Happy 9th Birthday to Emerson!!

Emerson turned n.i.n.e. on the 16th!! Her last year of single digits, oh my!! February is always a crazy month in our family, with so many February birthday's, my parents leaving on their spring vacation, ringette and hockey business, etc, etc and this year Blake's hockey team had a tournament on the weekend of Emerson's birthday. Thankfully they didn't play until later on the 17th so we were able to be at home for Emerson's birthday and celebrate her special day!! We went back and forth as to what kind of party she'd like or what she'd like to do for her birthday and she finally decided on a shopping birthday party! We put one together and it was a great success :) I bravely (if I do say so myself) took 8 young ladies shopping at WEM, followed by dinner at Boston Pizza. We did have a blast and no one got lost!! I bought the girls WEM gift cards and let them spend them however they chose! The most popular spots to spend their gift cards were Claire's and LUSH! They had so much fun browsing and deciding on what to choose! Quite adorable :) Dinner was great and Emerson had such a great time, I was so happy it all turned out! 

I can't believe Em is already 9. She is a firecracker full of love, hugs, emotions, smiles, knowledge and intelligence, passion, kindness, gentleness, love, stubbornness and sometimes sass!! She is the biggest helper around the house, willing to help out in any way possible. She's not much for sitting still and would rather be busy. She is often Reese's best friend and a really great big sister! She idolizes Blake but doesn't want to admit it ;) She loves her friends and play dates and more recently, sleepovers! She has started writing short stories and has always had the best imagination!! She excels in school and loves to read. She's also really enjoying her guitar lessons! She mastered a cartwheel this year and practices everywhere she can! She's a chatterbug and talks our ears off :) Sometimes we butt heads and I think that's because in many ways we are a lot alike!! She's one awesome gal and I can't wait to see where the year takes her!! Love you to the moon and back, Emerson!!

*photos will be uploaded soon!

Starting off 2018!

Seems there isn't enough time in the day and the blog is the last item on the 'to-do' list :( But I want to keep this going as I know I will really appreciate when I am old and grey (or more grey than I currently am!) and I hope our kids will also enjoy it one day. So here's a point form breakdown of the rest of our January!!!

• On January 1st we celebrated the Christmas season with some of our Cameron family! We always have a great time and the kids especially love spending time with their cousins whom they're so close in age with. We went to Cal's brother's house in Stony Plain, where his mom and neice and nephew were visiting. We had a delicious meal, opened gifts and visited. It was a great day!
• On January 5th we headed to Red Deer for Emerson's 1st out of town ringette tournament!! She was so excited, as were we!! Cal and Blake hitched a ride home with my parents on Friday night, so they could go to hockey on Saturday and Sunday. The tournament was so much fun! The team and siblings had a blast in the hotel pool, we had a fun dinner out on Friday night and the kids played awesome! Emerson was a rock star in net for a few games and earned herself the player of the game stuffie!! They didn't come home with a medal but we all went home with smiles from a great weekend :)
• It was back to school on the 7th :( Not too many happy faces about that but we had a wonderful Christmas holiday!!
• On January 13th Emerson's dance group performed at St. Michael's Ukrainian Orthodox Church for Ukrainian New Year's Eve (Malanka). I love watching her dance!!
• January 19-21 was the Edmonton Silver Ring Tournament, which both girls played in! We had an awesome weekend with both teams! Team lunches, fun at the rink and some great ringette!! Grandma D even sported an Edmonton Ringette jersey and filled in a volunteer spot for us!!!! Thank you so much, Grandma!!!
• January 12 to 21 was Edmonton Minor Hockey Week. This is always such a fun tournament and this year was no different!! The KC Cougars had a great run with some awesome games. They played some of their best hockey to date, winning 2 games and losing the last in a close, hard fought battle. No medal this year but all should be proud of how well they played as a team!! Loved watching these kids, so exciting!!
• January 27 brought a 'nothing on the calendar' day, which is extremely rare during hockey and ringette season!! The kids played outside, building a snow fort and playing for hours. It was awesome and I had a moment where I thought, "Hmmm, not sure how many of these days we will get :(" They are growing up so fast and I'm not sure how many more years we'll have of all 3 wanting to play outside, building snow forts but I hope at least a few more! I love when they all play together and have fun :)

February is coming up next and although the shortest month of the year, it is one of the busiest in the Cameron house!! Talk to you soon :)

~Tracy

Happy New Year!!

Happy New Year to all!! We spent the evening with friends. I think we all had intentions of a bit more of a upbeat party but after some late nights over the Christmas holidays, we were all a little tired! We chatted, ate and watched a movie while the kids whooped it, lol!! And we did make midnight ;) We took the above photo when we got home, just before heading to bed at 1:30 am!! 

