TIMMMBEEERR!!!!

Well among the millions of projects we have going on around our house, this is the newest. My wallpaper was WAS next, but our neighbor who hates these trees in our front yard even more than we do changed those plans!
So we've had these 2 HUGE spruce trees that are dangerously close to our house in our front yard. They are also so dirty and take over our whole front yard! So, our neighbor arranged (payed for) a bin to be delivered, and he helped Jordan take these trees down! Jordan has lots of expirence with falling trees because when he worked as a forest fire fighter for a few summers in BC, he was the chain saw guy who fell trees.

So they came down sucessfully! Jordan stressed so much about it, he got like 3 hours of sleep the night before! It was very close to our house, so I don't blame him. But I knew he would do a great job!

So they are down! Now our front yard is pretty bare and ugly... haha, but I'd rather have that than those trees. Just another thing to add to the list, the front landscaping. But that is okay, now we can move on to other things... like my wallpaper wall!

Cole helping out

HUGE hey! So glad those are done. Its all cleaned up now, landscaping in the front yard may have to wait until next year though, lots more to do!

Grads!

This year in our family we had 2 highschool grads! My youngest sister Paige, and Jordan's youngest brother Michael. It was really neat to see them all grown up and looking so awesome! Paige's of course was here in Edmonton, and then last weekend we travelled to Vanderhoof for Michael's ceremonies. Both we really nice events. Here are some highlights.

Paige after getting her diploma!

Me and Kamry with Paige (taren was out of town.)

Mom and Dad with Paige

Paige and her handsome date Cody, they looked sooo good together!

At the banquet that night - doesn't Paige look beautiful!?

Me and my Mom after the banquet.

Michael's grad after the ceremony, it was like 10:30... Avery was sooo tired! Hence... her face!


Mikes grad class

After the Grand march where the grads are introduced with there date.


The family cheering Mike on :)


Michael and his date, isn't he a stud!

I AM ALIVE!

Hi blogging friends,

I've been a horrible blogger, and I'm not necessarily promising I will get better. It seems with work and summer events starting, there is not a lot of free time! And that free time is spent with my favourite people... being Jordan and Avery :)

Work is great... but busy! I'm still part time, but I find myself taking work home lately and preparing presentations and working on clients files during Av's nap time and after she goes to bed. That then leaves my "nap time duties" to be done some other times... not sure when that is?! I also like to spend as much time with Avery when I am home from work! But I know this is many working mothers dilemma, this is just me ranting and still adjusting. But I sure am productive when I'm busier!

Anyways, reno projects are still on the go. Until our fence is done, in house things are on hold. More pictures to come! We've had lots of fun family gatherings lately, which I will post pics of once I get them (I hate forgetting my camera, thankfully my sisters and Mom didn't forget.) And I had a baby shower for my dear sweet friend Tara and her son Boston on the weekend which was lots of fun, hes so darn cute! Well here's some updates of my cutie pie lately!

Before church, she loves wearing her dresses.

This is Avey's tome boy side, she loves puttig her daddys hats on!

Oh and please Mothers out there who have had kids addicted to there soothers... this is a bad picture of Avery, but it shows her crazy addiction to soothers! I have a goal that by the time shes 2 I will be rid of that thing! But its going to be no easy task, any tips you mommas have are much appreciated!

Fun on the Farm!

This week we had such a great little play date with some of my girlfriends and there kids. Lisa invited us over to her parents house who have a acreage outside of Sherwood Park. Her dad was a Rancher his whole life and just retired and they bought a smaller place closer to the city. Even though it was a little chilly out, we all had such a great time! Thank you to Lisa and Mr. Conrad for there hospitality!


Dmitri (Lisa's son) and Zach (Rachel's son) on the horse, they were both very brave! You won't see any of Avery on the horse, although she really enjoyed looking and touching them, she was too nervous to sit on them.

I love this little guy, Cori's son Dylan! His face was precious, it was like "should I cry or laugh right now? I'm not too sure?!?!" Pretty brave for a 13 month old!

Such boys these 2, they LOVED the tractor!

Me and Avery going for a quad ride with Lisa and Dmitri

We had a awesome pot luck lunch after, lots of good food, here is the kids enjoying from fruit after lots of playing outside.

Sleepy heads on the way back home, we caught ride out with Zach and Rachel. These 2 just love each other! When I'm at work Rachel watches Avery, so they are best buddies! So it was fun for me to see them together playing!

Night out with my Sistas!!!

I just love my sisters, and its nice when you get older and you become more like friends than... sisters. Well we've been meaning to have a night out, just us girls and we finally did. And we've got to do it more often!

We went to this awesome new place in Edmonton that Taren suggested called "The Melting Pot." Oh my goodness, DELICIOUS!!! As you can tell by the title its a fondue place, we got a cheese fondue to split and chocolate. It was great! And we had tons of great laughs!

