Sledding

We haven't gotten a ton of snow yet, but we got a few inches this weekend and the winter still hasn't turned bitterly cold like it will soon, so we've taken a couple opportunities to go sledding. It started snowing on Saturday. We were assigned to clean the church that morning and since there is a perfect little sledding hill behind the church I told the kids to bring their sleds. Once we finished with the cleaning, they had awhile to sled. As you can see, the snow hadn't gotten very deep yet, but it was enough to make it slippery. They got to take a few turns each before their clothes got all wet, so we got some hot chocolate on the way home.

We are all done with school for the year, so our Monday morning was open for sledding. This time we went to the wooded area near our house that we like to hike around in. There is a hill that is pretty quick to walk to, but it looked like someone had already been there before we got there. The snow already wasn't too deep and a lot had been uncovered and was just dirt and leaves mixed with snow.

I let the kids sled there for quite awhile, then finally talked them into continuing on down the trail to see what we could find.

You can't see it much here since his face is pretty rosy from the cold, but Trevor crashed on one of his first rides (before Natalie and I even made it to the hill) and scraped his cheek and lip up a bit.

Natalie enjoyed being pulled most of the way and the kids found small hills that they could sled down. It was a fun morning, but everyone was exhausted and ready for lunch at the end. I promised the kids we can come back again right after the next big (or even mediocre) snow storm and sled on the big hill before it gets ruined.

 

Trevor is FIVE!

Our littlest guy is now 5! I was mourning that we'll never have a four year old boy in our family again, but 5 is my favorite age, so its not too bad. Trevor is incredibly bright and very determined. He loves to do things for himself and also loves to help others. If he gets an idea in his head, it is very difficult to talk him out of it and we've found that distracting him or going along with him if possible is a better way to work with him than just battling him (Austin had to teach me this ;) One example is that he loves to come huggle and kiss me every night after I've already put everyone to bed. I used to try to give him what he came for then hurry him off to bed, but he wouldn't go and I'd end up frustrated, so now we tease him and play with him for a few minutes before singing "Hit the Road Jack" to him or counting down to see how fast he can get back into his room before I turn all the lights off. Another example is that on Sunday he decided he wanted to wear two dress shirts to church- one on top of the other with a tie sandwiched between them. I was going to protest, but Austin said he could do whatever he wanted and he happily wore it all day without complaint. When I asked him about it later he said that he wants to do it again next week. Trevor is quite the creative and fun little guy. We enjoyed celebrating his big day even though it was a bit busy with a church activity and a few errands. As always, we started the day with chocolate waffles.

Natalie has a black eye from sliding on the kitchen tile into the stools by the counter the day previous.

Anyway, after breakfast, Trevor opened his presents and spent the day playing with them with his siblings. He took a break from playing to help me make his cake- he chose carrot cake because he recently found a picture of his third birthday where he also had carrot cake.  When we got back from our church activity in the evening, we made homemade pizza and the kids watched the Christmas movie Elf, which was Trevor's choice. Afterward, we had cake and the kids got off to bed. Trevor has moved into the top bunk in the boys' room and feels like a very big kid to be up there. 

Here is Trevor's birthday interview:

Who is your favorite person?Natalie

What is your favorite color? Red and Blue

What is your favorite thing to watch on TV? Minecraft (He doesn't really even play it, he just likes to watch his brothers play it)

What is your favorite outfit? Every outfit (he really isn't nearly as picky about what he wears as his sibling are. Unless he has something already in mind, he'll typically wear whatever he finds-including shorts in the winter!)

What song do you like the best? The First Noel and Hark the Herald Angels Sing

What is your favorite cereal? Cinnamon Life

Who is your best friend? The Garcias (my friend's kids- they all get along really well with all my kids despite the age differences)

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

What is your favorite book? Curious George

What are you really good at? Building with tiles

Where do you wish you could go on vacation? Michigan- what do they do there? (I'm not sure why he said this except that its a place he has heard of but doesn't know where it is)

What would you buy if you had a lot of money? a ton of gum (we allow the kids to have gum at the age of 5 in our family, so we filled up the gumball machine as one of his presents and he's been munching on gum at his pleasure)

What is your favorite dinner? Dirty macaroni (a beef casserole I make) and macaroni and cheese (made with vegan cheese for his allergies of course)

If you could have a wish, what would it be? be better than Asher and Leif (a little bit of sibling rivalry?!)

