It's gone! - 01/28

Ruth lost her tooth on Monday, at school! It was saved, in a baggie, so we could put it under her pillow for the 'Tooth Fairy'. She brought Ruthie $2 that night!!
Here's Ruthie...
See the little space?!
Here's a shot of her mouth...

Last Thursday, after MOTS, Jenn and I took the kids to the Ag Days show at the Keystone centre. It's really for farmers, like a car show except with tractors. I'm sure people wondered what the heck we were doing, carting 5 kids and 2 strollers in there! But the kids had a blast looking at the huge tractors and climbing in and on them. We figured if the tractors couldn't handle the kids, would you really want to buy that one anyways?!
A picture of my boys, standing in a tire - this thing was HUGE, easily taller than me - not hard, I know. Ha ha.

01/26

Just one month ago was Boxing Day, hard to believe!
It's -30 yet again today. Windchill is only -44, school's don't close until windchill hits -45. And, no. One degree is not close enough. So, bundled up we get, and out to the car (Josh was getting a ride with the girl from Brandon he carpools with). The car is in the garage now, always. And it was plugged in last night. But the darn thing wouldn't start. Wouldn't even roll over.
Tell kids to get back in the porch (it's a touch warmer in there, though not much) and figure I should at least try the van before calling the school (since the school is just up the road, I can call and just ask for someone to run over and pick Ruthie up).
Now, the van has been sitting outside. In the cold. All night. And not plugged in. At all. I turn the key and it rolled over. HARD. But then the darn thing kicked in and started. Could NOT believe it! I have a big grudge against Josh's car now. I know it hates cold, but it's still gotta start!

Anyway, Ruth is back in school, they've been skating a lot this month, and besides that she's doing skating lessons twice a week - she's getting pretty fast! Have you seen her videos on dropshots? Tons of improvement from last year!
Yesterday she surprised me a bunch, said she has a loose tooth. Now, she has been saying this for a couple years, wanting to get a loose tooth to be "bigger", but never had anything. I called her over to show me, thinking it was nothing. Especially since there was nothing amiss when I last helped her brush her teeth (Friday, Josh helped her Saturday and didn't mention anything). But I'll be darned! Her front bottom right tooth is really loose. Very loose. I don't it will last very long in there! So, big realization yet again that our little girl is growing up.

Happy New Year! - 01/15 (2009!)

Time for a huge update, I suppose! These are some of the pictures off the site - there are many more, and some videos over there!

On Christmas Eve, as much as we would like to go to a church service, we don't. It would just be too much work, too much time wasted, getting ready and in to town, to church, then getting home again. Lots of rushing, and by the time we got home it would be late and the kids would be grumpy and tired. Not much fun.
So, instead, we make lots of yummy finger foods, put a quilt on the floor and let the kids have a "picnic" in the living room while watching Christmas shows, and just be home together. We eat and play and just have fun.
Right before bedtime, the kids each get to open one present - Christmas jammies and, this year, a new book. The older 2 noticed these presents as soon as they were wrapped and under the tree, and started asking about opening them around, oh about 3 in the afternoon! By 5pm, they were both saying "Is it bedtime yet? Please, can we get ready for bed? I'm very tired now!" But, we held them off until nearing 8pm.
A few pictures from Christmas Eve:
Zech opens his present
Isaac opens his present
Ruthie opens her present - she was very happy there was a hair scrunchie with her new nightie!
Isaac gets his shirt stuck on his head while getting changed
All the kids in their christmas jammies!



Christmas morning, Zech was up first, at 7am, his normal wake up time. He came right in to wake us up wanting to open his stocking and presents. Ruth and Isaac didn't stay in bed very long after Zech was up, so we started.
The kids had 'santa' presents and their stockings. We opened those, took a break for breakfast, then opened the rest of our gifts - the kids got lots, as usual.
The rest of the day was spent at home, just playing and relaxing.
I roasted a chicken (the house smelled very yummy all day!) and we had a big Christmas dinner - chicken, dressing, cranberry sauce (jam, Isaac says), and vegetables. Yum!
A few pictures from Christmas:
All of us opening stocking stuff.
Ruthie playing with her 'santa' present - a horse and stable, matches her doll house.
Isaac playing with his 'santa' present - a diego and dinosaur toy.
Zech playing with his 'santa' present - an ambulance!

There's a really cute video of Zech playing with his ambulance and making up a song about it.


For New Year's Eve our friends and their kids came over. We had yummy treat foods for supper, exchanged christmas presents, the kids played Wii for a couple hours (with minimal help from us!), we were able to play a couple board games (wow!), and we celebrated the "new year" at 11pm.
Unfortunately, Jen and Paul had to go to a funeral 8 hours away the next day, so they weren't able to stay overnight. But we still had a lot of fun with them celebrating New Year's!

Now we're working on getting back into things. Having a break is nice, I enjoyed it, but the kids were out of sorts being off their "schedule" for so long, I think.
School started on the 5th for Ruth and Josh. They all had dance class that night, too. Zech started nursery school on the 6th.
These pictures are from the 9th (I think?). I put on a music station on the tv and the kids danced for a long time!
Isaac dancing.Zech and Ruth dancing like Bean. Isaac joined in, too.
Ruthie dancing.
Ruth and Zech wagging their tails.
Ruth and Zech - I like this picture.
In case someone notices - Zech got hit in the face with a car at nursery school on Wed (7th). It actually was an accident, which is good - he walked in front of other boys driving cars off a jump. Wrong place, wrong time kind of thing.


Back in November, our poor little loveseat started dying - it had a hole in one cushion, gradually growing from little fingers pulling at it. Then the other cushion got a big hole worn in it, then another. We decided to go on a furniture hunt after Christmas, hoping to see a boxing day sale or something.
We found 3 pieces, ones we really liked, and got a good deal on them.
This is our new couch:
our new loveseat:
our new chair:
All very comfy and we really like them! Oh, we ended up taking the feet off the loveseat because it was way too tall for us - well, me anyways. I couldn't touch the floor when I sat on it! The chair still has it's feet, it's okay like that for some reason.

And, that's about it until now. Oh yeah, the kids started skating lessons last Thursday. We found Isaac some skates on the weekend and he joined in on Tuesday. I took some videos of the 3 of them skating - they're over on the other site. I can't believe the different in Ruthie's skating, and Zech's doing incredible for only his 2nd time ever on skates (in the videos). Isaac... well, he's trying. That's all we ask!