MERRY CHRISTMAS 2018!!!

This has been a very busy and exciting Christmas! I took on planning the church Christmas party with my friend (luckily, she was better at it than I was). I did a lot of work organizing it, but not as much as she did. As the primary president, one of my big tasks was to prepare the children for a little Nativity play, which turned out beautifully, if not perfectly well organized. Heidi was chosen to be Mary (she just happened to be the only girl at church that day who wasn't already part of a solo or small group for singing) and she was so excited for that role. Asher was chosen to be Gabriel, the lead angel, and Leif was chosen to be Joseph (all by luck of the draw, not their mother's favoritism), but another boy was upset, so Leif decided to be the lead shepherd instead and let him be Joseph. I was so busy scrambling back and forth getting the right kids into the scenes and reminding them what they were supposed to do, that I didn't get any pictures taken (Austin was also pretty busy the whole party either helping to set up or socializing;) but a friend got a few pictures of Heidi and Asher, sadly none of Leif.
I also took the three oldest kids to the ballet The Nutcracker this year, but I didn't get any photos. They enjoyed it, but Leif fell asleep briefly and Heidi was quite antsy for the last half of it. 

Our church also does a much larger scale Nativity pageant for the town on the nights before Christmas (3 night this year, two shows a night). Heidi, Trevor, and I missed the second night because they were melting down long before we ever got there and its a pretty late night, but we went to the first and third nights. We were townspeople for all of the nights, Austin was a Roman centurion for all of the shows, and Asher and Leif were angels for most of the shows, but shepherds for one. 

Heidi doesn't look particularly thrilled in this photo, but she was really excited to get to sit on the donkey for a little while. Trevor loved petting the donkey, the llama (no camels), and the sheep too.

Here Heidi is with the llama, though he's so black you can hardly see him .

10 points if you can spot both Asher and Leif- I'm not sure where they are in this photo, but they were there, loving it! This is a park that we go to quite a bit when its warm outside and they refer to this hill as "angel hill" because they hide behind it for the whole pageant until the part that says "a multitude of heavenly host appeared" and they get to run up into the spotlight.

After the show on Christmas Eve, Austin had to help clean up and I got the kids undressed and into the car and we hustled home to prepare for Santa to come. Here is what the tree looked like after Santa visited (our kids were quite spoiled this year). Asher really wanted Santa to set up the train track around the tree just like he did last year, plus add some track and a new train for Trevor's gift, so that's what happened.

The rest of the pictures are from Christmas morning. Asher asked for a Bruder crane, Leif wanted a police Lego truck (he didn't get quite what he was expecting, but close), and Heidi wanted a pink princess castle (she got magnets that form into a castle, but can be used to build anything and go with the other building magnets we already have)

Our parents got to watch the kids open the presents from them via FaceTime on my iPad. Thank heavens for technology. (Although, when my dad called, the kids were pretty grumpy!)

We got Trevor his own baby doll because he is always stealing Heidi's. Its the same doll as hers, only its dressed in blue. I think the best squeal of the morning came from Trevor when he opened this present. (Although Heidi also got a doll stroller {free from our neighbors} and now Trevor is jealous of that and still keeps stealing her doll while its in the stroller).

Austin has been much better about playing with the kids today than I have! I took lots of pictures, cleaned up, and needed to rest. I did play Heidi's new game with her though. Austin has been building castles, driving trucks around, helping with Lego construction, etc, etc!

Trevor is Two!!!

