So, we're down to our last sleep in our little house. For those of you not familiar with Chilliwack, it is uncommonly warm here and so it has made mothering + packing a bit more difficult than it would have otherwise been. Yet, I can thankfully say we are coming along but that is in part (a big part) because of the loving care a few wonderful people have given my children over the last couple of days so I could work uninterrupted. Hopefully one more day of that tomorrow and then we can have a few "normal" days at my D&M's as we wait for our new house.

In the meanwhile, the last couple of days... a loving bottle administration enjoyed immensly by both parties.

Where the 3 oldest children have slept for the last 3 nights. The upstairs simply is not conducive to sleep. Never mind to health. I think we might have heat stroke candidates if we tried to have them sleep up there right now. So, our nights are late (like every other single family with warm houses and I know there are many we aren't the only ones) our mornings still kind of early (before 7 to before 8 depending) our children a little grouchy.

Our little Leah has moved from book worm - won't you please read me a story -- to book worm - I'll read it to myself or someone else. It's been coming for a while but she is becoming more and more confident, an amazing thing to observe. I read on a blog the other day something to the effect of this. Growth is like an ridiculously aerodynamic rocket ship. Exactly. And while I am incredibly thankful for the healthy development of my children, sometimes I am blown away at the speed of the process.

I almost...

took a picture of the living room this afternoon. Purely for your pleasure :) Let's just say it didn't take Steve long to say, "first of all we need a place to walk!" Really though, the packing is going very smoothly. I've been trying to get a few things worked on each day and on Friday Mom O came and helped me do some packing while Mom M. had the 3 oldest. Thank you both!

This picture is for Aunty Carolyn and her dear friend Steph. The t-shirt quote, "I love you this much." This is a very rare picture as now they are past the sitting still for pictures stage. Cody still hates to sit and does it as little as possible. If he's put on his butt he is almost immediately on his tummy going...somewhere, anywhere, away. Cara gives herself two options. Favorite choice, go straight to standing. All the other pictures I took Cara was turned around halfway to standing at the couch. If there's nothing to stand at (and she's not picky, even the basketball is tall enough to stand at!) then she'll just crawl too.

So, what happens when this Mom has to give them both a bath by herself? Well, they enjoy playing together so they go in at the same time but then for safety's sake they have to come out at the same time too. Scoop them both into the same towel head for the couch.

Thanks especially to Leanne for helping organize another garage sale. It was a warm but successful day.

These two pretty, apron clad ladies served up lunch to some hungry folk! Nice sign, Kayla! At one point Krista said to me, "if you're ever short on money just set up some kids at the road with a stand. One couple stopped specifically to give each kid a loonie! They didn't look at the garage sale or even take food." Leah and Kayla had lots of fun until they got too warm.

A huge part of today's success was because of my childless state. Steve took charge of the kids from 7:15 on. Thanks to Mom O the twins were also happy all day playing at their house. When Cam came home with Steve he was happy to find the bags of candy "Aunty" Willy left on the table. THANKS, Willy!

If he was happy to find candies he was estatic to find our neighbor's "QUAD! BRRMM BRMM" on the driveway.
A wonderful day finished off with some deliciously cold watermelon :)

First of all

It seems like every week I hear from someone else who reads our blog to see what our little family is up to. From past teachers (hi! Mrs. Sinke!) to old friends (special hello to Linda and family - would love the chance to get to know you) (and Liz who also has a busy family of five little ones - I have started an email to you numerous times...) to family members who live near and far (some of you passing on this blog to people like past teachers...thanks! even though I'm not sure which one of you it was) (and Steph, you count pretty much as family and you get the prize for the furthest away in NZ) and to all the rest of you - some of whom I am not even aware of your keeping tabs with us. To all of you wonderful people who take time to read this blog, "Thank you!!" On days when snail mail and email are quiet and babies and big kids are fussing it cheers me up to know I am "connected" to so many other busy, special people. Want to make my day? Leave a comment with a "hello" and some identifying feature so I know who you are. An email works too. Okay, it's really not as bad as I made it sound but I will still enjoy any hellos.

In the midst of the trying moments the last couple days there have been some golden moments too.

Tuesday night 8:30... sometimes the neighbors must wonder but they had a lot of fun and they were chilled enough to fall asleep in a still-warm upstairs.

