What a weekend. We started it of on a great note… first off Ken went and got his hair cut (yay!!). And then was our cousin (maternal) bbq. We had all 3 of my cousins combined with Veronika’s fiancée Adam over. That meant 4 new people to tell all their adventures to. They drug Elizabeth off to the bedrooms for stories and play time.

Chatting in the livingroom... Veronika is in the back, Elizabeth on the couch and you can just see Katie's hair on the rocking chair.

Elizabeth in Emanuel's room

Dinner was a great success. We had beans (the ones I usually make), a Caesar salad thanks to Veronika, stuffed potatoes brought by Elizabeth, banana bread (made that morning) and then cake we didn’t make it to (Katie). The kids ate a ton and we still have left overs. 

After dinner was make up time. Veronika is on another course and needs  to do a certain number of faces before her test. She had time to do Elizabeth and Katie’s here at our house. Fun! By this time Echo had come to the realization that the cousins really aren’t that bad and was ready to cuddle. 

Working on Elizabeth's make-up

Oldest and youngest cousins

We finished our gift for Uncle Wayne on Friday. Each of the kids made pictures to put together into a book. They wanted to give him something special for his birthday that was on Friday. They put effort into it each day this past week with the making of the cover on Friday.

A very simple cover

One of the inside drawings

I made Jimmie’s card this year. Just playing around with paper and stamps and embossing. I am actually starting to feel the crafting urge when it comes to paper craft.

Skinny elephant

Inside

I did have a minor hiccup with my birthday purchases – the sunglasses I picked up had BIFOCALS on them… so unfair. Winners has a 10 day return policy and I am very glad I kept my receipt and tags. Very frustrating. 

I have decided, we need to have MORE family visits… it is absolutely amazing to have the ability to build a relationship with my cousins as adults. The age gap ranges from 12 years to 7 years between them and me so this is a whole new thing and a definite blessing.

The landlord came by Friday to spray the yard for weeds, so for 48 hours the grass is a no play zone. Luckily BEFORE that the twins and I went out and attempted to emulate a weed wacker. Ours is still not working. So the end result – we found 2 VERY active ant hills (not red) and the lawn looked much nicer. I couldn’t resist but take some pictures of our own sheep – Petite Sheepette and Bitsy Sheep with their Nanny Sheep. The boys thought it was beyond cute. AND I managed NOT to put them on the ant hills first try!

Out in the green

I snuck out for a walk Friday afternoon with JUST Echo in the single stroller with NO carseat! She is still a bit small to have the straps keep her perfectly in place but she had fun and got compliments. The netting is a great thing I got way back when the twins were born. And the slurpee was lovely and HUGE.

In the stroller like a big girl

"the Tub"

Our Saturday was pretty much epic… first off was getting the whole family ready AND out the door BEFORE 11 am to head over an hour out to my nephew Jimmie’s 6th birthday party. We were supposed to swing by Superstore to get the “prinpress shoes” our Trinity has been patiently asking after, but without the time AND a temper tantrum over the potty it just wasn’t a go. Neither was stopping at Winners to return the blasted sunglasses BUT we did get out earlier than expected. Of course there was at least 2 trips to get everything into the van that we could possibly need – everything from a playpen (in case of nap) to swim suits (in case of rain) and the stroller (which we actually used).

We managed to find my brother’s place without too much trouble and beat mom and Uncle Wayne there by a bit of time. We actually beat the birthday boy there too! He had swimming lessons and then they had to pick up the cake on the way home. So we got some time with just Aunty Holly and her mom up from Texas. They had Trinity’s belated birthday presents. A Hello Kitty dressed in leopard print and a sweet little Hello Kitty coin bank. She was over the moon!

Belated Birthday

Echo and Aunty Holly's Mom

There was bubbles, balls, rackets and even some sort of animal shaped grabbers. At first it wasn’t too hot but the heat came rather quickly. Sadly the shade was ant infested but we lucked out with the lack of mosquitoes… a clear indication that we were NOT in Edmonton. After all right now Edmonton is the mosquito capital of Canada!!!

Playing in the sun

We were out there over 4 hours in the sun with pizza, cake, watermelon and other goodies. The kids ran and ran and ran until the baby was more than done.

Enjoying the sun (note the OTHER Alaska shirt and the OLD sunglasses... they are missing a screw but do in a pinch)

Look at his awesome haircut!

We spent some time in their apartment before heading out. We got to pet one of their cats… not sure where the other was hiding. Echo was enthralled of course. She is a huge animal fan at this point. This gave me enough time to call up Veronika and ensure they were home.

Echo and Eris

I had to lend my face to her course work again. And during that visit the kids watched tv, played the new Xbox Connect, terrorized… I mean played with the pets (Combyne, Holli and Dinah the cat). Dinner was amazing – steaks cooked to perfection, steamed veggies and Caesar salad. Adam is amazing with the BBQ.

