Halloween 2012

Happy Halloween from us Beatties! This morning Madison and I went to the kids school to watch the parade of classrooms across the stage. Each class modeled their different costumes while dancing to groovy halloween music. The staff all looked awesome but the Addams family totally stole the show! They had fabulous costumes and totally played the parts. It was so fun and the entire student body was cheering and laughing. Such a fun morning. Sadly in the evening it was freezing cold and we did not want to go trick or treating door to door. We hit the mall instead and the kids were happy with what they got. The best part of Halloween for my kids is getting to dress up all day long. Hope your Halloween was as fun as ours.

Arrr Matey!!

For his birthday this year Brayden got the LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean Black Pearl pirate ship. I found it in August on clearance when I went to the States shopping with my sister and couldn't resist. Brayden loves LEGO and he loves pirates so it was the perfect combination. For whatever reason it took him a few days to get up the determination to start building but once he started he was able to get it done in 2 afternoons. It was fun to watch him build and he loves to figure it out on his own and really enjoys seeing the progress as it takes shape. This one was awesome! Even the LEGO characters just looked the part. Captain Jack Sparrow looked just like Johnny Depp in the movie, along with William Turner. Now we need to rent the movie so Brayden can see what the real Black Pearl looks like.

Story Time

I know that sometimes it’s hard to get everyone around a book so they can see the pictures when there are three kids. In our house it usually means the one on the far side whines about not being to see the pictures and sometimes ends in a little fit depending on the age of that ‘left out’ child. When everyone hunkered in with Ryan to read a story Madison decided to come up with a solution of her own. She can be quite the monkey like her sister.

Snow Sucks

I know the kids have been kind of looking forward for some snow to play in because I think they forget the snow comes with cold weather. This weekend we came back home to Calgary after Braydens baptism to a fresh coat of snow. Since scraping the front windshield of Ryan’s work rig will be a HUGE pain in the butt, Ryan put together a tarp cover to protect it from snow and frost. This is how he gets it on:

BAPTISM

What a big day today. After an interview with his Bishop Brayden decided to be baptized by his dad! We made the trip down to Lethbridge so that it would be easy for all our family to join us and some of Braydens friends from primary would also be able to come. It was a nice, quiet time where we able to get together with most of our favourite people and enjoy Brayden. Such a proud moment as a parent to have him make such a good decision. He's such a great example to his sisters and to Ryan and I and he was so excited about it. Uncle Dustin gave a great talk about baptism and gave Brayden his own pocket knife which was followed by Brayden's baptism. While Ryan and Brayden got dried off and changed we watched a few Mormon Messages that you can find on the lds.org website and then I gave a brief talk on the Holy Ghost before Ryan confirmed him a member and gave him the gift of the Holy Ghost. Then we all pigged out on yummy treats and enjoyed a few moments together as a family before having to clean up. It was a perfect evening! Thank you to everyone who came and was a part of such an important day for our little family. I just love this boy so much.

Our Pirate is Eight

Today Brayden is 8 years old! Wow, eight is one of those numbers that seems so big. When did it happen, how did we get here and why did it go so fast? Brayd wanted something to do with pirates so we made some eye patches, captain hats and printed off some crazy looking pirate characters for cupcake toppers. Being away from most of our family my sister and Matthew were the only ones that made it over but that enough for Brayden. It was a school night anyway so we didn't have a lot of time for hard core playing and we're going to Lethbridge this weekend when he'll be with the whole family so the quiet evening was fine. He enjoyed it and had some good presents to unwrap which is one of the most important parts of a birthday when your eight anyway.

Brayden is such a great kid. He's compassionate, and such a caring older brother. He love to impress us and does every day. He is amazing with his hands, loves to build and create and rarely grows annoyed with his two sisters who are always trying to be a part of what he is doing. I am so proud to be a mother of such an incredible boy! Brayd, we sure love you and happy birthday.

Calaway/Beattie Thanksgiving

This thanksgiving weekend is a busy one for us. We’ve barely been able to get everything unpacked and in a functioning place and we’ve got our first group of visitors. Ryan sister came up earlier in the week to visit with Parker in the hospital, the rest of Ryan’s family will be joining us at our house for Thanksgiving dinner (that’s 11 adults and 13 kids) and then the next day my folks will be coming over for Thanksgiving dinner and to tour the Calgary Temple. I’d have to say I am having mixed emotions that go from super excited to very overwhelmed. It Is the perfect way to break in the house. The dads took the older group of kids to Calaway park in the morning which was awesome. I have one kid that LOVES rides, being flipped upside down and spun around at high speeds, and 1 kid that hates it. It is my goal to break in that 1 child that hates it so that I can justify a trip to Disneyland sometime in our future!

Brayden was forced to endure the pain of the rollercoaster, to take on the spins and hold back the sickness and rewarded with embarrassing video’s proving the pain he went through. Thankfully he seemed to warm a little bit as time went on and possibly even claimed to enjoy parts of it! Maybe Disneyland will be in our future after all.

Calgary Alberta Temple

Tonight as a family we were able to go and tour the LDS Calgary Temple. It opened it’s doors for tours to the general public last weekend before it’s dedication later this month. This is a pretty big deal because once a temple is dedicated, only members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints who live their lives to a certain degree of cleanliness (no smoking, no alcohol, no drugs, etc.) can enter the building which is a House of the Lord. We’ve been able to attend and give tours during the Cebu City, Philippines temple but it’s always nice to take the kids through a temple and show them what it’s like inside and give them the opportunity to see what the room where Ryan and I were married in looks like. It was such a beautiful temple and there were so many people there to see it, even in the negative temperatures and snow as we walked under tarped tunnels to keep us dry and safe from the wind. It ended up being a later night then we thought but it was worth it.