The latest in the lives of The Grahams

*October 3, 2009

Jessica and Brock's gorgeous, intimate wedding ceremony in Canmore, Alberta. It was a fantastic weekend and we had a great time celbrating with Brock and Jessica!





*October 11, 2009

Chris' brother and sister in law, Shawn and Carrie, hosted Thanksgiving dinner at their house in Edmonton. The meal was absolutely delightful! Carrie had put so much work into making a wonderful meal, that was obvious! We all had a great time and it was nice to all be at Shawn and Carrie's house- some of us for the first time!

I forgot my camera so don't have any pictures of the day. :(

*October:

*I am back to work after surgery. I'm averaging about a day adn a half per week of subbing. I'd like 2 or even 3 days for the paycheque but am ok with working less. Dee has been watching the boys when I am at work and they just love it there, as I knew they would.

*Post-surgery I am feeling pretty good. I was surprised at how quickly I felt back to normal (about day 6 I was feeling more or less fine). I did have about a week right around Thanksgiving where I was getting a lot of stomach pain again. Maybe the foods I was eating then? Not sure. I was hoping to talk to my surgeon at my appointment on the 19th of October, but it was postponed until November 9th for some unknown reason. So, hopefully I will be feeling well until then otherwise it could be a long couple of weeks! At least I still have my pain meds!

*Because of surgery I was unable to join the current session of bootcamp. I was quite disappointed. A few weeks ago, the instructor (a friend of mine) came to me and asked if I would tutor her son in reading in exchange for personal training at home. I jumped at the chance! Today was my first session and it is obvious by the already sore muscles that I took too much time off, but I am really excited to have a program tailored to me that I can do at home, on my own time! I'm hoping to get 3 workouts a week in and then in 6 weeks or so she will change my program for me to keep me on my toes!

*In the summer, I was asked if I'd be interested in joining the Crossfield Library Board. I was happy to join and I attended my first meeting last week. There are about 8 of us on the board (I think) and I'm really excited to be involved in something else in the community. My job as a board member will be to oversee the children's programming and services that the library offers, such as Storytime, which we attended every Wednesday last year and loved, as well as the summer reading programs for kids and Spring Break programs. I'm really excited about this new venture!

*I have been quite busy with MOPS and am really enjoying that as well. My job as TLC coordinator is to get new moms a baby gift and meals (donated from our members) as well as struggling moms meals and/or financial assistance if needed. So far this year we have been busy with delivering phone books to the town of Crossfield (our largest fundraiser), a Big Cook to have meals in the freezer for when they are needed, our bake sale (another big fundraiser) at the Crossfield Christmas Farmer's Market on November 1st as well as our usual Thursday meetings. Tomorrow is 'Crocktober' and we take our crockpots to MOPS and come home with a meal to simmer all day and serve at suppertime! YUM! Last year was the first year we did this and it was a smashing success - it runs alongside our Spring Spa Day as the most favorite meeting. And thanks to fundraising and the wonderful, generous owner of our town grocery store, we are able to provide 60 families with meals tomorrow!

*The boys have been keeping us very busy lately. Levi is a mover and a shaker. He climbs EVERYTHING and stands on top of whatever he can get his feet on, whether stationary or not! One day I caught him scaling our bookcase, Spiderman style! I see some hospital visits in our future- that boy shows no fear!

I was tired of battling with Luca to use the potty. It became so exhausting every day, so we have stepped back from it to give both of us a break. I have put him back into pull ups and am not giving him the attention of being disappointed in him for going in his pants. I am hoping that soon he will just decide to poop on the potty on his own. He is capable of doing it and capable of holding it, so it was simply a battle of wills between us. I am going to leave it until about the middle of November and then we will try again after we have both had time to regroup and distance ourselves from the daily battle.

*Besides MOPS and library board, subbing and tutoring, I have been busy working on Christmas gifts. Last year my goal was to give homemade gifts where possible. I did pretty good last year and am aiming to do better this year! I have most of my gifts planned out, its just a matter of finding time to get them all done! I really enjoy receiving homemade gifts, I think that they mean that much more and are so personal.

That's the past month for us in a nutshell!