October Adventures

Hey, aren't you impressed. It's only been six weeks since my last post.

October was a fun month. It started out with the city doing some road work in front of our house. Enoch totally enjoyed watching all the trucks...

but I didn't really enjoy the view out my front door.

Halloween excitement began and the debate about what to dress-up as was loud. Enoch was thinking of being Spiderman....

but went as Dash for his preschool party....



and then 20 minutes before he was to go trick-or-treating, he decided he wanted to be a cowboy, so we threw a costume together.


The girls choices were a little more permanent as was Paul's. He made this costume last year for a work party and we neglected to take pictures so he wore it again.

Vampire

Mulan

Cinderella

Optimus Prime

Reina and I also attended Enoch's preschool Halloween party. I think all the kids had a blast.

Auntie Angie came over early on the 31st and brought her Xbox. The kids (and adults) had a great time playing RockStar to the songs of the Beatles. The adults were so into it we neglected to take any pics of ourselves.

Rosa and Aaron came up for Halloween and the cousins had a fun time trick-or-treating together.

Can you guess what the kids pumpkins are supposed to be? Grandpa and Grandma can't guess because they already know.

Hope everyone had a Happy Halloween!!

I know, I know. Here's 2009.

Since Joanne has posted twice since my last post I felt the need to get my act together so here is the last eight months in brief:

January the kids enjoyed their new sleds from Christmas and the snow that stayed and stayed and stayed.

In February, before we cut Paul's hair, we spent an hour straightening it to see what it would look like. Different look for him.

In March Paul took Enoch and Lauryn to the Edmonton zoo.

They were fortuante enough to be there when Lucy, the Edmonton elephant was out for her daily walk.

In April we celebrated Easter and had fun coloring eggs and body parts. Reina spilt the blue coloring and then stepped in it.

Enoch discovered that using his hands to take the eggs out of the dye gave him "Hulk hands." He was quite pleased with the results.

May found us outside more as the weather turned nicer. The kids enjoyed the picnics and the dirt. Love the pose.

Enoch loved the dirt a little too much.

May was also Reina's 2nd birthday. She has pretty good aim for a two year old.

June is another birthday month for us as we celebrated Paul's and Enoch's birthdays.

Transformers are the new big thing at our house.

July we went to the Lund reunion with Grandpa and Grandma. Jo at least you took a picture. I don't have any.

Before we left Calgary we went to the Calgary zoo and saw the koalas.

July also brought a visit from Rosa and Aaron and the cousins. We had a blast with 10 kids in the house.

In August we visited Rosa and Aaron, and got a chance to try the new Raymond pool. We were too busy having fun to take any pictures, but here is a cute one of Reina enjoying ice cream.

September arrived with everyone going back to school. Enoch started preschool and loves every minute of it. He wishes he could go everyday to play "pirates" with his friend Marco.

After having everyone home for two months, then just Reina and me at home, we find it quiet and she misses her siblings, especially Enoch but she knows how to liven things up when everyone is home again.

We also have harvested the apples from our two trees in our backyard. We have more apples that we know what to do with. Apple crisp, apple pie, applesauce, apple juice.... We haven't even picked the crab apples yet!

Happy Valentine's Day

We thought you would enjoy this little gift of love. Eva thought it was great and wanted to share it with everyone.

Have a Happy Valentine's Day everyone!!!!

2008 Final Quarter in Pictures

It's been three months since my last blog so here they are in pictures.

This is the rabbit that comes into our yard to eat all the fallen crab apples. Even now with snow on the ground he still comes around. He is huge!!! These pictures don't do him justice.

We had fun at Halloween, even Enoch who at the first house decided it was too scary and wouldn't go. We finally were able to convince him and once he realize he could get candy did quite well. (For some reason we don't have a picture of Lauryn's costume. She was a cheetah.)

Here are our pumpkins. Designed by the kids and carved by me. Let me just say cleaning and then carving four pumpkins is really good exercise for your forearms.

The kids all got plenty of candy and even Paul got quite a haul. He even had his own bowl!

In October we also had the opportunity to visit Grani. We brought her some Halloween candy which she promptly fed to the kids.

Our most exciting adventure this quarter was Jeffrey's wedding. Here are some of our favorite memories of the weekend.

Check out the grin on Eva's face.

The madness that is being a part of a Salmon family picture session.

Aren't they cute!!

We couldn't forget about the "TAG PICTURE" If you look closely they all have their tags, even David and Enoch.

And of course the "We are A Family" chant picture. Check out Enoch and Anya. They have their fists ready to chant along too. Everyone else is either laughing hysterically, asleep or are slightly frightened by what has possessed their parents.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!! (I'm not sure what is wrong with Lauryn and Enoch's necks. Apparently, this is how you pose for pictures.)

The kids all got to meet Santa at Paul's work party.

Even Reina was willing to sit on the big guy's lap but you will notice no picture of Enoch with Santa. That's because when he met Santa he was busy trying to bury himself into the photographer's neck, thus no picture.

Santa gave each of the kids an early Christmas present as well which they were quite excited about. They also received balloon characters from the entertainer at the party. Enoch's was a sword and helmet if you can't tell.

Just before Christmas, Reina got in a fight with the bunk bed and the bunk beds won. She had a real shiner that is still fading. This picture was the best of what we took but it still doesn't capture the full complexity of colour that she had for awhile.

Lauryn celebrated her 6th birthday on the 22nd and wanted a strawberry shortcake in the middle of December. Since she was the birthday girl we tried to accommodate, but frozen just ain't the same. She also lost her second front tooth just before Christmas so we were trying to get her to sing "All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth" She wasn't too impressed.

Of course we had the traditional nativity performance on Christmas Eve. What we lacked in numbers we made up for in hilarity.

Here are a few funny clips from the night. Keep a close watch on Lauryn.

She is the best Mary ever.

If you listen really carefully you might hear Reina say one of the few words that she can say, that are understandable.

Reina really loved Christmas morning once she got the hang of it. She had to hang onto every present she opened, so now she looks just like a typical mom. Stroller, baby, cellphone and although you can't see it in the picture, her water bottle. She loved all her new things especially the sippy cups. I'm not quite sure why those were the best but....

Eva also celebrated her birthday. She turned 9 on the 26th and wanted a Lemon Poppy Seed cake which Paul and I loved, but no one else was a fan, including the birthday girl.

Well, that's it for this quarter. Check again in three months because blogging more recently is NOT one of my resolutions for 2009 (because there is no way it would happen).

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!