Happy Christmas!!

Christmas Day - it came! What a busy day it was!! We had a lovely morning of sleeping in, making Eggs Benny for breakfast and then the best part....opening PRESENTS!! We spent the rest of the day at Brad's parents house where we had a fantastic turkey dinner and got to do round two of gifts! Thank you all for the wonderful presents :) and for a wonderful evening. We are so blessed with the family we have! On Boxing Day we headed out to the farm (or the barn as Joel calls it) to spend the evening with Brad's extended family. When I say we are blessed, I mean it...there were 33 of us there last night PLUS Baby B in Sara's belly! We were also missing the east coast part of the family which would have been another 10! Amazing how a family can grow from just two people.
And now most of Christmas is over. We'll be spending some time with my family this week and hopefully some snow and by the time we get back, it'll be back to normal life and our busy schedule. I think I will enjoy this week and sleep in as often as I can :)

Annual Jammie Pic

Christmas Eve

We spent Christmas Eve at Brad's parent's house again this year. It was wonderful to spend the evening eating, singing and watching A Christmas Carol with Mama & Papa, Brenda & Sam, Trevor, Mel, Tyrone & Lyndon, Karen, Ty, Duncan, Ethan & Rachel and Brent, Sara & Peter. Joel and Nathan did a great job leading everybody in the singing of Away in a Manger and also did a duet of Once In Royal David's City and O Come All Ye Children. They were so sweet, even if Nathan doesn't really sing the words... :) It was a great night spent remembering why we celebrate Christmas! Thanks everyone!

The parking lot is full...

Nearly Twins & Best Buds

Recently we had a little play time with Nadia and Jonas! Nadia and Micah were born on the same day, not even an hour apart! Nathan and Jonas were born exactly 2 months apart and are the funniest little guys when they are together! Let's just say they bring out the wild in each other! We caught the 3 of them "reading" books together in Jonas' bed - I feel awful for the huge mess the 3 of them made! I don't think there were any clothes left in any of Jonas' drawers.... (sorry Amanda!!).

Christmas thoughts

It's almost here. The day we seem to wait for, anticipate, plan for and go crazy over - Christmas. It seems to have snuck up rather quickly this year, somewhat stealthily and a little too soon! I don't feel ready. I say that every year but this year, I'm just not "feeling" Christmas. Maybe it's the lack of snow, the lack of time spent in the malls, the lack of rushing around. I feel like something's missing. It's been a month of celebrating new life in a friend's baby girl, of being saddened by the sudden death of a friend, of seeing the story of Jesus' birth portrayed by my kids in front of the church. So where am I? The main theme of my Christmas this year is that I am not celebrating a baby, I am welcoming the Saviour. What am I doing to spread the "Good news of great joy"?
I love Christmas. I love the tenderness of Christmas Eve, the joy of Christmas morning but I always have a hard time getting there. Oh Lord, prepare my heart for days to come.

Peace

Rejoice and Be Merry!

The Christmas pageant at church this year was as adorable as ever!! I love the message those little ones send. It is such an innocent telling of the story of Jesus' birth. Joel did a great job singing the songs and reciting his lines. We're very proud of him! I guess he might have been singing a little too loud for Max standing next to him - he tried to grab his lips to quiet him, he told Joel to sing quieter and then Max tried to sing louder over Joel! It was hilarious!! Those two have a little competition going on....

Smile : )

Micah has reached 2 months!! He is a super smiley guy and we are enjoying seeing him grow and change!
We all trekked to the Dr's office today for check-ups and flu shots. Micah is off the chart for height at 25 3/4 inches and is in the 97th percentile for weight at 14lbs 6oz.
Nate weighed in at 35lbs which is also the 97th percentile but at least he's proportionate to his height!
We are all doing great. Time is going so fast though as it likely is for all of you! Will it ever slow down or should I just get used to this!! Really, I feel like it was JUST summer! Christmas is fast approaching and again I find myself unprepared to deal with the busyness and hustle of the season.

