A Drink, Mommy?

 Take one MegaBloks school bus

and a collection of little plastic hay-bales.

Arrange the haybales in the upside-down roof of the bus. 

Offer your Mommy something to drink.  Look familiar to you at all?  

I didn't understand what he was doing until he said what he 

was offering me was wine... he's been paying close attention 

in church when we have the Lord's Supper! 

Wardrobe Malfunctions

My oldest son can be a bit of a goof.  Actually a lot of a goof.  He has pretty good pronounciation skills, yet likes to say words in strange and garbled way.  He can sing very nicely, but he likes to change the words to nonsense just for fun.  He knows what is normal, but he pretends to eat my rocking chair and tells me it tastes like yummy peppermint cookies.  One of the later additions to his goofiness is when he gets dressed in the morning - he likes to put his pants on upside-down.  Yeah, you've heard of pants inside-out or backwards, but apparently upside-down is possible as well!   

 My middle son is also a goof.  He might learn some of his behaviour from his big brother, but he's got his own unique brand of goofiness as well.  He can make the funniest facial expressions, and has been purposefully doing that from before he was a year old.  He likes to walk around the house with as many hats on as he can find and "walk" with his shoes on his hands.  He can stuff half a banana in his mouth and still want to add more, and he thinks it's funny to blow spit bubbles - and then try to kiss you (poor Aunt Dell!!).  I recently extracted a soy bean from his nose.  Yesterday, he fell asleep eating lunch, and then wouldn't sleep when I put him down for a nap.  He spent his nap-time undressing himself and removing everything from his crib - off came the sleepsack, pants, socks, and sweater, and they all got chucked onto the floor with his blanket, stuffed animals and soother.  No nap for him - and then he fell asleep at suppertime. 

We haven't yet seen the goofy side of our youngest son, but I'm sure it will manifest itself in due time.  He's got two little experts to learn from, of course, and to that he will add his own one-of-a-kind style of goofiness.  I'm looking forward (maybe with some trepidation?) to watching him discover a sense of humour.  He's already got a fantastic smile and a cheerful disposition, and I'm sure he will get into all kinds of hysterical trouble with his brothers as he gets older! 

Hahaha!

 The head of our little clan, setting a wonderful example for the kids

Daddy helping Peter out to make a matching strange face

Aaron getting in on the facial-distortion action

Aaron decided that he needed to wear four hats all at the same 

time today, and if any of them came off, he got extremely upset.

Am I seriously related to these people?   

 

Today

Poor snowman...seems that a day of 4 degree weather did some damage to his structural stability.  If he leans over any further, I'm going to have to give him a friendly shove before he collapses on one of my kiddies

  Peter was sitting beside me today quietly drawing when he turned to
me and told me that he was drawing Daddy.  Sure enough, a
recognizable face! You can recognize his Dad in there,
can't you?  I am pretty impressed!

Into Another Year

Here we are in January again, and another year has begun.  We're in a new house in a new neighbourhood, and we have another little boy to love and to cuddle and to train up in the Way he should go.  Our two older boys have grown so much - last year Aaron was just starting to crawl, and Peter was just starting to learn how to sit still in church and put sentences together.  A lot can happen in a year!
We've settled back into the swing of things after the busy busy holiday season.  We were away from home for two weeks for different family get-togethers and when the bathroom was being renovated.  It was so nice to be back home again!  The kids enjoy getting back to normal as well.  The older two boys have been having fun playing outside in the snow.  It doesn't always last a long time, especially for Aaron as he has a hard time doing anything with his little mittened hands, and he gets stuck occasionally in the snow.  Most of the time, I have to rescue him, bawling, from a far corner of the yard where he's decided he can't move anymore and he's just too cold to have any more fun.  Peter enjoys it much more, playing in the snow with his loaders and dump trucks, although he'd rather have Aaron out there with him to keep him company.  The two of them can be pretty mischievous together.  Aaron is really developing his vocabulary, putting words together and communicating with us quite effectively.  He sings along with us when we pray with him at night, he's patching words into sentences, and although he often sounds like his mouth is full of marbles when he talks, we can understand a lot of what he says.  It is so fun to watch kids learn and grow!  The two boys continue to adore their little brother.  They enthusiastically greet Nathaniel in the morning, and regularly shower him with kisses, hugs, and way more toys and stuffed animals than a little four month old knows what to do with.  Aaron wants to pick him up, and Peter likes to comfort him when he's sad.  It's kind of funny to listen to the things Peter says and how he acts around Nate when he's upset, because you can tell that he's been watching and listening to his Mom.  Nate is such a smiley, happy baby, and such a pleasure to have around.  He loves to be held, talked to, kissed, and snuggled - and I love to dole it out!  He's a strong little guy who loves to stand up and exercise those legs.  He has a doctor's appointment next week and I am eager to find out what he weighs - I'm guessing around 18 lbs.  There's no way he fits into the clothes a normal 4 month old would - he's very tall for his age and he's wearing 9 or 12 month clothes.  The other boys were also big for their age.  I don't know how much longer we can keep him in his infant carrier, which is unfortunate because it's handy to have a portable carseat for little ones, especially in the winter months.  He was sleeping through the night before the holidays, but since I last posted, he has been getting up at least twice a night to eat.  Too bad!  But there's not much to complain about, because although I need to get up to feed him, he almost always goes right back to sleep again until he's up for the day around 7:30 or 8.  I'm hoping to start him on some cereal soon.  I know it's a little early, but he's a big boy and developmentally he seems to be ahead of the crowd, and I think he could handle a few extra calories and something heavier in his tummy.  I've been thankful to be able to nurse him so far, and hope to be able to keep that up for a while yet with help from some supplements I've been taking.  So nice not to have to deal with mixing formula, heating it up and washing all those bottles, although I wouldn't mind a bit of freedom now and then.
The last time I did an update I also said that I was sleeping better than I had in a long time.  Seems as soon as I posted that, my sleeping abilities took a turn for the worse again.  It's pretty frustrating not to be able to get to sleep when everone else in the house is sawing logs.  I can't take a lot to deal with insomnia since I am still nursing, so I am trying to balance things out with vitamins to see if that can help.  Maybe if I post a blog about how I can't sleep at night, it'll get better again.  Yeah I know, that's ridiculous but it's worth a shot.
Anyways.  Here are some pictures for your enjoyment!

