My Gap Kids

Shannon told me that Gap is having a casting call contest from ages 0-12years. So naturally, I decided to do a photoshoot with the kids. Lately, I have not felt very motivated to whip my camera out so this was a perfect opportunity to do just that!  I had just finished watching Jenny do a newborn shoot that very morning (of my niece, Lynn), and I was inspired.  I think I forgot how much I love taking pictures.  So I wiped the dust off my camera AND even opened up my CS4 to edit!

Ellie was my first victim.  "Victim" would actually be more suited to any of my other kids BUT Ellie.  She loved this.  She loved getting her hair done.  She loved getting all dolled up.  And she loved posing.  She has a real natural talent for this sort of thing.  Lately, I feel like we've really been bonding.  And this experience was just another one of those times.  I have been trying to be better with spending more quality time with her.  The other day I was running errands and even had the opportunity to leave her at home with someone and run them by myself, a rarity, but I took her with me.  She is a chatterbox, and talked my ear off.  And I loved it.  She's also really funny.  We bought fudgesicles, went to the dollar store so she could buy a few things with her hard-earned money and then we hung out in the back yard together just the two of us while she made me pretend food.  It was really nice.  Looking at these pictures makes me wonder how Joe and I could have possibly made something this beautiful.  It alarms me because she is not even a teenager yet.  She always tells me how much she wishes she could be a teenager because they get to stay up late and play more video games and do whatever they want.  Um.  No.  I hope these early years go slowly.


Jackson was my first real victim.  I cheated him out of the twenty minutes I usually give him after school to play with his buddy behind the school at their secret hide out.  All to come home for a haircut and a photoshoot!  Meanest Mom ever!  Jackson loves having his hair long.  I occasionally think it's cute---when he actually does his hair, but after a while it starts looking pretty ratty.  I prefer it short.  So we met in the middle and did short on the sides with a party on top (thank you Auntie Celeste!).  I LOVE IT!  I think it aged him about ten years though.  When I asked him what his class thought of his new hair cut, he told me that everyone just stared, and now all the girls have a crush on him (this clearly irked him) and maybe it isn't such a good idea to be too handsome.  Haha!


Noah surprised me.  Usually he has no patience for this sort of thing.  But he didn't complain about getting a hair cut.  He didn't complain that I wanted to make him model for me.  He just did what I asked and did it cutely.  He just might be coming to an age where he knows how cute he is getting and he likes it.  This tie and this face make me melt.  Oh lemon-lips.


Zoe was the one who made me work the hardest.  I think it's because I am always trying to get a picture of her and she's over it.  Zoe!  Say cheese!  No, look at me and say cheese!  You're not looking.  Look here!  HERE!  ....oh Zoe.  I may have had to click 5 times more pictures than all my other kids combined, but I managed to capture some cute ones.  All of her different personalities.  Cute.  Crazy.  Dainty.  Mad.  Sweet.  They're all there.

Winning this contest would mean a trip to NYC for a photoshoot of the child (or children) that win.  Could you imagine?  That would be so amazing.  I know how beautiful my kids are, but does Gap know?  Well.  They're about to!  Honestly, I know there are a bazillion other Moms entering their kids so it is unlikely it will happen, but it would certainly be a neat experience.  Just looking through these pictures makes me feel really lucky.  I have not only beautiful children, but happy, healthy, and good-natured kids.  Not sure how I got so lucky.

Seven

Noah is seven!  I always fret about planning parties that are fun enough, but not so fun that the kids keep score and expect that same amount of fun or more for their next birthday.  Joe helped me to temper my desires to give Noah the biggest and best and greatest of everything.  Plus, we don't really have the luxury of doing that anyway.  We really lucked out.  Partly because he is a May baby....  We held his birthday party at a park here in Lacombe and it was perfect.  Perfect amount of kids.  Perfect weather.  Perfect location.  And all we had to do was bring a soccer ball!  Well, and hotdogs and cupcakes and fruit and LOTS to drink.  In fact, halfway through the party, Joe went back to the house to grab more drinks and some popsicles for everyone because it was just THAT hot.  In MAY!  No complaints here.  Noah wanted to have a soccer-themed party, so we made sure to set up near the soccer field and I ran some drills with the kids.  I thought they'd be bored, but they loved it.  And then I let them try to score on me, the professional Mommy soccer player.  I killed it.   I also attempted to make soccer cupcakes, which sounds easy enough, right?  Well.  They looked terrible.  So terrible that after my fifth attempt at butchering these cupcakes I invited the kids to just help me finish the rest.  When you stop caring as a Mom about the appearance of all that stuff, birthday parties become way less stressful (please remember that for the next birthday party).  Plus, the kids LOVED that they got to decorate the cupcakes and didn't care if they looked like soccer balls or not!  We also did a balloon toss game which I literally planned that very morning and only because I knew it was going to be a hot day and we'd need to find a way to cool down!  It was a hit (thank you Dollar Store), and it quickly turned into a water balloon fight.  Of course.  My only regret was not having enough balloons because it lasted maybe five minutes!  The rest of the time was spent doing the regular birthday things like presents and cupcakes and such and then we just played at the playground the rest of the time.  I think I am slowly learning some lessons over the years about birthdays.  Kids really don't need much to have a fun time!  And thankfully Noah's dream gift was under $10 bucks.  Pokemon cards.

L-R: Ellie, Gracie Cosman, Noah, Dax, Kaeson;  Bottom two: Jackson and Colton


And here are a couple from Sunday Dinner with Grandpa.

