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

 

An American Thanksgiving in Canada

For the first time since we moved to Canada, we celebrated an American Thanksgiving. We've never done it in years past because it seemed like too much work with no one else to celebrate it with anyway, but Austin didn't want the kids to miss out on such an American tradition, so we decided to go for it this year. (Canada has their own very similar Thanksgiving on the first Monday of October, but this has always seemed too early for me). To make things a little easier, Austin just got a few rotisery chickens from Costco and I focused on making pumpkin pies (and pumpkin cookies for Trevor because of his milk allergy), homemade rolls, stuffing (the easy box kind), mashed potaotes, and some beans. We got out the fancy plates that we never use (maybe when the kids get older they'll get more use) and Heidi enjoyed helping me set the table. We also used candles (which the kids like to do about once a week anyway) and every one ate way too much, but saved room for pie at the end!

 

First Snow

We got our first real snow of the year and the kids were so excited. As soon as they finished breakfast, they were out the door to shovel, make snow angels, throw snowballs, make snow forts, and sled. They were having so much fun that I decided to just cancel school for the day and let them enjoy it. The boys spent most of the day light hours outside with a few breaks inside to warm up with hot chocolate, eat, or listen to me read. The younger kids were in and out all day with Natalie only lasting about 15 minutes at a time. She did insist on wearing her boots all day though even when she was in the house.

 

21 Months

 

 This little lady is now 21 months old and into everything. She loves to do whatever her older siblings are doing, but definitely has her own opinions that she loves to make known. Pretending she's a puppy is her favorite game right now. Just hearing the word 'puppy' can pull her from a tantrum or crying and magically transform her into a whining and barking puppy crawling on the floor and looking for snuggles. One of the cutest things I've seen her do recently is when Heidi was crying about something silly and Natalie kept sticking her face in Heidi's face asking with great concern "what happened? what happened?" Her language is coming along nicely as she mimics full sentences and often comes up with some of her own.

Halloween

 Halloween was quite different this year with COVID restrictions in place. Trick-or-treating was strongly discouraged in all the areas around Toronto, so we planned indoor trick-or-treating instead. Earlier in the week, we made some Halloween cookies and saved some of them to take over to friends' houses. So in the afternoon, I took the kids to deliver the cookies and Austin stayed home to set up stuffed animals with treats behind each of the upstairs doors. It was a nice way for the kids to see a few of their friends and show off their Halloween costumes. 

I got lucky this year and each of the kids was thrilled to wear one of the old costumes that I had made in previous years. Except Asher of course who didn't fit in to any of the old costumes. He decided to be Totoro (a "forest spirit" who looks mostly like a giant fat bunny and smiles really big- he's a character from one of our favorite family movies). Leif chose the blue dragon costume Asher wore last year, Heidi chose the tiger costume Asher wore several years ago, Natalie was the pink carebear that Heidi wore many years ago, and Trevor changed his costume choice several times, finally deciding on the green carebear that Leif wore the same year Heidi was a carebear. 

After we dropped off cookies and visited friends, the kids and I picked up a few pizzas from Little Caesar's (there are only a few here in Canada) and headed home. It took quite a bit longer than I had anticipated, so the kids needed to eat by the time we got home, so we let them watch "Its the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown" (another of our family favorites this time of year) and eat their pizza before trick-or-treating. As always, Trevor was a good sport about having a different dinner and was a good sport about the treats. I got mostly things he can have, but a few of them he couldn't, but he didn't seem to care at all. We lighted the jack-o-lanterns as an afterthought a had the porch lights on, just in case some kids were out trick-or-treating, but only one set of kids stopped by. It wasn't as exciting a Halloween as usual, but it was nice and the kids got their fill of treats.