Calgary Stampede

This year my parents came over from BC and we all went to the Calgary Stampede. It was really fun this year, the kids were able to go on rides without crying their eyes out, and they had a blast. They went on a bunch of rides and really enjoyed it. We all had a blast, besides getting separated several times, and wanting to scream with Tynen when he had a break down, it was great fun. But I must say, the stampede is definitely on of those things you do only every few years.

The kids wanted to show grandpa that they knew how to handle a tractor just like him, so the hopped on.


And that they could handle a horse. Just like grandpa...


Oh yeah, and they couldn't miss out on the big tank and the army man... I think Kolby was more interested in the gun than what they had to say, but whatever works...

2 years of First day of School

Alright, so I'm a bad blogger, but I did take some pictures of Taylor's first day of Kindergarten last year in Vulcan. She was so excited. She did full days Tuesday and Thursday and every other Friday, she loved it, her teacher Mrs. Miller was pretty good and Taylor loved her. Here she is in September 2008:

I'll have to post her first day of school later, it's on my phone, and actually, I do kinda suck, I think the pic is just of her getting on the bus, oh well, she looked adorable, as she always does. Kolby's first year of kindergarted was this year as well, he was very excited to be just like Taylor and go to the same school as her and everything, so that was fun. They both love school and have made lots of friends, they love their teachers and are doing great.

Welcome to the World Peyton Raya Fredriksen

April 29 2009 Peyton was born.

An absolute doll, and an angel baby, so thankful for her. She was born early in the morning and was pretty quick. I had gas and air, and almost wish I had a longer labor so that I could have stayed on it longer, oh well, I guess that is how it goes right.

Our friend Randea was awesome and watched our kids when we went in and helped us pick the middle name.

Love it!

We didn't know what we were having, but Taylor kindly informed us that if it wasn't a girl, she was sending it back (or maybe not so nicely in different words) Needless to say she was thrilled that we had another girl, and a redhead no less. The kids were so excited to meet Peyton, Randea brought them in in the morning and they wanted to hold and cuddle her. It was so adorable.

To this day the kids absolutely love her, and dote on her, she is like their doll, but she is starting to be on her own, and doesn't like to be carried around all the time, and I think that her personality is going to be one that will let them know. Bless the red hair!

LONG TIME!

Ok, well what can I say, I suck and this is long overdue, but let me get to the nitty gritty...
A little about what has happened in the last few... well almost a year.

We moved to okotoks, mark got a new job, we bought a new house and had a baby girl. Done, just kidding.

In January of this year, I felt like it was time to move ( I think it was cabin fever, but i'll never admit it to Mark) Don't ask me why, I was busier then ever doing hair in the salon, we had just finished reovating the house to where we liked it and things were starting to settle down, not so crazy busy. But I felt like we needed to so I started looking for a new house. Those of you that know me, know that I am kind of a deal junkie, it makes me feel warm and fuzzy and excited if I can get a steal of a deal, so I decided I was going to find a killer deal on a house and then see what we could do about getting it. So I went online (which is kind of an addiction I must say, I could probably spend hours on there doing absolutely nothing and then wondering where the time went haha) and one of my favorite pastimes online (sad to say) is searching kijiji (it's a buy and sell website) well, this time my pastime payed off. I found a house. The ad said "HOUSE FOR SALE OKOTOKS fast possession. Need to sell" It was a fantastic price. It had been posted the day before and I emailed him back. We talked and set up a time to view it. Before we went, I took Mark to do a driveby and he said, "I feel like this is our house", well that was the kicker for me, I was sold and I hadn't even seen it yet, I guess when it's right it's right. However, I insisted we do some groundwork and check out some of the other houses in that price range and found that they weren't even comparable. So we fell in love with the house on Kijiji. And took possession of it on my Birthday! What a great Birthday present. So now we live in a beautiful home, that I love and feel like we will be in for awhile. Here are some pics!

This is the Salon, Mark made sure I had my hobby right away so I wouldn't be "Crazy" as he puts it. (I'm sure it helps that I make money doing my hobby.

Kitchen - I love my kitchen, it has a walk in pantry with lots of storage!

This is the downstairs sitting room.

My Master Bath is one of my favorite places in the house.

This is the bonus room, Mark's favorite room.

Positivity....

