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29.5.06

white trash baby

Today Ella was eating her sweet potatoes and wearing her wife beater. (Mom, that is the term they use for tight white tank tops that men who stereotypically beat there wives wear) Funny baby. You think we could do a little better at getting them in her mouth.


This is her new shy face.

25.5.06

On the move

Well, it's been happening for a couple of weeks now, but Ella is definitely crawling. She now follows me down the hall and eats every little crumb on the floor. She's everywhere. She really has mastered it, but as you can see, it's still a little easier with no pants.

Oh Mom, thanks so much for bringing me this friend to play with. She really likes to talk to the garbage can and kiss it. Kind of disgusting, I have to clean it a lot. Poor lonely child.

23.5.06

Long Weekend

What a great long weekend we had. The weather was great, and the weekend was action packed. It all started when Josh got home early from work on Friday. It always throws me off when he does that. I'm like a little puppy, I get so excited I just don't know what to do with myself. We went shopping a little bit, and then got to go out for dinner to the Vietnamese Noodle House. It's one of our favourites. Cheap and good. I got 28 for the first time, and Josh got his usual 37C. Later we had someone over and played Settlers. The next day we had a few things to get done, like buy a baby gate, since Ella is officially crawling - and getting mighty good at it. So we just had fun doing errands. Errands are so much more fun when Josh is with me. We got home late and grilled steaks without a BBQ. That was interesting, and a story by itself. On Sunday we went to church and quickly got home afterward because Josh was itching to get on the water. He was so excited to get back in his kayak. So we drove out to canoe meadows to see if he could go down the river with a few people. There was no one just going out, so we drove to the put in spot. Let me start by telling you that I was a little nervous about him going. Kayaking always scares me a little, but last weekend a guy got pinned under water for 5 minutes, and it's a miracle he's even alive. And now Josh is a dad, so I just worry a little more than I used to. All that to say we drove up to the spot and the name of it was the Widow Maker. Awesome, that really helped me out. Oh well, with all my worrying he made it out OK and even got to do a second run. Then we went to Canmore to visit Blue and Deb's Old School Bus which opened this weekend. We spent the evening hanging out, and I got a double scoop coconut strawberry in a waffle cone. Wow! On Monday we headed out for Canmore again. This time I was going mountain biking with Deb, Roly, Lisa and Mr. F (Blue's dad) That's right, Josh was babysitting. Something he hasn't done very often yet. He was excited, I was scared. Hadn't been a bike in 2 years, and had never really been mountain biking. So we did a trail that brought us right into Banff. It was 20K, and lot of downhill, and a little bit of up. Wasn't too tough, but my butt is REALLY sore today. Josh made out well also.
Anyway, this is getting way too long, so that's my weekend.

I did it!

If you look at the bottom of my sidebar on the right you will see a little map. I saw it on Christina's blog, but didn't think I would ever be able to get it on mine. I am so proud of myself, because there it is. Now I am trying to figure out who all visits my blog. I would love to hear from each one of you, so log on and say hi. Or you can go to my profile and email me from there. I think I know 2 of the dots over in the eastern side of the world, but that one in the middle of the ocean has really got me wondering!!

17.5.06

THAT'S ONE HOT MAMA

We have been having record breaking temperatures here in Cochrane. It doesn't bother me too much, but today I saw a pregnant friend of mine, and it brought back terrible memories. Last summer was soooo hot, and we lived in that trailer with no AC. We finally got a window one, and I made Josh put it in at like 11PM because I thought I might die. We made a tent over in with a sheet and slept under it on the dining room floor. I just wanted to post a few pictures to make me thankful that I am not pregnant during this heat wave. You'd think with 9 months of pregnancy I could just plan to avoid those 2 1/2 months of summer. Too bad babies don't work that way.


Check out those thankles. No not cankles, those babies went straight down from the thigh!!

Hey lady, you're blockin' the waterfall.

16.5.06

Family

Here are a few pictures of all the people Ella has been spending time with lately.

Nana and Papa came to stay with us for a week. Papa did all of our yard work, and Nana played with Ella. Fun for everyone.

Ella and I went to Grandma and Grandpa's in Winnipeg for a week.
Grandma thought Ella needed a wagon ride. I'm not sure who was having more fun.

Grandpa and Ella just hangin' out. I have another picture of him letting her suck on a licorice pipe. What a terrible influence. :)

Grandpa great - my grandpa. Such a sweet man. Ella is so lucky to have godly grandparents and great grandparents.

Just sitting outside with grandma great.

Blaire and Amber are enjoying this photo shoot much more than Ella. Barrett didn't make it in the picture.

Having some fun with Mikyla and Jaden.

This is GG - Josh's grandma. We haven't seen her since Christmas, but I didn't want to leave her out. I love this picture.

Ella Bella


It's been awhile since I've put any pictures up of Ella. This one is a few weeks old, but I just think she's so cute in it. I know I've posted a few pictures that look like this, but I just love her face in this one, with those two big teeth. She's such a happy little girl - most of the time. We've had a rough go of it lately though. I think those grandma's have been a bad influence on her. :) She is still learning to crawl. She can do it on carpet, but all we have is hardwood. So she gets stuck on her belly and can't get up. So I have to be there for her all the time. I try to let her work on it herself, but you can only let her whine for so long. To finish my Mother's Day story. On Saturday night Ella had the worst night sleep of her life. She was up for probably half the night. Then we had to get up for church, she pooped through her outfit on the way out the door. Then for her nap in the afternoon she cried for like an hour. She NEVER does that. I guess she just wanted to remind me being a mother isn't always easy. But in the end, as I watched Josh rocking her to sleep, I realized that I couldn't ask for anything more. Oh, and grandmas, thanks for loving my little girl. I don't mind a few rough days so you can have some fun.

