Can't believe I haven't shared some of these.

Somebody got her face painted for the first time. There was another little girl getting a butterfly painted on her face, so we looked at the pictures of options.
Katie decided she wanted to be a tiger.

Of course, she's asked me to put her kitty back every few days since. Here's Mommy's version. The most important part is the "shwishers."

And, every kitty needs a kitty friend that they can brush and snuggle. You can't tell by the picture, but Remy just loves when Katie brushes him.

"Cheese!"

Yesterday, we went to Costco, and the firemen were there with a couple of trucks set up so kids could investigate. They also gave the kids little hats and sticker books. Katie was more than willing to chat with them and have a new hat, but no way was she wanting to get in that big truck. She was just sure that they'd start it while she was in there and the noise would be scary. There were some policemen there with their car as well, and one of them commented on the little "movie star" who didn't want to take off her sunglasses. She wasn't sure why the rest of us thought that was funny.

Of course, you have to wear your new fire hat to feed the horse.

And finally, since I know it's been a long time since the last picture, here I am at 28 weeks, this morning. I think this baby is holding onto my spine, I can't remember things being so squished with Katie. Even if I'm hungry standing up, there is no room for food once I sit down.

We regret to inform you

That we had a fantastic weekend, but we forgot real cameras. So all we have are low-quality cellphone pictures. Better than nothing, right?

Friday and Saturday were spent with a whole bunch of the rest of the Midgett clan. We had a family reunion outside Olds. Much fun was had, stories were told, and we met some fantastic people we hadn't met before. No pictures from there, but if you picture Katie in a sand pit, that's pretty much the gist of it. We had to drag her out of there every time we wanted her out, and we could hardly get her to eat 3 bites of a meal before she was wanting to go back and play.

Sunday, we headed up from there to outside of Rocky Mountain House to go quadding in the foothills with Andrew's cousin, Mark, and his wife, Kim. We had a great time, and Andrew thought to take some pictures with his phone.

We don't have any from starting out, only from mid-ride.
The quads, waiting while we all stretch and take in the view. Off to the right of this picture is a fire-lookout tower. Baseline, if you're interested in that sort of thing. The view is stunning, as well it should be from this elevation. Roughly 1900 meters. By the end of the day, the nearest quad will have been rolled, the furthest will have a flat tire, and the one just this side of the far end will have been flooded. But not by me.

And not by me, because I don't do those things most days, but we're extra careful when we're carrying extra excitement (aka: little kid). We stay on logging roads and well-established trails to minimize our impact on the environment and keep those views spectacular. Katie loves to ride on Mommy's back, but she says Daddy's quad is scary. We switched her for a while when my back got tired, and she wasn't happy about it. We think it's a combination of her being overtired from nap refusal, and the poor girl can't see anything over his shoulders.

On the next peak. We rode up on the back of Andrew's quad from the bigger trail. Didn't want to take all 4 machines up, and it wasn't far. While we were up here, we could look back at the newer fire tower, and we could see on another peak, what looked like a big gazebo. We decided it must've been the old lookout, though it wasn't a tower.

After they dropped Katie and I off at the truck so she could have a bit of a nap, they went up to check it out. Andrew has a book about old fire towers in Alberta, and he's always been fascinated by a story about a man who was in the same tower for so long (20 or 30 years), that he chiseled the last 18 steps out of solid rock. But, he can never remember the name of that lookout, or where it is.

He's not likely to forget now! How funny that we'd just been discussing it, and that's the one they found. And sure enough, 18 steps chiseled into the mountain. Pretty impressive.

The view from there.

And this is what we woke up to on Monday morning. We were optimistic about Andrew's chances of getting called to fight wildfires soon when we spotted 4 fires from that lookout. Not so much after 2 extra feet of snow, things are pretty wet now.

*edit* One quad got drowned when Mark wanted to see why the trail had moved away from a big puddle (this was the only "wreck" Katie and I saw, and she thought it was hilarious. "Silly Uncle!"). Turns out it was because the puddle is deeper than a quad. One tire got blown when someone hit a sharp rock in the trail, and the other quad rolled/tipped on a wonky angle in the trail. No one was hurt, all the quads made it home, and the boys were happily muddy and declared the day a success.

Ridiculous

This is the view out my window from 12:10pm today.

Yes, 10 minutes after noon. This is an important picture, because...

Here's the view from 1:05pm.

Seriously. This is why we don't plant the garden yet.

The sweetest girl

Yesterday was my check-up. Everything measures just right, and the heartbeat is good & strong. Katie goes to my check-ups with me because she just LOVES to listen to the baby, and it's only a few minutes for her to sit still. Yesterday, she had the doctor and I both tearing up. Definitely a nurturer. She snuggled up to me while the doctor was listening to the baby, and was smiling and whispering little encouragements to me. So sweet.

We also went to Costco yesterday, in search of good produce, and some oatmeal. Well, we totally forgot the oatmeal, but we got lots of produce, and picked up one of these.

I've been wanting one forever, and there is an instant rebate right now for about 1/3 of the price, so I couldn't pass that up.

Katie was thrilled because that means there's a big new box to play in.

A little girl and her critters.

