Birthday Boy

We celebrated another birthday at our house this month. Micah turned 5 this year!! His actual birthday (the 13th) was celebrated on Vancouver Island where we were staying with the Toews family for a Christmas weekend together. Then we had his (first-ever) friends birthday party about a week later.

Micah originally wanted a Wall-E party, but I could hardly find any Wall-E birthday stuff. I convinced him to switch it to a Ratatouille (rat-a-too-ee) party after I found a bunch of cute Ratatouille stuff at the dollar store. It didn't take too much arm-twisting since he loves that movie (even though it's not one of my faves). If you haven't seen it, it's about a rat who loves to cook - so we went with the cooking theme.


Everything ready - just waiting for the guests to arrive!


First the kids decorated little take-out boxes that I found at Michael's. They would later hold extra cupcakes that they could take home after the party:


Cupcake decorating was next on the agenda. Keziah was waiting ever-so-patiently for that segment of the party to begin...


Let the decorating begin! A few of the moms stayed to help with the party which was necessary with all those messy little cupcake hands...


Partway through, Micah reminded me that we needed our chef's hats. I almost forgot!




Can we eat these now???


Max inspecting his masterpiece.


Time to sing Happy Birthday and blow out FIVE candles!


Micah experiences a moment of pure pleasure as chocolate, icing and m&m's hit his taste buds!


Chef Caleb looking very cute!


Dee-licious!


I was pleased with my idea for party favours. I found stuffed rats and kitchen utensils in the toy section of IKEA, so I combined them to create little "Ratatouilles" :)


All our chefs (minus one who is apparently anti-photography these days!)

From Our House to Yours

Loft Beds for Christmas

Erik's been wanting to build bunk beds for the kids for a LONG time. It really came down to finding the time for him to do it. He ended up having some days at home last week and he got right down to business. We changed our original plan of bunk beds and decided to make Micah and Keziah each a loft bed instead so that we could have the full floor space available for toys. I feel so blessed to be married to such a talented and handy husband :)

Micah sporting his new tool belt - ready to help with the construction:


Yay for new beds!


The end product:


We would still like to paint them eventually, but for now I think they look pretty good in their "rough" form. The wood smells so amazing too - it's like a Christmas tree in their room :)

I wasn't sure how Keziah would do with the climbing up and down, but she's already a pro at it. And I love how much space they have to play in their room now!!


Stay tuned for pictures of Micah's Ratatouille birthday party...

I know, I know.

A new post is long overdue!

We have been busy entertaining my parents, celebrating birthdays and early family Christmases and traveling to Vancouver Island... WAY too many pictures to post here! So, I'm going to cheat and direct you all to my facebook page HERE to view my December pictures.

And, I won't make any promises, but I hope to have a new real post here in the near future...

Brought to you by the Letter "a"

Tonight Micah thought it would be fun to wear a wooden letter on his finger.

Birthday Girl

Yesterday Keziah turned 3!


This year we let her have her first "friend" party which was on Saturday. Most of her friends these days are boys, but they didn't seem to mind the girl-ish Tinkerbell theme :)



Her birthday guests:


Micah's train set is always a big hit when boys come over to play...


I made cupcakes this year - so much easier than a big fancy cake! And with these mini cupcakes the kids feel like they're having a whole cupcake when it's really a third of the size of a regular one :)


Keziah still got 3 cupcakes to herself though - only because I needed to put a candle on each one. She polished those things off in record time!


That last picture reminded me of this one from the kids' party last year. Keziah and I both look a little different!


Then it was present time. Here I am explaining to Micah that he needs to let Keziah do the opening - and reminding him that in a few more weeks it will be his turn!


