the travelling let gruelling on Ken and give us the optimal amount of time to visit with Mom, Mike and Harley we headed over to their house Friday afternoon. Ken with computer in tow! That gave us Friday evening to hang out, visit and the biggest treat of all – sleep over!

Supper at Grandma's (note the braid!)

Saturday morning was what is quickly becoming the traditional “Mike breakfast” – homemade waffles with strawberries (and this time raspberries we brought from our freezer) and whipped cream. Everyone in our family loves them (though Trinity had to do without the whipped cream). Sadly though the boys slept well that night – Trinity reacted badly to the sugar cookies in some animal crackers and kept Ken and myself up for most of the night!

After a wonderfully filling breakfast, Grandma setting up the afternoon meal of a homemade stew (in the crock pot) and Ken doing his necessary email work we headed 30 min out of town to a neighbouring city to visit the Poultry and Rabbit show. 7.00 for the 7 of us (family). Chickens, pigeons, even a Canadian goose were on for show… and a lovely variety of rabbits, small, medium and large!

Doves I think

I am not sure who had more fun – my mom or the kids. Even Trinity was pointing and chattering away, though I am rather sure HER favourites were the rabbits. I know they were mine.

BUNNIES!

After Emanuel was spooked by a rather vocal rooster we headed over to the main attraction – the petting zoo. This was especially interesting to the boys and my mom. There were bunnies, chicks, baby goats… it took us FOREVER to get those 4 out of there!

Gavin holding a duck

We spent the afternoon playing with Harley and Grandma while we waited on the stew to finish and Ken to get some work done. Stew was MARVELOUS! Mom even made dumplings. Then Mike got home – injured! He was out on the snowmobile when he had a minor accident tearing the ligaments in this shoulder. Painful but nothing that won’t heal… that is not to say mom wasn’t instantly worried though! Poor man!

Naughty Puppy

Sunday morning there was no Sunday School for the twins so the whole family remained at home to prepare for our Valentines Day/Chinese New Year party. I have to admit our decorations were definitely slanted to the Valentine side of things – using decorations from the boys’ combined birthday party last year that fell on Valentines Day. We had foam hearts that they decorated last year, pink balloons, our paper chains in the Valentines colours… Off the UK site we made handprint hearts. For Chinese New Year decorations we made tiger mobiles (it is the year of the tiger – off the UK site of course), I used some lovely place mats a friend sent us years ago from Hong Kong, red envelopes that came with outfits from the same friend that were for the twins ages ago… and since we couldn’t SET OFF fireworks – our very own, family made, glitter and glue fireworks hung up for display. (instructions) Add to that a potluck afternoon and everyone seemed VERY content.

l-r Zander, Gavin and Isabella

Chris and Chris were the first to arrive, (he) Chris is officially days away from cast removal in fact! With Xinny, Alan, Sean and Isabella (Alex was home sick) next, Ken went and got Ted and that left Nathan and Ada to make their way here. For entertainment we played the new Mario game for the Wii… 4 controllers and lots of passing them around, great fun.

Gifts! (Zander right)

Sunday night was REALLY special – we called in one of our babysitting vouchers and left all 4 kids to Chris and Chris and went out for a KID FREE dinner – a double date in fact! Back to the Rice Pad where Karyn and I ate previously. Great food, large portions, and the company – perfect. After dinner and chatting until the restaurant closed we headed over to one of Ken’s favourite Tim Hortons to get iced caps and then to Nathan and Ada’s apartment to finish visiting in comfort. This was Ken and my first time out for a kid free dinner since April 2009! God bless Chris and Chris is all I can say!!!

Decorations at the Restaurant

Monday was Family day of course here in snowy but sunny Alberta and after a relatively quiet majority of the day we had Nathan and Ada over for some relaxing visiting. Of course we took a belly picture – with Ada two months ahead of me she is definitely showing more but it was fun to take the pictures anyway.

Baby Bumps!

I got some lovely mail the past few days as well – Trinity’s leggings made it here from eBay… 3 pairs and I think she was MORE excited than I was! I do love buying them off there as retail costs me almost 3 times more.

Leggings!

And my cousin sent me the gDiapers she ended up not using with her kids to give a go with the baby. They are much thicker than the Sprinkles diapers I am going to purchase in March, but I definitely want to try them out at least for emergencies as the liner is 100% disposable, though looking at them I am not so sure I would WANT to try flushing them!

gDiapers

Before we left for mom’s my Grandma’s birthday cards for the boys arrived with instructions to use some of the birthday money to purchase them a religious book, my favourite Christian bookstore is in the same town as my mom so we headed there after the bunny show to get 3 rather simple readers. They also gave me a 10% discount as we homeschool! BONUS!

So a go go go weekend! With tomorrow being the “somewhat early” ultra sound finally! I have to admit I am nervous. Is it one or two babies… is it healthy?? I am ALWAYS nervous before the first ultra sound! Not to mention I HATE having to drink all that water and not pee! CRUELTY to PREGNANT WOMEN!

I am sure I have missed some of our weekend’s adventure but at least I have caught you all up somewhat… though I have not added Emanuel’s photos… took those Friday as well, but I will post them tomorrow to get opinions!!!

Sneak Peek of Emanuel's Pictures