Brief updates

It really has been much too long since I've updated this blog, and it's only been a month.  There are other ones that I look at that are much, much older but they don't seem to feel the need to update regularly....

Oh, well.  It has been a very busy month.  I know I promised pictures of our Star Wars museum trip and I will get around to it.  Just like there are a bunch of photos on my new phone that I want to put up here as well, but that will wait until I figure out how to do that.  Swimming lessons are done and just about to start up again.  They technically started this week but we were on a brief holiday to see some relatives that we didn't get to that one.  Easter has come and gone.  The kids got spoiled. 

Girl2 is crawling around, babbling, cooing, and trying to stand up.  She's wanting to move around the furniture but can't quite get the coordination down yet.  I had to move my two plants up and out of reach tonight so she couldn't get a handful of dirt for her mouth.  I can't forget to put up the baby gates when I put her down on the floor, since she's figured out how to go up a step or two.  But then she stops and turns around and falls to the ground.  It doesn't help when there are brothers further up the stairs, calling her and telling her that she can do it.  I'm all for siblings encouraging each other, but there may be a need for a limit to that at this point.

The Girl is toilet trained and loving it.  She'll let me brush her hair and put "pretties" in it more than before.  If I remind her that it is to keep food out of her hair it seems to make it more bearable.  She was telling me this morning that when she gets bigger she'll go to school and learn lots of things.  Like how to be Spiderman.  Really?  My daughter thinks the school will teach her how to walk on the ceiling?

Boy2 has turned 5 and lost his brave.  The nightmares have returned and so have temper tantrums.  He's quicker to show anger, but still quick with the hugs and kisses.  It likely doesn't help that he isn't sleeping as much.  Whether that is because of the time change where the sun is still up at bedtime, I don't know.  But he is also very affectionate.  With work, I think we can work it out.

The Boy is on to reading chapter books, and that is super exciting for me to see.  He will tell me about what he's reading too!  And he's told me that he would like to be an author and illustrator when he grows up.  I can remember wanting to do the same thing, so it makes me smile.  I am very glad he has a love of the written word! 

More news to follow, I'm going to bed soon. 

loaves and pie

Once again,we've been up again down again.  Between the flu coming through the house and colds, over-tiredness, and just regular life...  Well, looking at how long it's been since I last posted, it's enough to say that life flies by.

This week has been pretty fun though.  Pretty regular, but with a couple of twists.  There was no school on Friday (yesterday) so we took the kids to see the Star Wars Identities exhibit at the Telus Science Centre.  I will post some pictures later. 

This afternoon we went swimming at the Tri-Leisure here in town and stayed for nearly an hour and a half!  Girl2 had so much fun splashing and kicking, and the boys are both such strong swimmers now, we have to worry less and less about them.  The Boy is tall enough too, that he can go anywhere in that one pool. 

On the way to the Tri, this song came on the radio and the kids were all singing along with it.  I had a very proud mommy moment :)  I love it when the kids surprise me like that! 

Coming up to Boy2's birthday is getting exciting.  Planning activities, food, guests...  at first he wanted to invite all of his preschool friends as well as the kids he plays with when we go pick the Boy up from school.  Nope.  Too many kids.  So he decided to just have the kids from the playground.  Which works out nicely, since they all have siblings around the same age of at least one of our other kids.  The birthday itself is on a Tuesday, so we're going to have the party the following Saturday.  And he wants Angry Birds....  We'll see what we can come up with.

I think we have the choir at the church up and running for a little bit.  We're a little slow on getting started (mostly because the kids were sick and I couldn't make it), but we're trying to pull some pretty simple, but pretty pieces together for Easter.  Hard to believe that it is only two weeks till Palm Sunday and three until Easter Sunday.  Lent is just flying!

Yesterday I came across a neat recipe for Orange Chocolate Chip Zucchini bread.  Had to try it, and it's nearly gone already!  The kids just LOVE it!  I made it up at supper time yesterday, they had it with breakfast, some for snack this morning, snack tonight, two loaves, just about gone.  I also made Flapper pie today.  A woman from Golden Spike who attends our weekly Bible study gave me her recipe.  I'd never done a flapper pie, but it was pretty easy, the Boy helped, and we'll be tasting it tomorrow.  Looks amazing, though.

Girl2 is fully crawling, has two teeth, and throws a fit if she's not eating what everyone else is eating.  She definitely has sass and personality to spare.  Like her big sister.  Big sister got a light sabre from the exhibit yesterday and she wields that thing like nothing on earth.

There is an episode of The Clone Wars where Anakin and Asokha rescue Jabba the Hutt's son, Rotta.  The Girl has been carrying a stuffed dog around in a back pack all yesterday afternoon and today, saying she was Asokha, the dog was Rotta, and Anakin (Boy2) had to come with her to return it to his Dad.  So CUTE!

crafts

And..... it turned out we all had strep throat!  The Girl started her antibiotics before we got the results back, since the Dr was pretty confident that she needed them.  So when I got the phone call back a couple of days later, I decided that we all should get tested just in case.  Good thing I did!  Girl2's ear looked pink, so they prescribed amoxicillin for her, then we hear back a few days later saying that the boys and I had a prescription to be filled as well!  Happily tomorrow is the day the boys and I finish our medicine and we can get back to normal.