Okay, so I should be doing laundry right now, but i'm not going to feel guilty about it, i'm gonna feel great about it. Do you ever feel like there is something that you need to share with everyone cause it is amazing (besides the gospel) well, I was reading a great article in a not so great magazine and they were talking about the book "The Secret". I had seen about five minutes of Oprah when she did her thing on it, and was interested but that passed as I got busier and busier in my life. So as I read the article, I remembered that I wanted to read it, so I went online and ordered it from the library and waited for it to come. When I received it, I knew hardly anything about it, but thought it might be a little off base with our religion, so I was very careful to be aware of how I felt when I was reading it. Anyways, as I got through more and more of it, I felt good and more interested. It was more in line with the church teaching than I thought it would be, it was a very interesting read, of course it was very non denominational and not very religious, although several comments were made about the bible and god. The jist of it was being positive. The Law of Attraction and how when we are negative, negative things are attracted to us, and when we are positive, positive things are attracted to us. It is not doctrinal, so you have to take out of the book the best parts right. It talks about controling our thoughts and being grateful and thankful and happy with what we have and we will attract more into our lives. It's an interesting concept anyways....and I think i'm going to change my way of thinking. I'm taking from it what I feel is inspired of our Heavenly Father and I'm going to run with it. Anyways, I just felt I should share this as it has been on my mind the last couple of days!!!!

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Well I must say, I love the smell of rain and the feel of sun, and we have had a mixture of it for the last couple days. This week has been a busy one so far with hair and house, and cleaning.

My parents are coming up tomorrow, and then we are off to UTAH to my cousin Marks wedding. Its a quick trip that will start Thurs night and then End Monday night, with a lot of shopping and fun in between!!! My cousin Mark and I grew up together in Horsefly and were pretty good friends until they moved to Utah, so I'm excited to see him married and happy! Mark (my Mark) bought a GPS for the trip and then we got it home and it didn't have any US maps on it, so being as stubborn as I am (cause it was such a good deal) I decided to figure out how to download them from the internet onto it. Anything can be done these days it seems on the internet. So I cracked it and installed everything and it works great!!!! So now we won't get lost in Utah...now I just have to figure out how to upload the millions of Points of interest that are in the US. (The picture above is me on the left and my cuz Mark on the Right)

(This pic is him dressed up as Santa at one of our many Christmas parties, he would kill me if he knew I posted it!!!!)

We also get to see my little bro who is on his mission in Idaho, we get to take him and his companion out to breakfast!!!! So that will be lots of fun!

Scrapbooking has kind of slowed down these last couple weeks as I finally finished our trip to England and Denmark. So now I'm starting on Kolby's baby book, and find that getting started is the hardest thing to do. So I need to crack down on it.

Our lawn is getting so nice and green from all the moisture, and I am truly thankful for it!!! I love to see the blossoms on the trees and the green green grass. We bought camping lounger chairs from costco, and they are awesome, they fold into a small bag and are wicked comfortable! I love to sit on my deck when the kids are playing in the back yard, and soak up the sun on my lounger or read a good book. The weather has actually been nice enough to do that the last couple of days!! We truly are BLESSED!

Well I should probably go tackle my laundry.

Just Bloggin....

So this week has been fairly uneventful, unless you count the foot deep snow drift on my front lawn that won't go away. Every day I get up, look out my window and pretend it's green and warm and sunshiney and leaves on the trees and the whole works, then I try not to look out the window again. Oh, where are the days of sunshine and pina coladas oh wait, that was never my life haha. I wish (maybe a virgin pina colada). So Mark and I went to Calgary on a date last Friday, as the snow storm was hitting, and man, it was nice to get away, we went and watched a movie and sat in the lounge at moxie's and just enjoyed ourselves....course we stayed out until late, (our poor babysitter) I don't think we got back until midnight! Oh well, i guess this is what livin on the edge is...domesticated style...stay out late, sit in the lounge, drive in a snow storm....sad sad sad. But we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Well This is what I picture when I look out my window every morning, and I guess it's gonna have to do for now! I never thought I would ever want to go back to Horsefly, but right now they have beautiful weather and lots of sunshine, so maybe it's not so horrible after all.

The Poser

So when My aunt Terri and I aren't doing her hair, we are taking pictures, she came out last week to get her hair done and brought her awesome new camera, and decided to experiment with Taylor....Of course, Taylor, being Mark and I's daughter loved every minute of it. She posed for everything, she even gave Terri direction in what she was going to do. It was fun!

Kolby will never forgive me if he walks by and sees his sister but not him, so i'm posting one of his half smile poser poses (it's about as good as it gets with him)!

Here is one of Mark and I, I finally got him to smile!