White Wonderful Winter

Hopefully that won't be it for the winter!! We had a great time with the snow last week! The boys got outside (something we just don't do in this pouring rain we've had since) and we build a great snowman - Brad did the bottom, I did the middle and Joel did the head. Nate just licked it. I don't know why. The neighbours came home while we were having a snowball fight and they joined us in what became an epic front yard battle! I haven't been in a snowball fight like that since elementary school!
Frosty, or Mr.Carrot, didn't last long however. By morning he succumbed to the warming temperature and the rain. All that remains of him is a small mound of snow and a very wilted carrot. It sure was fun while it lasted and we sure are thankful to have a yard now so we can actually build a snowman!

Party!

Hey! I'm having a Norwex party at my house on November 30 at 7pm. If you'd like to come, let me know or respond on Facebook. Please note the change of date as we ended up having a birthday party conflict with Brad's family - gotta be at Grandma's party!!
You can also e-mail me if you'd just like to place an order - you don't actually have to come to the party if you know what you want!!
Hope to see you soon!

Visitors!

We had a great visit from Frances and Hannah this week. I really enjoyed the extra girls around this house!! We took it pretty easy and just did a little shopping! We played Alhambra one night and all of us adults got our butts kicked by rookie Hannah! The boys absolutely loved having Hannah here to play with - Joel has mentioned SO many times already about how much he misses her! Thanks for the visit guys! It was great having you here!

Braids

Yesterday, Frances and I made our first attempt at baking Zopf! I'd say it turned out pretty well - we did enjoy a loaf for breakfast today!!

Playing dress-up with some Jack-O's

Alice, a caterpillar, a dino and a pea pod - that's what we had this Halloween! Rachel joined us since her brothers got to be in DisneyWorld.
We had fun carving pumpkins on Saturday - well, I had "fun" since I got stuck carving 3 out of 4!! Can you guess which one is named Brad?? Click on the collage to enlarge! Nate's is the super cute one and Joel's is the scary one. Hope you all had a good night!

my little pumpkin

A month flies by...

Micah is already over a month old!! We can hardly believe it, although Brad says he can believe it because he feels the month of lack of sleep.... What a month it has been! It seems we are busy all the time!! Joel has preschool twice a week, swimming twice a week and we all head out to Moms&Tots on Wednesday mornings still - a week goes by so fast! When did I ever have time to work?
We are really enjoying our newest little member of the family. Joel and Nathan just love him and want to hug and kiss him, hold him and "rock" him every chance they get! Nathan maybe doesn't quite understand that the swing doesn't need pushing, the bouncy seat doesn't need bouncing and the car seat doesn't need rocking but Micah doesn't seem any worse for it!
Micah has started smiling at us and just loves staring at each of us with his big eyes, taking in the world around him. He is a joy - so long as I keep him fed - and I can't wait to bring him "home" to meet all the rest of his aunties and uncles! See you all soon!!!!

The Pumpkin Patch Kids

We had a wonderful time at the pumpkin patch with Joel's preschool class! It turned out to be a lovely day. We were able to enjoy the singing, the hayride to the fields, picking out 4 pumpkins and finding our way through the corn maze. It was great to get to enjoy the morning with our friends!

My apple!

Nathan didn't say no to his free apple.

Still munching away.... with our friend Camryn : )

All done!!
This was when we finally got home from the pumpkin patch, only about an hour after he first started eating it!! They were great apples though! Fresh and crunchy! There wasn't much left of Nate's - I think he even ate half the core!

Three weeks + a day

We've been a family of 5 now for 3 weeks! The time has gone so fast and yet it feels like Micah has been here all along! We had a tiring, trying but wonderful 3 weeks. HUGE thanks must go out to my parents. I'm not sure how we would have survived without them here - I'm actually a little nervous about tomorrow!! My parents work - they cook, they clean, they build, they nurture, they care. Thanks so much for all you have done. We'll miss you but we know that life goes on and things have to get to "normal" eventually! May God bless you Mom and Dad for the care you have shown us. We love you.

Retreat

We spent the past weekend up in Whistler for our church's annual retreat. What a glorious weekend! The time there went quickly but we had a great time catching up with Jen and Aaron who made their way there all the way from Alberta and we were able to spend some time with Daniel and Andrea, Hong and Joanne and Shawna and Connor. The preaching this year was fantastic - I can't wait to get the CD to listen to it all again and fill in the spots I missed having to take care of Micah.
Thanks to Mom and Dad for watching Joel and Nathan while we were gone. We really appreciate being able to get away!!