Our wonderful, free entertainment for the last few days, road construction, excavator and backhoe loader inclusive. 7:00 Tuesday and Wednesday morning the kids were out there on the driveway for 45 min of watching before breakfast. Monday and Tuesday they spent most of the day in the front in wide eyed wonder.

Time to really get this day started. With seven sleeps left in this house and about 5 weeks of "camping out" at my Mom and Dad's before we get possession of our new house, there is some work and organizing to do. And yes, we do have a new house come end of August, very close to where we are now (we are so thankful to stay in this area) and about 600 sq. feet more living space. We are incredibly blessed.

I knew there was trouble...

when I heard the giggles from inside the house the other afternoon. A bit of finger painting out in the "cucumber garden". You know the equation, dirt + water = happy boys!

Sporting a fine new set of freckles.

I'm sure glad they rinse off their own clothes.

This boy's happy as long as no one is trying to feed him a bottle or put him to bed.

Today was our first get serious about moving day. Steve accomplished some major feats. The shop is organized into garage sale, dump, Leanne sort, store. Most of the store pile was brought away to some shop space that has graciously been lent to us and it's close enough to home to make the storing of our stuff relatively painless. The other part of Steve's hard work is the fact that he emptied the basement (organized in our shop or already brought away) and we do not even have to open that door one more time! Hurray.

And I can hardly believe it but after many hours my pictures are backed up all the way to mid-June. That is a HUGE weight off my back. (I was still sitting at mid-Nov 2008 at the beginning of the week)

the state of this house

Our last baby has gone mobile and while Cara is not yet fast, she is up on all fours and moving. Cody climbed to the top of the stairs yesterday when I was up there helping Cam. (I don't know if I was ready to have a baby big enough to do stairs yet!) He also manages to get himself stuck into all kinds of places he's crawled into but can't back out of.
And for the rest.... this morning when Sam was looking for a missing sandal I told him to look under the couch. And after taking a quick peek he cheerfully piped up, "not under this layer of dust!" If it hadn't made me laugh it might have made me cry.
And so my determination to vacuum THIS morning is strengthened. (I've have tried to get to it every morning this week already, really.)

Leah's been asking for pictures on the front grass for awhile. I can only think that she has noticed me looking through photo galleries. There are heaps of things I would love to do over like feet growing out of heads and sour keys getting in the way etc. That's for another era with a bit more time. I love that they (without my asking) wanted a picture together and put their arms about each other's shoulders. It will always remind me of how much time they have spent together the last few years, of how blessed they are to have a sibling close enough in age to be friends with. And as for the last picture. I hope I never forget her giggle and her delighted cries of, "let me see" because no matter how much fun it is to get "pretty" pictures, the crazy ones are the memories that last.

I really thought I would be making a trip to the ER. But what a hoot.

We had these old windows in our shed. Steve secretly pulled one out, measured it and then matted the panes and made "photo corners" on the back so pictures can be interchanged easily. He also proceeded to pick 5 pictures and crop them just so. He was also going to include some anniversary-ish thoughts in the last pane but since he gave away the surprise he hasn't worked on it so much. I don't know if you can see it but the mats are grey, the photos black and white. I love that man! I love his creativity. I love that it was a total surprise. I hope we have many more years together, Steve, that'll give you a while to get it done :)

For anyone overly concerned, please be aware that my story of the oncoming traffic was slightly embellished for the sake of the read.

Taking a shower when the children to adult ratio is 5:1 is really not a great idea. Even if the shower is 3 min. max. Case in point... Cody was already crying before I got in. Once I was in Cam opened up the gate between the living room and kitchen and so the previously contained Cody zipped through and came to cry in the bathroom instead. Suddenly Sam was there and in a slightly distressed/mad voice said, "Leah says dragon flies are poisonous and only bite 3 year olds." Then Cam was hollering, "Mama, where ARE you?" while getting sprayed full in the face with hot shower water. By now Cody was bored thinking he wasn't about to be picked up anyway and so he headed for the open back door. At which point Cam started screaming because he's been warned enough times about the open doors and Cody falling down the steps scenario. Not a really relaxing 3 minutes but at least I got clean!

Some Catch Up

Cam talking with Uncle Brody and Auntie Care on Sunday night.