What is your favorite flavor of ice cream? there is only one-sherbet- and its my favorite!

Who do you want to be like? myself

What do you like to do with your friends? play hide and seek and tag

What do you hope you'll get to do before your next birthday? eat more cake

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

What are you proud of? Everything

What are you afraid of? bad guys

What is Mom's favorite thing to do? eat cookies and ice cream

How strong is Dad? Really strong, stronger than all the people in our family

What does Dad do best? Work

What does Mom do best? Make cookies

What do you like best about Dad? That he throws us on the love sack

What do you like best about Mom? That she hugs me

Leif is NINE!

 

Our sweet Leif is nine! Leif has made our family more fun and interesting for nine years now. He is a good helper, very thoughtful, clever, silly, and fun. Leif loves to read, loves music, loves Legos, loves Minecraft, and loves to help. He is such an important part of our family and we love him!

 

We started our day as always with chocolate waffles. Then Leif spent the rest of his day playing with his birthday presents- Legos and a little music making thing called an Orba. When Austin saw this thing, he was so excited to get it for Leif. He has loved making different sounds and songs with this thing, especially with the headphones importing the sound directly into his ears (this kid loves noises of all kinds, as long as they're of his own making!) Here he is with playing with it while wearing the German safety glasses that Austin also got for him. 

Here are all the other waffle pictures. Also please note the Christmas decorations in the background. Leif loves Christmas decorations and was the most excited kid to get everything put up.

For dinner, we made homemade pizza. I think Leif likes making pizza just as much as he likes eating it. Although I will admit I was rather grumpy about having five little people underfoot while trying to get it ready.

I was worn out after all the Thanksgiving cooking plus waffles and pizza so Leif let me off the hook and agreed to just have these silly little chocolate souffle cups that Austin got from Costco. I had to make a batch of brownies that were Trevor-friendly as well, but at least I didn't have to make an elaborate cake. Leif got to pick the movie for movie night and we had a nice little evening together as a family. Looking forward to another year with this amazing kid!

Here is Leif's Birthday Interview:

Who is your favorite person? Natalie

What is your favorite color? Green

What is your favorite thing to watch on TV? Minecraft

What is your favorite outfit? Blue sweater with jeans

What song do you like the best? How Great Thou Art

What is your favorite cereal? Maple Sunrise

Who is your best friend? Asher

What do you want to do when your grow up? Be an astronaut or an archeologist to study dinosaur bones

What is your favorite book? The Lord of the Rings

What are you really good at? Playing Minecraft

Where do you wish you could go on vacation? Colorado

What would you buy if you had a lot of money? A giant Lego Technic Excavator

What is your favorite dinner? Chicken Rolls or Homemade Pizza

If you could have a wish, what would it be? To be able to pull anything I want out of the air

What is your favorite flavor of ice cream? Mint Chocolate Chip

Who do you want to be like? Dad

What do you like to do with your friends? Run and play tag

What do you hope you'll get to do before your next birthday? Get COVID over with and not wear masks anymore

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 devil

What is Mom's favorite thing to do? Take a break

How strong is Dad? Pretty Strong

What does Dad do best? Make stuff in his wood shop

What does Mom do best? Make cookies/muffins

What do you like best about Dad? When he jokes around

What do you like best about Mom? When she plays

Another American Thanksgiving in Canada

 This is the second year that we have actually celebrated American Thanksgiving while living in Canada. For the first few years I thought it felt like too much to do all the cooking for just our small family, but we helped solve that problem by getting rotisserie chickens from Costco rather than making a turkey and the kids enjoy helping in the kitchen with the other things. Our dinner was much simpler than many others, but it was pretty big and special for us. We made it more special by getting out the nice dishes that we rarely use and Heidi really enjoyed setting the table.

