guess what....

in a matter of a week and a half... (of pure craziness) we SOLD our house and found our new house! 

We're moving to STRATHMORE! We hadn't even considered moving there, we liked Airdrie or the NE to be close to some family we know in Calgary. After a week of searching all day and some late nights we couldn't find anything in our budget, that would fit our family, and be close to some things we wanted. Then we found this place in Strathmore, I was actually excited to go look. The week was so emotionally draining, we would find something we like and within hours of it being listed it'd be gone. Or we would show up for an appointment and there's 15 other people there and half of them are filling out an application. We even saw one place that had bongs laying around and police tape all around the block. I saw a total of 14 places before we chose this place. 

We are darn excited to be living back together after 6 months of this chaos! Im so excited to finally feel like I'm now apart of this new adventure, some days I felt a little left behind. We're on the same street as the pool, hospital, skating rink and 3 schools. Levi will be able to continue preschool and I'm so happy about that! We will also have a spare bedroom.... and we LOVE visitors!

We move March 28/29... thats in a month! OH BOY!

Valentines Party.

 Levi had such a cute and fun valentines party at preschool. They sang this silly song and Levi just thinks its hilarious!

He made this for me, it says Love, Levi! So proud of all his spelling!

 Will loved all the attention and food!

I just love getting to go do these special mornings with Levi.We are so sad to be leaving his preschool, but excited to find a new one.

11 Months {Will}

We're a little late on this but its been an insane month..

taking 6-7 steps at a time

7 teeth

loves to mimick

signs "all done" and "more"

started clapping

gives kisses and blows kisses

doesn't play strange, but still prefers momma

im convinced hes the best little car traveler

18-24 month clothing

loves to climb on things

still shuffle crawls

Its so fun to see his personality coming out, hes very sensitive and dramatic. If we tell him no, he gets his feelings hurt and makes the saddest face. He loves to do everything his brothers doing, even if Levi doesn't want him too. He really loves to snuggle with Dave, he will snuggle me but then gets wiggly and wants to play. He always snuggles with Dave forever until he falls alseep. Melts my momma heart.

These two celebrate their birthdays this weekend! So excited for their party!

Welcome February!

Each month seems to be passing by so fast and so slow at the same time. I'm glad to see dreary January gone and hoping that February has better things in store for us. So far its been a hard week and a half, we've had two offers fall through on the house. My wonderful sister in law's sister passed away, I didn't know her well but my heart just breaks for them. For her husband and children, for her family and friends.

We have been busy with a ton of little things, so I don't have a ton of pictures of whats going on but here's a few:

Wills crawling and furniture walking every where. He's a very busy boy!

 These two love each other so much, some days I worry too much! Levi would maul Will all day if he could.

 But oh they are just so darn cute!

Levi has started dressing himself lately, can you tell?

We are hoping that things improve around here, and sooo excited for the long weekend! An extra day with Davey!

crazy week & weekend.

Tuesday I decided to phone some realtors and meet with two of them to see who we'd like to hire. I met with two of them. One I really liked and one I wasn't a huge fan of. The one I didn't like as much told me as he was leaving he might have someone interested, I thought it was one of his tactics to get us to pick him.
Well he wasn't kidding! He asked Friday if we could show the house Saturday. Um ok! We haven't picked ya yet, but sure!

Wednesday we got a call to see if we could take Will for his surgery Friday morning instead of the middle of February. YEP! Lets do this! Dave luckily can take Family Sick Days and was able to come home and help me with it.

Wills surgery went well! He's such a happy kid that he did so well, he was kind of out of it when he woke up. He didn't want to nurse but he chugged down a bottle and was back to his happy self!

Saturday we cleaned all morning, our house was spotless! The realtor showed it and told us it showed well, and to look for an offer early next week. Then Sunday he asked if we could do a February.1 possession date... Uh as in 6 days?? If need be, yep we can do that chaos!  I'm trying to not get my hopes up, but oh I am so hoping we get an offer!

Its been crazy and chaotic but we will take it! So keep your fingers crossed for us!

10 Months {Will}

 

The kid with all the faces.

23lbs

sleeping sooo  much better (up only 3x a night)

napping like its nobody's business

becoming a picky eater 

good at demanding moms attention (hint: screamer)

walking furniture like a pro

crawling- goes about a foot and then looks for furniture to walk 

6 teeth

gets into everything - learned to open up cupboards and drawers

doesn't like homo milk

gives high fives

shakes his head no

 

This is where Will is 50% of the time.. getting himself to the couch to be able to walk where ever he can.

 

I can leave him in the living room and find him in my room about 5 mins later (thats the other end of the house).

 Like I said. the kid with the best faces.

1.5 weeks and still going strong..

I dont know what virus we have going around our house but it can leave anytime.. its been brutal!

