The stockings were hung

A few years ago I thought it would be a nice idea to make stockings for our family.  Four stockings were embroidered and sewed and hung in our home.  And then came Nora.  I am glad to report that I am now done with the stocking making business.  Merry Christmas everyone.

When they all smile, you have to post it

Todays Pinterest Count

I thought it would be fun to show Lillian Pinterest.  She wanted to do a craft so I thought we'd look for one.  So far we have done the following:

1.  Melt crayons into muffin tins.  Worked okay.

2.  Cup of blue water and yellow water with paper towels leading into a glass of clear water.  It turns green.  Kind of cool.

3.  Caterpillar made out of pipe cleaners and buttons.  Big hit.

She has now become obsessed about Pinterest.  She keeps wanting to look at the iPad to get craft ideas.  I'm going to have to get more supplies.

Christmas Tree time

This tree gets two thumbs up from Elijah. 

Since we put up the tree a week ago, I have found that there are fewer and fewer decorations on the bottom half.  Every time Nora gets one we move it further up the tree. 

This is the first year that the kids have taken an interest in putting their own decorations on the tree.  I used to think that a tree needed to look a certain way.  Now I'm kind of of the opinion that their additions make it have more character.

(Lillian was busy documenting the entire event on the iPad.)

I realize I should be mad

but look at the letters on the keys.  They're on the right ones!  Way to go Elijah?

p.s.  For the record, we did have a discussion that we don't write on the piano keys.  Although "yippee" for taking interest!

Future Tri-Athelete?

 

It was quiet in the house.  That's never a good sign when you have a toddler/pre-schooler.

 

I walked into Lillian's room and I found her trying on her swimsuits.  Let me remind you that it's winter here in Manitoba.  A swimsuit isn't exactly the most obvious option.  But it didn't end there.  She went to find Elijah's shoes and spent the next while running around the house quite enthusiastically.  She did spend some time on her trike but I'm guessing she'll have to master a bike before she enters any official races.

Nora

Nothing to say about her really.  Just wanted to post a picture of her.  Cuz I can.

Learning to skate

There are two things that I think are helpful for a kid in Manitoba to know: swimming and skating.  

Waiting for daddy to take her skating

Elijah just finished skating lessons and that got Lillian excited about skating.  So Trevor has been taking the two of them to the outdoor rink a couple of blocks from our house.  Lillian is getting pretty good at balancing on her skates and is the more eager of the two to go skating.  Elijah is just about at the point where he can confidently skate on his own.  That will probably help him enjoy it more.

Good times.

She sleeps in the kitchen

A couple of months ago we discovered that Nora would sleep through the night if we put her in the playpen in the kitchen.  So that's where she's been sleeping.  Every night.

This week in a moment of what can only be described as brief insanity, I decided enough was enough and she was going into her crib.  She has a nice crib and a spacious room. She sleeps in there perfectly fine during the day. No need to take up half of my eating area with a playpen.  I was firm.  This was the end.  I packed it up.  No more sleeping in there.

Until four o'clock this morning when I broke and she went back to sleep in the kitchen.

It's incredible really.  She will be screaming in her crib.  I pick her up, put her in the playpen and it is almost instant.  Silence and sleep.

It is baffling.  Here are a few of the things that we have considered as the cause of this strange behaviour:

- Temperature (We have fiddled with temperatures to make it hotter and cooler in both locations. Nothing.)
- Noise (The fridge and dishwasher make noise.  Tried the hum of  a humidifier.  Nothing.)
- Playpen (Moved the playpen into her room.  Nothing.)

Someone suggested to me the other day that perhaps it was because she felt more comfortable in the kitchen because she spends more time there.  Not really sure what we can do about that.  But, like I said, she willingly takes naps in her room.

So, I guess we'll just keep being cramped at the table, leaving a perfectly good room empty.  Because, as we all know, a rested mommy is a happy mommy.

And now she is three

Lillian turned three on Sunday.

Three is a fun age.  We went to the mall this morning and she decided that she wanted to wear the fairy skirt she got for her birthday.  People think a three year old wearing a fairy skirt is cute. 

She got several dolls for her birthday.  She loves dolls.  She also likes to undress her dolls.  She has been brushing their hair, undressing them and stuffing them into various confined spaces like her toy fridge since she got them.

She still runs like Pheobe on "Friends" and it still makes me smile every time.  There is pure joy in that run. 

Here's to a great year birthday girl.  You make me glad you turned out to be a girl.



Playing on the iPad

Daddy painting the birthday girl's nails.
(This picture has been included mostly to show that my girls have a pretty cool dad.  She wanted daddy to paint her nails so daddy painted her nails.  For the record, he probably did a better job than I would have.)

Elijah spent literally hours decorating Lillian's birthday present.  Why buy gift bags when your kid loves to draw?

 

Words I never thought I'd say

"Stop fighting over the Bible!"
___________________________________

Me:  "You're not writing in the Bible are you?"
Elijah:  "No, I'm writing my own Bible."

My son doesn't talk

It was confirmed with a phone call to Elijah's teacher yesterday.  She has yet to hear him talk.  My dear, sweet five year old is silent at school. 