But it's been fun.  I don't know what has caused it, but these kids have developed some serious cuteness and attitude!  I think it's because everyone is feeling better.  The Girl was "helping" me go through the baby's clothes, packing away the stuff that is too small and getting out the next size.  She had to try on EVERYTHING!  Bear in mind, these are things she wore as a baby and are now too small for her sister.  "But Momma, I like stripes!"  Oh, she is such a girlie!  But she is more or less toilet trained (very different than my experience with the boys!) and she is absolutely adorable!

When the Boy was home from school for teachers' convention, we did an awesome craft.  We made flowers out of egg cartons.  I cut out a flat and divided them between the three "biggers" as Hubby calls them, and let them go to town.

Even the baby wanted to get in on the action, but had to settle for sitting at eye height to watch.  She is such a smiley child!

But everyone had fun!  It is amazing to me how wonderful my children are.  I know I'm biased, but still.  The Boy is reading like crazy and doing wonderfully in school, Boy2 is learning to recognize letters and practicing forming them.  They both are doing well with swimming lessons, and the Girl really wants a turn at doing them too.  Girl2 rolls around on the floor and has started crawling a very little bit.  She goes a few inches, a foot if we're lucky, then she gets back on her belly and just rolls to where she wants to be.  And she finally has teeth!  There are two that were cut in the last week, both on the bottom in the middle, so I hope the others aren't far behind. She had a rough time cutting those ones!

We are into the season of Lent, so last week was Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday.  We brought home so much extra bacon last Tuesday night I think I'll be off bacon for a while (blasphemy, I know!).  Not even sure if I want to make perogs at Easter.  But, unfortunately, the Lenten mid-week services are at 7:30 this year so we won't be attending many of them.  Just that much more past bedtime.

Picture updates

Well, the Girl is sick again. :(  On Saturday she woke up from her nap a bit grumpy, we went to Ice on Whyte with my brother, his wife, and their kids and that's when she got more grumpy and started complaining about an ouchie ear.  Took her to the doctor this morning and came home with ear drops and antibiotics.

looks sleepy, hey?

But she seems to be doing better after even the first dose.  Not sure why her health has been so poor these last six months, but hopefully this will be the last for a while.

Boy2's preschool class made an ice castle a couple weeks ago.  Instead of using containers, they asked that we freeze water balloons with food colouring in them.

Here they are assembling it

The girls came too!

The Girl found a ball to occupy her

Then they played Red Rover

Mixing up his brownies

Watching them bake

The finished product

Going to Ice on Whyte

Snow Yoda

Ice slide at Ice on Whyte

rough and tumble

In a moment of unusual calm and relative peace in the house, I'm sitting and posting.  The Boy is at school, Boy2 had his very brief nap and is playing Angry Birds Star Wars, and the girls are both sleeping.  Dishes are currently done, laundry is in the washer, and I can actually see the living room floor right now!

I suppose it's a bit redundant to say that the weeks have been busy...  I've tried out a couple new recipes I've found (one for gingerbread but it's a cake, not cookies and one that is orange cookies) and they both turned out beautifully.  The Boy was given brownies in a jar, and he did those up on Saturday (I do have pictures, but they aren't on the computer yet).  We organized the basement play room, put another book shelf down there, and we've managed to keep it pretty tidy for the last couple of days.  Next step is to go through the toy boxes and sort out what is garbage because it's broken, what can be passed along to Good Will, and what we'll keep.  Living in one place for so long (I know it's only been 2 1/2 years, but it is the longest we've been at one address!) I really notice how much we accumulate.  It's time to de-clutter.

Girl2 is still working on those teeth.  The last two weeks have been pretty rough on her and, because she's not happy, it's been pretty rough on the parents too.  But she's just over 7 months now, no teeth, but she is rolling EVERYWHERE!!!  I can set her down on the floor, leave for two minutes and come back to her all the way across the room!  And, of course, she'll find the one small item on the floor that wasn't picked up and have it almost in her mouth.  Amazing how babies do that!

The Girl is back to her normal self.  Her appetite is back (finally) and she's full of sass again, so I'm happy about that.  She's also toilet training.  We came back from our holidays with that in mind, and so far it's been pretty good.  I'm not ready to take her out of pull-ups, but I don't think it will be very long before she is out of them.  She's even asked to sit on the toilet when we're out at church, and that's a pretty big step.  It was a long time before Boy2 was ready to do that.

Boy2 is back at preschool and enjoying it immensely.  I love watching him grow and develop his sense of letter recognition, and he's working with numbers too.  That's mostly because he sees the Boy doing his math and he wants to learn about it all too.  So I'm helping and encouraging him to count for himself when he asks a math question. 