I can't believe my baby is two already! He is definitely the baby of the family (though that will soon change) and usually gets his way from all his siblings (mom and dad try not to give in as much, but it can be hard!). He is a sweet, good-tempered little fellow most of the time, although its obvious that he is a two-year-old by his sudden temper tantrums and power struggles that happen throughout the day. Sometimes Trevor will just sit and giggle about the littlest things then later he will be melting all over the floor crying about who knows what. He loves to vacuum, especially since he opened his birthday present of a little vacuum that looks very similar to mine. He also loves to color if his siblings are doing so. Mostly he just loves to do what anyone else is doing- imitating as well as he can. Trevor has started talking more- at least making an effort to. He imitates many words and has a few of his favorites that he repeats over and over. I think "Beep!" is his favorite word. He loves to inform us whenever he hears anything beep by yelling "Beep!" He also loves the word "Go!" and yells it in the car whenever we are stopped. The older kids love to hold races in the house and let Trevor be the one to tell them when to "GO!"
Trevor is still dealing with eczema (though its not nearly as bad as it used to be) and still has his milk and peanut allergies, but the milk is slowly getting better. He loves to drink goat milk and goat cheese is his favorite snack! He gets into the fridge, gets it out, and brings it to mewanting me to cut a few slices for him several times a day. We've also found that he seems to be able to eat food with cow's milk in it sometimes, but other foods he's not okay with. Hopefully he outgrows it in the next few years like most kids do.
Trevor's nickname is "puppy" or "pup" (this came from back when he used to drag himself around on the ground like a seal pup) and is perfect for him since he loves puppies. He is on high alert whenever he hears a dog bark or sees a dog walk by and makes sure I'm aware of it by saying "mom, mom, mom! gog!" (his word for dog). He also has lots of stuffed animal puppies that he loves to drag around the house with him and he has to have all of them in his crib when he sleeps.
Trevor has recently started to be less attached to mom, which is a good thing since a new baby is coming soon. I think I'm still his favorite person, but he sure loves his daddy too and is happy to go with a few other friends that he is accustomed to being around. I have a friend who watches my kids for me while I'm at prenatal appointments and he is happy to go with anyone in her family. He also runs all over the chapel at church without me (although he's not nearly as social as his big sister) and no longer has any problem separating from me to go to nursery at church.
This boy is adorable! Everyone loves him so much and we are sure glad to have him!

Here he is busy with his vacuum!

 Trevor also got some books and puzzles for his birthday.

 We made Trevor a Rice Krispie cake since there is no milk involved and butter doesn't seem to bother him (plus it only took mom about 20 minutes to make!) He was a little intimidated by the candles and wasn't quite sure how to blow them out, but Asher took care of that for him.

Now We Are Six

Leif is a big six year old! He had a fun day eating chocolate waffles for breakfast, playing with his siblings most of the day, watching a few shows, having his favorite dinner, then having friends over for a pinata and cake. Leif got some super fun gifts this year including trucks and some robots that you code yourself which occupied much of his time. I wasn't great at taking pictures today, but here are a few. We also went to the Royal Ontario Museum via subway on Saturday at Leif's request. I didn't take any pictures because it was an exhausting day, but everyone had tons of fun- especially our birthday boy! Below the pictures is Leif's birthday interview- which he remembered to do when I forgot about it.

Who is your favorite person? Trevor

What is your favorite color? Orange

What is your favorite thing to watch on TV? Pokeman

What is your favorite outfit? BB8 shirt (my sister made it for him, with his name and all- its what he's wearing in all the pictures)

What song do you like the best? Hark The Herald Angel Sing

What is your favorite cereal? Cheerios

Who is your best friend? Asher

What do you want to do when your grow up? Be a rock scientist

What is your favorite book? A dinosaur coloring book (a friend just gave him this as a gift today)

What are you really good at? Playing the piano (he loves to practice and often works at it much longer than I ask him to)

Where do you wish you could go on vacation? Colorado

What would you buy if you had a lot of money? A Bruder truck (lucky for him, he got 3 for his birthday this year)

What is your favorite dinner? Chicken Rolls

If you could have a wish, what would it be? A coloring book (he got one of those too!)

