Ian & Helena

Well, this may be a bit of an exaggeration, but Breanna did complete one full step as she was moving from standing next to the toybox to me today!  Yeah Breanna!  What a champion!  We of course had to call grandma and grandpa right away and leave them a message.

The girls are getting more and more active - they’re working themselves into the crawling stage.  Now that they’ve mastered the stairs, they’ve decided to take on the kid chairs, the kid table, and the ledge in front of our fireplace.  They’re very cute, until they get mad because they can’t quite figure out how to get down!  Even then they’re still pretty cute, but don’t tell them that

Rory has developed his first official fear.  And I don’t blame him…it is pretty scary….it is… dut dut-ah…an inflatable, purple butterfly, with pretty flowers printed on it, and it makes a dainty ’squeak’, if you squeeze it.  Yes, it is terrifying!  We thought we’d teach him to kick it, so he wouldn’t be scared of it (since he’s stronger than this particular flimsy plastic toy filled with air).  He begrudingly ran up to it, kicked it, and ran away shrieking before he had even finished his kick.  We just wanted to howl in laugher, but he’s honestly afraid…this one’s not a faker!  So we had to have our laugh a little later.

Here’s a few pictures of our last few days:

Stevie

Breanna

Rory decorating his gingerbread house; Rory eating his gingerbread house (smart boy); The house that mom saved (poor Rory).

Stevie                  Breanna

Spaghetti night.  Breanna diligently tries to use her fork; Stevie goes goes for it!

Hello everybody,

Well, after going through a round of most everybody being sick, we are all back on our feet again, and ready to take on this darn winter weather!  It is a lot of work to pack up all three kids in their winter gear to get out, but we do love it (although it is too cold for walking…we’re having -26 weather the last few days). 

Last weekend, as Karen’s post says, we went to Edmonton to celebrate her birthday.  The kids enjoyed visiting with their aunts and uncles, and we had a great time acting out our ‘murder mystery’ and going out for beers (we changed out of our costumes, for any of you who were starting to get concerned about our sanity).  The following day we headed back to Edson because Rory was invited to his first birthday party!  His friend, Campbell, turned two, and his parents invited about 5 other 2 year olds and their families.  We had a great time, and since then Rory can talk about nothing other than, “Mambell” this week.  (It helps that this family also goes to our play group, church, and we shared a babysitter this weekend, so Rory saw his friend a lot).  We’re looking forward to Rory’s second birthday, and I’m sure my parents are too because we will be visiting them when it comes around!  I have a feeling he’s going to be spoiled rotten!

Breanna    Stevie 

Yes, he’s shaved that beard off now!

Ian and I have been keeping busy with our sports and me with my music and volunteering as well.  Our calendar for December is already nearly full with all of the Christmas parties/get togethers that are happening.  But we are looking forward to all the festivities.  We are really blessed that while our kids love their routine, they do amazingly well when we throw something new at them!  Our church held a silent & live auction to raise money for our church roof (it’s leaking) this Saturday. Ian volunteered and I willingly spent our money   We raised $11,000!  So, that’s all for now.  Other than, you guessed it…more snow .     

 Brent and Ian showing off their fashionable shoes

 The Vander Veen sibs (this is at Shaun’s house - Theresa’s boyfriend)

  Playing with Rory

Ha ha!  Well, we gave it a go, and despite the title, it was a hit and not even too bad to clean up!  Rory was in his glory, “scooping” and “dumping”, and Breanna loved pretending to eat.  Our little wildcracker Stevie loved to run her fingers through the rice, sending it flying out each end as she moved, so she didn’t last too long .  Here’s a few pics

 (Rory in his fort)

Rory’s first haircut

 Stevie has been really sick the last 48 hours or so, but is just starting to keep her food down again.  And all three kids have bad colds too!  So, with the cold weather and body fluids flying all over the place, we’ve been stuck inside the last couple days (skipped church, skipped music lessons), so my big treat was to get outside and shovel today…yes, more snow.  I’m definitely starting to feel a bit trapped, as I’m sure the kids are too!   Don’t you wish you were nearby to babysit???

Hope you all have a great week!

P.S. I know Karen hasn’t posted for a while (she’s currently in Hawaii with her boyfriend’s family…hmm….I’m just a little jealous), so I’m hoping she won’t read this too soon, but it’s her birthday on Saturday so if you can, send her a birthday wish!

Well, I haven’t posted for a while now since there hasn’t been too much happening, but Brian and Deb’s latest post has inspired me to write…if you have no news, you can still make something up (haha)!  But since I’m not feeling so creative today, you’ll have to live with the plain old boring facts for now:

The kids are doing quite well (other than Stevie having a whole body rash that the doctor says we can do nothing about - but it doesn’t seem to be bothering her at all).  Stevie and Breanna keep practising walking around the furniture and standing up, but no matter what antics we try to get them to walk around the room, they’re not impressed enough to try walking on their own yet….

Rory is venturing out into two word phrases, such as “No, mom” (I love that one), and “more milk”.  He’s still learning a couple of other words each day too yet!  I don’t know how kids do it!  He was helping me shovel snow today (yes, we had another dump), by pulling the loose snow back into the path I had just made.  Yes, I was really excited about how much he is helping!

This afternoon we are going to try playing with a rice table - sounds messy, hey?  I don’t know if I will regret this idea or not - I’ll let you know.

Anyway, the one peice of news we really have had this past week is that the kids have come one step closer to becoming legally ours…a judge granted the provincial government total guardianship of the kids, which they intend to pass on to us as soon as possible (which will be a number of months yet).

Well, that’s about all for now!  Hope you are all doing well!