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!

Luke's new tongue thing!

I don't know what it is with our kids and their tongues but they like to stick them out all of the time especially as babies! They were all tongue tied when born, I don't know if that has something to do with it or not. Luke started this a week or so ago and looks like this all the time except when he smiles or eats. Let's hope he grows out of it! Oh yes and he sits up on his own now at 7 months.

Work Zone! Hard Hats Required!

So for the last week or two we have had Spring like weather, I think it even reached plus 16 one day. We definitely took advantage of the sunshine and went for tons of walks and the kids played in the back yard lots!!! They would go out for an hour, get soaked, come back in, we would put their snowclothes in the dryer and as soon as they were dry they wanted to go back out again.
Because we have had sooo much snow already this winter we were experiencing a huge meltdown. The back yard was getting pretty icy from all the wear and tear the kids were doing, so we happily allowed them to wear their hockey helmets outside when they asked! I drew the line when Andrew asked if he could wear his skates to play hockey on the little ice patch on our cement pad.
Since these pictures were taken the temperature has dropped and today we experienced -21 with a windchill of -32. Yikes. Maybe we were too anxious for Spring too early!

Spring Fever!

It was +9 here today and they are calling for +16 tomorrow. It is really giving us Spring fever so today, instead of lacing up our skates or going sledding, we went swimming. The kids had lots of fun splashing and playing with boats. It was quite busy, so all of the loud noise was a bit scary for Luke, but he got over it.