What is your favorite flavor of ice cream? Mint Chocolate Chip-the green kind

Who do you want to be like? Our Dad

What do you like to do with your friends? Play on the trampoline

What do you hope you'll get to do before your next birthday? Have fun

What is your favorite thing to do? Color

What are you proud of? Having fun

What are you afraid of? Being alone in the dark

What is Mom's favorite thing to do? Have kids

How strong is Dad? Really strong

What does Dad do best? Work

What does Mom do best? Take care of us

What do you like best about Dad? That he wrestles with us

What do you like best about Mom? She reads to me

Halloween 2018

 
I made costumes for all the kids this year. I was thinking about making Trevor just use a costume from one of the boys when they were younger, but they really wanted him to be a dragon, so I sewed it up- mostly using left over material from past costumes. Asher really wanted to be Pickachu. We had the hardest time getting his tail to stay up, but in the end, just let it flop down (I wanted to tack it at the top, but Austin thought that was a bad idea). Leif really, really wanted to be a triceratops. I tried to talk him out of it at first because I had no idea how to do the horns and shield, but he was persistent and we figured it out by looking at some ideas on Pintrest. Heidi's costume was easy since I did other care bears in years past. They all turned out cute and quite warm. This Halloween was chilly, but not freezing like last year. We stayed out for almost two hours without freezing. I let the big kids run ahead and go to all the houses, while Trevor and I only went to about every other house since it takes him forever to get up and down the stairs and everyone else gets anxious to get going. Trevor didn't even notice that he wasn't going to all the houses and had a great time collecting treats in his bucket.

The kids made quite the haul and we even had some candy left over after we got tired of answering the door for trick-or-treaters (it was late enough that it was just teenagers that were too old to be out trick-or-treating anyway). The kids had a blast munching on as many treats as they could in the half an hour that we let them run wild, then we bagged it all up and the three older kids are enjoying each having a gallon sized ziplock bag full of their own treats (although they have to have permission to get anything out).

Its a Girl!

I think we've pretty much told everyone, but baby #5 is a girl! Here are some photos Austin got of the ultrasound a few weeks ago:

 She's sucking her thumb!

Our Trip Home

We had an extremely busy two weeks in Colorado, Idaho, and Utah visiting family and friends. We visited lots of fun places, ate at yummy restaurants that aren't in Canada, shopped at stores that aren't in Canada, and hung out with people we love. I took tons of pictures, so I had to sort them down to some of my favorite. I didn't get pictures of everything, but I got a lot. We loved being home for two weeks, we just missed Austin and I have to admit it was exhausting!

The kids loved spending so much time with their cousins acting very silly! We went to the Denver Museum of Science and Natural History

 

 

 

We went to Casa Bonita (A Mexican restaurant in Denver that has terrible food, but is much loved by kids (and my husband) for its atmosphere including waterfall divers, fake gorillas, mariachi, caves, and an arcade.

Visited the Denver zoo, including riding on the train and the carrosel. Leif was quite happy that there were elephants there, since the Toronto zoo is lacking such a terrific animal.

 

 

 

 

We ate at a 50s diner where the kids got to have ice cream shakes with their meal.

We ate Donuts at a Fort Collins bakery near Grandma and Grandpa's house

 

We looked at the moon, planets, and stars through Grandpa's telescope

 

Rode Grandpa's riding lawnmower around

We visited Grandma Great in Idaho and the kids loved helping with the dishes and meal clean up

We played at Nonna's house

We enjoyed ice cream at Farr's

 

 

We played for hours at the park with Grandpa

 

We learned archery with Grandpa (Asher and Leif went fishing and 4-wheeling too)

 

 

We ate frozen custard and Nelson's (Heidi had a date with Grandpa there)

 

We went to the Dinosaur Park and Museum with Nonna

 

 

 

We visited the Train Museum with Nonna

We went to the Spaghetti Factory with Abbey and Nonna

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We went to Temple Square with Abbey and Nonna

 

We played with Travis and his dog

We played at the park with Grandpa some more

 

 

We went to lunch with Great Grandma for her birthday and had pie at her house

 

Heidi especially loved playin with Grandpa's dog, Bella

Grandpa took all the kids on the 4-wheeler around the neighborhood

Heidi got to go ice skating with Abbey

Heidi enjoyed lots of snuggle time with Grandpa

We went to a tea party (aka princess party) with GG and all the girls in my family