8 Weeks

I was 8 weeks on Friday! I'm showing a little already.. at least I think so :-P
This is not the greatest pic (it's a self timer pic). But in my defense, I was trying to tell the kids to stay out of the way while I was setting up, and standing there waiting for the camera to click the picture :-P  I'll try post weekly pics this time.. but we'll see, I'm not so great at regularly posting on my blog :-P

8 Weeks

Happy Birthday!

My baby girl is one today! What a blessing she has been to our family!

 At a year she:
Is always quick to smile, (at us anyway, she's a little shy with others :-P)
Is almost walking full time (she will walk across rooms etc. but she still crawls often)
Loves banana's, apples, porridge and pasta.
Drinks exclusively out of a cup (no more bottles... the are packed away in a box) :-)
Loves to pull books off the book shelf, and once they are all pulled off, she will sit in the pile of books and 'read' :-)
Talks, and talks, and talks... If I don't hear her in the background, I go check if she is ok :-) (Just like her mama and older sister right?) :-)
Can crawl up and down the stairs (she needs a little bit of help to starting from the top, but otherwise she's pretty good at it)
Loves to close doors... She crawls into a room, closes the door, and then cries cuz she can't get out :-) haha!
Still only has 2 teeth???? Yup, I'm not sure when the rest are coming :-)
Loves her Daddy and Mommy to bits, but will usually choose Mom over Dad... probably because Mom changes her diapers :-P Sometimes the shitty jobs pay off :-P
Loves her siblings, even if thy smother her with love

Here is a picture of this cute ONE year old! We love her so much!

It's my Birthday!

I have some exciting news to share...

Maybe I'll tell you later... this toy is kinda fun... But you probably already figured it out. :-P

Okay, Okay I'll show you!

It IS pretty exciting isn't it!

Mom just told me that means I won't be the baby of the family anymore...

But smoothies make everything better :-) 

Est. due date Oct, 4, 2013

A little of this and that...

A few more pictures of what we've been up to lately :-)

I should explain a little about why we are on a 'try to eat as little as possible artificial food' lately. You see... I read some posts on a blog about the health benefits of eating whole foods. This blog had some great links to other blogs, and information. This led to a search to find some info on how bad the stuff  in our food really is - you know, the stuff you can't pronounce on the box/can/bag, the 'preservatives' and 'food enhancers' ?  After reading, and reading, and reading, (and I still have so much more reading to do!) I concluded that the least of this stuff in our diet the better. (really the stuff on the store shelves isn't really any better than what you buy at mcdonalds :-S That is sad...) So, I will try to make as much as I can at home (without store bought soups, broths, pasta, wraps, bread etc.) 
We have a pasta maker now :-) and so far it has been great... but we don't have homemade pasta every time yet, because we are still finishing off the pasta we bought before all that reading :-p
I would love to grind my own wheat, and find a farm to get meat, milk, and eggs from regularly, but for now, it's store bought for that stuff :-)

Rolling out the wraps (100% whole wheat, no preservatives :-) Yup, supper is a little more work, but I think it's a WHOLE lot better for us! :-)

Homemade wraps for supper! :-) ( of course we put sour cream and meat (with spinach and onion) on the wraps too :-)

Smoothies for breakfast!! We all get smoothies for breakfast on school days. Even Lydia loves them (No, there is no protein powder in there -  I try not to put anything artificial in our food, even if a dr. recommended it to one of my friends friends...) :-P

Yummy!!

Dylan doesn't like to drink his breakfast, so smoothie mixed with yogurt is how he rolls :-)

And here is the whole reason we have smoothies on school day's in the first place... You see, Miriam doesn't eat breakfast very fast. We have tried quite a few things now, and the only things that work are; sugary cereal with things I cannot pronounce in it, those pkgs quaker calls porridge with things I can't pronounce in it, she will eat homemade porridge, but it has to have lots of sugar in it for her to eat it fast... (we eat homemade porridge with a little maple syrup on home days). Aaaaand smoothies! There is nothing artificial about these smoothies, and she can drink it on the bus! :-) Milk, fruit, oats, gr. flax, a little honey, and sometimes greek yogurt for protein :-) Yay!!  

All ready to get on the bus!

Lydia likes to look out the window and watch for the big yellow bus :-)

Yes, she can get down off the stool by herself

A little something Miriam picked up at the school Manna day rummage sale :-)

 Tomorrow I will post about Lydia's 1st Birthday!!!! AAAAHHH crazy! My baby is a year old already!

