It's beginning to look a lot like CHRISTMAS!!!!!

Low-Ho-Ho!!! We decorated pretty early this year, (perk to being Canadian is legally decorating before American Thanksgiving--since we don't have it!) so it has felt like Christmas for a LONG time. Love it. Love the music, the decorations, the feeling, the pajamas... ;)

 These beauties were given to me in high school or something. My sister Carrie has matching green ones. :) This year I found out that Addie's jammies match almost perfectly! (which I bought for the girls 2nd Halloween costumes "Thing 1 and Thing 2"!) The kids love when I wear them. The only thing that would make them better is a bum flap because it is COLD when I have to used the restroom or anything.  Brrr.

 

We got this kit at Costco...the way to go. The kids and I (yes, even I!) had so much fun decorating this together and they did a great job and used great restraint! I loved how much even Addie wanted to help.

 

  

Beautiful, isn't it. ;) First time I've ever used fondant. It came with the kit, so we tried it out!

 

We also kept the Crippen tradition of watching "The Muppet Christmas Carol." This is also a special movie to Justin and I as it was our first "date" that I initiated during finals week of 2004. We went out and found it and rented it. And he met my sister then too...and it all took of from there. I am surprised my singing every song didn't scare him away and make him think I was a weirdo...but I couldn't help it. If you can't love Muppets, you can't love me...or my dad. ;)

It was pretty cute how into it Addie was...and how she got her popcorn and water and took it to the big empty chair and got comfy. :)

 

Family movie night. :) Addie is growing up way too fast.

  During the weekend after American Thanksgiving Cardston High always hosts the Alumni Tournament. Darin and Nada came all the way from Tennessee, so we had a big FHE night with a bunch of friends! There were 11 adults and 18 children with 3 on the way! We ate soup, had a Christmas Family Home Evening, and then decorated cookies! The adults chatted while kids played/ran wild. :) It was really fun. I am so glad everyone came out, even though it was in the middle of a huge freezing winter storm. (2 snow days and -35 C weather!) And for that reason I am glad I was hosting. ;) Worth the sprinkle mess to not have to leave my home.(I didn't leave my home for 4 days actually!!) 

She is not old enough to be doing this?! Where is my baby?!

After that storm we got some MAJOR snow and drifts. Those are our back porch stairs and picnic table COVERED!

 

 Kamry needed pictures for a Christmas project she was doing so I took a few of the kids and sent them in.

Kamry edited this one and used it. I sure love these kiddos. Life is crazy sometimes and loud always, but so good. :) 

 

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!

 

 

(and if you didn't get one and wanted one, I am sorry...I ran out so quick and was too late to reorder! Next year I am ordering more!)

 

 

Merry Christmas Family and Friends!

 

 This year has been a great one for our family. Justin (30!) --now officially known as Dr. Low!--is completely done with school after 10 years of post secondary training! Looking back, it went fast, and it seems crazy to be done…and VERY wonderful! With that accomplishment complete, we moved our family to Cardston, AB, Canada. It’s a small town of about 3,500 people close to the US/Canada border; the same town that Justin grew up in and where his parents still live. We are settling in here in Cardston. Justin enjoys his new job (working a family medicine clinic and E.R. in the local hospital) and we all love our new house. It is at the end of a cul-de-sac full of kids. Our kids are in heaven! I just wish they all had ‘locator’ buttons on them so I could easily track down where they all are. Zach (6 ½) is in Grade 1 and gets to ride a bus even though school is closer to us than it ever has been! Joys of a small town. He loves it and so do I. He lost his first tooth and is working on the second! He is learning to read and enjoyed gymnastics and basketball. Kate and Kara (5 this month!) are in preschool two days a week and also get to ride a bus! They also are in gymnastics and love having friends so close to play with. Little Miss Adaleigh (19 mths) is just a fun spunky girl. She is easy going, happy and funny, but can certainly hold her own. She loves her siblings, singing, and is talking up a storm. I’m (29!) busy at home being a wife and mom and play volleyball once a week if I am up for it. J Life is good. We love you all and are ready for visitors!             

 



Sk8ters

 

We had to give them an early birthday present...There isn't much to do here in Cardston, but there IS an ice skating rink and there are several free family skate times!!! So fun! SO we opened a month early bday present (that I've had since after last Christmas!) and went sk8ting! (writing it like that brings me back to middle school and Stussy letters...)

 If you are going to teach your kids to skate, don't start with these things. They only lengthen the process!! We've gone 4 times now and they were finally able to not use them and just do tiny steps around the ice. Better.

 

 Me with my walker...first time on the ice since I broke my elbow skating 4.5 years ago...with 2 month old twins and a 23 month old. Not cool. I don't mind pushing Addie in the stroller one bit. :)

 

Zach did skating in his kindergarten last year. He can scoot around pretty fast now!

 Entranced by the Zamboni.

