New Year's Eve 2015

New Year's Eve was lovely. A special dinner with some tasty salmon (complete with sparkly juice to toast our early new year to fireworks from another time zone) topped off with upside down cranberry cake. Upon Milayla's suggestion we each made and donned crowns or party hats. She loves thinking of little details to make us feel a little bit like royalty. And then we played some family games before heading off to bed.

It's been a good year. I shall have to write a little snapshot of the year in another post. For now, here are a few pictures of our New Year's Eve. 

Pieces of December

These are pretty out of order, but I'm just going to run with it today. 

We invited some friends from church to come carolling with us. I wouldn't have thought we would be carolling the week before Christmas in the pouring rain. But we still had lots of fun just the same. I didn't think to take a picture of our group, but one of the homes that we carolled to took this picture and gussied it up. So, you can't see everyone, but it's the best we have.

We read A Christmas Carol as part of our homeschool (we read it every year). And the kids were so excited when we finished and had a family movie night to watch the Muppet Christmas Carol. Love snuggles with these kiddos.

Atticus has been purposely trying to fall asleep in weird positions so that I will have a laugh when I come to check on him before I go to bed and so that I will take some sleeping pictures. It's kind of funny. I have taken pictures of them sleeping before so he seems to have come up with this idea from looking at some of the picture books I have printed. So I thought I should snap some photos of those cute sleeping kids that particular night. No crazy sleeping positions but they were under big masses of blankets.

Phineas LOVES sweeping. It's become a bit of a safety hazard because it is so much taller than he is, but we are encouraging and praising his love for helping and cleaning as much as possible. I sure cannot resist that happy, helping face.

Speaking of helping, while I was chopping up potatoes for dinner, he decided he would help fill another pot with potatoes for me. He was so proud and was ready to cook it up for dinner.

We also located a new dentist that is right near us. This is a pretty exciting one because it makes it a bit easier to get everyone in for an appointment without having to trek into Montreal. Also, the dentist seems really great and I think the kids will love the office (yep - love it!). I took a few stealthy pictures to show the kids as I have been for an appointment already and their appointment isn't for several more months.

Phineas has a knack for running off with my phone, I get my phone back with pictures like these next two. I've done better at leaving it up on the shelf in the kitchen where he can't reach it but then I have been known to miss calls and messages because my ringer doesn't work anymore. Oh well! I get these cute faces on my phone and on Daddy's lucky days, he gets phone calls from Phineas! On our not so lucky days, he dials numbers in our phone for Germany...

The kids figured they would give that Sinterklaas character a try (they don't remember much about him from The Netherlands) and were delighted with there little trinkets in their shoes and the carrots that had been nibbled at.

We made some pretty awesome gingerbread mean (gf!) and then we decorated. I actually had my act together pretty well for cookies this year and we made several different varieties including cream cheese mints which were a tasty surprise. Our homeschool lessons were well ahead of schedule so we took an extra week off at Christmas from formal lesson time and just had some fun exploring, learning about christmas, baking (which is really a combination of science, art and math..) and having dance parties. It was a lot of fun. And the kids really enjoyed the baking. Then we decorated plates to give to people that we carolled to, our neighbours and some secret service angel business. It was pretty fun.

Hard to believe it, but we have gorgeous days at the park for nearly the entire month of December. It was rather lovely.

And I cannot resist coming into the kitchen to find that Atticus has left me a message on the fridge. Actually, there was a bit of mom guilt behind this one because I was coming to find out why he wasn't where he was supposed to be (helping with clean up) and I found him finishing this up on the fridge. Melt my momma heart. I love that boy.

Jason stayed home with Phineas when I had to run out one day and Phineas came to the window to wave and blow kisses. That face squished up against the window fills my heart with so much happiness and laughter.

Speaking of that happy little face, here it is again a little bit soggy from our carolling when we arrived home. He's pretty happy about the whole thing.

And Phineas needs some sleeping pictures as well! Cannot forget to add those in. I love getting time with the kids and something about watching them while they sleep a little bit at night just allows all the good moments of the day to sink into my heart a little deeper and the not-so-great moments to fade away. They fill my heart to over flowing.

Just when Jason and the kids thought we were all done playing secret service I suggested the idea that we go get a treat to leave in our mail box for the mail man. Seriously, I don't know where it is everywhere else but ever since our mail system moved over to the community mail boxes our mail deliverers are working until pretty late into the evening delivering everyone's mail. So we left ours a little surprise. The kids wanted to hide out around the mailbox until he arrived, but that could have taken a while so they were content to check the next day to make sure the treat was taken. I hope it was a nice surprise in the busy Christmas mail delivery season!

Not entirely sure why I have this picture of Jason here, but it's the only one he's in, so on it goes. You're welcome, Jason :). You can even see the beginning stages of our painting and base boards in this room.