Oh and yes, there are only 4 of us Pizzey girls. The 5th chica is Lindsay (Blake's - my brothers gf) and we were so happy to invite her along cause she is such a sweet heart and absolute delight and she tolerates how crazy we are!

All of us (left to right) Kamry, me, Paige, Lindsay and Taren.

Paige, Lindsay and Taren enjoying the amazing chocolate fondue! The give you fruit, cheesecake, cake, and powdered marshmallows to dip, mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!

Me and Kams :)

Easter Fun!

Hmmmm... fold laundry... or blog... BLOG! I always use nap time productively... hehe!

Well I hope you all had a wonderful Easter weekend! We sure did, best I can remember in a long time! And how great was it to have conference on Easter weekend!? I just loved that! Since I've gone back to work part time we really haven't had a spare full day together (Me, Avery and Jordan) since I started! I work every Saturday, so Jordan and Avery have fun together on Saturdays, and yes we get Sundays together... but lets face it... sometimes with kids and church Sundays are too much of a break! SO, I still worked Saturday, but Jordan got Friday AND Monday off!!! So I worked Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday we had Friday, Sunday and Monday together!!! Soooo nice!

Friday we cleaned out garage out (that felt good) and went to my parents house to have dinner and roast marshmallows with my Sister and her husband and there cute 6 month old daughter. My parents were out of town until Saturday so they were house sitting and watching the dog.

Sunday we had a little egg hunt with Avery in the morning and a yummy breakfast and relaxed and watched conference. And that night we went back to my parents and and had dinner, went for a walk, enjoyed a hot tub, and watched a movie and slept over!!! So nice and relaxing.

Monday we went to Kids Quartz in Sherwood Park and got a work out climbing everywhere with Avery, she had a blast though! And had some lunch and then went back to my parents to set up the scavenger hunt and help my mom get ready for Easter dinner. Then all the family came over to my parents and we had a lovely dinner and scavenger hunt for the little girls! Then watched the NCAA final, so yes... wonderful weekend! Here's a bunch of pics, enjoy!

Avery checking out her Easter basket

Trying to get her to grasp the idea of looking for eggs, she got it... she just wanted to eat each one when she found it!

Showing off her loot, more to find though!

The Easter bunny... isn't he handsome! haha, he was a lot happier here, I'm not sure why he looks so grouchy!?

Avery in her Easter outfit with her bunny

Watching conference, she loves when the choir sings

At my Parents doing the Easter egg scavenger hunt

Taren, Jordan, A, and my Nana after the scavenger hunt

Our family, Avery is very hard to get to co-operate for pictures... grrrr

Taren, pretty little Talia, and Kamry

My little cousin Casey, Paige and Cody

Beef Stew Recipe

Don't you love a good beef stew!? I didn't even like beef growing up, but since my tastes of matured... haha, I just love it! Jordan went on a YM's camp last summer and the last day this wonderful lady in our Grace Dyer brought them beef stew (they actually were up on top of Mount Robinson as the camp was a hike and Jordan arranged for the helicopter that brings tourists up everyday to bring a package up and it had beef stew, buns, and chocolate from Grace) and he was telling me how it was the best thing hes ever tasted! From then I've been craving a good beef stew!

So I bought this slow cooker little magazine at a Safeway check out. I love doing slow cooker meals when I work, cause I have time in the morning to put it together and then we have a tasty healthy dinner when we get home. So this has been one of my favourites. I've tweaked a few things and when I made it last week it was fine tuned and perfect! So here is the recipe with a few tweaks I did. Enjoy! Its so easy to make too!

Beef Stew:

-1/3 C flour
- 1 t salt
- 1 t paprika
- 1/4 t pepper
- 2 1/2 lb lean boneless beef stew
meat
- 2 T EVOO
- 1 onion chopped
- 1 bag (1 lb) baby carrots or cut up 5-6 carrots into the size of baby carrots
- 2 C baby potatoes
- 1 can beef broth (184ml)
- 1/2 C Welshes grape juice
- 1 can tomato paste
- 1 T minced garlic
- 1 t ginger
- 8-10 mushrooms chopped (if you like mushrooms, leave it out if you don't)

- Spray Slow Cooker
- heat up oil on pan.
- Combine flour, salt, paprika, and pepper in Ziploc. Shake beef in Ziploc and fry in oil on pan. Brown beef on all sides for 5-7 mins and transfer to bottom of slow cooker. Top with potatoes, carrots and onions.
- Mix broth, juice, tomatoes paste, garlic, and ginger.
- Pour solution into cooker
- Cook on low for 4-6 hours
- Add mushrooms and cook 1-2 more hours
- if not adding mushrooms cook on low for 6-8 hours

ENJOY!