 Watching the Zamboni

 

 All my sk8ters.

And he was just a handsome stud, who can REALLY skate and still really impresses me, so I had to get a picture of him. :)

18 month-old Adaleigh!

We did it! We made it to nursery age!! :) Addie girl is sure growing up. I swear I just had her...and she is already 18 months?! Are all of my babies going to keep growing up this fast! She is so much fun to have around the house. Everyone loves Addie. She is talking so much and can communicate pretty well with us. And she sure knows how to get herself heard even around our noisy house! She is such a fun baby and one of my favorite times of the day is putting her to bed, not because she is going to bed, but because of our routine of songs and chatting. She loves the song "I love to see the temple" and can sing the whole song! It is adorable. Whenever I try and record it she just keeps saying "No...no, no, no." with a cheeky smile. She also LOVES E-I-E-I-O and likes to sing it in a squeaky voice. Old MacDonald always has a cow. :) She also tells me when to hum and when to sing and then pretends to snore. :) Weird, but it's so fun! 

Too cute! :) I love her in this little coat.

(It's even cuter when you find out it was $10 brand new last spring! Glad she grew into it so nicely.)

Cheesy girl. She frequently does this smile with the squinty eyes. 

And she is OBSESSED with shoes. Boots, shoes, any size, style, color...she is all over it.

I love squeezing those delicious thighs and tickling that belly.

Her obsession with shoes...these are Kara's huge Rapunzel dolls shoes! They fit her! Ha ha! She walks around in them all the time. It is so funny.

Here is her other favorite thing to do...Little Einstein's Old MacDonald's Farm. Love's it. She calls it "E-I-E-I-O." She usually does this while I work out both our videos are about 25 minutes so it's perfect! :)

 

 
She also loves carrying this baby around. One day I caught her reading to her baby. She kept readjusting her on her lap until she was just right and then reading to her, only later scoot her up more on her lap again. :) It was pretty cute. I snuck out my camera. And, I love those duckie jammies. I got them for Zach when he was little. They are getting a hole in the foot. :( Addie LOVES these pjs. "Quack, quack!"

Caught ya! 

Here is her other obsession...DVD's...mostly trying to find "E-I-E-I-O" or "We Are" --Ice Age 4. I have since moved them to a higher shelf until we find a better storage solution. And I guess this day she figured out how to get her diaper off...oh dear. Butt cute! ;)

We love her. The End. ;) 

 

Van-Cougar!

Van-Cougar! As Kate would say it. :) Justin had a Family Medicine Conference in Vancouver to get some of his continuing education credits and I got to go! Not to the conference (well, I did sit in on the last 10 minutes of his "It's not an Ingrown Toenail, it's Overgrown Toe Skin" conference. And yes, it did make me wish I went to a few more!! Anyway, Rob and Cammie are living in Cardston so we hired them stay at our place and watch the kiddos. It was so weird the first day to be away from kids, but once I got used to it (and the weather got less rainy so I could actually get out of the hotel room...) it was awesome!

Here was our view! We were in Downtown Vancouver. It was SO BUSY! Especially for us country folk. ;) Seriously though...people everywhere...cars everywhere...pedestrians, lights...so many office buildings. SO many offices. So many workers. What are they all doing?! That building with the grass on the top was the Convention Centre Justin's conference was at.




Can you tell what hotel we stayed at! Bro. Marriott's. ;) So cool.

Look at all the beautiful colors! Vancouver was so cool, because it was like our marriage...wintery mountains meets ocean. So unique. :)


We came a day before the conference so we could do a bit of sight seeing. Luckily, the rain pretty much stayed away for the day. First we went to Grouse Mountain. This is what we rode up the mountain on.


We watched videos up there and saw the two bears they rescued as cubs. And it was SO COLD! Wet cold is a lot different than dry cold we have in So Alb.

They are huge and scary now and gave me goose bumps. Luckily they were about to go hibernate. They were moving so slow. And I was glad for that. I never want to be close enough to see those huge claws again.

When we went up we went above the foggy, cold clouds. Here we are descending back down .

My handsome date. :) It really is so good to get away once in a while.

Vancougar!

We also went to the Vancouver Aquarium, which was in itself really cool. BUT, I am from Southern California. Sorry. I am hard to impress ... you can't top Sea World. :) We took pictures for the kiddos and kinda wished they were there the whole time! Until it was time to go on our long walk and out to dinner that is. :)

Purple Sea Stars?! 

Delicious jellyfish.

The underside of a sea turtle. How often do you see that?

Nemo and Dory!   

And my favorite...the beluga whales!!! We went to Sea World in February and the exhibit was closed. I was so bummed! Justin said they remind them of himself...because they are pasty white, have great muscular definition, and always smiling! I think he is spot on.


The cool thing about this place is that the belugas did tricks! I've never seen that before!