The kids were pretty excited when we arrived at the grocery store and they had one of those carts with a vehicle on the front. Milayla and Phineas were pretty excited to share it. So so so sweet.

And then our sweet neighbours invited us over for cookies just after Christmas. The kids love doing service for them and will head over with their little shovels to shovel their walk way. And Barb has been a huge help with watching the kids here and there (including helping out with the kids while we did the kids' Christmas date nights!). We have been richly blessed with some really great neighbours!

It was a good month. I love seeing how the kids get so excited about serving in whatever capacity they are able to. They have hearts of gold. Really, really great big hearts of gold. It comes so easily for them to think of others.

------post edit----
found these awesome snowy day pictures of shovelling the driveway and playing the snow with the kids. The kids love to help clear the snow. They also love throwing the snow at us :). It's pretty awesome. Its one of the golden parts of winter.

Family Swim

We had been wanting to do a family swim for a while, especially with how much the kids have been learning in their swim classes. Our local pool has really awkward family swim times for families with young kids and getting to the next nearest pool hasn't been a really great option. So when they opened up some extra family swim hours during the Christmas holidays, we were pretty excited. As per usual, we kept it a surprise for the kids. And they were delighted. Delighted enough to capture a photo of it. 

It was fun even though the water was rather chilly. Phineas didn't last too long before he needed to sit poolside and warm up in a towel on Jason's lap. The big kids are a little more mobile in the pool (and able to keep warm better) so Milayla kept warm by going down the little slide again and again and again. When that grew old she kicked, and swam and splashed (mostly splashed me :) ). Atticus practiced his swimming a lot, headed for the slide and loved playing around with the kick board. 

The kids like to joke that they are part fish. I just think they have hit the part of swimming where they know enough to feel a little more confident in playing in the water which makes a big difference. 

Jason also tried to capture Phineas' little disappearing act on video. He didn't. But the video is still cute anyhow. Phineas likes to play 'hello-goodbye' after he is changed post-swimming by stepping inside the lower lockers. HE thinks it's grand. It does mean we need to be extra vigilant in keeping an eye on him! 

Atticus' Christmas Outing

There was some pretty big excitement about taking Atticus out on his outing. He really had no idea what to expect - at all. Milayla had gone on her outing the night before and so he thought maybe he might be doing the same thing (he wasn't). And he tried to guess on the way there, shared with reading some from his new chapter book and engaging in conversation with us. In truth, his guessing wasn't too over the top. It wasn't until we told him that we were close that he started thinking of a few things that it could be. Since we were pulling into the same parking lot from where we parked for Disney on Ice, he thought it was going to be an ice skating show. It wasn't until we sat down and the show actually started that he started to see what it was. 

And it was the new show from Cirque du Soleil - Toruk. Having only been to one Cirque show previously I had expected something similar to the previous one; lots of acrobatics and insanely unique costumes. This show was excitedly different and not bursting with acrobatics like the last one was. It was very story based, the costumes were incredible and it was a very impressive light display that took the performance platform from being fire to lava to a moving river to a desert to so much more. It was really incredible and I think my very favourite part of it all was hearing Atticus saying "wow!" multiple times throughout the show. He was in absolute awe. And so curious about how it all worked and even remarked about how much work everyone must have put into the show. And the tree that grew and lit up along with floating lights all around it was a definite favourite. 

It was really great getting to talk to him a bit more during intermission and hear his mid-show thoughts. He is such a smart kid and really gives things a lot of thought about how they work. I thought it was pretty cute when intermission came and he was nervous about taking a bathroom break in worries that he might miss some of the show, but all was well and he and Jason made it back in plenty of time to snack on our treats and talk about all the cool things in the show. 

Throughout the show Jason and I have each other knowing glances as we saw how much Atticus was enjoying the show. Truly, I think he most enjoyed being out with us. The show was a really neat way to expose him to something new and different than he hadn't seen before but it was really the time together that was what mattered. Five years from now it will be interesting to see what he remembers from the show. What I do know he will remember is getting to go out with Mom and Dad and all the happiness and love that he felt pouring over for him. At least I hope so because that is the real gift that we were trying for in taking the kids on these outings.

And we have so adored our time with the kids on these outings. We have purposed to do better at taking the kids out for time one-on-one. Both the big kids have explicitly requested it. They love family time more than words could really explain, but they also seem to sense the increased bonding that happens when they get a little time with just one of us. 

Our time with Atticus that day was lovely. He is such a smart, well-thought out child and really puts some thought into what it takes to make things work - even if that's thinking about all the practice the performers would have done to make that show work! I love the smiles and the conversation that keeps growing and evolving the more he learns and grows. This outing was a great gift of time spent with the three of us. Looking forward to planning more time with Atticus in the coming year and making the most of the impromptu times as well.

Now to make sure we continue that investment of time into the coming year. It really does make such a difference to the family. And it really is a treat to spend time with this family. I wouldn't trade it for the world because it is my world and it means everything to me.