A visit from Nana & Big Grandpa

We had the pleasure of a visit from David & Wendy recently - they were en route on their annual northward migration from Arizona to Canmore. The kids really enjoyed having them here, as did mommy & daddy!


Wendy is like Val in that she had an "agenda" for Davin in terms of milestones. Here she is getting Davin on her little car that my parents gave her for her 1st birthday.

Davin and Elijah both really enjoyed having Big Grandpa here as well. Davin warmed up to him almost immediately, despite the long interval since their last visit (well, long for a one year-old, anyway).

Happy Birthday (Great) Grandma Jesse!

Our dear (great)-grandma Jesse (Dennis's Dad's Mother) is 92 today! Wow! Congrats! We wanted to send you this special card with our pictures on it to wish you a very happy birthday up there in Smithers. We hope you have a wonderful day!

You can click on the pictures to see a larger version.










The jacket Davin is wearing in this picture was a gift from great Grandma Jesse - thank you great Grandma! Mommy loves the color, so I've been wearing it a lot!

Sometimes grandma and grandpa want to see pictures of daddy on the blog - here's a good one of us playing "horsey" with him. Mommy took the picture. Usually daddy wants to take the picture - we think he needs to learn how to share the camera with mommy more.

Here we are having fun with mommy at the park. We hope you have fun on your birthday too, great grandma!

Bye for now! We love you!

- Elijah and Davin

Sheldon's Playhouse

We have been lent a very special playhouse, one built for my dear cousin Sheldon Paul near the end of his battle with leukemia. Elijah fell in love with it on a visit, and a while ago it arrived on a flatbed truck equipped with a small crane and landed in our front yard. In this day and age of construction overload, it is no small matter to book a large crane. Last weekend we finally arranged for one large enough to get it over our house (they don't seem to go in for alleys much around here).

If the initial arrival was exciting, this was positively beyond the 3 year-old mind: a HUGE CRANE comes and LIFTS THE PLAYHOUSE UP IN THE AIR and OVER MY HOUSE into the backyard AND AND AND ...

Davin, meanwhile, watched daddy in the backyard directing the crane operator with a cordless phone. She didn't even notice that a small house descending from the sky was even slightly unusual. This is despite Elijah's best efforts to convince her of its MOMENTOUS, LIFE-CHANGING implications with a breathless running commentary.

Nature seems to be winning over nurture on this one.

Happy Birthday Davin!

Here's a video from Davin's 1st birthday party for you to enjoy. This is a larger file, but hopefully it will still be viewable for most of you. Maybe this will finally convince the grandparents that they need high-speed internet!

As before, you can click here to view the video, or simply click on the picture.

The kids on the couch

Hi everyone!

I had the notion tonight that it would be fun to post video clips on the blog - our digital camera will take short ones - so here is the first attempt.

This video is the hilarity that ensued when Elijah decided to "read" baby Davin a story. Originally I was after a "cute, cuddly moment" - but when things went awry I let the camera roll and tried not to laugh!

You can view the movie here, or click on the picture!