V.I.P.

Today at the kids sharing time assembly I got to see Brayden receive his V.I.P. award because he’s so awesome. Also I got to see a video presentation made by Sydney’s teacher showing some artwork they made with the kids voices dubbed in using their descriptive words to explain the monsters they had made. It was so cute to watch Madison as she recognized Sydney’s voice fill the auditorium and see the tell tale cat to prove it was indeed Sydney’s monster. She really is the cat fan.

Temple Square

What an exciting day. One thing that was a must see for Marytle was temple square in Salt Lake City. It was so fun as we started driving into the city and you could see the tops of the temple in the distance, slowly getting larger and larger. Finally we drove by the temple as Marytle looked from her pamphlet showing a picture of the temple, up the real thing and then back to the picture. The realization of its size and reality that dawned on her face was exciting to watch and made me even more anxious to get out and show her up close.

Once we got out of the van we were non stop for hours! We made sure to walk around temple, watching the show at the tabernacle, getting a tour of the Conference Center, walking through the museum, the Visitors Center, and ending with the movie showing about Joseph Smith. By the time we were finished my feet were ready to fall off and I have no idea how the kids lasted the entire day without complaining. It was awesome.

Rest and Play

This morning I was so excited for Marytle to wake up. For 5 years we were on her turf exploring and soaking up her culture and I was pumped to finally be able to share this North American part of life with one of our closest Filipino friends. It's a side of me that our family over there never got to see but we desperately wanted to show. She started of her morning with her first ever pancake breakfast! No rice and egg this morning. The kids were all over and begging for her attention. Ryan had gone into Focus to visit and so we had a nice relaxing morning to ourselves. That afternoon we played outside in the snow, making snowmen, throwing a few snowballs, climbing hay bales and checking out the horses and cows. It was a day of many firsts for her and it made me so happy to watch her experience a few things I knew she'd never done before. It almost made me like snow ... almost. I still prefer white beaches to white snow and palm trees to pine trees (well in the winter months at least).

Meeting in the Middle

Focus, the company Ryan worked for in the Philippines, sponsers young adults and gives them scholarships so they can go to University and have a chance at a real job when they probably wouldn't have been able to have that opportunity otherwise. I was grateful for the opportunity to find these young adults and get them set up and enrolled in school for Focus. How awesome it is to see how this can not only better their lives but the lives of their entire family. One of these scholarships went to one of our dear friends, a very dedicated, very hard working, motivated young lady who is the oldest of 6. She rocked the scholarship, never taking it for granted, getting some of the highest grades in her class, and loved every thing she learned. She would always come over and be very excited to share with Ryan and I all the different things she was learning in her classes and how much she enjoyed learning it. This year she had this amazing opportunity to do work experience in her field abroad. Abroad could be anywhere from Singapore, New Zealand, Canada or the US. She ended up being placed in a Golf Resort in New York City! She passed her embassy interview and was on a plane not more then 2 weeks later for adventure. As she's been working, supporting her family and trying to save for herself, she was able to come up with enough money for a round trip to Utah so she could see the Salt Lake City Latter-day Saint Temple and meet the man who is responsible for her scholarship and thank him. We told her that whenever that ticket was booked we would 100% make that drive down to Utah and be her tour guides. Well that finally happened. Tonight at 10:30pm Marytle landed in Salt Lake City where Ryan and I picked her up, took her home and went straight to bed. Yes, we are totally party poopers! But in our defence we had just drove 15 hours to get there to meet her, with our 3 kids. I think that's exhausting.

We made it to Ry's Aunts house early in the afternoon and spent the afternoon letting the kids burn off some major pent up energy and chatting with Ryan's family. That evening we took the kids to Ry's youngest cousins musical which he was in; Cinderella. The kids were hyper excited to see and spend some time with Ryan's cousins and wasted no time getting friendly. We raced home from the play, put the kids to bed and sped to the airport to greet Martyle. Listening to her chat away about all her different experiences so far after we moved back to Canada, her excitement as she related stories from when she found out she passed her embassy exam and would be headed to New York and how many hugs I was getting from her made that 15 hour drive completely worth it!! Here's to a great weekend.

Our Little Missionary

We’ve been so fortunate with our ward at church. We were quite worried at first about getting lost since 450 people attend every week. How do you make your presence known in a sea of people? Well they have been fantastic. Every week more and more people introduce themselves to us and we’ve been getting to know a few families and it makes a huge difference. The kids seem to love the Primary where they go for Sunday School and Madison for the first time EVER is willingly going to nursery and loves it. This week the kids came home a book with activities in it and ways for them to write down and draw about their feelings being so close to the newly dedicated temple (it shares the same lot as our chapel and is an 8 minute drive from our home). In this little kit of goodies the kids got their own missionary tags and Sydney loves wearing hers. She reminds us very much of a dear dear friend in the Philippines very much: Jane Anne who was serving her mission when we left Bacolod and just returned home not too long ago.

I.O.U.

Tonight I came home to this:

A bathroom full of balloons blown up by my family and filled with I.O.U. from Ryan. Why? Because they love me. How fabulous is that!? Yes, I’m spoiled, jealous?

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.