May 2018 bring you peace, joy, love, happiness and good health! 

xoxo

The Cameron 5

2017 Christmas Photo Card and Letter

The holiday season is upon us and as I sit down to type our annual letter, I think back over 2017 and all that the year has brought.

My Grandma Kelley passed away in February. We were very lucky to have her in Edmonton for the past few years and are grateful we got to spend a lot of time together, most especially during the holidays. We miss her dearly but know she is in a better place, no longer suffering from any pain. Although hard to say goodbye, we were glad to attend Grandma’s celebration of life in the spring. Many hilarious and wonderful memories were shared and it was great to see our extended family.

In November we had to say goodbye to our beloved Heidi. As anyone who has had a dog knows, they become family members. Heidi was twelve years old and the loss was quite unexpected. It’s been hard adjusting to no longer having our fluffy friend around and I’m not sure we’ll ever really get used it. The kids have learned a lot about loss this year which is always hard but unfortunately part of life. Emerson cheered us up a bit when she commented that she thinks Heidi is keeping Jazz (our cat who we lost last year) and Grandma Kelley company in heaven. Sometimes kids just know the right thing to say.

Together with the sad times there have also been wonderful memories in 2017. The top of our list would be our summer vacation. We visited many spots in AB, BC and the USA and loved every minute! We had such a fabulous time, I think we could have stayed ‘on the road’ for another few weeks! Throughout our vacation we camped with my parents, with Cal’s brother and his family and visited friends and Cal’s Aunt and cousin while we were in Penticton. Some other highlights of our 3 weeks away were: Silverwood Theme Park and Boulder Beach in Idaho, watching the Seattle Mariners play and the kids running the bases and beach days in Penticton! I could go on and on, it was just such a fabulous trip! I swear we didn’t see a day below +28 until the last few days of our holiday when we were back in Alberta.

We took on downhill skiing as a family this year, getting Reese on skis and Cal back on ski’s after a long hiatus!! Blake took some ski lessons this year and has decided he will ski and snowboard! We all loved our trip to Jasper and look forward to more mountain skiing in our future!!

We visited Tisdale, SK this fall for my cousins wedding and were so happy to see our Smith family. We hadn’t been to Tisdale in a few years so it was a long overdue trip and great to visit my Grandpa, Grandma, Aunts, Uncles and cousins. 

The kids are all growing and changing! Still in the French Immersion program at the same school, Blake is in the double digits now, in grade 5 and almost taller than both his grandmas!! Emerson is in grade 3 and 8 years old and Reese is in grade 2 and 7 years old. They all love their teachers, Blake and Reese are in split classes this year and Blake actually has three teachers which is different for him but he is enjoying the change of scenery throughout the day. Blake is filling his spare time right now with hockey and guitar lessons. He loves his sports games on his Xbox and hanging out with his hockey and school buds. Emerson is currently filling her spare time with ringette, guitar lessons and Ukrainian dance. She loves her cooking and baking shows and lots of crafting and reading as well!!  Reese is keeping busy with ringette and piano lessons and still loves her Lego, American Girl doll and lots of art work and drawing!

Cal and I are good, still at our same careers. I’m still working part-time and Cal is still working from home on most days. Cal ran in the Sinister 7 Race again this year but took the year off from marathons. He’s playing hockey once a week and is head coach of Blake’s Atom AA hockey team. I am co-managing Blake’s team and assistant coach on Reese’s ringette team and head cheer leader on Emerson’s ringette team J Obviously we enjoy the rinks in the winters!!! Blake played lacrosse again this spring and Emerson played 3 on 3 ringette, so we were in the rinks for the spring too!

Our schedules are crazy but we try to stay very organized! It takes a village and we are very lucky to have great help from my parents and school and sports friends.

Christmas holidays will be here before we know it and we’re looking forward to the slower pace for a few weeks and all being home together. We hope this letter finds you all in good health and spirits. We are sending lots of love and wishing you a very Merry Christmas and all the best in 2018! 

Cal, Tracy, Blake, Emerson and Reese

Poor Em :(

I felt so bad for Emerson this week :( She's been so sick and has had to miss dance, ringette, choir and the long awaited choir performance at City Hall. She wasn't the biggest fan of choir but had the end in sight and was toughing it out so she could sing at City Hall and now she's had to miss it. Poor girl :( Thankfully she is on antibiotics now (ear infection) and is starting to feel better.