My Saturday morning garage sale finds included two of these cute white dressers for $7 each! The only problem was getting them home with 5 children plus a stroller in the van with me. Thankfully we were just around the corner from home and so we made 1 trip with the 8 drawers and then one trip per dresser. I borrowed a bungie cord (for which I was VERY thankful) and pushed it in as far as it could go. Almost made it and the only hang up was when it shifted up against the steering wheel and I couldn't steer out of oncoming traffic. I know, minor details!

They always look so cute sitting side by side in white onesies.

They love each other... a lot. One of the many precious blessings in this household.

Tomorrow I hope to show you what my creative husband gave me for an anniversary gift. Even if he didn't quite get it done on time you'll still be impressed. I also will share what he cooked up for the big kids for tonight's after supper activities.

The morning's quotes:

Leah: "I'm not sure how to design it to you." Describe is the word she was looking for. Or. "She doesn't have any barrettes." But when I suggested she share some of her barrettes with the unfortunate person she looked at me all puzzled and pointed to her forehead, "but I don't have any either. " She actually meant bangs.

Sam, after fighting a learning-to-skateboard-battle and losing said, "Mama, maybe when I be a Papa I can get both feet on the skateboard and not fall off." For now he's sporting a fat and scraped upper lip.

Cam: "LOOKIT!!!" when inviting you to share in his latest amazing discovery. It's actually more like, "LOOKIIIIITTTTT!!!!!"

Cody and Cara are both working on more teeth and as of last night Cara is slowly but very surely crawling an up-on-all-fours type of crawl. Cody remains loyal to the very effective army crawl.

A few notes about this week. It has been mildly tiring with all the decisions and indecisions!

Cara and Cody have really gotten to interacting with each other this week but it wasn't all good. It seems like they are finding the need to establish some sort of pecking order and so there has been some screeching and tugging between the two of them. Cara seems to be slightly disadvantaged as she is a sitting duck when Cody decides to zip over and investigate the toys she is currently engaged in. It kind of goes like this. Cara is sitting quietly playing with something as small as a soother or as big as a push toy. Cody looks over from where ever he is at that second and goes in for the big grab. He grabs hold of whatever it is and Cara lets out a screech. She continues screeching as long as he's tugging. He stops tugging for brief moments and gives her a look that speaks volumes about his opionion of her decibel level. This can go on for minutes until often Cam comes tearing in to help solve the problem. He pulls the toy away from both of them and makes them madder yet. I recorded it as I think it would be worth showing them one day.

As for other news. Cam and I have been spending some quality time together while Leah and Sam are attending VBS. It has been fun and special and I've been doing things like giving horsie back rides, "tossing a football around", a bit of tee-ball and a lot of reading. Cam's really been a book worm the last little while. How come its not always easy to devote a couple hours to a 2 year old?

Tonight our little sign has officially changed from "for sale" to "sold". We have max. 26 sleeps left to enjoy our little green house and find somewhere new. No use being sad so I'm heading into excited and chaotic!

Edited to add: For all those embroiled in the discussion...he added a sticker! :)

Celebrating Canada's 142 Birthday

We started off with a work day. Dad M. came over to help us get a few projects done before Thursday's building inspection. (I thoughtfully got the camera out as they were finished.) Big thanks, Dad!

Haven't got one like this in a long time, if ever.

We went to the neighborhood "party in the park" celebrations at our local park but they had hired a band and it was a bit too loud to stay. Before we left again Leah and Gramps made a Happy Canada Day crown. The visor Leah is wearing is a project we had made at home the day before.

The RCMP bear... they weren't quite certain but they did get their sticker.

And then off to the tunnels with Dad, Mom and Shelly. These are all out of order...

Cody was delighted to get out of the car seat at the end and explore the sand, rocks, sticks etc.

Cara is so easy as she is content to sit and play in one spot. Note the sand. She ate quite a bit.

I was one of the last people to come down those rocks in the background and this is what I saw, a whole line of shoes the kids tossed off immediately upon hitting the sand.

You may not want to know how high up on the mountain side this gang was.

Cam and his Gramma.

And again.

And once more. If you can click on this one you will see where our children get their mountain goatness from!

This was after Sam and his DEAR Auntie Shelly scared the willy nillies out of me in the middle of the longest, darkest cave! (Sam thinks he might marry Auntie Shelly some day)

Cam and his Gramps.

Sam and his Gramps.