Noah, these days you are obsessed with Pokemon.  It is THE thing at school to trade Pokemon cards.  Your love for Pokemon all started when one day a friend was kind enough to give you one of their cards and it has gone downhill from there.  Somehow you have managed to collect close to twenty without having to buy one card!  A businessman in the making.  Or a professional thief.  And now you and Jackson watch the show religiously.  It brings me back to when I was a kid because Pokemon was big then.  And the show is still as ridiculous as I remember it being.  I could use other words, but I'll stick to that one.  You are now a proud owner of 40 new Pokemon cards and are also now the most popular boy at school because of it.  Too bad Pokemon cards are now banned at school.   You still bring them anyway.  Popular AND rebellious.

You are still such a sweetheart.  Just today, baby Harvey was over and you took the time to play with him and give him snacks to eat and make him happy.  You love babies.  You love little children.  You just have a kind and sweet heart.  I keep thinking you will grow out of it one day.  One day you will be too old to be sweet, but that day hasn't come yet.  I hope it never does.

I think one of my favourite things about you is your hand-gestures when you talk.  You try to talk like an adult and it pretty much just ends up looking like the cutest thing ever.  You are also still my top favourite kid to watch when we have dance parties.  I try to watch the others, but my eyes are always drawn to you because you've got some pretty special moves and you try so hard to make them as intense as possible.  It's pretty much adorable.  I hope you never stop being adorable.

These days you (and all your siblings) LOVE to scare me by being zombies and walking slowly towards me with those zombie noises and backing me into a corner and making all of my worst nightmares come true.  It honestly freaks me out when you're all coming at me.  I know zombies aren't real, but you kids do a good job at scaring me.

You have moved on from Minecraft to Mariokart.  I guess you still play Minecraft every once in a while, but generally, if you have a choice, it's Mariokart for sure.  You also love to record songs in Garageband.  It started with Jackson, but you have taken over now that you know the ins and outs of recording.  I love watching you be so creative!  And of course, I love watching you dance to your own tunes.

You are also just a genuinely good kid.  The other day at church you didn't really feel like singing in Primary (and I am the music leader, so it makes me sad when you don't sing the songs I am leading!).  Actually, for weeks you haven't been singing.  But all I had to do was talk to you about it one on one and the very next week, you put in an effort, all to make me feel better (and maybe you even enjoyed it a little!).  What a good kid.

You love soccer.  It breaks my heart that I didn't put you in soccer this Summer.  With us being in transition mode and trying to move this Summer, I didn't sign any of you kids up for anything!  But you have been a good sport about it and you practice with your soccer ball all the time.  You play soccer during recess at school (even with the bigger kids too), and you even made it a goal at the beginning of this year to be better at soccer by practicing every day.  You have done a great job with that.  Hopefully next year we will be able to get you on a team!  Assuming you still like soccer by then.

I love you Noah.  I honestly don't know what I'd do without you.  You make me feel so special as a Mom.  Thankfully you are still young enough that you don't mind holding my hand in public or giving me lemon-lip kisses before bed time.  Thank you for being my good little sweetheart.

Bless Nordegg!

Life since the production of my musical has been a touch crazy. The following week we went to Fairmont and I managed to lose all my pictures somehow, so you get to be spared of one extra post. I have also attempted to potty-train Zoe which has felt almost as challenging as putting on a musical! She had the potty thing down after two days. The poop thing is still in the works and it's been over two weeks! Ack! I get to work on patience.  And laundry.  Lots of it.

It's funny because I thought once I was done this production that I would have a family life again.  I think what I forgot is that just because I am home more often doesn't mean that Joe is.  Having a husband that works out of town for half the week stinks.  I am getting used to it and treating it the same way I treated those Burlington evenings when Joe was studying---Write!  Write!  Write!  The difference being that at least I had someone to snuggle with at the end of the day in bed.  I do not get that luxury and I miss my husband sometimes.  It makes me grateful that I thrive on being creative and writing because it is a great distraction in the evenings while he is gone.  But when he is home, it is SO very nice.  What was REALLY nice was he took Monday off on May long weekend and I about died!  We even made plans!  PLANS!  We drove out to Nordegg as a family and spent the day there.  What was supposed to be a 2 km walk/hike turned out to be more like 6-7km.  We just kept going.  I'm not sure how we missed which trail was actually 2km, but it's all good.  We had a fun time.  Even if we ended up having to carry the girls on our shoulders the second half back.  It was a great workout, right?  We dipped our feet in the water and Joe taught the kids how to fish.  And then we enjoyed hotdogs and marshmallows over a fire.  I tell you, it could not have been a better day!  The weather was perfect.  The kids were in good spirits.  We sang a lot on the trail and honestly, it just took me back to when I was a kid.  This is how we would spend our Summers!  Add a canoe trip and our day would have been complete.  The major differences between my Summer days as a kid and our trip last weekend was that I did not pretend to be a zombie child and pop out of the bushes at my Mom, I always wore socks so I didn't get blisters halfway through the hike (Ellie!), and my Mom was always prepared with snacks and water (I thought it was only going to be 2km!!  Whoops).

Here are a few fun pictures of our day.  My camera battery died so I missed some fun shots after the hike of Noah falling into the water and drenching himself right before we left.  I also missed all the kids trying to fish and I missed when the kids double-dog dared me to stuff a jumbo marshmallow in my mouth in one bite---which I did---and got it in my hair and I felt sick all night.  Ha!  But here are the shots of our hike, Joe dipping the kids' hands in the water to feel how cold it was, Zoe "scaring" me, Noah legit just sitting there like an old soul enjoying the view, and then being an old man zombie with a short walking stick, and other cute family pics.  Yes, I planned the army pants on all the girls (except for that Zoe peed in hers the moment we got there so she was not as cool as Ellie and I during the hike).  I figured it would make us look tougher, so maybe it would help us BE tougher.  It doesn't work that way apparently.