Will got croup Christmas Day and that lasted till Dec.31. Then he started getting a cold Jan. 2 and then ear infections Jan.5th. (one trip to ER and a trip to walk in clinic)

I got sick Dec. 29 with a nasty cold that we believe to be phenomena or bronchitis, I didn't have the best doctor at walk in clinic. Got an ear infection Jan.6. (two trips to walk in clinic)

Levi got a fever Jan.3, not a just your head is hot fever, the whole body is burning up fever. Jan. 5th Dave took him to the ER cause Levi's eyes were burning and he started vomiting. The Dr. is assuming its a viral form of what Will had.. that I had.. that now Levi has. His fever broke Sunday night and started back up yesterday afternoon. (a trip to the ER)

I can't believe how long all this has been going and that Dave hasn't caught it. He took a sick day yesterday and stayed home to help. Thank goodness! On top of all this craziness we showed the house twice Saturday and once yesterday (and 3 no-shows in the last week).   FINGERS CROSSED!!

P.S. for all the prescriptions we've been given this week I am very grateful to have benefits!

Boxing Day

Boxing day we headed out to the Murray dinner, we called ahead to let everyone know about his croup and they still said come out! Thanks guys!

 Murray tradition is to do a fishin pond for their presents, the kids love this.

 Will was still pretty miserable so not to much expression from him.

 Levi loves doing it, and LOVED the present! He'll be old enough to do t-ball this year, so its perfect!

Everybody left early, so we headed home that night. 

Dave went snowboarding (a gift from his selfless an awesome wife) on the 27th with some friends, and I stayed home with crabby Will and even crabbier Levi. I missed the Roberts family dinner that day, was pretty bummed about that! Dave let me sleep in on the 28th and have some time to myself, shopping with a friend and appys with another friend that night. 

Christmas Day & trip to the ER

 Levi wanted to be Batman all day.. he's gonna be the kid who wears the costume to school.

 We did this 3 years ago with Benson, Levi and Micah all 8 months apart. 

These 3 babies are 5 weeks apart!  How cute are they!

 Hunter and Bekah holding hands!

 Sorry Bekah, youre just so cute!

 Mom made the kids shirts that say "Somebody in Texas loves me". We sure love you to Uncle Justin!

Here's all 8 grandbabies, 4 and under. Its utter chaos but its a lot of fun!  

We got to skype Justin and I was a basket case, seeing him was so good but really hard to say good bye. Thanks to LeiLani and Max for hosting, it was so nice to be able to have places to nap babies and lock crying children into rooms for time outs. 

That afternoon Will started to sound a little wheezy, I thought maybe he was allergic to something he ate or just starting a cold. Hes been cutting his top two teeth and they've been beasts! He started to get pretty miserable by supper time, then by bedtime he was started coughing pretty bad. Then he was doing the croupy cough, the deep growling cant breath cough. So off to the ER at 10pm, he was struggling to breath! They gave him some steroids to helping his breathing, and we were home back by 12:30 with a very long night of no sleep for me or Will. Thankfully as of today, 5 days later he seems to be down to just a cough!

Christmas Morning Shinaagins

 This picture is adorable, we had to wake Will up for Christmas morning. Levi woke up at 6:30am so excited to see what Santa brought. Look how tired Will still looks but always got the cheesy grin!

 Thanks Uncle JJ for the great presents!

 The masks and the costumes of super heros were a huge hit!

 Thanks grandma for the cute jammies!

 Like I said, costumes were a huge hit!

It was a great Christmas morning!

9 months {Will}

 At 9 months Will:

walking along furniture

standing by himself

now has 6 teeth 

still eats anything and everything

if he sees food he gets super excited

very dramatic - he can throw a tantrum like none other

still so smiley

slowly sleeping better at night

the best traveler - gets lulled to sleep

didn't mind santa, just pulled at his beard

mommas boy... all the way

doesn't want to quit nursing

 LOVES to stand, this is an understatement. he will do this ALL day. hates laying on the floor, sitting is OK but standing and he gets giddy!

We sure love ya squishy bubs!

Its begining to look a lot like...

CHRISTMAS! 

(finally!!)

Normally we set up the first week of November so we've been pretty anxious to finally set stuff up. Things are very different this year for us but we are trying to make the most of it. So we crammed as much as we could this weekend while Dave was home.

 The boys got their Christmas Jammies! So stinking cute!

 Levi was so excited to finally set up our tree!

 Besides getting jammies on the day we set the tree up they get their Christmas ornament. Its a tradition Dave and I started when we first got married.

 We didn't put up as many ornaments as we normally do because our tree sits between two couches, which is at perfect level for a toddler, cat and a baby to get at.

Levi got to put the star on this year.

 We also "made" a premade ginger bread house. I think Levi thought he could start eating it right away. Sorry kiddo!

 I finally caught Wills scrunchy face on camera!

 We gave Will a gingerbread man to suck on, he thought it was fantastic!

 The finished product!

All the Christmas festivities wore Will right out!