Shelley's Daycare!

On Monday we had lots of visitors to play with. I took care of three of my friend Amanda's boys and then Simone. Not all day but for a few hours.
It was Amanda's birthday and she went out to lunch with her Mom and sister. So the boys and I made birthday cards for her and played some games. This is David and Andrew holding my measuring cups. They would go in one room and count to ten while I hid four measuring cups in one room. They would find them and so on. We even changed it up so that I would count while they hid the cups for me. Sometimes you just have to let loose and have fun. The kids loved it.





Simone was a little out numbered.

Timothy and Sam were watching a horsey movie called Spirit.

Sweet nieces and nephews!

We have 10 niece's from Ken's family and 3 nephew's. They are all amazing kids. This is Baby Brennan. Or should I say Toddler Brennan! He has five sisters so I think it's definately a good idea for our boys to visit with him as often as we can.








This is Andrea with Luke. She is 9 years old and is going to be a great babysitter before too long.













This is Laryssa who recently lost her two front teeth!















And Little Miss Hailey who has the most beautiful hair!




















Last but certainly not least is Miss Simone and her expression says it all!

24 hours of Fun!

We went to the cabin last Friday for the night. Dwayne and Trixie had been there with their 6 kids for a few days of holidays and they wanted us to come visit for a night. We left after school on Friday and came home Saturday afternoon. It was a quick trip but lots of fun. We traded a kid for the night. We took our neice Andrea so she could visit with all of her girl cousins and we left Sam at Ang and Pete's. We pigged out, stayed up late talking and laughing and took all of the kids for a walk/sliegh ride in the snow. We love hanging out with Dwayne and Trixie! I am so blessed with an awesome family and it is so great to have sooo many sisters to hang out with.











Dwayne was having some troubles getting through the snow and bushwacking.















Cute Luke!














Andrew playing polly pockets with all of his girl cousins. I think they were modelling in a fashion show.













A happy Mommy and Daddy of six beautiful children.

Skating Attempts!

Aunty Mel and Cousin Simone!


















Going Good!













Baby Luke fell asleep.


















Happy Sam!





































I took the three boys to the Birds of Prey pond for some skating fun yesterday. I was very focused and determined and full of patience for this experience. We had taken Andrew and Sam skating on the weekend and they were more excited about sitting on the bench then even trying to stand up. Ken, being an avid hockey player his whole life, was a tad frustrated with their lack of excitement to learn how to skate. I decided to take things into my hands and try to teach them so their Daddy would be proud.

It actually went okay. I geared the boys up at home, skates and all and put them in the van, drove a block away and unloaded them and carried them to the ice. We met up with Aunty Mel and Cousin Simone and had some fun!

Sam is crying in the pictures but most of the time he was crying because he wanted another turn skating behind the stroller. I discovered they could both do okay as long as they were holding onto the stroller for balance. After about half an hour we put our boots on, grabbed our hockey sticks and hit some pucks around.

I must not forget to tell you about the cost of the boys hockey attire. I paid $2.50 for each pair of skates at a garage sale and I bought each of their hockey helmets for 0.25 cents each. Let's hope I continue to find such great deals on hockey equipment in years to come.

Tomorrow we are going to try again!

Middle names?

Do you ever wonder why we have middle names? The only time I can recall using mine was when filling out important government documents. And the only time I can recall someone using my middle name was when I was getting in trouble from my parents. For some reason when your parents used your middle name you realized that they were serious whereas when they called you by your first name only they were less serious???

Andrew and Sam were playing with their train set today. Apparently Samuel knocked over the bridge and Andrew was upset with him. I overheard Andrew say: "SAMUEL JAMES THAT'S BAD, DON'T DO THAT."

The thing that made me chuckle was that Samuel's middle name is Michael not James but Andrew's middle name is James. I guess Andrew meant serious business!

Alive Again!

Every Wednesday I take the boys to Bible Study with me. We have a women's Bible Study in one room with about 30 women. While we study and discuss, our children go to the nursery if they are 3 and under, while the kids 3 years and up go to Storytime. All of the women take turns babysitting and doing Storytime. So today was my turn to teach a lesson in Storytime to 14 children between the ages 3-5.

The Story was called Alive Again and was taken from Luke 8:40-42, 49-56. It was about a sick little girl that was dying and couldn't get out of bed because she was so sick. All of her family were very worried about her as she got worse and worse. Medicine and doctors weren't able to help her so her father turned to Jesus. He heard that Jesus was in town, so he hurried to find him. As soon as Jesus heard about the sick girl he began to walk to her house. Along the way many people were asking Jesus for help and he stopped to help them while the father waited. While Jesus was helping others the little girl died. The father was very sad. Jesus told him not to be afraid, that his daughter would be alright and that he had to believe. They arrived to the house and Jesus told all of the family to stop crying, that the little girl was just sleeping. Jesus went into the little girl's room where her body was lying on the bed. Lovingly he took her hand and said "Dear child, get up." And she woke up and smiled at Jesus. She was Alive Again!

Only Jesus could do this because he is the Son of God.

The kids enjoyed the story very much and told me about all of their sicknesses and colds that they had recently. And that they liked their medicine. We sang Jesus loves me, Holy, Holy, Holy and the song The B-I-B-L-E. Andrew thought it would be a good idea to take timbits for his classmates which went over really well. They made a craft which you can see in one of the pictures above. It is a bed with the sick girl in it and a blanket that they made for her. We also played with playdough and puzzles.

As for me, I enjoyed teaching the kids but boy was it busy. An hour and a half was exhausting but fun. I can't help but think of Ken and other teachers and how hard their jobs really are.

When I asked Andrew what the story was about today he said: "about Jesus and God."

What came out of the cow Andrew? poop.

Today we went on an adventure with Auntie Mel and cousin Simone to see a farming Expo set up specifically for kids to learn about farming. The kids had a blast. Some highlights were seeing a sheep (Ida) getting a haircut, seeing a cow getting milked, sitting in a tractor, patting a baby chick and patting the minature ponies.

When I later asked Andrew what came out of the cow? He answered "poop". I was waiting to hear milk but yes indeed, poop also did come out of the cow for all the kids to see. There was a loud chorus off Eeewwwww, gross all around us. Apparently this made more of an impact on Andrew then the whole milk thing.

The boys also got to visit lots of information booths where they got goodies like rulers, pencils, beef jerky, stickers, tattoo's etc. While Andrew was patting the baby chick a little boy came up to the man who owned them and asked" what do you have to do to get a prize?" meaning do you have any goodies at this booth. And...yes this man had goodies for the kids. Andrew and Sam both got a pencil with a plastic chicken on the end. They were thrilled with this. When we got home they played with there pencils for at least an hour. One had the Daddy chicken and one had the mommy chicken.

It was a great day. I reflected on my younger years when I used to milk cows. It feels like that was forever ago. I didn't think I would actually be introducing my kids to cows at a Agriculture Expo before the family farm but that's okay. We had lots of fun!