The Boy is doing very well.  His reading is getting stronger and stronger every week, and so are his math skills.  They are starting to move away from equations accompanied by pictures so that's been a bit of an adjustment.  But the teacher is also equipping the children with tactics to solve those, so he's picking it up.  He's enjoying writing about his show and tell, and he's getting better and better with his spelling and sounding words out.  So far he's done exceptionally well on his spelling tests too.

He does miss being at home, so he'll be happy that there's no school next Thursday, or the following Thursday and Friday.  He misses playing with the other kids. 

It always strikes me at how wonderful my kids are.  I realize I may be a touch biased, but they really do get along quite well (most of the time) and if one is grumpy or sad another one will get them to smile.  The boys are fantastic with getting the girls smiling again, and vice versa.  Not so much the boys helping the boys, but when everyone is tired I can't say that I'm surprised.  But everyone is ready with love and affection.  And playing.  The boys love to "fight" Daddy and so they do that quite a bit.  The Girl even gets in on the action, and it is so fun to watch!  Hubby is such a fantastic teacher when it comes to the rough and tumble play.  And it's essential for children to develop that, so I won't be telling them to stop anytime soon.

There are times when the boys are doing it by themselves (very frequently!) and someone hurts the other, but that's when I tell them that they are playing rough so sometimes it happens.  They stop for a minute then are back at it.  As long as they aren't intentionally hurting to be mean, I'm alright with their play.

Last night, after supper, the boys took all of the chairs out of the kitchen and put them in the living room.  Then they grabbed a couple of flat sheets and I grabbed some clothes pins and we set up a fort in the living room.  We did bedtime stories and prayers in there, and they wanted it to stay up so they could have breakfast in there.  So we did.  The Boy was very careful to not spill onto the carpet, but the others had most of their breakfast in the kitchen.  And I promised we could try to set it up again tonight.  They want to sleep in it, but I said probably not.  Wait for Friday and we'll set up the two person tent in here and we'll try to sleep in it.

Holiday recap

On the road!

They were so happy to be heading out!

Well, I wasn't as faithful at taking pictures this trip, but I did get a few.  Most of them (I am sorry to say) were taken by the Boy,  and not me.

We spent Christmas up here with just us, having pizza Christmas Day as has been our custom for the last couple of years.  Santa thoroughly spoiled us, then we nipped down south and it seemed Santa made a stop at Amma's house too, so we were spoiled yet again.  We spent a few days there, then zipped for a few days to my parents' house, where we all gathered for a picture.  The last time we were all under one roof at the same time for a holiday was Christmas 2000, so twelve years and sixteen grandchildren later we finally got a picture taken.  I'm not sure where our copy is hiding on this computer, so I'll post it when I can find it.

Me sitting with the Girl.

Boy2 helping Poppa vacuum up confetti

But we had fun.  My parents, in a tradition carried on from my Dad's family, has always done a big New Years Eve party.  Popping balloons, throwing confetti, eating almost to the point of illness, and pouring lead.  The kids love it!  Okay, even Great Grandma J (my Mom's mom) loves it!  As we were getting into the confetti fight that happens every time, we noticed that my cousin and her husband (who live across the street from my parents) stopped by just to get into it for a few minutes before zipping back across the street to their sleeping little ones.

Hubby tackled me to the floor this time, but I didn't let go of him, so we were both on the ground, me shoving confetti down his pants, while he was pouring down my back.  Then the boys decided to rescue me and they tackled Daddy :)  So much fun!

Grandma holding her newest grandchild

But now we are back to the grind.  The boys have started school and swimming lessons again.  The Christmas decorations are down (we alway wait for Epiphany to get those down, or as some know it as Little Christmas).  We picked up totes and a few new bookshelves, so today was spent cleaning, building shelves, shifting furniture, and vacuuming.  Finally our living space (at least the main floor) is in some semblance of tidiness.  Next I tackle the toy room and then we'll be good to go.  Since we have now officially lived in this house longer than any other home since we got married, I'm going to treat this spring as though we're moving.  Every other time, we've had to de-clutter out of necessity, so this time I'm going to try this.  It is amazing the sheer amount of stuff you can accumulate simply by living in one spot.  Having four kids doesn't help :)

So the toys and books are going to be culled and sent on to others who could use them more than these kids.  I'm going to have to go through dressers as well.  Children grow so fast!

It's ALIVE!!!!!

My computer is fixed!  Before Christmas, Hubby decided to put a new operating system on my netbook and it has been giving grief ever since, but it is now up, running, and fully functioning!  I have some holiday pictures to post, and lost of cute little anecdotes, but they will likely wait till this evening or tomorrow. 

Right now there is the smell of bacon frying for our fish chowder, the sound of Beethoven as Girl2 plays with her little toy, and the bigger kids are watching Hoowinked Too! downstairs :)  And I need to mend the Boy's snow pants before he goes back to school tomorrow!