Good grief she's getting to be such a big kid these days.

First up, Remy.
"Wait, wait, wait. I need a fix something."

Almost ready.

"Okay, ready! Cheese!"
We don't get to see Remy's face, because every time she lets him peek, he gets up and walks away.

And, her Bailey. All day long, she talks about her Bailey.

"You take a picture. I lay down like Bailey."

As you can see, Bailey just hates this.
"Cheese!"

** Note: There are easily accessible places that the cats (and dog) can get away from a small child in our house. But since Remy chooses not to escape, and actively searches out child-maulings, I don't feel bad for him in the least. **

We learned a new word.

Okay, maybe not a new word, but certainly a new application.

Long video for those on high speed, or who really have nothing else to do.


Short video for dial-up, or if you only want the most pertinent parts.

Why is the dog sleeping on my shoes?

Does she not have a nice squishy bed to sleep in?

Why yes, she does. But she also won't make the cat get out of it.
And while she's content to snuggle with the cat if the cat comes to her, she won't go to the cat.

The snow finally melted enough to get to the swing set the other day. Katie was so happy that she could finally "fwing" again. Of course, it's snowing again this morning, but it seems to be warm enough that it won't stick around for long. Of course I could be wrong. I was looking through old blog posts this morning and remembered that when we got home from Europe last year on April 22nd, we got home to about 2 feet of snow. Doesn't look like we're quite in for that today, but we'll see.

So brave. Aunty Sharon stopped by this afternoon and wondered if we'd been somewhere special because Katie was wearing this dress. Katie doesn't need a reason to wear a dress, she just likes to be "fancy."

Cute story from this day though, we had actually been running errands in the city. Katie was very excited to go to the city and kept asking when she'd get to play with toys, which I took to mean that she wanted to go to IKEA, because they have a toy section to play in. Apparently, I was wrong. When we were leaving the city, she informed me that she had wanted to go to "the other city. Where we listen to the baby." My doctor's office also has toys to play with.

For Papa.

This is a picture of placating a restless kid who just wants to go outside on a very cold, rainy day.
Painty toes again!

She likes color, this kid. My toenails are blue too, because Mommy had to match.

23 weeks

This is last night. I do tend to stick out a lot more at night, but Andrew thinks that makes better pictures.

My little foreman.

First, Mommy made smoothies for breakfast.
And they were yummy.

Then we needed to work on finishing renos. That's our project for while Daddy's work is slowed down. Katie really wanted to be in charge of the hammer, but I was able to talk her into a measuring tape and a pencil instead when I told her that she could be the foreman. She was thrilled.

Then we decided to have a walk. Katie's legs got tired, so she had to find a pack horse.
Look! Our snow is almost gone!

Our weekend

Saturday we went to Katie's Aunty & Uncle's house for a visit and some yummy supper. Before supper though, the boys went for a quad ride and us girls all went to see Aunty's horses.

Katie found a stick on our walk.

And poked it in every puddle on the way back.

Then she got to sit on Fancy. She'd have got to go for a ride, but it's spring time and the horses are a little bit riled up, so we thought it best to stay in one spot.

Sunday was Easter, of course, so we had a little egg hunt. She wasn't sure how to figure that a bunny left eggs in the yard, but she was very excited to look for them. She's still 2 and not terribly observant though, so she had to look pretty hard.

But she was very excited when she did find them!

And we dyed eggs. A little late, I know, but it was fun anyway.
She stirred the dye.

And she put some eggs in.

And stirred some more.

And then we took out the eggs and they were "SO BEAUTIFUL!"

So beautiful, in fact, that I couldn't get her to give me anything buy goofy faces.

She just wanted to look at her eggs. For an hour after we were done, she just sat there at the table looking at her eggs.

Spring!

Ever get the feeling you're being watched?

This is Katie's new shirt, she picked it out herself and she is so proud. Okay, technically, she picked the one that was 5 sizes bigger, but I made her get a smaller one because I knew she wouldn't be happy waiting until it fit properly.

Playing on the deck the same day as the above picture, April 1st. Mommy & Daddy shoveled off most of the deck, and she has her little shovel and is doing her part too. We can't keep her inside anymore. Notice the poor dog peering in at the gate. It's funny now, most of the time, Bailey is a really happy-go-lucky sort of dog. We wonder if she's even aware of her surroundings at times because she just misses so much. Not when her kid is outside though, she's on high alert, letting all those scary birds know that they need to stay away.

And here's the same dog a week later, tickled pink that one of her bones had reappeared from a snowbank. Of course, she still can't let her kid out of her sight, so she sprints around the yard to find a good observation point where she can chew for a while.

And this is what the little girl was doing.

Short video clip here.


Splashing in the "bee-utiful mud." We circled the driveway probably 10 times with her running for all she was worth through every puddle she could find. And, as you can see, came in with her pants dripping and her boots full of water. She thought that was hilarious.

And a bit longer video clip here, 12 seconds.

And finally, a picture from yesterday. Notice how the necessary attire has changed. It's getting fairly warm now, we're loving it.

I have to apologize for the terrible quality of the video clips, apparently my editing program kills the picture. I'll have to see what I can do about that.