We're getting ready for Christmas. I've done a lot of online shopping and plan to finish up next week. Cal and I both had Friday off and our plan was to watch Em sing and then finish off the Christmas shopping but instead Cal worked and I stayed home with Em. We also plan to start our baking this week, which I always enjoy! The baking plan for this year includes, salted caramel pretzels, sugar cookies, peanut butter marshmallow squares, Christmas crack and butter tarts! And Cal will be making his cheesecakes :)

Talk to you soon!

~Tracy

An unusual E.R. visit

Well, we can now say we've had to visit the Stollery for one of the oddest reasons. Before I tell the story, can I just say that I am not surprised in the least that this occurred in our family!!!

On Sunday afternoon I washed the girls hair, as Blake had a late hockey game and I didn't want to keep them up any later than we needed to. When they got out of the bathtub, I decided to clean their earrings. And that is when I noticed that something was wrong with Reese's earrings. Upon further inspection, the back of her earrings had grown into her ear??  Not sure how to put it but I think you get the idea. She started to cry a little bit and ask what was wrong and I was pretty surprised but tried to play around with her ears a little bit to see if I could get the backs off. By holding the back and pulling on the front of one of her earrings, I was able to get the back off but on the other side it appeared to be more stuck or grown into the ear. I called Cal in to look and we weren't sure what to do but everyone was getting pretty 'excited' sort to speak ... so I cleared the bathroom and calmed Reese down before trying to pull the back off with tweezers.  I literally pulled as hard as I could and I couldn't get the back off. So off to the Stollery we went! My gosh, like how does this crap happen???!! I felt so bad for Reese, she was very upset but you want to know why she was most upset??  Because she would have to miss Blake's hockey game, miss playing with her bff Gioia and she was also upset that Em was going to the game and would get to play with Gioia!!  lol!!  She cried the whole way to the hospital and kept asking, "Will we be able to go to the game?" I told her maybe we'd make it, maybe if the wait was short. Of course the wait was super long and we didn't make the game :( But she calmed down a bit and was happy to enjoy a pop and 2 bags of chips during the 4 hour wait!!  The extraction was not pretty, when she saw the needle the dr. had to use to freeze her ear she was VERY upset. I tried to hold her down but she managed to get a hand free and the dr. had to remove the needle before her ear was entirely frozen. They tried emla gel but that did not numb the area enough so they tried another kind of topical gel, apparently way stronger than emla and that combined with the freezing was enough that she didn't scream out in pain while the dr. removed the earring back. It was still uncomfortable (and there was a lot of blood) but she managed. He used tweezers to slowly work it free, to protect the skin. We got home at 9:30pm and boy was I ever glad to be home! Poor Reese :( I don't know how that happened but she did tell me that she was scared to lose an earring (a few months ago she lost a favorite earring) so every day she pushed harder and harder on the backs so the earring would be in tight ... I'm guessing that combined with fairly new piercings contributed to the problem. Just another day in the adventures of our home!!

November

My Mom and Dad brought my Grandma Marg home with them from Tiffany's wedding!!  We're so glad she is able to do this, as she got to see all 3 kids play ringette and hockey and we got to spend some extra time with her :)

Reese got glasses!!! In September Reese told me that the board at school was blurry. I told her to maybe try sitting closer, as she had just had her eyes checked in August and all was well!! Then again in October she said the same thing. So we decided we better get her eyes checked again and sure enough, she needed glasses. Seeing as she's been wearing 'fashion' glasses off and on for a year, she had no problem accepting that she needed glasses ;) She picked out a super cute purple pair and has had no problem transitioning into wearing glasses!!  We will have to take her in to have her eyes checked every 6 months as the dr. thinks her prescription will change frequently for the first year or so and then hopefully stabilize. 

The glasses Reese picked out :)

We travelled to Jasper for a hockey tournament and had an absolute blast!!! We left Thursday afternoon after early dismissal and got home Sunday night. The Cougars played 5 games over 3 days and did quite well, although didn't bring home a medal. They had many close games and played really well together. We had a lot of fun with the team and the parents had a lot of fun in the evenings :) My Dad came for a night as well and took Em back to her ringette game on Saturday which was so awesome! Thank goodness she was able to go as they were down quite a few players. 

Team photo at Pyramid Lake

My favorite hockey players ;)

Cougars hockey mom's!!

Girls table :) So awesome the girls have friends to play with at hockey!!

I celebrated my 37th birthday! We had my favorite - Mt. Fugi and chocolate cake ;) Hard to believe I'm only a few years away from 40!!  

And we also celebrated Reese turning 7!!!  (see Reese's birthday post!!)

We're getting excited for December and the holiday season!!  Can't wait to get the house decorated and all the Christmas fun!!

xo

Tracy