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 :)

Whistler (& More)

Erik and I had our night away in Whistler this past weekend. Erik's parents helped us by watching the kids while we were away. It was a lot of work to get organized for that one night away, but it was worth it. I only wish it could've been a wee bit longer :)


We had a beautiful day on Saturday when we arrived and we spent some time browsing through the shops in Whistler. There were lots of pretty fall colours!


We stayed at the Fairmont Chateau and it was beautiful! They upgraded our room when they heard that this was for my birthday. So we had a wonderful king size bed with comfy pillows and a down duvet... So nice! They also have robes in the rooms since you have to walk outside to enjoy the pool and hot tubs.


We spent quite a bit of time just relaxing in our hotel room. Erik watched an entire hockey game uninterrupted while I spent the time reading and napping in our cozy bed.

Every time we left the room for an extended period, someone seemed to have been in our room while we were away. After we came up from the pool we found these: (for my birthday)


After supper we came back and found our bed re-made and the covers turned back with a card telling us the forecast for the next day :)

Here is the view from our room. The outdoor pool was even warm enough to enjoy despite the chilly fall air!


Sunday's weather was not as nice but we still managed to get in a morning walk before the rain started. It even snowed a bit up there while we were sitting in the hot tub one last time.


Like I said, I did a lot of reading. I love reading but I sometimes dread starting new books because I don't know if I'll be able to get into them. So, once I find an author that I like I read every book they've written (that I can get my hands on). For the last several months I've been reading books by Angela Hunt. I really like her writing and there is a lot of variety in her novels. Our church library has a ton of her books so I should have awhile of good reading ahead of me before I have to discover a new author.


And there have been plenty of things keeping us busy back at home. My camera is full of pictures from the last month so I'll do a quick summary of the important stuff :)

A few weeks ago Micah's bicycle was delivered to our house. This was an early birthday present that we ordered with our airmiles. This was the look on Micah's face when he discovered what was inside the mystery package:

The only bike they had in his size was a Spiderman bike. It wouldn't have been our first choice of character, but hey, it was free so we went with it! I was a little worried though because after I had already ordered it I took Micah to Walmart and had him try on some helmets. When I asked him to try on the spiderman helmet he said he was too scared to put it on his head! So, I wondered if he was going to hate his bike. But, as you can see from this next picture, it wasn't an issue:


He's spent hours pedaling up and down our lane. His neighbourhood friend and him have had a lot of fun racing together and I'm glad Micah can finally keep up!


Keziah is a busy little girl these days. She is always testing her boundaries and being her usual stubborn self, but we love her! She loves "helping" me in the kitchen and being a mommy to her baby dolls. In only a few more weeks she will be turning 3!! She wants a Tinkerbell party and has talked of little else since she was at her friend Taeya's Tinkerbell party in the spring :) I think I'm going to let the kids have friend parties for the first time this year. So, we'll see how that goes...


It turns out that Keziah has become our accident-prone child. She has had more head trauma in her 3 years than Micah has in all of his 5. Just this week she had 2 HARD hits to her head when she's fallen. And after her concussion back in the summer we're always a bit more wary when she hurts herself. I've laughed when I've heard stories of parents putting helmets on their accident-prone children, but now it seems like a smart idea! If I thought she would keep it on her head, I just might go for it...

Keziah loves to help me feed Silas. And it sometimes does help me when I'm busy with other things, but she often jams the spoon in a little too hard, or loses interest after a few spoonfuls (much to Silas' dismay). And of course, it just gets a whole lot more messy:

(those are prunes by the way :)


And little Siley-bear is 7 months today! He sprouted his first tooth on the weekend and I've definitely noticed a positive change in his overall mood. He's sleeping better and spending much more of his awake time being content. Yay! I'm glad to be reminded of what his real personality is :) By the way, Silas has the earliest first tooth of any of the kids - Micah and Keziah didn't cut any teeth until they were 9 months.


Silas is still very wobbly at sitting and doesn't really roll around. But he's getting the hang of jumping and moving around in his exersaucer so I know the rest is just a matter of time. Maybe I mentioned this before but I've wondered if my kids have been a little later at rolling/crawling because I've swaddled them for sleeping. Silas probably doesn't get a chance to practice any "moves" in his crib since he's wrapped up so tight. But I think the good sleep that swaddling brings is still worth it :P


He's been such a smiley/giggly baby so far (even in the crankiness of teething) and I hope that continues. Here he is trying out some peas for the first time. He wasn't a big fan but he sure looked cute!