Watching the presents get unwrapped:


Keziah was spoiled with so many new things! We are officially into the realm of Polly Pockets, Strawberry Shortcake, My Little Pony, etc. Which means that I need to get some organizational containers for all those little pieces because I can't stand losing toys! Now there's so many more (teeny weeny) toys to lose. Keziah has had a surprising amount of patience for dressing the little Pollys and Ponys. I do need to help but at least she doesn't get frustrated or whiny. And Micah is LOVING all these new toys too. He's very good at maneuvering all the little pieces and loves dressing them up in little outfits and shoes - heehee!

I had bought a little present for Micah to give Keziah at the party - a bottle/feeding set for her bigger dolls. This was to go with the doll high chair that we were going to give her the next morning on her actual birthday. She was excited about the feeding set but kept asking me where her dolly could sit while she fed her. Needless to say, I was feeling pretty confident that she would love our gift the next morning.

Here she is opening it up yesterday morning. Despite our usual Sunday morning rush, we had a few extra minutes to put the dolly high-chair together and feed her baby some breakfast.



Then we celebrated again with the Toews family in the evening where Keziah got even more presents! She is thoroughly spoiled - and with Christmas right around the corner.... wowsers. I'm getting used to the fact that this season will always be present overload for Micah and Keziah.

I'm noticing how many of these pictures are of the back of her head :)


Here's the part where I'm supposed to say that I can't believe my little girl is 3! But, in reality, it feels like she's been a part of our lives for a lot longer. Maybe it's because so much has happened since she came into our lives 3 years ago. But regardless of how long or short it has felt, we love this beautiful little princess so much and look forward to many more years of watching her grow!

A Blogging Mood

Erik is out tonight and it's been another LONG day with the kids. I should be doing a bit more to get ready for Keziah's Tinkerbell party tomorrow, but I felt like I was in a blogging mood. To be in a blogging mood and actually have time to blog is pretty rare, so I figured I'd better just go with it.

Silas wins the award for the Little Toewsie with the most hair. Compared to his older siblings, he's doing quite well in the follicle department. Most days it sticks straight up in the back - I try to wet it down but it persists in standing. I don't feel ready to cut it yet.

I decided to have some fun with it instead.

So many great expressions, I couldn't choose just one...


Faux-hawk from the side:

Because I'm such an indoor girl and because we don't have a backyard to speak of, I really have to be intentional about getting these kids outside. With the rainy days and the early sunset it's pretty rare. But, hey, I'm trying.

Last week, one of the playgroup moms brought several huge boxes of dollar store items. She said she needed to get rid of it and proceeded to fill up bags of junk - I mean treasures - for the kids. Micah's favourite item has turned out to be this little crocodile guy he's wearing on his wrist. I told him that I was pretty sure it was a hair scrunchy, but he has decided it's a bracelet and has been referring to it as his "scrumpy". He wore it all week, everywhere he went - even to sleep and to preschool. Until it lost both of it's eyes. Now it sits on the counter awaiting eye repair.

This might look like our first snowfall, but it was actually a crazy hail storm we had last week. We rarely get thunder and lightning here (something I really miss about the prairies!) but we got a storm the other day. The kids aren't used to hearing thunder and Keziah was especially afraid - in a cute, clingy kind of way :)

Tomorrow is Keziah's birthday party. Her actual birthday is on Sunday. I didn't think she was "old enough" to be too excited to sleep the night before her party, but she was wide awake until about 9:30 tonight. And I don't know what the fetish was, but she was wearing a different pair of pyjamas every time I went to check on her...

Hopefully she has a good nap tomorrow before the party :)

Parenthood

I feel like I'm always in a hurry. I just can't keep up with everything anymore! My house is turning into one of those houses with mail and school papers piling up on the countertops, newspapers stacked by the door, several hampers of clothes waiting by the laundry room, dishes piled up in the sink and toys cluttering all other available surfaces. And if I do happen to get on top of it all... well, we all know that the mess always returns. Surprisingly quickly.

I wonder why I even bother.

