Christmas

Christmas season is filled with all sorts of treats, so here are a few pictures of the treats we enjoyed this year.

Christmas morning was pretty quiet but still very exciting for the kids. We started with their stockings then opened up presents from grandparents as we were able to get a hold of them via FaceTime.

We had crepes with raspberries for breakfast and of course Trevor had to help me stir. Natalie wanted to help too, but we only let her try for a few seconds.

One of the best things we got for Christmas was snow! It had been brown and ugly for weeks and was raining all day on Christmas Eve, but then it turned to snow in the evening, snowed all through the night, and all day. We shoveled all the snow from the driveway into a pile on our grass so the kids could turn it into a fort.

 

After naps, we went to a wooded area a few miles from our house and went on a Christmas walk.

Happy 4th Birthday to Trevor

Trevor is four years old and has been so excited for his birthday all week. He's quite the little firecracker in our family and is very fun to talk to and play with. For his birthday he enjoyed chocolate waffles for breakfast, going to McDonalds and grocery shopping with dad (skipping his nap!), then having his favorite dinner (something we call dirty macaroni, which is just a macaroni casserole) and watched the Snoopy Movie for the first time- I don't think I've ever heard him laugh so much. It was a lowkey birthday, but he enjoyed it.

This year is Trevor's first for a birthday interview:

Who is your favorite person?Natalie

What is your favorite color? Red

What is your favorite thing to watch on TV? Snoopy Movie (he watched it for the first time on his birthday)

What is your favorite outfit? Christmas shirt

What song do you like the best? Teach Me to Walk in the Light

What is your favorite cereal? Cheerios

Who is your best friend? Heidi

What do you want to do when your grow up? Have white hair (Austin always teases him about looking like a little old man, so maybe that's what he's talking about)

What is your favorite book? The Mitten (this is Natalie's favorite book so he gets to listen to it almost every day)

What are you really good at? making cool things with my magnets

Where do you wish you could go on vacation? Someone else's house that's super far away

What would you buy if you had a lot of money? Buy everything that I like

What is your favorite dinner? Dirty macaroni

If you could have a wish, what would it be? Natalie

What is your favorite flavor of ice cream? Chocolate or Mango (these are the only ice cream he's really eaten since its hard to find ice cream he isn't allergic to)

Who do you want to be like? Dad

What do you like to do with your friends? play with snow

What do you hope you'll get to do before your next birthday? Play what I can

What is your favorite thing to do? Jump on the love sack

What are you proud of? Everything

What are you afraid of? I'm not scared of anything

What is Mom's favorite thing to do? Hold Natalie

How strong is Dad? Super strong

What does Dad do best? Holding all of us

What does Mom do best? Read

What do you like best about Dad? He's silly

What do you like best about Mom? When she plays with me

Leif Loses His First Tooth

At the tender young age of 8, Leif has finally lost his first tooth. He told me last week that his top tooth hurt, so I looked at it and saw that it was wiggly. It took about a week before it finally fell out and for several hours he had it just hanging on by a thread. I told him to just yank it out, but he didn't want to and looked pretty goofy with it dangling there. But, it finally came out while he was eating and he managed not to swallow it like Heidi did with her first lost tooth.

 

Snow Play

These kids can't get enough of playing out in the snow! A snowy day is quite the excitement around our house (on my part too!) both because the kids play outside for hours and because they love to come in and drink hot chocolate. In fact Natalie (who always comes in before everyone else for obvious reasons) has started standing in the doorway yelling "Erybody, Hot Cockit" (her way of saying hot chocolate) when she wants all her sibling to come in. She also tells me several times through out the day almost every day that she wants "hot cockit".

The kids are on an unending quest to build a snow fort.

They also enjoy making snow men, snow angels, riding on the sleds, and any other snow activity.

This is their latest creation- a snow tunnel, which started out as an igloo, but morphed into a tunnel.
 

Great to be EIGHT!

 Leif turned eight years old and was so excited about it for at least a week leading up to his birthday. The night before his birthday about an hour before bedtime, he said we should just go to bed early since there wasn't anything else to do and throughout the hour kept mentioning that we might as well get to bed early- he was very eager to get on to his birthday! He was so happy and helpful all day, and as is typical of Leif, he hugged me and told me thank you for his birthday breakfast (chocolate waffles of course!) and for everything else. Leif is very thoughtful and observant and is very interesting and fun to talk to. Like he's always done, he rarely asks me questions, but often states what he believes to be true followed by "right, mom?"

We aren't sure what is going on with Leif's baptism right now. With the US-Canadian border closed because of COVID, grandparents would be unable to attend his baptism, so for now we are waiting to see if they open in the spring. He's okay with waiting for awhile, but if it takes too long, he might just go ahead. 

Leif's birthday has been pretty relaxed since it was right after Thanksgiving. We had some pumpkin cookies and a pumpkin pie left over which the kids enjoyed. He also enjoyed opening and playing with all his presents. It was very interesting to hear him tell me several times though that its pretty boring when you can do whatever you want- it seems Leif is a huge fan of the schedule that we usually keep with school and other activities and isn't quite sure what to do with himself otherwise ;)

We had an early birthday party for Leif a couple weeks ago when we happened to get a warm day in November and thought it would be a perfect time to celebrate with friends outdoors at a park. A Chinese guy at the park, however, seemed to think we were posing a huge risk to the health and safety of the community and reported it to the by-law police. We were told we needed to clean up and leave immediately because although we were not breaking the law (which is that 25 people can be at gathering outdoors), we weren't social distancing (no one at the park was social distancing or wearing masks!) and we risked a fine of $10,000. Thanks for saving a little boy from enjoying some time with friends before everything goes into lockdown this winter, buddy! But my friend did make an amazing cake for that party which looked like a creeper from Leif's favorite video game, Minecraft, and she brought it over the next day for him. I've been pretty sore about this incident feeling like I'm being watched and reported by neighbors, but I guess a pandemic brings out all kinds of fears and crazy behaviors from people. 

Anyway, here is one of my favorite birthday traditions- Leif's birthday interview. Many of his answers are the same, but he has some new ones:

Who is your favorite person? Natalie

What is your favorite color? Orange

What is your favorite thing to watch on TV? Duck Tales

What is your favorite outfit? Christmas Snoopy Pajamas

What song do you like the best? Teach Me to Walk in the Light

What is your favorite cereal? Cheerios

Who is your best friend? Asher

What do you want to do when your grow up? Be an astronaut and study space

What is your favorite book? He isn't sure, but he really likes The Little House on the Prairie

What are you really good at? Sharing with Natalie

Where do you wish you could go on vacation? Colorado

What would you buy if you had a lot of money? An orange Lego Monster Truck. . . its motorized. . . its $300. . . so probably not for awhile

What is your favorite dinner? Chicken Rolls

If you could have a wish, what would it be? Be able to fly (without an airplane or anything)

What is your favorite flavor of ice cream? Bubble Gum

Who do you want to be like? Dad

What do you like to do with your friends? Play outside

What do you hope you'll get to do before your next birthday? Get the monster truck

What is your favorite thing to do? Play Minecraft

What are you proud of? Creating things out of Legos

What are you afraid of? The dark

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

How strong is Dad? Super strong

What does Dad do best? Wrestle

What does Mom do best? Make cookies

What do you like best about Dad? Playing with him

What do you like best about Mom? She makes chicken rolls