14.5.06

And it was a doozy

Well, it was my first Mother's Day, except for the one with Ella still in the belly. (That one doesn't count too much because back then I thought she was a Gus)
Well, I was pretty excited, but not too excited, because I'm always dissapointed when I have too many expectations. So lets recap on the whole weekend. On Friday night I flew back from my week in Winnipeg. I packed all of my stuff a few hours early, and decided I would only need 2 diapers for the flight - only 3 hours. Well little did I know what Ella had up her sleeve... well not really her sleeve... you know what I mean. So she had 2 big "crunches" (Ryan and Keri I hope you read this - because that ones for you) before we ever left for the airport. That never happens!! So I told myself to get out some more diapers before we left, of course the mothering brain kicks in, and I forgot. So while we were on the plane I remembered, and all the diapers are stowed below. Well, I thought she can sit in a wet diaper for 3 hours, not a big deal. Besides, she already pooped twice. Ha!! So about 20-30 minutes prior to landing I start to smell something. Well, I try not to think about it, hoping she'll just be happy till we land. Poor kid, but what else was I supposed to do. A minute later I pick her up, and I feel something very wet. I flip her around and yes, she had exploded out the side. (The downer to nursing) So I'm trying to figure out what to do, and we had already started the dessent, so I was stuck in my seat. The one great thing is that I had an aisle to myself. So I start to investigate, and things were looking bleak. It was all over her sleepers and the outside of her diaper. So I cleaned her up as well as I could and put her jeans and t-shirt back on her from before. That's right, no diaper!! I was hoping for the best, but of course about 10 minutes later I had a very wet lap. So I'm sitting there trying not to freak out, and trying to think of a way out of this. The plane was just landing at this point. So I waited and then as everyone else got off, I tried to call Josh - no answer. Then I just had to tell myself to suck it up and deal with it. Josh wasn't going to come on the plane anyway. So I put her in her sling, thankful to Keri for the long tail to cover my wet lap, and off I went. I took a peak, and you couldn't even tell that we were both wet and poopy. So I made it to the luggage, went to the baby room where we both changed and got washed up. What a night. OK, well this post didn't exactly get to the actual Mother's Day, but that will have to come later.

1.5.06

He's done!!!

One decade ago, January 1996, Joshua Genn entered the NBBC campus, with a promise to his parents that he would stay for one semester. Well, one semester came and went, with many more to follow (with one or two "forced" absences in the middle. Finally May of 2001 rolled around and it was his turn to graduate. He had learned a lot in those 5 years. Perhaps more from experiences than from books, but a lot nonetheless. A few days before graduation his parents come out along with my parents, his future in-laws. They were to meet for the first time. So this was a big weekend in more ways than one. His mother came bearing congratulation chocolate bars. 90% hardwork, 10% fun - or something like that. Well, the day before grad he got the news that he had recieved a D in Greek. Not so bad, except that he needed a C to pass. Well, with the words of his teacher ringing through his head "Well, you should have told me you needed a C", Joshua sat through graduation in the bleachers wearing a hawaiian shirt instead of a cap and gown. They told him he had 5 years to complete Greek....
Well, we got married that summer, and time flew by. Before we knew it, almost four years had passed and we were eagerly expecting a baby. It was then that we realized that if he wanted to finish his schooling, he had to be registered for the upcoming school year. So we started looking, and realized that there weren't a lot of good Bible schools in Canada - especially ones that Northland would accept Greek credits from. We "accidentally" heard about CSBS. We had been to Cochrane before, and had no idea there was a seminary there. So we went to visit, and spoke with Dr. Booth. (He teaches Greek). He told Josh that he had never failed anyone before. Josh took that as a challenge, but I was sold. Well God wanted us here. It still seems so wierd that we moved across the country for one Greek class, but we all know that God has bigger plans than we could ever imagine. So, Joshua started Greek in August. More than once he seriously considered quitting. At one point I thought he would. It seemed like there was no way he could pass. Then I realized what Dr. B meant - they all quit before he had a chance to fail them. So Josh went to talk to him and he said he thought Josh could make it - so he kept going. On Monday he took his final - we were all on pins and needles. All Dr. Booth said was "You need a C? Well, you got it." By God's grace he had passed (and a little from Dr.B) I'm so proud of him. This may seem like a small thing to most of you, but this was a mountain to Josh. Actually, he's climbed mountains, and this was way harder than that. So next Saturday, Josh will be graduating from NBBC. We won't be attending, because truthfully he doesn't really care about that. He doesn't really care about getting a degree, or knowing more Greek (even though he thinks it's important). This was about finishing. Something he started 10 years ago is now completed.
Now I'm just waiting for a phone call from Northland "Well, I just wanted to let you know that we have changed some policies. Yeah, there's this prison trip...."