It never occured to me that my kids would have different personalities than me.  My son looks so much like me.  I figured he would talk like me too.  But four weeks into school and he is still staying silent. 

He listens.  Oh he listens.  He tells me about Matman in his classroom.   And the jokes that Mr. Bell the principal tells.  He explained about cheering for Jerry Fox.  (His version of Terry Fox.  The school has been focusing on the run all week.)  But when I ask him if he says something in class he replies "Mom.  You know I don't talk."

This is harder for me than I thought it would be.  Who doesn't want their kid to fit in?  Whatever fitting in looks like.  No one wants their kids to be alone. 

And I know he's not. 

I dropped him off at daycare today and went to check something in the office.  When I came back he was playing with some other kids on the floor.  Not talking, but playing in their general area.  He'll get there.  I know he will.  I just want to get there now.

But no matter what.  I take comfort in this.  No one - not me,  not his dad,  not his grandparents -  loves him as much as God does.  And I am awed because if I, as an earthly mom, can love my son this dearly, than God knows, he's got it made.

Nora's creative crawling

p.s. That's Lillian in the background.

First day of school

It was officially Elijah's first day of school yesterday.  It ended up being pretty uneventful because of the week leading up to it.  We decided that since there was a full time spot available at the daycare in the school he was attending, we would start him there in the fall instead of when I go back to work in January.  He has voiced his concern about not having friends at school so we thought that going to daycare with some of the same kids might help with the friend making process.

That meant his first day of daycare was last week.  I will admit that there were some tears that first day from two of the four family members that were in attendance.  It is hard to see your child scared/worried/uncomfortable.  But, I think that going for the mornings last week helped yesterday because going down the hall to Kindergarten was just became an extension of daycare.  It wasn't as huge an event as it might have been.

But he has still been silent.  He becomes completely mute in a group setting with kids.  He'll listen and he's obviously paying attention because he'll tell me things afterwards.  But he's silent when he's there.  So, our prayer for him this year is that he would learn to talk.  Not crazy talking but just "comfortable in his skin" talking. 

So here is my little Kindergartener. 

The cops stopped by

My cousin Clint is a Police Officer and was kind enough to stop by with the car so my kids (but mostly Elijah) could check out the car.  He put handcuffs on Elijah and let him sit in the front and back.  Elijah thought it was really neat that they had a computer in the car.  He also really liked the bullets.  They flashed the lights and put on the siren.  Hopefully that didn't cause our neighbours to wonder what was going on in the Holland household.

I cut her hair

I cut Nora's hair this week.  If you take a look at the previous picture you'll notice what is developing into a fine comb-over.  I figured she was too young for that so I cut some of her wispy hair.  There may be a bit more tweeking in the days ahead but a least she looks more like a baby and less like a middle aged man, trying to maintain his youthful appearance.

 

Oh, and on a sidenote, this age is The.  Best.  Age.  I love it.  This is when having a baby starts to get fun.  She's sitting and crawling and laughing and interacting.  I love that.

Nora - 7 months

Crawling

We're in that stage.  This kid is learning to move.  Put something in her line of vision that she wants and she's off.

A week at Auntie Anne's

We headed to the lake at my Aunt Anne's recently.  Trevor couldn't stay the entire time we were gone but I stayed with the kids.  They had a great time in the water and both of them were doing their versions of swimming by the end of the week. 


My aunt with my nieces Isla and Katherine who are two months older than Nora.



Isla and Grandma



Katherine and Mom



Crayola has a website where you can take a kids picture and make a coloring story out of a cartoon of them.  It sounds cooler than it is but it was still fun for the kids to have their very own stories to color.



Lillian wanted to wear her goggles.  She wore them for  quite a while.  This is what she looked like afterward.

In case you wondered if I was there, I was.  I took the pictures. :)

A tea party

Lillian got a tea set for Christmas and Lillian and Elijah have been enjoying having tea parties.  Fills my heart with joy when I see them playing together so nicely.  Because, that doesn't always happen.

A good big brother

There is something to be said for having an older child when you have a baby.  The other day I called Elijah and asked him to come see me.  He told me he couldn't.  He needed me to help him.  I walked into the living room and this is what I saw.  He had picked Nora up and moved her so she could play at this little piano.  She was having a great time.  (He needed my help because he didn't know where to put her if he left.)

The teeth have arrived

Nora got her two bottom teeth this week.  It has explained a little bit of her increased crabbiness.   I can tell that she's generally not enjoying this activity in her mouth.  She's biting everything in sight but has had surprisingly little drool. 

This are the things that are considered news when you have little kids.

Last Day

We arrived at church yesterday and there was a big tent and activities set up. It was church picnic day. Elijah asked if he was the last day of church. We were both a little confused until we realized tht he's been having so many wind up parties lately (Pre-school, soccer...) that he assumed a party at church must mean that was also the last one.

Sleeping

Elijah's latest reason for wanting us at night is because Lillian has Nora, I have daddy, and he has no one. It's not fair. I tried to tell him that he had his stuffed animals (lame, I know) but he informed me that they're not real. Getting up with two kids is tiring. That makes everything worse during the day. So he's sleeping on the floor in our room again. So we can get some sleep. Because he doesn't seem to wake up when he's there. At least Lillian sleeps through the night.