 

 

 

 

 

So cool. I love them. Two weeks after we got home I saw a video about how there protesters outside the Vancouver Aquarium for allowing a yoga class to go on next to the beluga whale exhibit. They called it an oxymoron because "Yoga is about liberation and freedom." Poor belugas. Nah. They were smiling. 

Look at that definition. ;)

And look. We found Adelie!
 

 

And we were fortunate enough to be there for the two minutes, one time a month, that they feed the bullfrogs baby mice! Oh yeah! It was actually really interesting to watch. They looked just like the little newborn hamsters I found in our hamster cage when I was 5 and I thought they were bugs.

 

 

This bird was getting flustered by us. :)

A Sloth.

We watched them throw whole chickens in to feed these guys. Dead, defeathered ones, but it was crazy to watch them chomp and swallow them.

We thought Zach would LOVE this big fish! Wow.


The Aquarium was in the middle of Stanley Park, so after we were done at the aquarium we walked around this gorgeous, humongous  park. And the trees were beautiful! The leaves were so red!


We started walking the sea wall around Stanley Park and found this cool tree. Thought the kids would love it. ;)




GORGEOUS!

Don't you want to walk there?

This is for my Dad...Stanley Gordon Crippen. :) We had walked A LONG way (like 8 kms?!) and got a little lost, didn't have a map, it was getting dark, and Justin's phone battery was dying, hence we had no more gps to find our car in Stanley Park and then to get us home through all of those crazy city streets...but we found a sign that I had been looking for! And luckily later on were able to find our way back to the aquarium where our car was parked so we could go home, get warm, and eat. 

And eat we did! This was delicious! Justin's cousin told us about this delicious Korean BBQ. Shabusen or something. It was so fun, so delicious, and pretty good priced! And yes, we smelled like BBQ smoke afterward.

Ha ha! Justin HAD to eat with chopsticks. He really doesn't like doing that, but there were no forks. No options! He did well. :) 

And I got to eat all of the pistachio ice cream at the end!!!
(What movie?)

The next day was super rainy and I was missing my kids and any purpose in life. I am pretty sure I have seasonal affective disorder. I need sunshine. I was raised on it for 20 years!

Then the next day the sun came out...well, it wasn't raining at least, so I walked from our hotel to Stanley Park to finish the part of the loop we missed.

And then went to lunch with Justin and got a Beavertail. Yum. Good thing I work off so many calories that morning. ;)

Cool lego-y killer whale statue.

Make a video - it's fun, easy and free!
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Another cool thing about Vancouver...SEAPLANES! This reminds me of my brother Cody and his love of the Sea Duck from the cartoon Talespin. Remember that Codes? THAT was a good show. And a cool toy you had.

Last day there...me at the Olympic Torch?! It was actually a picture of me and Justin...but the lady we asked to take the picture and said she got the picture didn't get the picture. That's what we get for asking an older lady to take a picture for us. I am so used to taking the pictures...not being in them!

There. Got one awkward bad angled one. :) Just to prove we were both there...together.

Had a few last minute things to do before we flew out the next day...we had to have fish and chips. You're on the coast, you gotta do it! The best place to go was about 30 minutes away. Why not! We had nothing else to do. What a good feeling! :) And it was worth the drive.

Then we went to Granville Island...the coolest marketplace/shop area. We got the kids some little souvenirs (phone almost died again and we were scared we wouldn't be able to make it home!) and went to dinner and to an 8:30 movie!!! I don't remember the last time we ever did that! We saw "Gravity." It was intense and really only should be watched on a big screen. Anyway, while we were waiting I saw this snowman guy the kids love so I took a picture for them. They would have loved him too...he even shook his hips.

The next day was Sunday and we were flying out at noon. We found a building to go to church at and got there 15 minutes early...and it was Stake Conference. At another building. An hour later. Ugh! Well, we tried. There were a few other visitors that came to the building and found the same thing we did. So we went to the airport and waited there for an extra hour and a half. Oh well.


And this is what we came home to. Wee. I HATE WINTER ROADS. Luckily this was just the last 30 minutes.

 

 THIS is what we were very happy to come home to!!! And they even missed us and loved their Whirly Pops and Vancouver key chains. :)
It was so fun to come home to these guys. And Addie was so funny. When we came home we looked through the windows by our door and everyone came running. They were just sitting down to dinner (which luckily Robbie and Cammie had made so we were eased back in to real life. We didn't have to make our own food, but we did have to dish ourselves up. That was hard.) Cammie brought Addie to me, and she came willingly, but she was being really quiet and wouldn't look at me in the eyes very often. "You are back...but you LEFT me!" That's what she was saying in her looks. :)

picture texted to us by Cammie while we were on our trip. That spaghetti sauce really brings out her blue eyes. :)
Earlier in the week we had tried Facetiming them. THAT did not go so well. I think we really confused Addie. So we didn't call back until we could be there in the flesh.