Congratulations & Happy Birthday

Mark's sister-in-law Greta had a baby girl earlier today. We welcome Emma Joy Nicholson to our family. Congratulations to Paul, Greta and Ava.

And we wish happy 28th birthday to our daddy and husband. We love you Mark. Thank you for everything you do for us. You make us very happy.

Cake!

So, its a week and a half late, but here goes anyway.

Last week, Uncle Lee (Mark's bro) and his kids came down from Vernon for a week. The very first day they were here, we got all of Mark's family together and had a big June/July birthday party for me (June 11), Mark (July 14), Violet (July 19) and James (July 27). Due to our food restrictions, I made the cake. And what a cake it was!



I made gluten free carrot cake, topped it with dairy free cream cheese icing, and then made rolled fondant for the turtle and flowers too!



The rest of Lee's visit was also fun. Chloe got to go to Playland with Uncle Lee, we went swimming, hung out on Canada Day (which was so cold!) and played some too.

Kara continues to try out new words, such as "car" and "jump". And "new", though it sounds like a mix between "new" and "no".

This is the last week of work for Mark before summer hiatus begins. We're looking forward to having daddy home for a few weeks, and hopefully going to the park now that it looks like summer might be here. Speaking of parks, we're off to the water park with some friends when Kara wakes up from her nap.

I am also headed to Trail with just Kara this weekend for my friend Coral's 30th birthday. Hopefully Kara doesn't hate the super long car ride too much... *fingers crossed* I'm dropping Chloe off in Abbotsford with Grandma on Thursday, and Grandma will bring Chloe home to Mark on Friday when Mark is done work. I'll be arriving home sometime late afternoon/early evening (preevening?) on Monday. It will really be nice to see Coral again.

Smart

I don't know if its just that I have forgotten how Chloe was at 15 months, but it seems to me that Kara is smart. She understands SO much of what we say, listens super well most of the time, and even though she's only got a handful of words (she mastered "more" today), she can very easily tell us what it is she wants. She figures things out really quickly, and wants so much to be like her big sister.

I'm not sure if she really is smart like I think, but I KNOW she's amazing.

Sleeping Cutie

Kara was really tired yesterday afternoon, so I put the TV on and put Kara on the couch. I went back to the kitchen to work on dinner, and 5 minutes later went to check on Kara. This is what I found :D

Sisters

Just a cute picture of my two girls :)

28

Today is my birthday. I'm 28. I was commenting to Jordy & Juana last night how I sometimes feel really old, and other times feel really young. In our group of friends from camp & Abbotsford, Mark and I are among the oldest. Yet I am definitely the youngest in the group of moms I know out here, and we are the youngest parents in our little group of 5 houses with young kids on our street.

So anyway, I'm 28 now. Hooray?

Sick

Kara had some sort of bug yesterday morning and threw up a few times. She went down for a morning nap and was fine afterward, so we went to David & Stephanie's wedding. Well, I think Mark got whatever Kara had, as he has been sick since about 4pm. Hopefully its super short like Kara's was.

Get better daddy!


Edit: So about 3 hours after I posted the above, Chloe and I both got sick. So all three of us got very little sleep. We're still really sore, but at least we can all eat again.

Congratulations David & Stephanie

2 weeks later, and another wedding is over. Thankfully this time none of us were in the wedding party. We could just go and enjoy the wedding and reception. Both were very nice. Though the wick on the unity candle was in an awkward spot, and it took them too many tries to light it.... but they persevered, and we got a good laugh out of it :)

We wish Dave & Steph a very happy life together. They are both great people and I know they will be greater after taking this wonderful step.


Also, I made cookies this morning so I would be able to have dessert. They were tasty. :D

5 AMAZING YEARS

Today is our fifth anniversary! WOW! It has been eventful and wonderful and sometimes hard, but it has all been worth it. We have two beautiful daughters that we love and we are just as silly as ever, if not more. Love and marriage sure are fantastic :)

This is us 5 years ago:

Ricky & Audrey's Wedding (and our little flower girl)

Our friends Ricky & Audrey got married yesterday! Yay for them! Chloe was their flower girl. So cute!

See:


It was a long day and Chloe was very well behaved. Mark was also a groomsman - very handsome! It was tough on me to take care of both the girls, though thankfully I had our friend Juana helping me out before the ceremony.

Here's all of us dressed up in our finery:


Everything else around here is going well, though both Mark and I are feeling very tired. In fact, I'm going to go put Kara to bed now, and then go relax on the couch with a book. Good night!