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!)

Waiting for the School bus (heart)

                                      

Book Character Dress up Day at School

Book character dress up day at school!!!  Miriam decided that a princess would be a fun book character to dress up as. Who wouldn't want to be a princess for a day?

I was going to take a picture before Miriam had her coat and boots etc. on but, she was faster than me... You can kinda see what she looked like.  Dylan decided he had to be an elephant even though he doesn't go to school just yet - Lydia was a baby and Mommy decided she would be a housewife (so boring hey?) :-P

Elephants eat carrots... BIG carrots, not little baby carrots! (And he finished it too!) This was shortly before supper so he didn't eat much for supper. But who can complain about such a healthy after school snack?

Miriam home from school - Alas, I was too slow again... she had her dress off before I had time to pull out the camera - dresses get annoying if you have to wear them the whole day. So here she is in what she wore under her dress... BTW - Princesses in underclothes eat big whole carrots just like elephants!

A New (to us) Kitchen Table

We have had our eye out for a new (to us) table for a little while now. Because we are quite picky, we hadn't found one that we liked until just recently... What we wanted in a table?

- a pedestal 
- it needed to be able to expand if needed.
- small enough to fit in our little table area in our kitchen, but large enough to fit quite a few people.
- nice real wood, or black
- very sturdy
- inexpensive 

This isn't a huge list BUT, it is very hard to find a table that meets this criteria! Mostly, the expanding and pedestal parts, paired up with the inexpensive part.
 I think we paid $50 for it (might have been $40 but Matthew did the paying part, and he doesn't remember). When we bought it off kijiji it was not able to expand BUT, my handy hubby cut a leaf out of the table, took the metal expanding rails(?) from a different table we had laying around the house, (we are using the wood from that table for a different project in the basement) and put the rails(?) on this 'new' table :-D Tadaa! We have a table that we like. It is quite big in our little kitchen, but it doesn't take up any of my working room, so it works great for us :-) We also plan to paint it black later. It is not real wood, but not super faded yet either, so it'll do like this for now. :-P (That sounds so spoiled... Yes, I am spoiled. Some people would love to just have a house (or food), never mind being picky about the table they are eating off of :-S .
When we pull the table away from the bench, we can comfortably fit 4 adults and 6+ kids depending on butt size. :-P I'm sure we could fit 5-6 adults, but it would be a little squishy.  If we put the leaf in we can fit about 2 more adults.

Fits perfectly.

The table works better turned like this... more seating room while eating, without getting in the way of walking space.

Hopefully one day we can renovate the kitchen, but it will likely be right before we sell (maybe in 4-5yrs?)

Family Photo adventures :-)

So... we are supposed to submit a family photo to our Church Life Committee for a Church pictorial directory... (actually, It's past the deadline and we are late :-S)
We had planned on getting a quick family photo at Aaron and Sherene's wedding, after the ceremony while we were taking pictures of the whole B or D family... but as it turned out the kids weren't up to it, after pictures with the B family, and then the D family and a few with the bride and groom they were done! So we just skipped it. But we still needed a pic...so here is a few pictures of our little informal photo shoot yesterday (My lovely SIL Rachel took the pics for us, Thanks Rach!) :-)
Family photo's are always an adventure when you add kids.. never mind 3 of them :-P


First Photo shoot.... 

 

This one is not bad... but Lydia isn't looking...

 Much to the rest of the family's dismay, I wasn't happy with the results of the first photo shoot because I wanted to see Lydia's face :-) Hence the first pic in the 2nd shoot Matthew is holding Lydia's face straight :-P

Yay! Finally a good one :-P

The Final result :-)

That's it?

Yup, That's it... only a few pictures after being in Winnipeg for two weeks...:-(  I completely forgot to take my camera almost everywhere.. oh well - I have a few of the bridal shower (too many people on those pics to share them on my blog (privacy of others)) I also have a few of the guys getting ready, I think a girlfriend of one of the groomsmen took those with my camera :-) But I'll save those for another post as well :-)

All cozy at Auntie Sherene's (and Uncle Aaron's but he didn't live there yet ;-) This was the first of three places we stayed during our two week stay in MB. Lydia had a hard time every time we moved :-( poor girl. btw I slept in between Miriam and Lydia :-)

Lucas snuggling Lydia :-) Aww!! (heart) What a sweet cousin. Also, notice Amelia trying on her flowergirl dress? :-) Sweetie pie!

Nicole stole my camera...

Haha! you make me laugh nikki

Really? lol

Betcha didn't know I would post these on my blog :-P

First Day Of School

It just occurred to me that amidst all the business of September, I haven't posted any pics of Miriam's first day of school... :-( I'll post a few now. :-)

Eating Breakfast - Cheerio's! What a treat!

All her stuff at the door ready to go.

All ready!

Waiting for the bus...

SMILE!

Still smiling :-)

Waiting by the road...

The bus today was a little smaller than expected... lol - our bus driver didn't receive a kindergarten schedule so she wasn't aware she had to pick up Miriam that day :-( we didn't have a second vehicle yet so I couldn't drive her to school, so Laura generously offered to drive Miriam to school so she didn't have to miss her first day :-) (THANKS Laura!!) 

Miriam coming off the bus after her first day!

And the big yellow bus drives away :-)