It was a week ago already, and our gathering this year was small for various reasons. A funeral in another province, a child studying abroad, and some family dynamics that make the holidays difficult for a family member. We ended up celebrating with our children only. Nathanael's girlfriend Madi joined us too despite him being in Europe until late December. She arrived a little later than the rest of the crew who were at the mercy of parental drivers. I never did get a photo of us all at dinner. That was thrown off by live chatting with Nathanael. One of those moments where I am thankful for modern technology.
Playing apples to apples while I get the food ready.
These two love the Wii!
Some gentler disciplinary measures have this munchkin under my watchful eye.
Someone is just hoping I will walk away from the table for a couple of minutes because that is all he would need to hoover down the entire dinner.
A chat with my shaggy boy. We never knew he had curls like that! He sure didn't as a little guy. Poker straight and white blonde.
Despite many changes again this year, we are blessed and have much to be thankful for.
Another month has flown by since I last blogged. I find it hard to blog when I don't really have much to blog about -- or a least not much that my two readers would care to read. 😏
I continue to be on a decluttering kick. It's a slow process though because my days are filled with pleasant interruptions: coffee dates with friends, much taxiing of children and other special things like university students home on reading break. Embarrassingly, there are a few areas where I just cannot -- or rather do not want to declutter. The one is my craft stuff, and the other is photos/memorabilia. Can you say overkill? I plan to change over to digital scrapbooking one day, but right now I want to use up what I have. It's pretty hard to use up what I have though when I don't even scrapbook anymore. I've set a goal to start again this summer. However, I REFUSE to buy more stuff. I am going to make due with what I have.
Scrapbooking and card making stuff -- including two boxes of ribbon.
More scrapbooking stuff and various idea books.
These hold craft supplies for the kids as well as stamps and stamping products.
My ridiculously huge wool stash.
Paper and stickers, among other things.
We have been blessed with a large home that allows for this sort of excess, but that doesn't mean I like it. I have already said to the Engineer that when our children all start leaving the nest, it is going to be time to downsize. I would like to see another large family put this house to good use. Do you think I can be picky about our buyer? Looking for: large, busy family to buy and enjoy our house and property as much as we do/did!
This girl is off to post secondary education in the fall. She was accepted to all three schools that she applied to and has decided to go to her first choice school. She is pretty excited. It's a five year program because it includes co-op terms.
She will be taking Honours Psychology and getting her BSc. and then possibly taking a Masters in Genetic Studies. She is very intelligent, studious, organized, and driven, and knows The One who has blessed her with these gifts, so we have no doubt that she will succeed!
We had a very busy weekend! Most weekends have the normal, errands and appointments, but this weekend there were many extras.
Friday, the Engineer and I took a quick round trip (second Friday in a row) to the Guelph, ON area to spend a bit of time with family at a funeral visitation. It's not exactly the best way to spend time with family, but it was still a good visit albeit extremely short. Although this death was quite unexpected and not pretty for my BIL and SIL to have to walk through, his was a life well lived, and we have the confidence of knowing there is another soul in heaven.
Saturday morning, I hit the ground running! Start laundry, do a bit of cleaning, squeak in a photo session for my son and his girl who were both home for the weekend. Saturday was a beautiful day for a photo shoot. It hit 14 degrees Celsius which is pretty crazy warm for this time of year.
Once I was done shooting, I hopped back in my little car, stopped at home, switched about some laundry, grabbed a child for her theory lesson, went back into the city, dropped her off, texted the Engineer to remind him to pick her up after he and Peach were done at the youth program re-visioning session at church, and headed off to help cater a wedding. Although, I usually serve, this time I only did prep work. This is where we finish setting the tables, get started on cooking the food, and a multitude of other little things. A funny thing that I have learned while catering all kinds of weddings is that I am becoming very cynical about wedding hoopla. Sometimes, I look out over an intricately decorated hall, and think, "seriously!? What is a wedding about? The stuff? The party?" I always thought it was supposed to be a celebration of marriage. You know, the joining of two individuals. I am far more interested in the couple and watching them. Really, who cares what the hall looked like, what extras they have, if they have a cake, wedding favors!? But that's just me.
From catering, I scooted home to quickly change, move around some more laundry, and find something to eat (I wasn't organized or home long enough to even think of advanced meal planning for the brood), so I could head out with the family to a concert in the United States. We went to the Tenth Avenue North, All Earth is Holy Ground Tour and it was fantastic!! The concert featured I Am They, Hawk Nelson, and of course, Tenth Avenue North. I wish I could put into my own words, their words, how I was feeling, and what I was thinking. To weakly sum it up, it was a very praise and prayer filled evening for me! A much needed powerful God night for me!
I Am They
Hawk Nelson
Tenth Avenue North
All the bands.
The above concert images are shamelessly stolen from my hubby for his blog. He hasn't posted about the concert yet, but he will. He will also have more images -- if you're interested.
When we got home, all the children were off to bed, while the Engineer and I stayed up and got ready for brunch tomorrow. I finally crashed at about 2 am.