She wasn't the first

When I was a little girl, I too had an adventure with scissors.  I cut my bangs. Apparently my parents trusted me enough to hold my baby brother Brent who was a very new little baby in this picture.

(I found this picture as I was going through my baby pictures.  I've been going through my baby pictures and taking pictures of them with my nice camera.  Now I have my baby pictures on digital without too much effort.  I am currently making a Shutterfly book from my childhood.)

She cut her hair.

In case you haven't seen my Facebook status update, Lillian cut her hair yesterday. It was only upon closer observation today that I realized that she scalped herself. Now, her saving grace is that she did it underneath some longer hair. You can only tell if you look at her hair a certain way. I guess this is a certain rite of passage. Everyone seems to have a story from their childhood where either they or a sibling were involved in some sort of snipping incident. (It is interesting to note that typically only one sibling is involved in such an incident. Does this mean that Elijah and Nora are safe from any future hair events?) I vaguely remember my own snipping incident at the age of four. I cut my bangs. I don't think I actually remember the event. I've just seen enough pictures that I'm somehow convinced that I remember it. So I think that Lillian has learned her lesson about hair cutting. When I asked her who could cut her hair she said "only mommy or daddy or dramma (grandma) or my other dramma.". She was curious what would happen if she cut it. Now she knows.

Soccer

Our month of May has been full with Elijah and Lillian taking swimming lessons and Elijah playing soccer twice a week.  Swimming lessons have finished and now we're in the home stretch with soccer. 

I am glad to say that Elijah has gotten more confident in his attempts to get the ball and he will proudly tell you that he scored a goal.  (OK, it was against the parents and they let him score, but still.  It was a huge boost to his confidence.)

Here are some pictures of his game tonight.

I have also included a picture of Lillian and the branch she found.  She was walking around edge of the field waving her branch saying "Hosanna Hosanna".  Guess whose kid goes to church?

Blogging on the iPad

We got an iPad several months ago. We love it. I have enjoyed having something to do while feeding Nora (which unfortunately often also includes involvement in a vary addictive Smurfs game that is my son's. I'm only helping him. Really. I don't care about the outcome of the game at all.)

It only occurred to me yesterday that I could also be using it to blog. I'm kind of tied down when I'm feeding so I may as well try it out. The only issue I have is that typing is rather cumbersome.

As someone who got her very first typewriter in grade eight, I have been using both hands to type for a long time. The location of the keys is second nature to me so one hand typing seems to take a long time. I'm getting better at it.

It seems as though Nora is done eating. I guess that's the end of my blogging for tonight. I have to quickly go check on the Smurfs game. For Elijah.

Nora - 5 months

Day at the farm

Elijah's pre-school class went to have a day at the farm a few weeks ago. He had a great time and keeps asking when we're going back to the farm. I'm glad that they have family farm days that we can just go visit and not commit to raising cattle. I don't think I'd do well with that.

(On a side note: It was funny to find out that the farm that we were visiting was run by a friend of mine from high school. She has six kids. One of which is 14. That made me feel old. At least I feel wise too.)

Eliajh's first fish

I went away this weekend for a fun weekend with the girls in Fargo.  While I was gone, Trevor took the kids to the lake and Elijah caught his first fish.  He was very, very proud.  As was I.  Here are some pictures of the great event.

Gardening

The one thing that I miss about our old house is the garden. I loved the garden. It was big and had wonderful soil. And it had raspberries. I love fresh picked raspberries.

As a child I was often sent to pick the raspberries in our garden. This was not a task I particularly enjoyed. I didn't like how scratchy the bushes were and I definitely didn't enjoy the bugs. Somehow it seemed as though mosquitos were always lingering there, waiting for me to show up. Knowing that my blood was particularly tasty. I have memories of being sent back outside to finish picking. "Remember, you need to MOVE the branches."

So the raspberry bushes at our first home were a bit of a pleasant surprise when we realized how plentiful and tasty they were. For a few brief weeks in the summer we got to enjoy their gift to us. The size of our garden was also a gift. We could plant more produce than we ever needed. It was fun to share and have others enjoy the tomato plants that seemed to explode in our backyard. (We also got the chance to offer a fresh tomato to our neighbour boy who had no idea what it was. That still stands out as an odd moment to me.)

And then we moved to to our current home. Everything was bigger and better. Except our garden. Less sunlight and less good soil.

But we have been trying. Last year we made a garden that gave us some fresh stuff. This year we've learned a few lessons that will hopefully increase the fresh stuff at our table. It brings a smile to my heart to see my kids wandering around the backyard, eating a tomato like an apple. I love the thought that my kids have no room for supper because they were too busy filling their tummies with the good stuff from our garden.

This afternoon we repainted our garden sticks to mark out where our rows are. I'm looking forward to our garden this year.

Oh yeah, and on Saturday, we went to the Green House and got some raspberry plants. They are now safely planted in our backyard. I'm looking forward to sending my kids out to pick them.

Something they've all enjoyed