Kids Day!

I LOVE this day at the stampede.  It comes the week after the parade. Children get into the grounds for free with an accompanying parent, if they make it there by 9am.  It was fun getting everyone ready and on time!  I guess we have practice with 9 o'clock church, although we are not always successful at being on time!  Uncle Graham and Grandpa C. were the only men with us, so we appreciated their help in keeping everyone safe and taken care of.  Graham and Martha were very good at organizing what events we would go see and so good to help with the little ones.  Thanks once again! 

Here we are at the first stop of the day.  The "Buckaroo" building provided great entertainment for the kids.  These special scooters were a favorite spot for my girls!

Here we are waiting for the "Super Dog" show to start!  We ate lunch while we were waiting.

Evey absolutely was in love with the dogs.  She had to pet every single one after the show!

These boy cousins had so much fun this summer.  The Canadian flag faces are the best!

Here we are at a "high dive"and "motorcross" show.  

These cute 12 year old cousins were amazing at helping me with my girls.

This "statue" is a real person.  He was so good that I was fooled.  We were all surprised when he suddenly pointed his gun at Caden.  Ofcourse Caden was the one trying to touch and inspect him the most!

Even though there were big crowds and it was a challenge to keep track of my children, I enjoy the spirit of the stampede and the fun things that the children get to experience.  I also love reliving my childhood!  Yahoo!

Skip to My Lou, in Grandma's backyard!

What a fun and special place to spend our time in the summer with cousins.  Grandma and Grandpa Carter have a huge backyard for their city home.  It is a wonderful space that accomodates the many grandchildren!  Skipping was VERY popular this summer.  The cousins had all the aunties and Uncle Graham turn the rope for what seemed like hours.  There were many contests that went on to see who could jump the longest!  Even the adults got involved.  I also decided to relive my childhood.  I skipped 40 ish consecutive jumps which wasn't too bad I thought, ya know, for my age.  My record didn't last long however..those other talented siblings of mine creamed me!  Oh well.  There was nothing like the feeling of all my little ones piling on top of me as I collapsed to the ground in exhaustion.  They were so happy and proud of me for jumping that long.  I absolutely loved that moment.  My kids are the best!

Evey just had to be a part of the fun!

Emery caught on to skipping a few summers ago.  It came so easily to her.  She too can hold a steady beat with her jumping!

Caden could take it or leave it.  He decided to join in this day since the majority of the cousins were doing it.  He did great as well!

Carter was the one who usually got the skipping activity going!  He would beg us over and over to turn the rope.  It was always his goal to have the jumping record amongst his cousins and even his aunties and uncle!  He tried his darndest and was sometimes successful!  His determination was great!

Uncle Graham was hard at work!

I love cute Auntie Laurette reliving "double dutch".  Go girl!  I love these pictures I got of my siblings!  Auntie Cynthia,(above) I must say that you were "the endure to the end" auntie with turning the rope.  Thank you, for my children's sake!

Chloe was a sweetheart to give Evey a horsie ride!

Berkley and Evey were hard at work helping Grandma pick and wash strawberries!

Uncle Graham is so wonderful with my children.  My girls love him!

Aw, I love my wonderful siblings!  We missed you Spencer!

Good times skippin' and a jumpin'!

YAHOO! It's the Calgary Stampede Parade!

This is another family tradition that we enjoyed this summer!  All growing up, every first Friday in July, we would be up by 4:30 in the morning to be ready to tackle the streets of down town Calgary for a front row seat, reserved by our lawn chairs.  The parade doesn't even start until 9 am.  It is a big event in this city!  It was so easy as a kid to do this, and thrilling to be up at such an hour, but now that I am grown and am a parent with my own children, boy it is a challenge to get all those little ones down there.  But we were up to the challenge!  I don't know how I got so lucky this year.  I was not one of the ones that had to wake up at the crack of dawn.  I think I lucked out since we were staying with the Sheers at the time and because Chelsea has even littler ones than I, we were granted an hour or 2 more sleep!  Thanks Chels.  We didn't arrive down town until 7:30.  I know, it's still early but we were the last group to get there.  I must say that I am SO impressed with all of my family and I must credit my wonderful brother, Greeny, his wife, Martha, and all of their selfless children for getting to our spot at 5 in the morning to reserve our seats.  What a thoughtful family.  Thanks again!  We wouldn't have had such a view if it wasn't for you guys!

Here is our wonderful group.  You should have seen Graham taking the pictures!  He had like 10 cameras hanging from his arms!  Abby got a picture of him.  Abby, could you send it to me?  I will be sure to insert it below!