Peter and his garbage truck 

Aaron loves spending time with Nate!  He's reading him a book. 

Playing in the snow!

I should have known not to trust my boys talking about shaving

in the bedrom while I was chatting on the phone with Mom.  I 

walked in there to discover Peter carefully plastering Sudocrem

on Aaron's face.  Thankfully it cleans up alright, and didn't 

end up on the bedsheets or the quilts!

So... I said Aaron needs a haircut, Mike said he just needed to have

his hair 'done'.  This is his hair 'done'.  What do you think?  HAHA!!

Isn't he just the most handsome little guy?

First taste of oatmeal cereal yesterday morning.  

I don't think he minds at all!

Let's play Find the Baby... I was downstairs looking for something, 

and when I got back upstairs, Peter and Aaron had their chairs up by

the pack and play, leaning over Nate who was buried in stuffed 

animals, and Peter told me that "Nate has lots of animals, Mom!"

This piano is SO loud.  The boys like it a whole
lot more than their Mom does.

Till next time!

Bathroom Renovation

When we moved into our new house, there were a number of things that we had to update, and a much longer list of things we would like to update.  The bathroom was on the "would like to update" list - aesthetically it was far from pleasing, but functionally it seemed to be just fine.  We replaced the sink faucet and the cabinet hardware, and painted the walls and ceiling, and decided to leave the rest for some future date.  As the months went on, however, we came to realize that the bathroom, specifically the bathtub, must have been used on a much, much less frequent basis than it was now experiencing, and the extra water usage was doing some damage.  The tiles were leaking, and whenever someone had a shower, I'd have water not quite pouring, but not just dripping either, onto my washing machine in the basement below.  Knowing that this damage could get pretty bad pretty fast, we decided to renovate the bathroom over the Christmas holidays in and around all the family get-togethers.  It took a lot of hard work, done by my handy husband along with help from Dad M and Dad and Mom VD.  There are a few finishing touches left to do, but the end result looks absolutely fantastic!  

A before shot of the bathroom, with a rusty faucet, nasty 

toilet seat cover, yellow wall tiles and peeling linoleum.  

Lovely blue shower curtain, pukey green tub, and a 

handy handle for getting in and out of the bath

Another shot of the lovely old bathtub

Demolition in progress!  All the tiles ripped off the wall, the water-

damaged drywall off from behind the tub, and the new tub

installed.  Much deeper tub too, for luxurious baths! 

(and maybe some higher water bills?)   

The vanity temporarily transformed into a tool box catch-all

Mike and Dad VD installing the new tile.  Well, Mike's installing,

and looks like Dad's being the inspector/foreman, haha

Looking good!  The tiles are up and need to be grouted

The (almost) finished product. 

Doesn't it look just splendid?  I feel so spoiled!

Typical Chaos

A collection of pictures from a random day in our household.  

My day begins with a cup of coffee and the calendar.  Well, it began before that with dressing kids and getting their breakfast ready but this is getting my brain in gear.  Add in the telephone, and after the phone call is done I remember why I shouldn't talk on the phone with the calendar in front of me -it always ends up a bit of a mess.  I guess planning the rest of January will have to involve maneuvering around some artistic creativity.  This particular doodling was inspired by Lauren.

 I have a couple of furniture-rearrangers living in the house.  At least once or twice a day, the crib in the older boys' room is hauled over to the other side of the room for some hyper play time.  This is the first time they've done any large-scale moving operations in their younger brother's room.  I'm just glad he wasn't napping at the time. 

 This is the more typical scene:  Aaron's bed pulled over to Peter's, the quilt thrown out and all the animals and pillows thrown in, and lots of screeching and laughing going on.  That is, until one of the monkeys bumps his head, monkeys call the Momma and the Momma says, "No more monkeys jumping on the bed!"

Much loved by his older brothers, Nate has been supplied with as many baby toys as Pete and Aaron could find.  He's just able to peek through the mound to look for the boys as they run back and forth from his room bringing him more goodies to play with. 

 Something tells me it just might be naptime.  Maybe. 
What do you think?

Hanging out with the littlest bro'

Look like brothers?  I think so!

 Is it really possible to keep the play-dough colours separated?  I'm thinking not.  I wonder what the dominant colour will be when red, yellow, green and blue are finally all mashed into one homogenous mound. 

 Boots drying off after the boys had fun playing outside for an hour 

this morning.  Little bit of snow, little bit of mud, lots of fun.

 Doesn't everyone have a garbage truck and a backhoe sitting 

on their bathroom counter?  Nice new bathroom, by the way eh?  

Worthy of a post of its own.  I'll have to work on that one.

 Typical to find random farm machinery lying abandoned 

around the house, waiting to be stepped on. 

Clomping around in Mom's slippers

Such a nice feeling to find a child playing with a large container of 

diaper rash cream... not.  Thankfully this one was an empty 

one ready for the recycling bin. 

 Yeah I know, they shouldn't be jumping on the bed.  But they've 

been pretty crazy today, and this is helping to burn off a little steam...

 Pull chair over to table.  Grab an orange when Mom's not looking. 
Take a big bite, expecting nice juicy fruit.  Discover the taste of
an orange peel.  Reject fruit.