Not so much our baby any more...

Jordan, player of the "etar" (translation = guitar),

now sleeping for the most part in his big boy bed,

lover of eating-icing-straight-from-the-container (cupcakes are optional!),

is our littlest "big boy".

Christmas pictures...

It's a good thing we went digital... our Christmas photoshoot was a little crazy!

These little Gomers are some cute, though!!

Homemade ornaments

Our friend Linda found a great recipe for salt dough ornaments for the Little Seedlings to make, so we've been busy making some at home as well to decorate our tree.

We always had homemade ornaments on our tree growing up...I love that the kids get to help create ornaments that we can then proudly display on our tree.

By the way, Jude now wears his hat to the side because "it's cool" :) It was very cold the other day so he wore his ball cap over his face mask. His hat and Diego vest are the first things he puts on in the morning and the last things he takes off before bed.

Our Christmas tree

The past few weeks have been full of Christmas concerts and Christmas parties (and a few birthday parties!), watching the parade of lights while sipping hot chocolate & eating homemade cookies with friends, making cookies & homemade ornaments, & making Christmas gifts. We also selected (from a tree lot where nice people have already done the chopping down... we're not quite at the cut-down-your-own-tree stage with the kids... I know our limits!), set up & decorated our family Christmas tree, claiming a spot in our addition for the very first time! Although more challenging to clean up & prickly to decorate, we love Scotch pine Christmas trees.

Jordan's 2nd Birthday!!

We had Jordan's birthday party last Saturday. Friday night he developed a cold with a runny nose and watery eyes... there aren't many pictures of him smiling (kind of like his first birthday, when he was also sick...), but he did have fun. Although he wasn't into blowing out the candles, he was into eating numerous pieces of cake, several hotdogs & all-dressed chips! Happy birthday sweet boy!

The Gomers...

The past little while has flown by...there's been dissertation revisions & shower tiling, organizing a playschool fundraiser & installing a wood ceiling, attending a Sr. Kindergarten family tea & organizing a fire truck birthday party for our little Jordy...then there's all the other stuff... like buying groceries so we can make something other than pasta or toast & PB and sorting, washing, drying, folding & putting away laundry, making snacks & changing bums, researching vaccines & wiping noodles off the floor, washing dishes & cleaning kitty litter, making play forts & finding mittens...and trying to not let the day go by without sitting down and really playing with the kids... easier said than done?

In this tiring busy-ness it seems as though the important stuff (like playing Diegos & kitties) gets put on the back burner. I end up saying, "in just a minute" more often than I'd like.

The best days are the ones when I've stopped and listened more often. The days that I've stopped what I was doing to "come see!!"

At the end of the day, it's those little moments that matter most... the times when I've stopped to listen to Jude tell me that he needs to put up his hood in bed so that his hair doesn't go out the open door and play outside on his bicycle :) or agreed with Jordy when he bounced in to inform me that "Bob builder can!" It's the times that I've stopped to truly admire one of Abby's drawings and talked to her about it.

Jordan will be 2 in less than a week. Jude is already 3 1/2 and will start school next fall. Abby is almost 6! We have been blessed with amazing little people. I just have to keep reminding myself that the stuff will get done, eventually. The moments on the other hand are fleeting... I need to stop for and savour the moments.

Because it's important...

...next year, my children will all attend the Remembrance Day ceremony.

The kids go to their sitter's home on Wednesdays so I can work on my dissertation. This morning, I should have kept them home to take them to the Remembrance Day service, only a short walk from our home. We've been talking about poppies and the people who fought (and fight) to keep us safe and free. Abby heard a soldier speak at school yesterday...

Yet, there's something about watching the elderly WWII vets march in, about hearing the last post and standing in the cold that books can't explain... as a Brownie, Girl Guide & Pathfinder, we walked behing the vets, soldiers, militia, etc. on Remebrance Day and stood quietly through the entire ceremony. In high school, our band played at the ceremony. It was important. It is important. WWII vets will soon all be gone. I want our kids to experience what I did as a child. To feel the great honour and respect...to remember.

My dad lost his older brother, Maurice Lysander Wright in WWII. I remember not only the losses of our country, but also what the loss of his older brother meant to my dad... I want our kids to know & to remember.

Beauty

Last week was a long week... a humbling, frustrating week.

I had to rely on God and not my own strength so much more last week.

Last week, God helped me be a good mother despite staying up late to work on dissertation revisions.

God helped my children to play together amazingly well for extended periods of time so I could stay focussed on more than a sentence at a time.

God helped me see beauty in my children's smiley eyes...

in their cuddles with their Daddy...

...in the beauty of a sunrise.... and so much more. Thanks, God.

Happy Halloween!

We finally got around to carving our pumpkin this afternoon...
None of the kids were willing to reach in to gut the pumpkin.
Even with a utensil, Jude wasn't overly thrilled...

We spent about an hour collecting goodies from our neighbourhood. The kids' cuteness paid off... they'll have enough treats to last until Christmas!!

This isn't a particularly good picture of any of the kids, but it was best one we got... Jordan was very excited, so kept getting up!

Abby was a kitty for her Halloween party at school on Thursday. She opted for the warmer dog costume for trick or treating :)

Our fall in pictures (... lots of pictures!)