Milayla and the iPhone

 Milayla loves chatting on my iPhone (whether it's a pretend conversation or we are chatting with someone on FaceTime). She also loves having her picture taken on it. Which I guess shouldn't be too much of a surprise as I am sure many kids love pictures on the iPhone. I rather hate to say it (because I feel like this makes me sound old...) but it's hard to believe how much technology has changed and evolved. Though it will be interesting to see how it progresses next! I'm just happy I have so many ways to document these cute kiddos!

deciding which button to press next

pretty happy for how early in the morning it is

about the only way that I can get Milayla's hair to stay put all day

Milalya Baking

I was a little nervous when I enlisted the help of both kids to make some biscuits for dinner. I had visions of flour everywhere. And guess what, my vision of flour everywhere wasn't too far off the mark. However, seeing how much these kids enjoyed helping out in the kitchen made up for all that flour and then some. I love having two helpers who are always willing to pitch in. They truly are awesome at measuring, pouring and mixing and I love the giggles and toddler talk that accompanies all that flour. I am especially proud of Milayla who took her responsibility of mixing the dry ingredients very seriously. We don't do much in the way of baking around here, but I am on the hunt for more dinner meals that the kids can help out with more because I love the extra help and company!

Never-ending Winter

I've convinced myself that winter is never going to end here. Not because I am melo-dramatic and I actually believe that winter will never end but because I want to be pleasantly surprised when the brave little flowers that have already sprung through the frozen ground don't have to look like they are shivering in the wind and many more flowers have sprung through to join them.

In the mean time, I'm trying to be optimistic about the snow. On the days that it has been warm enough we have headed outside to make snowballs and snow forts and get ourselves covered head to toe in snow.

On the days that it has not been so warm (which are far too many), we've been running snow experiments; dying it, mixing it,

observing how it melts or making ice in our hands with it.

I've tried to make peace with this prolonged winter as best as I can, and I am happy to report the kids have certainly enjoyed it, but I am still hopeful that when this post goes live in April that this weather will truly be singing the song of spring. Until then, I'll enjoy extra cuddles and hot cocoa with the kids because that is a wonderful aspect of winter that I love.

Jason's Birthday

The kids and I always have so much fun planning and preparing for Jason's birthday. When we started planning it triggered a daily question from Atticus - "is it Daddy's birthday YET!?". They were just so excited to spoil him with all of our surprises we had planned. Then we made a fairly last minute decision to go away for the weekend of his birthday which threw quite a bit of our plans for a loop, but it did seem to entail Jason to a few extra days of birthday surprises (how he manages to swing that nearly every year still puzzles me ;). I'll post more about our trip weekend trip to Holland another time, for now the focus is on the little birthday celebration we had for Jason on the Monday following our weekend getaway.

Of course, we kicked the day off with our favorite blueberry buckwheat pancakes topped with plenty of fresh fruit. Once we finished eating, Atticus announced that he was "BERRY full!". Jason wasn't sure if he had really meant to say it that way so he asked him, "do you mean, VERY full?" to which Atticus replied, "No. I am BERRY full because I just are lots and lots of berries so they filled my tummy.". That gave us all a good little laugh. Creative kid. And funny.

After Jason headed off for work we got to work ourselves with decorating, grocery shopping, dinner and birthday cake. Atticus learned how to use an airpump for the balloons which was great because he took over the balloon blowing up while Milayla and I handled the birthday banner.

Following a brief time period of concern that Jason may have to work late (which would have certainly put a little damper on the birthday events), he made it home in good time which was great because the kids were rather anxious to play the birthday games they had picked out for his birthday. Hide&Seek and Triominos. Classic, right?

Naturally, the birthday boy picked Greek for his birthday dinner - greek salad, bread, vegetarian Moussaka, grapes, veggies and Tzatziki. Pretty tasty stuff!

Then it was time to open up presents. The kids could not wait to give their gifts to Jason and Jason was such a great sport (even donning a pair of the kids' bunny ears from an egg hunt that we did in Holland). The kids and I all went and picked out one gift for Jason together and made a special big birthday card for him (loaded with all the sweets he loves that we never have around the house) but they were concerned that it wasn't enough for Daddy so they loaded up a gift bag with all sorts of goodies for Daddy. I'm not sure how they decided on their selection process, but there was no shortage of books, blocks, and straws in that goody bag. I think my favorite part is that they hid it in my closet a week in advance so that Daddy wouldn't find it. They are seriously awesome kids. We love them and absolutely love their creativity and thoughtfulness.