Asher and Leif were gone with Austin for the first half of the day running some errands, including getting the chicken and some of the other groceries. The younger three were very excited to help make the pie crust and "pie crust cinnamon sugar bites". (Trevor can't have pumpkin pie because of the milk in it, but he can have crust if I make it with no milk). Natalie made everyone laugh at breakfast when I told them what we were making and she said "I love sugar bites! How come they bite you?"She has so many opinions and funny ideas lately :)

We cut the pie crust into cute little shapes with some fall cookie cutters I got recently and the kids loved rolling out their own dough, although they needed a little help from mom occasionally.

 

The kids were very excited to use candles while we were eating dinner. Soon after I took the picture and once Austin had finished cutting the chicken, we turned the lights out (but left a distant light on) and lit the candles. The kids were also very excited for cranberry gingerale since they very rarely get soda, and especially not at dinner at home. We did the traditional going around to say what we were thankful for and recognized how blessed we are to have such a special family.

The older kids, especially Asher and Leif, were extremely helpful with cleaning up dinner. And to my delight, after dinner was all cleaned up, Asher and Leif took it upon themselves to clean most of the rest of the house, including their playroom downstairs and vacuuming most of the house. I had promised them that they could get out the Christmas stuff the day after Thanksgiving, but the house had to be clean before we got out any more clutter, so they got most of it done so we could start first thing in the morning :)

A Walk in the Woods

I'll take as much autumn as I can get it! Its my favorite season by far- for the cool weather and the colored leaves. We have a forested area not too far from our house that we like to go on little adventures in, but we haven't been here for quite awhile- mostly to avoid the mosquitos. Happily, they are all gone now, so we enjoyed a nice walk this morning. Natalie kept tripping a lot (a combination of getting used to walking in boots and lots of roots sticking up in the path) so I carried her most of the way. All of the other kids were enthralled with sticks as they always are when we come here.

 

Halloween

We started Halloween weekend carving pumpkins with friends on Friday night. We had dinner and pumpkin cookies then the kids carved. I had to help Natalie and Trevor but they helped by telling me what they wanted. 

Our ward did Trunk-or-Treat on Saturday, but I wasn't feeling well so I didn't take any photos. I used all my energy decorating the back of the van (it was cute, but nothing amazing) and then crashed once we got home. The kids already had way too much candy from the activity so I probably would have just skipped doing anything on Sunday, but I wanted to get pictures and the kids are always more than happy to get into their costumes, so on Sunday afternoon I took them to a place near our house to get pictures. Once they were out, they went to a few houses and again, came back with way too much candy. We have enough candy now to last us for quite a few months. I let them eat a bunch of candy on Saturday and Sunday evening with a resulting sugar crash both times (especially for a particular blonde four year old), so we are going to have to cut back on the sugar for awhile, but still enjoy some treats occasionally.

Leif really loves otters lately and was excited to be an otter this year. Don't mistake him for a kangaroo, even though there is a slit in his belly. The sweatshirt we got him had a really cool pocket on it that he was sad to cover with the belly, so I had to cut a slit for him to access it.

Heidi changed her mind several times before finding some bunny ears buried in the Halloween stuff and settling on being a bunny. Luckily, we looked through some of the hand-me-down clothes she got from our neighbors and found some grey clothes that worked too. She already has quite a few different ideas for next year's costume, all of which involve a big box.

This is one of my favorite costumes that I've made over the years. It's Max from Where the Wild Things Are. You can't see it in the pictures, but the costume has a big bushy brown tail that Trevor loved.

Asher was Totoro from one of our favorite movies last year, but last year was pretty lame here in Canada with COVID, so he opted to use his Totoro costume again. Here he is trying to make a Totoro face with giant eyes and a big smile.

Natalie is Little Red Riding Hood, although I had to convince her for a few weeks. She wanted to be Max, but once I read the story of Little Red Riding Hood to her and showed her a picture, she was sold. The only problem then was that everyone else got whiskers drawn on with my eyeliner, so Austin gave her a heart on her cheek instead.

The kids got "candy sticks" in their Halloween bags, which are obviously what used to be candy cigarettes, so they enjoyed playing with them, although they know that smoking is actually disgusting.