Oct. 12, 2006 Heading out for a walk...

Oct 12, 2006 - Rowan Sophia ready for one of many walks to come...

Oct 12, 2006 - Stella Grace also ready to head out for some fresh air!

Here we are in good old Saskabush starting to bundle up for the cold months ahead. Love the mittens and hats that Marlene Braybrook made for the girls to keep them cozy warm. Thankfully Grammi Wilson bought the girls a "cadillac" stroller for us to walk them until the snow flies.

On Oct. 10, 2006 the girls started oohing and aahing, trying to tell stories, it was adorable.

Oct. 12, 2006 Rowan discovered her hand and tried to get it to her mouth.

Oct. 5/06 & Trip to Edmonton

Thursday, Oct. 5/06 - Babes in Leaves on our dining room table...

Oct. 7/06 Rowan and Stella get ready for their shopping trip to West Edmonton Mall...

Sunday, Oct. 8/06 we took the girls to the water park at West Edmonton Mall...

Aunty Nadine's sister Kayla Suveges also had a project for her photography class at University and asked Jess if the girls could be her models...they posed for a good hour or so and did pretty well. Kayla's photos turned out much better than mine but you can get the idea anyways.

On Oct. 6 to 8, 2006 Bruce & I, Milly, Lesley, Jessica & Stella and Rowan, and Tricia all went to Edmonton to find Lesley's wedding dress and of course to take in some of West Ed Mall. On Saturday, Oct. 7/06 we set off dress shopping and the first and only wedding store Lesley went to "Ethos" is where she found her dress, it was the eighth one that she tried on there - what a beautiful bride she will be! Since that was our main agenda for the weekend and it was completed by noon on Sat. we then spent the rest of the day "browsing" and such. On Sunday we took in the water park, a nice dinner at Moxie's on Bourbon Street and a movie at the Imax there. The twins were again great little travellers, they have already experienced so much at such a young age.

Oct. 2, 2006 Garden Gnomes

Oct. 2, 2006 - Stella Grace Mansell, a Garden Gnome...

Oct. 2, 2006 - Rowan Sophia Mansell, a Garden Gnome...

Oct. 2, 2006 - Stella and Rowan in their "made in indonesia" shirts that Dave and Bibian bought for them...

Kami had a project for University that she needed to write a children's book. She decided to write a book called "The Adventures of Stella Stinky Pants and Rowan Rotten Bottom - the Garden Gnomes" which included many cute pictures of the girls in their outfits, King Wraughty (Colby's dog) and Princess Peanut (Kami's dog). It is a great story, thanks for putting together such a wonderful book Kami.

Jessi's good friends, David Stonhouse and Bibian Rajakumar gave the girls their "made in indo" shirts at the Baby Shower in August - they finally got to model them a couple of months later. They look so long here, Dr. Eisenhauer said that she believes they will be above average height...wonder where they get that from. Hadi had still not received the pictures that we had sent over to Indonesia July 24/06 so that he could see his daughters, so we sent another bunch on Oct. 3/06 and he did finally receive those ones. He was so excited, he can't wait to get over here to meet them.

Enjoying more lake time...Sept. 24, 2006

Sept. 7, 2006 someone said that you start using these bumbo chairs at three months, guess the girls like to think that they are advanced since they aren't even two months old here.

Aunty Nadine and Aunty Haley are some of the many arms that come by to get in some hugs on Sept. 10, 2006.

Sept. 16, 2006 Jess and her girls in their dresses they received from the Dregers.

Sept. 24, 2006 We took Stella and Rowan out in the pines by the lake for a "quadding" experience, getting out into nature.

On Sept. 4, 2006 Rowan was "going hard" as Jessi put it, trying to suck on Stella's elbow as Stella was sleeping next to her in the playpen.

Closer to the end of Sept. Stella and Rowan tried again and again to "get" their thumbs.

On Oct. 1, 2006 we packed up the girls, said goodbye to the lake for now, would still be coming up on weekends but we thought we should have a couple of weeks in the city to get the girls into a routine there before I (Berta) went back to work.

Growing Girls Aug 25 2006

Aug. 27, 2007 Stella and Rowan with their soothers that turned into thumbs later...

Sept. 3, 2006 Cruising on Guy and Deb's pontoon boat at Emerald Lake...

Sept. 5, 2006 Sandy feet at Emerald Lake...

After returning from our trip out to B.C. we took the girls back up to the lake where we stayed until the end of September. We did, however, take them in for a check-up with Dr. Carla Eisenhauer on Friday, August 25, 2006. Rowan weighed in at 7 lbs. 15 ozs. and was 20 7/8" long. Stella also weighed in at 7 lbs. 15 ozs. but was 21 1/16" long (beating Rowan by a whole 1/4 of an inch). I will always cherish those first three months when we got to rock them and sing them to sleep, I believe they loved the cuddle.