This is the only picture we got of the 4 matching girls together.  Too bad it wasn't a full body shot.  We were just having too much fun I guess!

Enjoying pre parade activites!

I slipped these in here for me and Chels.  When we got back from Canada I was so excited to receive a little package from her, in the mail with these cute cute headbands that she had sewn to match the shirts.  It was our intention to make them when I was there, but we just didn't have enough hours..ahh!  So when I got these cute hair accessories, of course I had to pull the matching wear out all over again.  The girls wore them to church and they got a lot of compliments.  It's so fun.  Thanks Auntie Chelsea for being so sweet!

Back to pre-parade time..

This is one of my most favorite pictures of the summer!  Berkley LOVES Carter and would always choose him to go to and ofcourse Carter LOVES little Berkles!  He felt special that she was attached to him!

All these boys!  They were also busy crowding around Uncle Andrew watching him play the DS! 

We had to come prepared with a lot of snacks for the kids to keep them occupied!  It was Eden's 7th birthday this day!  Happy Birthday cute Eden.  We love you!  We had fun celebrating you.  After the parade we visited Lake Sundance and then had cake and icecream over in Grandma and Grandpa's backyard.

Evey loved hanging out with Corbin!  He is such a stud muffin!

It's finally parade time!  This parade lasts for just over 2 hours.  Ethan was loving this army tank!

Caden was thinking this spaceship was cool!

Ella was insistent on me taking pictures of her infront of just about every horse.  Let me tell ya, there were a truck load of horses!  We really kept busy!

Awesome, cool, amazing Star Wars.  The boys rushed up to see this!  Logan and Bentley were right there!

Marching with the storm troopers!

Poor Martha and Graham were exhausted from waking up in the wee hours of the morn and for organizing the whole thing, making sure everyone was taken care of.  They deserved these few moments of shut eye!  I think they were the most entertaining part of the parade!

It's a lucky day at Fish Creek Park!

It's a tradition to take a walk in Fish Creek Park that is located 5 minutes away from Grandma and Grandpa's house.  The kids love this activity and especially love it when we stop at the river to throw rocks in!  I think we captured some pretty cute pictures!

It sure was Carter's lucky day.  This was a first "four leaf clover" out of seven found that morning.  After finding this first one, he dropped it in the tall grass and was so upset that he couldn't save it to remember.  I reasurred him that at least we got a picture!  Then he went on to find 6 more.  I couldn't believe it.  He must have an eye for it!

It's my cute auntie sisters, Grandpa, and all of our gang!  We really are a big group!

Late Nights!

A highlight of our summer trip for the kids was late nights!  They had so much fun hanging out with their cousins partying at night, watching movies, painting nails, playing games, eating snacks and just visiting!  This is a picture of the cousins watching "Enchanted" in Martha and Graham's basement.  After the movie, Emery, Ella, and Evey were invited by Dani and Sophie to sleep over.  Evey lasted until 10pm but soon needed her mommy.  I had a feeling she might be too young.  I was so impressed that Sophie and Dani were willing to take it all on.  They are the sweetest girls!  Thanks Carters!

Here are Carter, Dani, and Jenna enjoying watching "Alien's in the Attic" at Chelsea and Andrew's house.  Yum, they are eating some delicious homemade icecream made by the Sheers.

Us adults..mostly girls, were having a party of our own in the other room.  That vanilla icecream was a delightful treat and ofcourse we always love that Sheer popcorn.  They have some yummy treats at their house!

I had many late nights with Chelsea, especially when we stayed at her house.  Here Chelsea is, nausiated and sick, sewing bandana shirts for our cute girls for the early morning Calgary stampede parade the next morning.  Didn't she do a great job?  I did help a bit.  I was the ironer, but nothing compares to how well she whipped these up!  Love you Chels!  Thanks for your dedication!  She is a girl after my own heart with the "matchy matchy" game that we play with our little girls.  Berkley wore the same shirt as the Hancock girls.  So fun!  Pictures are coming soon!

We chose YELLOW for Grandpa.  I can just hear him saying the color with such enthusiasm.  Over the years he has made it a big deal that this is his favorite color because it's so sunny and bright!

There were also many late nights enjoyed by the boy cousins.  Josh, Carter, Caden, Bentley, and Ethan spent a lot of nights in the Carter home.  Corbin was another excited cousin to have Carter and Caden take turns sleeping in the bottom bunk in his room.  Whenever they weren't there, he was so disappointed.  What a sweetheart.  We were so lucky to have such loving cousins wanting us to have these late nights and sleepovers!  We have the best family!