Playing Guess Who with Cousin Veronika

Hanging with Combyne

We all walked to the nearby 7-11 with the puppies… the boys took turns walking them. It was nice to get out for a walk in the now cooler evening. Veronika wanted to treat the kids to little slurpees for desert. They are super close to their 7-11, so are James and Holly! Lucky duckies.

Walking the dogs to 7-11

Veronika did MY make-up on Saturday for her schooling. I was already turning red from my burn but she did an AMAZING job. I am so looking forward to her doing our make up in August for the wedding. And can’t wait to brag about her to anyone and everyone to get her more business! Seriously, I love having her do my make up. And I am not a big wearer.

Natural look

It was well past 9pm when we finally got out the door to go home. The drive home was REALLY quiet with the kids nodding off before very long. With the amount of energy they used over Saturday we were NOT surprised. Actually I was amazed at how much energy they had at Cousin Veronika’s.

While today was a super quiet day (I even got in a nap which helped with the sunburn a little) this evening I got out for some girls time with pizza at Lauralee’s (homemade) with Karyn and Echo as well. We had pizza, played with the kitties (Xena and Gabrielle) and just generally hung out. What a great end to a busy weekend.

Echo and I think Gabrielle

OK one hitch in the weekend – well two combined… Ken accidentally locked the keys in the van while it was running before he and Trinity were able to head out to look at the “prinpress shoes” and then once the AMA guy came… and VERY quickly unlocked it were unable to find a pair of shoes at the store that fit. Her feet were too wide. So I am hoping the ones I saw at H&M previously COULD fit her feet better. Ken says she handled the idea of going to another store rather well… after all we have to head to the south end of the city to get my photos AND return my sunglasses… although on Wednesday we have to head back to the city to get to Echo’s cardiologist appointment. I am not sure if we will visit any parks there, the mosquitoes are rather bad. It will be a long morning at the hospital for the appointments anyway.

We had a VERY busy weekend, got in some quality play with their cousin… spent tons of quality time with MY cousins and have seen a lot of sun. I am not sure how much going out we will get this week upcoming. I am a little nervous about the appointments… they WILL be weighing Echo… and still rather burnt to a crisp BUT we have a story to finish, a bunch of cleaning to do and hopefully a chance to put ECHO in the girl pool. Either way this weekend will be a pleasant memory to bring up when the kids get stressed or frustrated. OH and Fat Sheep has done some blogging! Be sure to read all about it HERE!

Mom with ALL her grandkids

Uncle Wayne and his "greats"

James, Holly, Jimmie and Holly's mom

2 days away from home and Echo and I are glad to be back. We were super busy for most of it getting to know puppies and a kitty, playing with Cousin Veronika and Adam (her fiancée), eating out… and then there was the test!!!! I won’t know if we passed it (well if VERONIKA did) until Friday but I think she was marvellous,and we weren’t half bad either!

Our Tuesday started in a flurry of activity when Cousin Veronika and Adam showed up… I was still in bed (oops) and not packed so there was packing, kids wanting to visit and of course a quick shower and then the hour + drive to their home. That is where Echo met Combyne, Hollie and Dinah. (dog, dog and cat respectively) They all fell in love, though Dinah was a little cautious.

Hollie

Combyne

Miss Dinah

After putting up the playpen in the kitchen (there was some trial and error and 3 grown ups working at it) we settled in to an AMAZING lunch cooked by Adam (the man can cook and then some!)… and a lovely rest in their sunny living room. It was amazing to catch up with family and give them the opportunity to actually meet and fall in love with Echo. This was their first chance to do so. (the first of many now that we are half a far away) I am 12 years older than Veronika… she is the last and I am the first of the MacLean grandchildren (there are 5) and a lot of our experiences with our grandparents mirror each other. It is amazing how much we have in common in our memories, our likes and our sense of humour.

After visiting we headed out to the new Swiss Chalet. The service wasn’t great but Echo was kind enough to stay in her carseat and munch on her mashed potatoes and I got to eat a whole meal AND desert. CHEESECAKE! I have really enjoyed this opportunity to ALSO get to know Adam. After all he IS family. Right now he is looking for work, he just got back from commercial fishing in B.C. It turned out he has a bad reaction to the scales of the particular fish they were after AND was rather ill. I have to say we are glad to have him back.

After supper it was back to the house to have a quiet evening in. We did try and get Echo to nap throughout the day and in the evening succeeded. She slept for a couple of hours until midnight when it was time for me to collect her and head up to bed… Sadly she decided she didn’t want to share a bed and spent an hour trying to shove me out of it, and then woke up periodically all night. Dinah also helped her along by jumping on the bed and spooking me. I was tired enough and asleep enough to misinterpret the motion of her jumping ON the bed with Echo falling OFF.

