Growing up

Okay, seriously...when did this girl grow up!!
I have been thinking lately about how quickly these little people are growing up. This time next year Megan will be starting Kindergarten. I just can't believe that! The day she was born is still so vivid in my mind. Now she is such a big girl! The things she says and comes up with sometimes blow my mind. She is one smart cookie:)
I attempted to french braid her hair this week! It's a wee bit too short yet, but I'll keep trying...
Yesterday, my friend Colleen and I and all the kids went to the park to play and to see the Kokannee spawn! I thought the girls would really like to see all the fish.
Marty had a little nap in the stroller, but when he woke up he wanted out!! He wants to see and do everything that the girls do...he's one busy boy:)
I think they enjoyed the park more than the seeing the fish! But, there were lots of elementary school kids there to see the fish too and it was BUSY. It was hard to keep track of our kids. We still had a fun time!!On Tuesday, I packed up a picnic and we headed out for a walk to the park and lunch. The kids loved it! The 2 littles ones were in the stroller and Megan walked with me. She is such a big helper! Marty loves going in the swing now. Gabby was even giving him underducks:)
I thought this picture was so cute, they were posing so nicely for me!The weather has been SO nice lately! I can't believe it is the end of September already, but it still feels like summer. We have been spending lots of time outside...while we can!
Always a funny face with this one...Marty is enjoying biting on the coffee table these days, must feel good on his new teeth!Daddy and his boy!Meggie likes to play "baby" with Marty...here he is in the doll shopping cart!Fresh out of the bath and all smiles!It's not too often that Gabby sits still long enough to get a picture!I can't remember if I blogged about some new things I've picked up for our house lately! I bought new comforters for the girls, for their bunkbeds a few months ago. I wanted to get them matching ones and I found a great deal at Jysk...they only cost $10 each!And I bought this bookshelf at Ikea when I was down at the coast earlier this month. I love it!Okay...the littles ones are up from their naps now...I better run!

Updates on the kiddies

Now, it's been a few weeks since I posted again...the weeks just seem to fly by!!

Yesterday, Marty turned 7 months old. I can't believe how fast he is growing up. He is crawling everywhere now and he is fast!! We always have to close the gate at the stairs and keep small objects off the floor. The other day, one of the girls dropped a muffin on the floor and he got to it faster than me and I found him munching on it!
I have dropped one of his feeds now because he is eating food...well, cereal and some veggies! I nurse him 4 times a day now and he gets breakfast and dinner. He had green beans for the first time this last week and he loved them! He's not a big fan of the oatmeal or barley cereal and sweet potatoes are s0-s0! Today I started giving him pears.
He has 2 teeth now (bottom ones). He doesn't seem to be affected by teething at all, same as with the girls! I never knew when they were teething, I would just see something white in their mouths one day and it would be a tooth! He continues to sleep like a dream. He goes down about 7:30 or 8pm and gets up about 8am. And the girls have been sleeping until about 7am, and I love that!We are still in the midst of potty training with Gabby. Lately, she has been having more pee accidents:( I think she gets too busy playing and having fun that she forgets to go pee. Today we were at a little birthday party for a friend of hers and she peed her pants and then just took off her panties and jeans and was running around half naked! I think I just have to be more consistent with her and take her to the potty every hour or so until she gets it. She does great with #2 and I don't think she has had an accident with that for a couple of months now!

Gabby is talking more and more every day! She is talking in sentences now and it's so cute. She has so much personality and always makes us laugh. She's still tiny and sometimes I can't believe it because she eats like a horse! I think she eats about what I eat!! Often at dinner, she will have 3 helpings of food. She's still napping at least a few hours every day and I'm so thankful for that. I think Meggie stopped napping around this age and I'm totally not ready for Gabby to give it up yet!Megs is so much fun these days! She is behaving very well and loves to take care of her sister and brother! She is always telling them how much she loves them...it's adorable! She has such a caring and sensitive spirit. She's really enjoying helping in the kitchen lately. She likes to stir things and peel vegetables. I like it when she helps me, but as soon as she helps out, you know who is right on her heels!! And having 2 littles ones in the kitchen makes so much more work for me.
We went out to our friends family cabin again yesterday and the kids had a blast! They love playing with their friends. The 3 oldest kids got to ride in the boat while the daddies went waterskiing. Then when they got back they played "chase" around the yard for such a long time. They got all their energy out and slept so great last night!
Here's Jeff getting ready to ski...he got up once, and we cheered for him and he waved to us and lost his balance and fell!Here's Isaac...it was a beautiful evening and made for some nice picture!And Basil...he's an awesome water skier! Very impressive to watch...This past week we were out of the house every day for the whole day because we were having our roof redone. It was quite noisy so I left the house so the kids could nap in a quieter place. For 2 days we were at my parents and one day at Jeff's parents! I'm so thankful to have our parents in town!! They help us out so much.

