it was snow fun!

Every one should have at least one lame pun on the blog, shouldn't they?

Went with all the BC cousins, aunts and uncles and Opa and Nana for an afternoon on the mountain. It was SO much fun! These pictures are not in any particular order but that which they were taken.

Daniel and Jacob. It was still snowing a bit so as you came down you would get quite a bit of snow spray in the face. Their eyes are squeezed shut.
They were cruising at a decent speed as they got right to the fence (back up the runaway lane :).

Which is when things got a little dicey. Going up is one thing, sliding back down another.

Head over tea kettles, Jacob lost boot, sock and nearly his head.

Aunty Yen drives a mean sled! And Sam's all about the steering. :)

Martin and Justin were covered in enough snow to turn them white... to Justin's delight, even though it doesn't quite look it!

Ooohhhh!

Rachel and Jessica are going to win for sure.

Four kids and Steve on the sled made one interesting round when things went a little awry...

slip here, slide there....

And he left a trail of kids behind!

These long wooden sleds went great and the air was filled with a few shrieks and squeals!

Cam surprised me by taking this little sled and booking it down on his own.

For that kind of fun he didn't even mind pulling it back up the hill.

Another special day with special memories. Another day chock full of blessings.

A good mess

Graham cracker houses because gingerbread is more work and even less likely to be eaten.

Icing piped through a plastic bag makes good cement and good licking!

At least it's good cement some of the time...Cody was quite distressed that every time he went and pushed on the roof to see if it was hard enough to put candies on the silly thing collapsed.

There is huge joy in not being too particular about the end result and letting the four year old have at it. Huge mess too but a little water and soap does wonderful things and by that point

the smile is spread as far as the icing. We saved them long enough to show Papa and eat supper. Unfortunately supper was so filling the only dessert they could fit was the candies! :)

A Wonderful day!

More than 2 hours, many, many designs, 120 pictures and a whole lot of fun later... we finally put the blocks away for the day!

Horizontal and vertical designs!
Thanks to our neighbors for a great morning of fun and the best babysitter ever for allowing us to take the bucket home. Not only did I get to give Steve the surprise of an already clean church but the kids were great and busy all afternoon!

Thanks SO much, they had so much fun learning new games and playing with your toys! Leah and Sam were still laughing about chutes and ladders at supper time. It's no wonder the kids start dancing in circles when they get invited to "Koop-man's" house.

(Of all the pictures I took 4 of these last ones with everyone working at the table. Leah, Sam and Cam took the other 116.)

self incrimination

So, I've always been amazed at the amount of food that ends up on the floor under a certain young gentleman's feet. But I wonder no longer.

The other night when eating his supper Cam, with the most adorable crinkly nose, said, "I like these now, Mommy, that's why I don't throw them on the floor anymore."

Pardon moi? You mean all this time I was clueless and marveling at his messy eater status when actually he was intentionally tossing whatever he didn't want on the floor? I feel hood winked. What a duh!

Too bad for him he didn't think it through completely. While he has obviously learned to like what he was eating 2 nights ago he isn't completely okay eating everything I put on his plate. But now I'll be watching him with hawk eyes and sending him to the floor to pick up whatever gets conveniently dumped :)

And just maybe the floors will look cleaner when meal time is done!

Already missing one stitch. Looks like he'll have a good enough scar to make a story out of it :) For now he has a nicely yellowing eye.

A Saturday

Another one of those days. A day in the life...of 5 little ones + mom. A Saturday. The day in which we usually have pancakes for breakfast. Enough work for 2 parents to spread sugar and cut into bite sized pieces, extra busy when one parent is working. And that was today, Steve was working and really pancakes doesn't have to be a big deal if one is not in a hurry but I was trying to get out of the house early enough to meet someone in town for a pick up of calendars AND beat the crazy Saturday grocery rush. We were doing just fine. We had everyone dressed and in the van ready to go by 9:00. Not bad. But it wasn't until we got to Superstore and every body had already jumped onto the parking lot that I realized my purse was still sitting where ever I had dropped it to lace up my running shoes. Big Sigh.

Every body back into the van. Put seatbelts back on. Head for home. On the way home I saw a thrift store I had been wanting to stop at and so I pulled into the parking lot. "Mom, what are you doing!?" Leah demanded. "Just going to take a quick peek," I reassured her. "You don't have your purse," she reminded. Big sigh.

We got back to the store in time to see the lady we wanted to meet was just standing in line with her groceries. We waited Superstore line up time, transferred the box from her vehicle to mine and then proceeded to head into a much fuller, busier Superstore. With 5 kids.

They did all right.

Back home, did some work, ate lunch, did some more work, had a crash. Called up Steve at work to tell him he kind of needed to come home as I had to take Cody in for stitches.

