Photoshoot!

We had a family photoshoot this week! It was so much fun. We used Sager Studios (sagerstudios.com) and were so impressed! Angela (the photographer) has found this awesome location, and apparently most of her fmaily shots are done here because that's where everyone wants their pictures taken. She said she is ready to try something new hahahah! Though it is such a cool place to take pictures, so I doubt she'll be finished with this spot anytime soon.

The kids were pretty good, although there was a herd of cows right off the road so that was a pretty huge distraction for Elizabeth. We were so desperate to get good pictures out of her, that we fake bribed her by telling her that if she smiled, she could go see the cows.....I am normally totally against fake bribes just to make things easier....but we wanted cute pictures! As you can see, she is in her own world in a lot of them, but this is real life so I really love those ones. She forgot about the cows after we were done, luckily because they seemed to somehow ALL (maybe 100 cows??) move behind a hill and so they disapeared, very conveniently.

Here are some of the shots that we had done:

Family:

Strangle hold?:

How does she get the sky so blue??: Natural Fam Pic:

Mason!

Minding his business:

So, Morgan can't stand looking at this one. It's a great picture, it's jsut that it's US kissing, and he thinks it looks like we've been holding that pose for a long time. I guess we're not pretty kissers?:

Had to have one of these....:

I love this one:

Snap Shots in Time

After an afternoon of trying to convince my sister to start her own family blog (and succeeding!), I felt the urge to post some recent snap shots of the kids. I remember for the first year and a half of Elizabeth's life I was anxious for her to grow up and learn to do new things, like walk and talk (we're still working on the talking part...), but lately I've been looking at my kids and thinking that I want them to stay just how they are, forever! Here is an assortment of what we've been up to lately!

Mushy Mom Post

Happy Mother's Day Mom! I love you! I wasn't able to see my mom on Mother's Day which was sad for me, but we did get to talk on the phone for a nice long hour or so after kids were in bed. I love talking to my mom! We talked about the boat progress, and also we got to talking about my Mom's mom for a while, who passed away when my big sister was 2 months old. It's always so interesting to me to find out more about her! We did however have a wonderful day with my other Mom, and Morgan's family, on Sunday afternoon. She is the best mother-in law you could ever dream up. Anyone who knows me knows that I think this. I love her! It was so nice to chill out with family and eat lots of food. We went to church, got dinner ready pretty quickly after, vegged for a bit and some napped (it was inevitable!! hahaha) while kids played. Then we went to the park, got the kids tuckered out, and came home to some of Josh's leftover delicious birthday cake!! I love cake and icing. That's one thing Morg and I will never have in common - a love for cake. oh well. The Possin's and Grandma left to head back to Red Deer with kids in jammies, while the rest of the Kyle girls and Grandpa had a fun chance talk. I wish we had more time to catch up with everyone! We had a wonderful day and really appreciated everyone making the trek out here! So even though I didn't get to see my Mom on Mother's Day, I was thinking of her lots and wishing we lived closer together (well, I tend to think this every day but on Mother's Day especially I guess). BUT she spent the day on her new boat with Dad and I'm sure there is no happier place for her to be right now! Sometimes I think the only thing that must be harder than watching your kids grow up and not need you as much anymore, is seeing your Mom retire and not need her kids anymore! Leigh and I often joke about how busy Mom and Dad have become and that we don't seem to hear from them as much as when they lived on Hauteview though it's really nice to see them enjoying life so much. I heard someone say on tv the other day that "you will never feel so alone as when your mother passes away". I know, it sounds a bit morbid for a mother's day post....but I got to thinking about it and it's so true! I don't know what I would do without her. So Mom, since I wasn't able to spend time with you on Mother's Day, I love and miss you! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo My lovely mother: Mason and Elizabeth wishing both their Grandma's a happy mother's day:

Again:

The Kyle pile-on, featuring Grandma Kyle on the right:

Walking to the park - Sue, Adele, Christine, Grandma Lorna and Christian:

They were so excited to get there! Seconds later, Adele wiped out...:

Gene being the wonderfully enthusiastic Aunt she always is:

Linda and Elizabeth strike a pose. Elizabeth loves Linda:

Cheese!:

Katie and mason make a great pair, they are both good snugglers:

Morg and Elizabeth. They are crazy. Enough said.

Dance lessons!

Elizabeth had her first ever dance class this morning. Her first ever dance class was supposed to be last week but her loser mom forgot about it. oops. The class went really well and Elizabeth reacted to it just as I expected her to. It took her a little while to warm up to what was going on. She mainly spent the first ten mintues playing with the shoe rack outside. I didn't try to push her too hard to join us because I knew that that could go ALL wrong, so I just waited for her to join us on her own. She had nothing to do with the warm ups (I am quickly learning that Elizabeth doesn't have much patience for slow, careful, methodical things...) though jumped right in when things got more lively. The intsy wintsy (spelling?) spider song was her icebreaker, since she already knew all the actions from nursery. She ran right beside the teacher and enthusiastically followed her moves, letting out huge bursts of belly laughter (that can sometimes be kind of embarassing to hear in public - you'd have to hear her to understand....). Oh dear. I was really happy to watch how much fun she has with the other kids and how she is really great at encouraging the shy or sad kids to participate. She says "come on! come on!" and coaxes them over with a little hand signal. On the other hand, it scares me a bit to see that she is usually the first one to cause mischief. Why don't the other kids notice all the fancy sparkly dance equipment in the corner? oh boy. Here are a few pictures of Elizabeth's first dance class experience, in chornological order: Hanging out with the shoes.... She is a bit weary, but trying....

wooooooo! purple scarves to whip around!

Twirling with scarves - notice Mason hanging out by in the back corner. He's so cool all the time!!!!