Fun family weekend back in Alberta!

We had a great weekend in Edmonton! Was I expecting the snow? Not exactly. But the Fehr clan persevered and still had a great time at the Run/Walk on Sunday! Lynsey and I flew in late Friday night and spent Saturday morning/afternoon with Brian's parents. We headed over to Martin and Angie's around supper time for the big pre-race gathering. It was a great time! So nice to catch up with so much family! Sunday we woke up to snow and just below freezing temperatures. I was a bit annoyed, but still ready! I ran the 10K (well, my GPS watch said it was only 9.76km, full disclosure!) in 58:35. I was happy with that, especially considering that there was a hill at the end of each 5K section (it was 2.5k, then turn around and run to the start, and then turn around and do that loop again). You will see from the pictures that I was much more chipper at the 5K mark, even waving at our awesome photographer, Dion. I look like I might be close to death as I'm finishing the race. It was pretty exhausting, I really pushed myself! It felt good! Lynsey walked the 2K with some other family members, she was saying she wanted to do the 5K but the adults she was with didn't let her (I also know her and think she would not have actually wanted to do 5K, so I'm really glad that she was told no!). Everyone had a great time, and there was lots of talk of doing it again next year! You can bet I will be coming again:). Lynsey had lots of fun and spent a lot of time with Grandpa Kroeker this weekend, too - he told her many stories as she was sitting by the fire, very cute:).

Nathan is really using his manners these days - I hear a lot of "please" and "thanks" from him! This morning when I was getting him changed for swimming lessons, he actually peed in the big toilet! Very exciting! Later today I tried to get him to aim and hit Cheerios in the little potty, but he thought I meant physically hit them so he kept reaching in with his hand and hitting them haha! I laughed so hard! Maybe we'll have to give him some more time before he understands that one:). He has quite a temper these days, too, with a very strong opinion on plate color and what shoes he wants to wear (which these days is only his new sandals, rain or shine!). He even has an opinion on the songs I sing him - his favorite right now is "You are my Sunshine". Interesting little guy, that's for sure!

Adam had a bit of a breakthrough at preschool the other day - three unscripted sentences in a row, out of the blue! Apparently, he had been sitting in the couch area and looked in the wagon and said, "There's a carpet square in the wagon". There was indeed a carpet square in the wagon! Then he had walked over to the window and looked out at some guys playing basketball outside. He says, unprompted, "They're playing basketball". THEN he points at the girls bathroom door and says, "I want that door open" and walked over and opened the door. Wow! We always wonder what his abilities are, and it would seem he has the ability to put a complete sentence together without a problem when he tries. Why he doesn't try more often, we don't really know, but I can only hope and pray that he will be experimenting more and more with these sentences! I love how these moments often come after we start to worry and wonder if he is making any progress at all - God is so good!

My favorite quote from Adam in the last while came yesterday. He had a bit of a messy number 2 job (sorry for the TMI but it's vital to the story:)) and Brian comments, "This is going to need a first class wiping". Adam gets a bit stressed and his typical fashion for protesting says, "Want to say bye bye first class wiping!". He says, "want to say bye bye ______" a lot, but for some reason this just sounded really funny and made me laugh a lot, so I wanted to write it down. Such a special guy! One day maybe he will just say "no", but until then, he will continue to protest in his own way, I guess!

Lynsey lost her second tooth yesterday! It was incredibly loose for several days, and it took all of my will power not to just go in there and yank it out! I could hardly stand it, I really am a control freak! She was being very picky about what she could eat, only eating soft foods and it was becoming a bit of a pain. So finally yesterday, I told her to check the tooth with her fingers, and I just tapped on her hand a bit and it came out. I hadn't really planned on doing it, but I guess I really just couldn't help myself! To be fair, I barely touched her, it was really ready to come out. The best part of this story is that she got this note ready for the tooth fairy and was so excited to see what the tooth fairy brought her, and since we had to wait until the kids were asleep to play Tooth Fairy it had left our minds, and we completely forgot! Wow did I ever feel terrible! She was so disappointed, the poor girl:(. I couldn't believe the parenting fail! She was okay after a little bit, we convinced her that the Tooth Fairy gets very busy and sometimes takes a few days to come. We better not drop the ball tonight!

Apparently the only pictures I have from the last week and a half are pictures that Dion took for our family on race day. He took a lot of good ones, here are the ones that included myself or Lynsey! Must remember to take some pictures of the boys for the next post!