Canadian Thanksgiving

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.

Buh Bye 2016!!

I know! Here we are already ten days into the new year and I am finally saying goodbye to the old year. I guess blogging still won't make the priority list this year. I'm going to try, but I am not promising anything.

I won't say that I am unhappy to see the back of 2016, but I will say it wasn't one of my more memorable years in a positive sense. If I had to label it, I would call it the Year of No Accomplishments -- for me anyway.

I seriously did nothing. Perhaps that is why the huge absence of blogging. One would think that with all the children attending school again in September that I would be voraciously reading, cleaning and decluttering ( a never ending battle in this house) like a madwoman, photographing up a storm, and doing all manner of creative activities that I crave and love.

Nope. None of that happened. In fact, I spent three weeks in November on butt rest due to a stress fracture of my toe. Lame. (No pun intended.) I originally smashed it in May. I thought it had healed until I put on a pair of my favorite boots. Within an hour, I wanted to have my toe removed. It was awful. Suffice it to say, they are no longer my favorite boots. 😏

Those three weeks and the weeks since have not been entirely a waste. I did knit. A lot. I made hats. All my children plus a few extras received a touque for Sinterklaas this year. It was quite satisfying to know that I had made everyone a hat. 

I was so excited for September. I was craving quiet like crazy and hoping the quiet days would fuel me for the busy evenings and for about a month it did. I was walking (outdoors or treadmill) almost daily, I worked in my gardens, I baked, and I'm sure I did some other things too, but every day before I knew it, the girls were getting off the bus.

By October, I was unconsciously avoiding social interaction outside my family and a few close friends as much as possible. The butt rest the next month helped with that and it wasn't until late November, early December that I realized it. 

An emotional breakdown? Mid-life crisis? I have no idea. The crazy thing was and still is, I am content. My days are my own even if I don't do anything or go anywhere. My evenings mostly involve shuffling children to various activities, so I feel that I need the peaceful days. I have a select few friends that I love getting together with for coffee, but other than that I am happy to just be at home.

For 2017 I have set some goals and plans. I have put together my version of a bullet journal. Mine is absolutely nothing fancy. It contains most everything I do and the things I want to achieve. If I get brave, I might share portions of it.

So, happy 2017 ya'll! In case you are wondering, the rest of the crew here are all healthy and doing well. There is never a dull moment. 😁

Back to School

The summer holidays have come and gone, although the weather here certainly does not indicate that yet!

On Sunday we loaded up Peach and all her belongings for her first year of university.

 We delivered her to her dorm (the same one as her brother was in when he was in first year). Then took photos of the science buildings she will be studying in. They're just a very short walk from her dorm. She is taking an Honours Science Psychology. She gets her brains from her dad!

Today, I sent the remaining five off to school. Yes, all of the kiddos are back in school again. Beans and Squirt are off to grade eleven and grade nine.

They are sure that people are going to have a fun year continually confusing them! :o)

After much prayer and discussion, meeting with the principal and others, we chose to send our three youngest to the public school this year. They have a strong special education program there and we feel that it will really help them out -- especially since it will continue into secondary education as well. Our only big trepidation is that they are placed age appropriate. That means Bella is in grade eight, Bright Eyes in grade six, and Peanut is in grade four. If you know our girls, you would know that none of them are ready for those grades in any way. We will see how this year goes.

As I am typing this, I am feeling a little overcome by the silence in the house. It's not a bad thing at all, but it is going to take some getting used to again. :o) Hopefully it is a great year for all of us.

Sorry! No photos of Nathanael. He is in his third year of study, still living in the same house, with several of the same roommates, and working at the university pool when he is not studying. All is well!

Prom!

This much-anticipated event arrived and departed in a whirlwind of activity over a week and a half ago already. The Engineer and I spent much of the week outdoors getting our rather neglected property looking decent again. It has been so cold this spring that up until this past week, we hadn't spent much time outdoors. It was beautiful most of the week, but Saturday's forecast never changed. Cold and miserable. Which is exactly how it turned out.

However, a scramble to get the house clean and tidy and set up the studio lights worked well and we took most of the group of fourteen prom-goers photographs inside. What a fun afternoon it was!

Follows are mostly all the outdoor ones because, truthfully, I haven't edited the studio ones yet. (They are giving me grief! So glad I edit in RAW or it would be even worse!)

(For those of you who have that keen photography eye, yes, I am aware of the blotchy wall. I will fix it another day. I was having issues. Time is of the essence at the moment!)

Another Sweet Sixteen

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

An Overnighter

This year there were no gifts under the tree and the stockings were virtually empty as we did something completely different. Our Christmas present to all the children was an afternoon watching the Trans Siberian Orchestra and a night away at a hotel.

We rented a 12 passenger van (we sold the Monster in June as we have 3 -- almost 4 drivers at home now. Our rental was identical -- except two years newer. Even the licence plate letters were almost the same!) and headed to Auburn Hills, MI.

We decided it would be fun to dress up. The lovely young lady on the left end is Nathanael's girlfriend Madi. We love her lots!

We were told that a TSO concert is amazing and we were not disappointed! Wow!! Peanut sat on the edge of her seat almost the entire time. The rest of them were mesmerized, as were the Engineer and I.

 Waiting (im)patiently for the show to start. {grainy photos compliments of my phone}.

We were in the "snow" zone. It was so cool!

After the concert, we had a very late diner at the Rainforest cafe. (Very long wait time to get a table for ten. So we strolled the mall and window shopped.) We hadn't been there in years! The kids that had been years ago, really had no memory of it, and the four youngest had never been. It was fun, but more of a been there done that thing. :o)

These would be so fun to have!

Then it was off to the hotel! The two youngest were put to bed and I went too (I was coming down with a migraine), while the rest went swimming and hot tubbing.

The next day, I got worse, but we had promised the older children they could do a little more shopping. I spent the drive home with my head in a pillow.

We crossed back into Canada on the ferry. I was glad to be home. I crashed, eventually went to the hospital to get a migraine cocktail and had a good long sleep.

Despite the interference of a lovely migraine it was still a great two day get away!

Hello 2016!

The two oldest children rang in the new year with friends. The rest rang in the new year with us. For once though we did not stay home. We had a square dance at our church and then board games. There was lots of food to be eaten and I do believe a fun time was had by all. The house was quiet here until 10 am this morning. (I think that has to be a first!) I enjoyed coffee, a book and watched the snow gently falling. (The first real snow this winter and the first snow this year! :o) ) I didn't take the camera with me, so I have no photos, sadly.

Wishing you all a blessed New Year!!

Merry Christmas!

The holidays have been very low key here this year. It's really been a breath of fresh air for me. No obligations be anywhere or do anything. We did have celebrations with both sides of the families and both of those days too were relaxing and special. I have needed some down/quiet time in a big bad way! On Christmas Day we took some time out to get a family portrait since my plans for a summer, and then because a summer one didn't happen, a fall portrait never happened. It has been unseasonably warm here and we had not even a trace of snow for Christmas, so the idea rolling around in my head worked perfectly.

Wishing you all a blessed and peaceful holiday season celebrating the birth of our precious Lord and Savior!

 

Loafing {and the Weekend}

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!