Cracking the Fast Language Code:)

Last week we had a great visit to the town of Elora. We hiked a few trails and had a picnic. When we were heading to the little river, Eden repeatedly kept saying, "Bah-doe, Bah-doe". I finally realized that's her word for "water". We're constantly trying to crack the language code with her. "Book" is "Book" but it also means, "Milk"! She puts an "L" in front of a few words... "Head" is "Lead" and "Uppy" is "Luppy".
Elijah and Evie have a few funny words too.. Evie says "Thinger" instead of "finger" and Elijah says, "Dis" instead of "This".



This picture was taken in Elora. I saw a guy with a fancy camera walking around so I asked him to take our picture:) We're definitely going to head back to Elora in the near future and do some more exploring, I love it there!!

Easter

In preparation for Easter, I bought the Resurrection Eggs and a sweet book called, "Benjamin's Box" to go along with them.



The kids had so much fun opening the eggs! I'd borrowed my friend Teri's set a few years ago. It was so funny, Evie was about four years old and when we got to the last egg (which is empty to represent the empty tomb), Evie started looking around to see if something had fallen out. I explained to her that it was SUPPOSED to be empty, just like the empty tomb. She just couldn't wrap her mind around that and then exclaimed, "Don't worry mom! I'll find something to put in this egg!"

The kids are going to hear the Easter Story thousands of times by the time they are grown. In the constant repetition of it I hope that they never lose sight of how amazing it really is.

We had a great Easter weekend. The weather hit record highs... around 24 degrees! We were able to celebrate with Ronny's side on Saturday and my side on Sunday.



The bigger cousins collected a pail full of frogs at our family gathering on Sunday. They convinced Eden to kiss about four or five of them- right on the lips!


Ronny's Opa died on Easter Monday (yesterday). How beautiful that he died on a weekend full of promise. Because Jesus rose again, we will be reunited with Opa in heaven! Opa loved Jesus and now he is face to face with Him:)

Timmy... the escape artist

This week, Timmy found a way out of his cage in the basement. Of course, there were lots of tears from Evie. Everytime she cries, she could fill a bathtub with her tears- it's crazy! Actually, in the midst of her crying episode, she reminded me of our recent science lesson on how our bodies are made up of 2/3rds water. I told her that she must have a little more than the average person causing the overflow in tears! Anyhow, I was certain that Timmy was gone for good and told her that I'd buy her a new hamster. She was devastated... no hamster could replace her Timmy! She said that she understood how I felt when I lost my hamster as a child. She also mentioned that my loss was much worse since I watched a cat run off with my hamster! Thankfully, the same day Timmy disappeared, Ronny found him again. He switched the basement light on at around 11 pm and found Timmy in the middle of the basement floor. Evie was so happy in the morning to find her beloved hamster fast asleep in his cage.

Sniffle Sniffle...

When Elijah has a cold, like he does now, he carries the tissue box wherever he goes. I don't know why but I find it so funny to seem him playing with his toys on the floor with the tissues right beside him. He panics if they aren't in arm's reach!



This morning, Elijah and I were discussing how God made every part of us. Our discussion went like this:

Mommy- "What did God make your eyes for, Elijah?"

Elijah- "For seeing!"

Mommy- "That's right! What are your feet useful for?"

Elijah- "For walking."

Mommy- "Good! What about your nose?"

Elijah- "For blowing"

Yep, that sums it up for him right now! Can't wait until cold season is over!

I had to laugh when Evie brought her paper home that she made in Sunday school. I think she's gettting sick of the sight of snot too!
She drew herself and Eden. She's crying as she's looking at Eden and the caption says, "EWWW mommy... I see Boogers!"

Daredevil!

Last week we went sledding again (with much better success!).
Of all the kids, we weren't sure how Eden would like it... turns out that she loved it the most! The other two seemed to get bored of it quickly. Eden couldn't get enough.

Ronny even sent her down on her own! She kept letting go of the wheel and falling back. She wanted to do it over and over.




Mmmmm... hot chocolate:)

A Sleddin' we will go...

or maybe not!
We were so excited to FINALLY get a decent snow fall... something we've been waiting for all winter. You'd think that moving into a snow belt, we'd have snow! February is almost over and we finally ventured out on our first tobogganing trip.
The outing started out as usual. We bundled Eden up and she undressed herself before we got there. Typical. I remember each of the kids doing this at the same age. It's annoying when you're running lots of errands and you have to dig for socks and shoes every time you stop the car!






The snow hill is affectionately called Mt. Trashmore since it was the dump site until the city decided to turn it into a snow hill and bike park. You can see Ronny pulling the other kids up the hill in the distance.



We should have waited until the snow stopped blowing because the kids were crying right away. It hurt when the snow hit their little faces. We made it up the hill and decided to not even ride down as it would hurt the kids faces too much. Suddenly Elijah disappeared on us while we were talking at the top of the hill. He apparently nudged himself on the GT until he started racing down the hill (backwards). He's always been a little daredevil on the snow hills.

Ronny chased after him, thinking he hadn't done it on purpose (and worried that Elijah would be terrified). I walked back down the hill with the girls and headed toward the van. Thus ended our first tobogganing adventure of the year!

Daddy Love!

The kids have made these cute mailboxes for daddy and taped them to the wall. When he comes home from work, the first thing he does is check his 'mailboxes'. The kids giggle and jump around as he gathers up all his mail (there's usually quite a stash). I love how Evie wrote 'daddy' in cursive.


Then daddy sits on the couch and admires every single piece as they snuggle all around him.


Ronny figures that we should change Eden's name to "Eben" since Evie can never spell it right:)

Home Made Ice Cream

We're so fortunate to live on a Dairy farm. My dad keeps us well supplied in beef and of course, farm fresh milk! My sister in law Sheryl gave us an ice cream maker a few years ago and it's been fun to make our own ice cream. Ronny is very particular about his quality ice cream... Haagen Daz has always been his favourite. But he says that our home made stuff tops all:)

First things first, gotta milk the cows! We don't actually milk by hand... I was having fun squirting the milk at Evie while she snapped this picture though!



We fill a 5 gallon pail with fresh milk and let it sit in the pretty barn fridge for two days. This gives the milk a chance to separate with the cream rising to the top.







                                         

We make our strawberry mixture in the blender: strawberries, lemon juice, vanilla and sugar.

And puree it.






The kids tell me about 20 times that it's finished because they just can't wait any longer to dig in! It actually takes about 20 minutes for the ice cream maker to churn it.




And the best part of all....