My Past, Present & Future

Last week (June 9th), Dad, Kaeden and I went out to Westlock to see my Grandpa, Uncle and Great-gradparents at the Westlock cemetery. I have only been back once since my Grandpa passed away over 10 years ago. I miss Grandpa immensely. He was a man of few words but he always had a sligh smile, a wink, a few coins and that bone crushing handshake that made us all cringe.
Jody and I have been doing a lot of work lately on our personal geneology project so I made a point of taking my camera with me to take photos of all the grave markers. These are a few of my favorite "other" photos that I took that day.


Looking at this picture brings tears to my eyes every time. I wish Grandpa had been here to meet Kaeden. He would have loved his free spirit and exuberance.


Kaeden helped his Papa with the flower arrangements for my Grandpa and Uncle Lawrence.

As we were leaving Westlock, my Dad was telling me about this little country church and adjoining church graveyard that some of my Grandpa's siblings who had past away as children were buried in. He had never been there himself. I asked if he knew where it was. When he said that he did I said, "Turn around. We're going."

We found the Hazel Bluff Curch and graveyard easily just outside of Westlock. We looked around the graveyard but did not find any markers for the family. It's likely the graves would have been marked with wooden crosses. The photo above is the Hazel Bluff United Church. We found out from a volunteer groundskeeper that the church will be celerating it's 100th year on August 9th. We are going to go attend the ceremony and hopefully see if there are any church records for our family.

As I continue to work on our family geneology, I am reminded of how important it is to keep records. I find the information we are collecting very interesting. I am hoping that the generations that come after me will appreciate this work as well.

Refocusing

So I won't make any excuses for not being around. I have just not been feeling the blog mojo. I'm not really sure that anyone really pays this blog any mind anymore so I have decided that, rather than think of witty, irreverent things to blog about, I will blog the happenings in my world to help me document my life; past, present and future. Hopefully this will help me with my scrappin' since I have such a hard time journaling on pages. It should also help me keep track of all the antics of my little "honey bun".

Life has been keeping me going (and not going) as usual. I feel like I always have more things on my plate than I can really take on but I also try to hide away from them. I guess you could say I get overwhelmed and I ignore what I should be doing. It will all get done eventually.

My greatest regret right now is that I haven't been keeping up on getting my photos edited and printed and made into scrapbook pages (mostly since Kaeden was born). I am going to have to seriously start looking at this in a new light. The photographer in me wants to have everything fixed just right but the Mum in me knows there is just not enough time.

I have taken a break from designing for work (barring the Kit Klub I am doing for July). I like doing the classes and receiving the praise (who wouldn't) from the customers but I really have to think about what the cost is... The money is great but I don't want to look back and have nothing really to show for it. Hmmm... Any suggestions from anyone who still looks for me here?

Oh the drama

Sorry I haven't been around too much lately. It has been a little bit of a roller coaster ride lately. Between the doctors visits, work, keeping the house in a state of semi cleanliness and dealing with everything that comes with a one year old, there hasn't been too much time left for anything else. Kaeden has had severe excema for the past three months. We have been going to a number of doctors to try and get some answers. We are finally moving on the right track now.

We found out last week that Kaeden is allergic to eggs, peanuts and cats (ouch). No, we aren't shipping the cats away just yet. We want to try some things first to see what the results are. Kaeden loves the cats just as much as Andrew and I do. I can't bare the thought of him growing up without them.

We had yet another trip to Stollery this past weekend. Kaeden has had two very large excema patches on his cheeks that have not responded to the variety of creams and ointments that the doctors have prescribed. I won't go into details but we found out that the patches are badly infected. So, we now have an antibiotic to take every 6 hours, a new cream with antibiotics for the rest of his body and another cream for the patches on his face. We have already seen a marked improvement in just a few days.

Tomorrow we go to another doctor's appointment that will hopefully be a pediatrician we can trust. I have gotten very tired of not being able to get him in to see a doctor for three weeks or more. Not acceptable when it is my child.

So that has really been the all consuming issues of late. Work is going well. I'm busy teaching classes and still working two days a week. Andrew just got a new position at work. He will now be one of the in house technicians. What does that mean? He will be going out to install and service the alarms for customers. I think it will be a good fit for him and it will get him out from behind a desk. Plus he should get a company car to use which will be wonderful. I will have car freedom again!

Kaeden's First Birthday- Part 2

In the evening, we took Kaeden to Millenium Place for swimming. He didn't like the pool too much since it was a little cold for him. His teeth were chattering most of the time. We found a ball and yellow duckie which made everything better! He did like the little slide he got to go down and the undercurrent pool that just pushes you along.

The "Happy" ducky.

After we got out of the pool we went to the little play area they have at Millenium. Kaeden LOVED it! He went down a few different slides and checked out a bit of the play structure. His favorite thing was to just run around. I think he probably made a good 20 loops around the place before we left!

Just my size.


"You can't catch me!"

Watch for more soon when I review Kaeden's Birthday Bash!

Kaeden's 1st Birthday- Part 1 (of many)

Kaeden's first birthday was last Friday (February 20th). We celebrated at home, just the three of us.

Yippy! Toys!!!

What do I do with this??

Kaeden sucked the icing off his cupcake first. Everyone knows the icing is the best part!

Touchdown! I scored with this cupcake.

Bad Blogger

Yeah, I know I have been a bad blogger. All you Mom's out there know my pain (especially if you have boys). I hear girls are not as rambunctious altought I don't know if this is actually true since I have nothing to compare it to. My monkey Kaeden is always up to something. I am only writing this now since he is taking one of his (coveted by me) naps. I love this little man but he certainly keeps me busy! And now that he is walking/running everywhere...well, you can just imagine the chaos.

What is it with us Mom's that we give ourselves way too many projects to do? Kaeden's birthday is coming up and I want to make something with a pic of him on it for everyone to take home but I am just not sure what that will be...Any suggestions? I made his invites this weekend and it took me most of Saturday night. I think they are super cute since he loves his "Igger" (aka Tigger) right now but those pieced together Tiggers from my Cricuit took FOREVER!

I was going to make valentines for Kaed to give to our family and friends but with no time this week and lots to do for work, that idea has been given up. I broke down and bought valentines yesterday for him to give out. I still have to make one for him and his daddy though...

Well, gotta get back to it. The little man is up and we have a few adventures/errands planned for the day. Wish me luck!

Photo Shoot

My sister Krista came over with Seth yesterday to do a photo shoot. Unfortunately, Seth hasn't been a happy camper lately so I was only able to get a few shots. While everything was set up, I also managed to get a few shots of Kaeden in (even though it's hard to get him to sit still). Here are some of my favs.