Up again at 6 am, I enjoyed a peaceful quite time and an unhurried morning (which is always good!!) getting the brood ready for church. I made sure my Children's Worship teachers were good to go, and got to sit through an entire service for once. It was Lord's Supper this week, so that made it extra nice to be able to focus entirely on the service and not have to go out the check on my teachers.
There were eleven of us for brunch (two extra children) and we as usual squeezed around the dining room table. I am beginning to think we need to start looking for a larger dining room table because I am pretty sure our family is going to continue to grow before it actually begins to shrink in size -- and there will be those times when they are all home with others in tow. It's a good thing! I love having my children and their friends/significant others here!
Once brunch was finished, the children scattered to various parts of the house. I had to fold all that laundry I somehow managed to do on Saturday because I needed to get the Boy packed to head back up to school. I actually love folding laundry and yesterday I was being quite entertained while doing so by a duo at the piano.
These two have a grand time together -- and they laugh all. the. time. It makes me laugh to listen to them. Oh, and don't let the video fool you. He sings amazingly too. He's just being shy.
Sunday evening was quiet. The Engineer took Bub back to school. Other children were back with their families. Most of my Littles were in bed, so Beans and I flaked out in front of the television and watched one of my favorite DVD's. It was some very much needed down time after a very full, very memorable weekend!
Today our second daughter turns sixteen. Originally due on the 15th of February, I was hoping for a Valentine baby, but to our surprise, she arrived almost a week early.
She developed a nice case of jaundice early on giving her what we called a tropical glow. With her dark rug of hair and her jaundiced glow,
she hardly looked like one of our babies, but that dark hair soon faded to blonde and she quickly lost the jaundiced look.
At her first birthday, she could apparently eat with her left hand and knew how to hold up one finger letting us all know she was one. Haha!
By two she was completely blonde (and still liked to eat), and I now had brown-eyed blonde baby I had dreamed of since I babysat a family of brown-eyed blondes when I was fifteen.
As a little girl, she was always cautious when it came to something new. Sometimes we didn't even know she was ready to learn something until she showed us that she already knew it. She could tie her shoes before we even taught her. New situations would often cause her to have what we call a cry fest unless she knew exactly what she was getting into ahead of time.
Homeschooling in the early years was a great choice for her as we quickly learned that she hates the drama of relationships -- especially girl drama. Her closest grade school friend turned out to be a boy. "Boys don't create drama!" However, her other bestie (a girl) finished out grade school being homeschooled. They are still besties to this very day.
Homeschooling her also allowed us to immerse her in the world of music. She is the most musical of our children and will likely go on to some sort of career in music.
The transition to high school was surprisingly easy and she has a great group of friends. One girl (who also hates girl drama) and two boys.
It's kinda crazy to think I have three children age 16 and up now. When they (whoever they are) say the times goes quickly, it really does! So far the teenage years have been interesting and fun!
Happy Birthday, Shayanne!! "The heart of a man (or woman) plans his (her) way, but the Lord determines his (her) steps." Proverbs 16:9
We did very little shooting this summer. Truthfully, I was thankful. I had enough going on without photo deadlines. I did take some time to do a few shoots of some of my favourite muses though.
Taken up at the cottage this summer.
In the back forty.
On a chilly day in early December. The golden hour! In the back forty.
Some studio work. For their work portfolios.
Finally, one just for laughs!
A photo of my girls being silly at a concert that I made into a meme. :o)
I loafed around today. Did nothing but read a good book -- and well I did do my workout too. I better have, since I also ate bon bons :o). The girls' school work still got finished, and in the meantime I finished my book. I would call it a good day!
On Saturday, we had our family Christmas with the Engineer's side of the family. It was different, but good. We were the hosts this year for the first time ever. Since Mom is gone, we all felt that this year should be as different as possible. Different place, different date, different time, and even different food. There were sentimental moments, but there was also lots of fun, laughter, and joy -- thanks to the precious great grandchildren.
On Sunday, we had our church Christmas dinner. I got smart this year and signed up as soon as I could to bring buns. Pretty easy since Peach works at a marvelous bakery! I needed buns for Saturday too, so I just put in my order and voila! On Saturday morning, I sent Nathanael and Peach (she actually took the day off) to pick up delicious smelling, super fresh buns! We ate a bunch on Saturday, and then Sunday morning dropped several more dozen off in the kitchen, so the volunteers could get the tables ready for the evening.
I was in charge of getting the Children's Worship children ready for their part in the evening. What a hoot! They were all so cute!! Even my Wise Guys -- as I called them. They were the oldest boys; almost a little too cool for costumes, but not when you can be wise. :o)
The adorable Mary and Joseph.
Of course with children, you never know what will happen. One sweet little guy got a major case of stage fright and tore off the stage in tears and another little guy dropped his candy mid song. He popped it back in quick enough to avoid the five second rule.
They did a fantastic job and definitely stole the show!