 We were all pretty excited to give Jason his Candy bar card, and he was pretty excited to get it too.

 And while Jason was busy reading his big birthday card, Milayla was busy helping Jason open up his next present.

I love those little smirks, chubby cheeks, long lashes and the incredible personality that beams through this little girl.

 There is certainly no shortage of help when it comes to getting gifts open around here. The part I love the most is that the kids really are doing it our of the excitement to give the gift and are on the edge of their seats about how happy they hope it makes the receiver of the gift. Jason's excitement for his brand  new wallet definitely put a smile across these kids' faces, too.

Then it was time for cake. Ever attempted to make a gluten-free, double-layer, brownie cake with two energetic toddlers? I hope not. Though, with a lot of patience and the acceptance of a chocolate-covered kitchen, I think we made a pretty good team and produced some great results! 

 It was a fun day that we all enjoyed. We feel pretty blessed to have Jason as the head of our household. He's awesome :). We love him.

Milayla's Latest

Milayla has come a long way in the last 4 months and we are so proud of her. Her appointments have been going so well that we are now appointment free until her 2 year check up! So I thought it was a good time to post a few photos of our cheeky girl and what she has been up to.

Milayla is officially a walker, runner and dancer. There are very few things that she will sit still for because she prefers to be on the move. We are pretty happy to see that most of her physical abilities not only meet, but exceed where she should be at for her age group. That is a lot in just 4 short months. We are so proud of her determination.

And, boy, have we loved seeing her love for books really take off. She seems to always be carrying a book around with her. Lately she has taken a particular liking to one of my books though, which I think may be a bit beyond her reading level but that doesn't stop her from carrying it around with her, "reading it" and crawling up on my lap to have some of it read to her.

In case you can't read that blurry writing, it is Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E Frankl  - just a little light reading ;) that she went straight for after bath time

Then there is Milayla's ever increasing personality. She is such a sweet, happy spirit and is always ready for an adventure. And you always need shoes to go on an adventure. Milayla loves her shoes and loves trying on everyone else's shoes too.

And she is so helpful around the house, always doing her part to clean up the toys, put away laundry, clean up her room and clear the table after meals. And she is so smart at figuring out how things work!

She isn't talking quite as much as we would like to see (though that is quite common for children exposed to multiple languages), but her baby sign language has really taken off and she is doing so much better at communicating with us.

It's been fun seeing her figure out new talents, skills and words and getting all those lovely cuddles, kisses and hugs. It is such a pleasure being her mom!

Artwork

The latest artwork from the kiddos.

Here's Milayla's latest masterpiece. I love the bright colours that she always picks. Also, I love seeing her trying to mimic shapes that she sees Atticus and I drawing.

And here are Atticus' latest doodles. 

We've noticed lately that Atticus thought every time that he woke up it was a new day. So, after bedtime it was a new day as well as after nap time. So I did a little art project with him one day about the different things that we do in morning, afternoon and evening and how all of those make up a day. I think he did a pretty great job; especially on that bed of his which even includes the shoe rack at the end of the bend. Impressive!

And then this great doodle was something he came up with during church. This is our family riding the train. I was a little curious who all the people were so I asked him who each of them were. Turns out there is a man at the front driving the train, then there is Mommy behind him, and Daddy behind her and then Milayla in the last row. And all those little people in the top row? Those are babies; lots and lots of babies. So, where is Atticus on this train ride? When I asked him where he was he matter-of-factly told me that he was sitting on the other side of Milayla so you can't see him from this side. I am quite impressed at his understanding of perspective.

I love seeing what these little ones come up with!

Wishes for warmer weather

The weather here has been playing some cruel tricks on us. We will go well over a week without seeing the sun and have to bundle up significantly. Then we will get a couple days of sunshine, blue skies, and warmth that has even warranted light, spring jackets. Then it is back to the freezing cold (in the vicinity of -12 Celsius - yuck!). The poor little early spring flowers don't seem to know what to do! I'm praying that with Easter, the warmer spring weather will come along soon. In the meantime, we are trying to make the most of every chance to get to soak in the sun, no matter how rare it might be. So we've been spending a lot of time out back working on our climbing skills. 

Cannot wait for some more sunshine around here!