Steve came home, I got Cody + washcloth + ice cube loaded into the van and we headed off for the Walmart walk in clinic. On the way there Cody told me he didn't like ice cubes and he was going to give it to the doorman. There was no convincing him the doorman didn't like ice cubes so I was quite realived when he crankily informed me the ice cube had fallen and he couldn't find it. Can you imagine? I mean, those folks at the door are friendly and usually great with kids but I'm sure Cody's bloody DNA'ed ice cube would have even thrown the best of them for a loop!

Nobody told me they weren't running the clinic at the same handy/crazy hours as their shopping hours and so by the time we got there the clinic was 2 hours past closing time. I still had a few errands to do so we got into the lineup at the customer service desk with a weepy head wound. True to form, after standing and waiting for 12 min. 34 sec. and 13 milliseconds we were informed they couldn't help us and we had to go over to the jewellry counter. Big sigh.

From there on it didn't go too badly and we were out relatively quickly and off to visit the ER. I wasn't taking any more chances on the clinics. Just as were were trotting across the parking lot I saw a van pull up to the doors and drop off a man with a bloodied napkin pressed to his head. He held the door open for us behind himself and I resigned myself to the fact that he was ahead of us.

But there wasn't a single other person in the waiting room. There were two receptionists and the one we got quickly got Cody on his way to the triage nurse. "What happened here?" the friendly nurse asked Cody. "He hit the corner of the table," I replied. "Walk into it? Run into it?" the nurse continued his interrogation. "Well actually it was his brother who jumped off the back of the couch that ran him into it." And he looked at Cody with a sympathetic grin.

Soon enough we were headed on our way back. "You're the only one here, buddy" the nurse informed us and my heart took a selfish leap of thankfulness. It wasn't like I was thankful there was no one hurting, it wasn't like I was happy for the ER staff that they were having a quiet afternoon. Nope, I was thinking total minutes until departure!

I heard the nurse inform the doctor that the other man was actually ahead of us but Doc shook his head and said, "let's get this little guy out of here." For the record it should be said that it was probably not Cody's mom's desire to get out of there but the fact that Cody, who was now okay with having a gash that dripped the occasional drop of red, was jumping on the bed having the time of his life. Doc was probably shaking his head thinking little guy first and stitch up his eyelid or other guy first and stitch up little guy's eyelid plus...

The sweet nurse gave him her little bendy bugs bunny to hold and proceeded to wrap him all up swaddle style to keep his little hands from doing more damage than good. Not that it did much good. That boy was FURIOUS! He screamed and kicked and wiggled his hands loose and arched his back and so I grabbed his hands with one arm and his legs with another arm and laid across him trying to keep him still while the nurse held onto his head for dear life and the doc put in three of the neatest stitches ever.

It took Cody a few minutes to calm down after he was unbundled but almost right away he started asking to see it in the mirror. Nurse kindly informed us there was a bathroom 2 doors down on the left and so we went trotting along to go check it out. Almost instantly that furious screeching started up again.

"THERE'S STILL BLOOD!" and he was ready to fire the doctor.

Doctor and nursed popped some tylenol and headed for the next bed, next set of stitches.

And I went home thinking, why was Mel W working when I needed her to stop practicing on bananas and start practicing on little boys? :)

Special Addition

Nope, not the newborn kind. :) My friend, neighbor and partner-in-crime-mom-of-twins Greta stopped by our house last Saturday with a question for me. She wanted to know if we wanted to make room for a piano she wanted to give us. As you can imagine my mouth dropped open and actually I even got a bit teary. What a gift! You may have to know the history of music that both Steve and I have in our families to know how special it was to think about having a piano in the house again.

(When we got married we kept my sister's piano for her in our house. We both thoroughly enjoyed it and missed it when she wisked it off to WI with her!)

The poor delivery guy. He was doing his utmost to keep this heavy piano from landing on anyone's toes but our kids were just dancing about with excitement. He finally gave up trying to count them and asked, "how many kids do we have here anyway? They all yours?!"

No sooner was the bench settled down in front of the keys and the first 3 hopped on.

The next two (finally) got a turn a few minutes later.

We have a bit of work to do to return it to the same spirit of willingness to share the space but for now we're setting the timer so everyone can have their turn :)

As for me? I'm about to pull out the psalter and see what I remember. If nobody wakes up I might be sitting here more often at night!

Thanks, Gary and Greta. It's a gift we count precious. We thank God for you and for this gift and pray we'll spend many hours praising Him with it!

As I sit there I"ll be thinking about you, a stone's throw away, also sitting in your living room doing the same on your shiny black one :)

Edited to add the quotes of the morning:

Cody who kindly complimented me with the question, "what song are you singing with the piano?" Why a compliment? - Well I wasn't singing only playing and so I'm thankful he recognized there was song in the middle of the stumbles!