We had to be up VERY early – 6/6:30 as we had to leave by 7:30 to deal with the potential rush hour traffic. Traffic turned out to be really good and we got there SUPER early… lots of time for Echo to convince us to take her OUT of her carseat and to meet some of the other face models AND make-up artists. There were some lovely ladies though Echo was VERY cautious.

The written was first and I opted NOT to wander around downtown in a busy city with a baby alone, instead I waited in the reception area and kept Echo busy with food, breastfeeding and toys. She did rather well only making a few noises I am told were not even heard. Veronika finished with some time to spare so we moved back out into the hallway and played with Echo and discussed the test.

Next was the practical… part ONE. We all got set up in our BACKLESS chairs in front of our make-up artist’s station only to be told to move ONE chair to the RIGHT… which sucked as I had JUST gotten Echo to fall asleep in my arms. Moving woke her right up. And she didn’t like the new artist. Thankfully the artist to the right again was someone Echo was enthralled with. She managed 20 of the 30 min a perfect angel watching the other lady, once she slowed Echo got fussy but we managed. The first look was to be like a Dove commercial – the make-up less look. I was pretty happy with everything BUT my eyebrows… in order to shape them and fill them in she made them VERY dark, too dark in my opinion.

The next one was an extreme smoky eye built up on the natural look… AFTER we moved 2 chairs down. Echo was pretty willing to sit and actually fell asleep for a little bit. I didn’t have time to get a picture of the natural look sadly. The new lady was a mother of 3 and was VERY aware that the best way to deal with our Echo was to quietly talk to her from time to time while she did my make-up. The other artist was younger and SUPER tense as soon as she saw she would be dealing with a baby even though it was ME who dealt with the baby. I was a little disappointed in my smoky eye. She was VERY timid about it in my mind though the blending was wonderful. I would love to se (or have Veronika do for me) a more extreme version done on myself. Keep in mind that between these two looks the instructor had to mark and then again after… Echo was less than impressed.

Smoky from the side... I need to get the image off of Veronika's camera as my forward was fuzzy

One girl had her model show up 3 min AFTER start time… ouch! But after we were done being marked we could head off for an hour lunch. We were hungry but couldn’t really eat… still TWO more tests to go and a baby who was starting to lose A LOT of interest and be VERY tired. We picked her up a plain bagel at our luncheon and headed back early to ensure time to pee and change the baby. Bagel was a HUGE success as was the fact that the last two parts of the testing were to be done on me by VERONIKA. Echo was quite content about that for the most part, chomping her bagel pieces and then finally after a few cries passing out. The first look was 50’s glam. It was fun to have the extra lines for eyeliner and the interesting colours. Then after the marking they were told to do an Avant-garde 50’s look. VERY extreme, we had to go stand at the end of a hallway and then walk towards the instructor. This meant leaving Echo with Veronika and the other artists which was NOT to her liking. She actually slept until I had to get up to do that! Poor sleepy baby. We won’t know for sure how the marking went until Friday… so I have fingers crossed… I just know she did WONDERFUL.

Runway ready

After marking we removed MOST of the over the top make-up, gathered up our stuff and baby and headed back to Adam and Veronika’s where dinner was waiting for us – a VERY yummy chicken and some cabbage rolls they picked up from a nearby (and amazing) store. We put Echo down for a nap before heading home… in a clean outfit as it was SUPER hot in the room where we did the testing and she sweated her bit of hair into curls!

Post adventure nap

Adam left to go quad-ding and we packed up and headed home… after I took some pictures of Combine! Honestly, could you resist??

Soooooo cute!

We got home to a relatively messy home and kids who were VERY happy to see me but not willing to leave their netbook fun.

Gaming

Veronika stuck around for a little visiting before heading back home as Karyn and Victoria came by. They got their baby snuggles in and we worked out with Karyn having her over tomorrow to do her laundry allowing Ken and I to head OUT for our anniversary dinner! 10 years tomorrow!! All this in 2 days! What a great way to cement one of my major reasons for wanting to move her – being closer to family!!!

On a more negative note – today the Canada Post did a complete lock out. This is NOT a good thing for our family – we have our federal and provincial child cheques to receive (we are going to get them to direct deposit ASAP) and as a contractor Ken is always paid with cheques. So today Ken called all the companies he has work with to make sure they either cancelled sent cheques OR sent them to him NOT using the post. And tomorrow we get to take turns sitting on hold with the government working on the change over to direct deposit. FUN FUN! I am REALLY hoping this will pass quickly…

Cousin Veronika, Gavin and Echo