It's Been Too Long...

Ok, so, I really have been slacking on this blog lately... sorry to those who check it :-S I've still been instagram-ing, tweeting, and facebooking... Just not blogging :-S I'll try keep it up again (I have blogging spurts lol). Here is a little bit of what happened since I last posted...

(Because it's been so long since my last post, this post is FULL of pictures :-)
Enjoy!  

Some of us got sick...

Christmas came and went.

Lydia grew... (Well all the kids grew, but Lydia grew faster than all of us :-)

We really do love the Christmas season! This year wasn't quite as busy as most because, we didn't visit with my immediate family at all, :-( But it was still fun :-)

Dylan and Lydia are a little lost with out Miriam on school days...

Playing the game 'Fish Fart' on Mommy's tablet :-) soooo funny! These two giggle the whole time! :-)

A new niece in Winnipeg was born, so we sent a few cute outfits down there :-) (I want to meet that little girl so badly...)

We made 300+ croquettes... and no we didn't finish them, there are still quite a few in the freezer :-)

Bought some books on a great black friday sale!!! I'll have to remember that for next year.  The bottom 3-in-1 book was a bit of a gamble, I bought it because it was only 1.99, but I had never heard of them before... they turned out to be pretty good novels :-)  (on the top of the stack are christian history magazines)

While Miriam is at school, Dylan is determined to keep up with her, so he colors, reads, writes, adds, etc. :-) So competitive this boy! If Miriam can do it, so can he! He is THREE after all! He keeps weighing himself on the scale to see if he's turned 4 yet... nope still in the 30lb range lol!

I baked/decorated some cookies for the Christmas day coffee social at the church :-) YUMM!

We opened some presents! This is one Miriam received from Grandma and Grandpa. She had it decorated in one day!

One of Dylan's presents was a few Mario's! So fun! He loves playing Mario on the wii with Daddy!

Christmas dinner leftovers for boxing day breakfast. Yum!

Two babies? I babysit a little boy around the same age as Lydia 1-3 times a week. Also, for Feb and March I'm babysitting a 3yr old full time, and a 5 yr old 2-3 days a week :-) We are quite busy around here :-)

MMM! Bread cooling off. Unfortunately this batch fell, but I'm happy to say, I haven't bought bread for quite a few months now. (dare I say 6 months? I'm not quite sure when the last time I bought bread was)

Tried a few new recipes... We are really trying to eat mostly whole foods around here. As little processed as possible :-) Of course we can't cut out all the cookies and yummy baking - we are just eating much less of it. :-)

Yum! Dragon fruit. These taste great in smoothies, and are very healthy for you.

Who could say no to this yummy breakfast? :-)

We did some reading... Unfortunately for Mommy, this reading session was at 6 am

Made homemade crackers. They were a hit!

Yum! Great for babies!

And this little thief loved them...

A new toy for Mommy!

 

Homemade pasta!! 

Trying to figure out one of Daddy's favorite games. He thinks he figured it out :-)

A bad day for Mommy resulted in a few bouquets of flowers, booster cables for in the van, screwdrivers for in the house, and a booster battery for in the garage. :-) Best Husband Ever! :-)

My children are quite strange, and really love to use their imagination to make up new games when they get bored of the games they have... This game is for Mommy and it's called find all the perfection pieces... There were cups all over the basement (bedrooms, bathroom and laundry room included) In each of these cups was one perfection piece... I'm pretty sure I found them all now... They thought they were pretty clever!

This is how far I was in finding the pieces when I took the picture...

Our sewer backed up :-S Tree roots was the problem... Thankfully the city fixed the problem quickly (after all it was the city's tree causing the problems...)

After school snacks are always fun -  Dylan just HAS to know what Miriam did at school that day, otherwise how is he going to keep up? :-) Talkative Miriam is always willing to share her stories :-)

Babies really are super cute when they are sleeping :-)

Lydia LOVES her walker - it's kinda like dumbo's feather to her... I'm pretty sure she can walk, she just lacks the confidence :-) She is not nearly as competitive as her older siblings. If it works, why change it? 

I told Dylan to show his teeth when he smiled... this is the face I got - not exactly what I ment lol

They are growing so fast!

More teeth. HaHa!

Look Mom... I can do tricks!

Crazy smiles

Puppy in training?  This little girl loves playing with Mommy's slippers...

How big is Lydia? Thiiiiis big! 

I'll leave you with a super cute pic of our almost 1 year old She runs around the house with this walker! (My next post will hopefully be about her 1st birthday!)