Cody who came to me with his clothes and said, "Mama, you can keep pianoing as soon as you help me with my shirts!"

Keeping It Fair :)

Seeing as the identity of my kids' playmate from the other day didn't stay anony... (read my sister Krista's comment about TYLER on the tool box post) I don't mind sharing a picture of him from when he came over again a few days later.

It's best to report the good and the bad, the rascal-ness and the sweet-ness. This nephew of mine is both and I love him to absolute bits... as long as he doesn't pee all over the hotwheel cars (remember that one, sis?)

Anyway, he came over again the other day and it was a very beautiful, sunny though chilly day and I said we weren't going in the house quite yet as I had some work to do. It didn't take this sweetheart 5 minutes before he asked if he could help. Tools are tools whether you work them with an air compressor or sheer muscle. Or at least that's the opinion of a 4 year old. ;) And so help he did. He and the two other boys he rounded up worked a good long while and filled an entire wheelbarrow full of leaves and pine needles.

He can come back any time.

So tonight, for reasons you really don't want me to discuss I had to take Cody out of the bathroom and carefully remove his shirt. He insisted he wanted a new shirt (even though he refuses to wear pants and informed me that without a shirt he looked like a swimmer) before he went back to the supper table.

So, I reached in the drawer and pulled out the first one I got my hands on. Unfortunately, because he had been messing with his drawers the one I got was one from the bottom, one he'd never worn before. He screwed up his nose, eyes, well his entire face into the most I-don't-think-so look ever and asked me, "Mama, is that a shirt for boys?" I assured him it was and he finally allowed me to slip this horizontal striped turtleneck over his head. "I fought it was a girl shirt to put on Cara!" he declared.

Thankfully, he decided to trust my judgement and take me at my word. But he was awfully close to saying, that don't look like no boy's shirt I've ever worn and I don't intend to let it past my ears!

On having friends over to play

The best kind of friend to have over to play is the one that brings new toys with. Bonus points go to the friend that comes with a well equipped tool box. For instance, Cam had a friend over to play yesterday who came with a tool box that had a hammer, a plier, a level, a pad of papers (for sketching blue prints or making estimates I'm not sure), a screw driver, a couple screws or two, a few nails, a "construction man's" pencil and yup, even a bullet.

My three kids plus this friend disappeared to play in Cara and Cody's room. There was the typical giggling and screeching but once I heard the tools "fire" up (don't worry, no actual power tools) I thought I better head on over and make sure there were a few rules established. You know, no nails in the wall, don't touch the wooden bed frame etc. What I found slightly surprised me but since it wasn't really harmful I let them continue. They had hauled all teh blankets and mattress out of the way and were hammering nails into the slats that hold the mattress up. They had only ripped out four staples leaving one slat free to swing around but really, it was a replacement one that we'd only fixed with a regular stapler so I wasn't totally surprised to see it hadn't survived the construction/ destruction gang.

What blew me away, however, was the fact that I totally missed this aspiring artist's creation. Didn't notice it until Steve asked about it at the kids' bedtime later on.
If you consider the white trim is actually chair rail you will observe this sketch goes as close to the roof as a 4 year old standing on a pile of stuff on the bed can reach. Cam was quick to admit he'd used the pencil to draw a man building a house on the grass.

Too bad, I was ready to give the other kid's mom an earful!

(just kidding)

Catching Up

There are things from these last weeks I don't wish to forget... and those things I've already forgotten.

Leah was part delighted part startled by the sparklers that spit their sparks at her. Our oldest, our firstborn, our dear Leah turned 8 last week. It's hard to believe that already 8 years have flown by. We've made many mistakes learning to be parents and really, she's carried the weight of our learning. Our prayer is she will have patience with us as we head into these next 8 years and that God will give us all wisdom, strength and yes, also patience, to raise her in His ways. We are encouraged in the knowing He is faithful to His promises!

And a picture long waited for :) Yes, Steve finished ripping down the lean to he started demoing with the kids a while back. It's made the yard seem that much lighter and airy. The kids are delighted with the idea that with some hard work their play space will get a bit bigger.
And you will notice that despite many strong winds in the last year the trees are still standing... or lets say, leaning!

One of the other things I'll forget if I don't write it right away? That would be Cara's serious assurance that it will happen "next week when I'm a boy" and the age old but always treasured, "I'm not going to get married to a Dad, I'll always stay with you!"

Then there was Cam who last week after a night of heaving well into the early morning woke up feeling oh so cheerful and stopped me to say, "thanks for taking such good care of me when I was sick in the night, Mama." I told someone it seemed as though a gift from God coming in the middle of the mostly thankless mom job of caring for sick little ones and doing lots of wash. A heaping dose of love washing over my tired frame. Only a gracious God would know how precious and encouraging that one sentence would be.