And it's hard to keep up with other things too. Like socializing on the internet :) I'm not sure why I feel guilty for not commenting on other people's blogs more or keeping up with their pictures on facebook or making sure my own blog up-to-date. Do I really need to keep up with all of THAT too?? I'm pretty sure the answer is no.

Silas spends a lot of time in this bouncy chair watching his Baby Mozart :)

Despite our exhausting days, we're feeling very blessed right now. Erik has been working consistently for the last couple of months and today he's starting a new job that will take us through another month. He’s been doing mostly renovations lately and has been enjoying it. It’s also nice for him to have “inside” work as we head into the rainy months.

We're also feeling very thankful for health. Other than some colds, we've all been feeling good! With everything that’s going on we just keep hoping that it will continue. We’re still undecided about the H1N1 vaccine. Or I should say that I’m undecided.

Micah displaying some recent magna-doodle artwork:

Speaking of the flu, I read an email forward last month (from my mom, I think) about keeping onions in your house to keep the flu away. It sounds kind of superstitious, but there was some information to back it up (which you can read about here). I actually found quite a bit of information on the internet about using onions to combat the flu. So I felt a little silly but I put one unpeeled onion in every room of our house. If it works, then great! And, if not, I’ve only wasted $1.99 :)




Latetly my greatest frustration is how much these kids fight!!! I know they aren't the first siblings who are at each other all the time, but I honestly don't know how to deal with it. I've tried giving time-outs and spankings. I've tried ignoring it all together (until someone gets whalloped in the head). I've tried sending them to their rooms for individual play-time. The last one works the best, but I'm not sure that's a realistic solution for every fight...


The kids find way too much pleasure in teasing each other. Like yesterday when we were driving and Micah told Keziah that he was going to punch her in the face once we got out of the van. Or when he chases her around the house with a fake spider. And Little Miss Keziah isn't innocent either. Her favourite line is, "Micah, I'm gonna put you in prison!!" which makes Micah cry...

Anyone have some good advice for me? Some helpful parenting books to try??


Silas remains innocent of the sibling rivalry for the time being. He's turning into a pudge-bucket. And he loves to give us big big smiles...


I took this video on Sunday afternoon after we all had nap-time. For some reason Silas laughs the hardest when the kids hit his belly. Funny - but sometimes a little bit rough!

Pumpkin Parties

We had a busy week of parties and costumes. On Wednesday night we went to a Harvest Party at our church. Micah had a blast jumping around in the HUGE bouncy castle inflatables but it was a little overwhelming for Keziah (especially after she got lost for a few minutes in one of the inflatable things).


Micah had a Pumpkin Party at preschool on Friday. They got to dress up, play games and eat pumpkin muffins and pumpkin bread. We also carved our own pumpkins this week:


The past couple of years I've printed off Jack-O-Lantern templates from the internet but this year I tried some free-hand designs. Keziah requested a butterfly - which was relatively easy - but Micah really wanted a Wall-E pumpkin. I used his pyjamas (see above picture) as inspiration. I hand-drew the design and Erik did the cutting. I think it turned out pretty good!


Both pumpkins together:


Last night (Saturday) those of us from the Toews family who weren't out of town came to our house for a pizza supper. After we ate, we dressed up Micah, Keziah and Caleb and took them out trick-or-treating for the first time. I stayed at our house to hand out treats (and couldn't believe how many kids came!) but it sounded like our little trio of zoo animals was quite a hit! We didn't get any good pictures of them last night but I took this picture of the three of them dressing up about a month ago (except last night Keziah was the giraffe and Caleb was the elephant).


All that sugar may have helped them stay up a little later in preparation for the time change :) Unfortunately Silas will be the trickiest one to transition. I can't explain to him that he needs to wait an extra hour for his morning feeding... Oh well, hopefully by this time next week we'll be more on schedule.


Tomorrow I'm going into Langley to do some admin work for the company that I do transcription for. So, I get to be part of the office for the day. I'm looking forward to getting out of the house and doing something "un-Mommy-ish" for a day :)