We did get the roof redone and it's now black and looks awesome! We hadn't planned on doing it this year, but our skylight was leaking and some of the trusses and wood around it were rotting:( We decided to do the whole roof. Our buddy did it with his crew and he did a great job. Jeff did electrical work for him and now he did the roof for us...great trade off! So, now the plan is to paint the outside of the house next year. We want to look around and find the color we really want.

I think that's all for today!!

Falling Behind

Okay...I am so far behind on this blog, so this is going to be a long one! Almost 2 weeks ago, Kirsten and Malcolm came for a visit! We had such a great visit with them. It is always so good to see them, but the time always goes by too fast:( We went to my parents pool one morning for a swim. It was a hot day and the pool was so nice and warm!
The weather was so nice while they were here, so we spent lots of time outside. We enjoyed breakfast out on the deck one morning!
We ventured out to the park one morning and the boys had a great time acting like little kids!!
Thanks Kirsten and Malcolm for making the trip up here to see us!! We loved having you.
Then, 2 days later I left to go to Abbotsford to visit some friends for a few days! I did a road trip all by myself with 3 little kids and it went really well!
The drive down was pretty good...I only had to stop once to turn on the DVD player for the girls. Marty had a little nap, but towards the end of the drive he was getting a little fussy in his carseat and was ready to get out. I didn't blame him!
We had a great visit with friends! Out girls had a blast playing with their girls. They especially loved the trampoline and polly pockets!
We drove out to Birchwood Dairy one afternoon to get some ice cream and let the kids feed the animals! I got the girls cotton candy flavored ice cream and it was pink and it got everywhere!! They were such a mess and when we got back home I put them right into the bathtub.
The day we got there, the weather was so nice! The kids played in the pool and on the trampoline with water...


Their girls were so good with Marty and they loved to hold and cuddle him! The one day, Leanne and I drove out to Ikea and Old Navy to do a little shopping. Call us crazy, but we shopped with 6 kids between the 2 of us! At Ikea we dropped 4 of the kids off at the play place and we just had the youngest 2 for about an hour. Then we picked the kids up and went to pay for our stuff and have some lunch. It was a little chaotic, but we managed!!
Thanks so much Rob and Leanne for having us! We all had a great time...but we did miss daddy and were happy to see him! We came home last Wednesday in time for Jeff and I to celebrate our 9th anniversary. I can't believe it's been that long, but I really can't remember life without him! I love him with all my heart and am SO thankful that God gave him to me. I am Blessed:)
Every Tuesday, I get together with 4 other moms and all our kids(there are 11 between all of us!) We have been doing this for over a year and we love it! It is great for the kids to play together and maybe even greater for us moms. We have such a great time chatting and hanging out! I am so thankful for these mom's in my life:) Here is a picture of all 5 of us...take note that one of the kids took this picture, so it's a little far away!
And this past weekend we had a bridal shower for Anne(my soon to be sis-in-law!) and Jeff had a bachelor party for his brother, Curt. Jeff's other brother, Eric and his wife also came up for the weekend. It is always so nice to be together with family!
The boys went paintballing on Saturday while we had the bridal shower and then we all met up at our place afterwards for dinner and the evening! I think we had about 30 people over for dinner...the house was packed! I was hoping to have dinner outside, but it was raining.
Jeff also bought rock band for his Playstation and it got a lot of use over the weekend. We had so much fun playing it!
The ladies of the family playing dutch blitz...we love that game!The girls wanted to have "crowns" in their hair for church on Sunday...And now we are back to routine and trying to recover from not enough sleep over the weekend. For 2 nights this weekend I went to bed around midnight and that it SO late for me...but it was worth it! I'll try to stay more updated with the blog, so my posts are not so long:)

Thanks for reading...please leave a comment. I love to know who reads my blog!!