I probably would also enjoy remembering some day that this same boy after his first two times over the bucket said in a tiny pitiful voice, "I think I'm going to be sick forever."

That's it for today but hopefully I get into the habit of sitting behind this screen more often again. Today was a prime day for taking pictures and recording memories. The skies were even more blue and beautiful than that picture above and we took full advantage of it stopping at a couple of play grounds and jumping on the tramp. It didn't occur to me until too late that I probably could have gotten some beautiful pictures to sit alongside the recording of memories.

First Snow :)

You know you don't get much snow where you live when 6:30 breakfast attire included snow suits, gloves and toques!


I could have written an entire post about the following hour of trying to make sure the kids were ready for the bus 10 minutes early, everyone happy with the snow apparel they were awarded with and the impatience of the littles waiting their turn to be outside ready. That post would have included themes like extreme elevated blood pressure, crying, whining, waiting bus and patient bus driver and a Mom ready to let them all take care of themselves while she went and crawled back in bed. But we got Sam and Leah on the bus and Cara, Cody and Cam dressed and outside by 7:35. After all the previous snot and tears I was pleasantly surprised to have so much fun with them out there for the next hour and a half.

By 8:00 we had 4 snowmen made, Cara, Cody, Cam and Papa. By 8:04 all four snowmen lay in heaps and the rascals were started on new snow friends before I could even properly document the construction and destruction of the first set.

100% boy.
I apologized to them that the snowman turned out so snow lady-ish but the didn't seem to mind one bit :) As a total side note I found it very interesting that two 3 year olds, who couldn't draw a person even if bribed with candy, were so able to pick out rocks for eyes, sticks for noses, smile and arms and place them so correctly. There must be some kind of research out there in regards to this kind of learning. I did help them lock that smile in place but otherwise I thought they did impressively.
It was a fun morning but I will admit I wasn't one bit sad when they showed no interest in going out again Monday morning. Sometimes half the battle is convincing the dresser upper that the fun the dressees will have is worth the effort.

Sometimes....

Currently I have one pan of spaghetti sauce on the stove with burned ground beef. I forgot about it. And that's what happens when I forget.

Currently I have a 9 x 13 pan of blackened baked goods on my back lawn. I also forgot about it. I blame it on the blackened ground beef. I couldn't smell the baked goods until they were near flames because I was still trying to recover from the first nasal assault.

For those of you who would lovingly remind me of the purpose of the timer? You would be delighted to know that while I was typing this up Leah's voice finally broke through my cloud of concentration, "Mom, the timers going, you're going to burn your next batch if you don't get it out of the oven!"

But the very biggest problem of all?? The name of the charcoaled baked goods????

NEVER FAIL CHOCOLATE CHIP SQUARES

There ought to be a law against false guarantees like that!


been one of those kinds of days.

A few more pictures...

(Please note the pictures are not in any particular order and are for the most part focused on my family. Picture credits go to a few people who were kind enough to grab the camera and take them including my own dear Leah (who got about 25 pictures of a partial cake :) ) Pictures are not in too much sense of order.

The very special couple. It was so special to be able to be there and be a part of their wedding day.

What do you get when you add Overduin and Kenyon families together? Lots of music! (just our family here) I think one of Holly's friends made this beautiful cake with the toppers being an appropriate pair of chess pieces :)
Oh, there's Aunt Liz again and this time she's surrounded herself with a whole bunch of kids. Remember that birthday card you sent Steve? You know the castle with lots of rooms for lots of kids? I think it would be a great place to babysit, Aunt Liz. Just think of the amazing game of hide and seek you could play. In fact, you could babysit for a whole week and find new hiding spots every day. What do you think? ;)
Lots of aunts and uncles from both Mom and Dad's side.





And cousins.



Also seen from this point of view.



There was more, much more but that's all I'll post.

To sum it up via the way of Martin and Yen's phonetic punctuation...it was a wonderful day and a special reception ffffffffffffft pbbt!

The beautiful reception in not so beautiful pictures!

It was so pretty, warm, cozy, warm and welcoming in there. Great job to the decorating masterminds!


Doesn't do it justice from this awkward angle.The table centerpieces were in little pumpkins that took over Holly's Mom's kitchen before they were all gutted and ready to be filled! But the end result was so pretty!

The guest table had the train on it that Jeff made for Holly and that together they filled with texts of the promises of God's never ending grace - picture a never ending freight train with overloaded cars . (this train theme is one that has shaped their entire relationship but a story I'm not going to share here.)

Again this picture doesn't really give it justice. This pumpkin was quite big and the arrangement probably almost 3 feet tall, I think!

A place to take pictures. We tried....it might take some photoshopping to get a picture that actually is somewhat normal!

Oh! Hi Aunt Liz. Don't tell me you're babysitting!? :)

Ah, yes, Cam at his finest!