A letter to my girls

My Dear Girls,

I hope that you will always remain as good friends as you are in this moment. I hope that you will remember these people that will be your best friends forever and treat them as that. Though your personalities are so different there are many ways that you are the same. I hope that despite the differences you will look for the good things in each other and value your sisters for those things.

I hope that you will support each other through things that you will experience in this life; through sadness, loss, happiness and all other things that you will experience. I hope that these things will help to bring you closer to each other and help you through.

I want you to know how blessed you are to have sisters. To be able to learn so much from each other, to have someone to play with, someone there to stick up for you and to help you to accomplish many things. No matter how your path goes in life, you will become who you are because of your sisters. Your have many family members that love you but none of them are the same as a sister. May you cherish and enjoy each other for now and always, that is my greatest wish.

Love your Mother!

Let It Snow!!

We have spent a few days out enjoying the wonder of winter. It has been really a perfect winter as we have had a whole bunch of snow but it hasn't been really that cold. I love the snow but an mot a big fan of the cold as the we can go out and play! We have been sledding, out for walks and making snowmen. Marshall really loves to be in his little snowsuit as well (I haven't managed to get a picture of it but it is cute on him.) He sees his little hands all covered up and he waves them in front of his face. He has been happy all of the times that we have had him outside in it. It has been really fun!

Well here is some of our playing out in the snow!

Elliette was building her snowman but is kept falling over. She was quite mad about this. She is such an outside girl though. She gets on all of her gear and goes out into the backyard to play a few times a day. She will do that all by herself or if her sisters will come but she just loves to be out. She has been playing in the mud, rocks and sand under the deck and then comes in to wash her toys for the next long while when she is done playing that game. It is cute and she entertains herself so well but it sure makes a huge mess with cakes mud all over the bathroom.

Kyndal with her masterpiece. She has really learned how to make a snowman well. It is fun to watch and see them gaining these building skills, like rolling the ball through the snow, stacking them and making support for it to stay on the other and then the decorating, even getting the carrot to stay in place was a problem that she learned to solve. Great learning out in the snow!


We then decided to go sledding in the font yard.

It was fun to be able to sled and not have to go anywhere.

The only problem was that there is a road at the bottom. Obviously I didn't want the kids sledding into the road. They had to stop at the sidewalk.

Elliette had a few runs as well.

The only problem was that doing this later the sidewalk was covered in snow and they slid right over it. Elliette ended up sledding right into a parked car and that hard, frozen, piece of metal sure made a huge goose-egg on her head. She had the biggest lump and bruise on her head for a week and a half after that. Maybe sledding in the front yard is not such a good idea! It was fun while it lasted.

Smiles!

It can be so tricky to get a picture of Marshall smiling. He gets very focused on the camera and won't look at me again to smile. He smiles whenever he gets a face in view. He lets out this funny squealing laugh. He is sure a sweet boy. And what a boy he is! His favorite thing to do is to get his diaper changed, he smiles and laughs the whole time. This is my first babe to enjoy that so much.

He has great big dimples on both sides. They are just so cute!

Kyndal entertains him so that I can get a picture!

Mad face, Happy face!

Sometimes I miss getting many pictures of our little Dawsyn. She isn't one to pose and ask to have her picture taken like the big girls. She is more likely to be off trying to get into something then trying to get Marshall to smile when I most often remember to get out my camera. But she is such a funny girl.

She is definitely a 2 year old, which I maybe call her this as much as her name. She is a mixture of sweet cute helpfulness and determined independent trouble. This being said she is still a pretty easy-going personality even for a 2 year old. She is now climbing out of her high chair and so mealtime is changing. She pulls up a chair to get at anything she wants in the kitchen and will keep coming back as many times as I will take her away. She will very shortly be out of her crib, so that will change bedtime. She want to go on the potty, so we got her some pull-ups and take her to go when she asks. But she wants to go at mealtime or when I am feeding the baby or some other time that is challenging. Then she wants me to stay with her while she sits on the potty for half an hour or else she just goes herself and takes of a possibly already messy diaper and you can imagine the mess she gets herself into then. Anyways, you see the Independence! She is so funny though. She loves to dance and asks me to put on music to dance multiple times per day. She want to be right there helping me with anything that I may be doing, cooking, cleaning, laundry and baby care, she is right there, with a chair, or holding my leg, getting her hands right into whatever I am doing. She is my shadow and wants to be involved. She is very cute.

She is talking so well and sometimes says things that are funny but no so funny for example if we find that someone has done something not very nice, like peel and squish up 5 oranges or cut up paper all over the place and I ask "Who did this?" Dawsyn will reply in her cute sweet little voice with all the innocence that you can imagine "Not me, Ellie did it" or great grandpa or Kyndal or whoever, she will blame it on each of us and will never say that she did it. She also will come to me and say "Daddy Kick me!" she sometimes says this even when Daddy is driving the car and is impossible for him to have kicked her. She is funny. She comes crying to me whenever someone else is hurt or crying and says "I'n sad too" She is very empathetic towards others, much more then my big girls still are, that is something that Dawsyn is very good at.

Here is one of the funny things that she does that I managed to get a picture of.

This is her mad face.

Then her happy face.


Mad face!

Happy face!

It is all in the eyebrows. It is so funny! I am thankful to have this sweet 2 year old to make me laugh and help me to learn patience.

Our life!

Wow, time is going by so fast. I think that I am keeping up to date here and then a month has gone by. I have been keeping really busy this month. I have been exercising, going to do hot yoga 2-3 times per week. It has felt so good to feel stronger. I feel really motivated to work on my post baby body. It is a process that I am happy to feel like I am doing something to take care of myself. We'll see what I'll do the next while to work on this. I'll see.


Anyways, here is an update of our busy lives. We are getting over a cold that has circulated around this house, even Grandpa has been feeling sickly. So we took a few days off of this week. It is great to get a sick day, to watch TV and not feel guilty because it is a sick day. Marshall has also had a few weeks now of quite poor nights sleep. I don't function well with getting up at least 3 times per night (plus if other kids get up and wake me up!?!) and even less functioning when he was up crying from about 3-7am the other night. That really doesn't help. So we are getting ready for a new week! With more sleep, less sickies, more school work and more Christmas things!! We did decorate this week, and get all the spare things put away (including lots of breakable things that aren't being put out, for you to be sure to have when you come back Mom!)

So here are my sweet kids the last little while. They are just so cute. When I look at their pictures I forget all of the rascally things that I get frustrated about. All I can remember in the moments of looking at them here is just how cute and sweet they are, how I am so blessed to be their mother and how much joy they truly bring into my life. I need more of these moments to appreciate the great blessing that my dear kids are how fast the time with them so young and sweet is passing. I need more of these moments to savour and enjoy my life with them. So here are some of the sweet moments of our lives that remind me how blessed I am!!

My girls love their baby brother so much! I think that he looks so much like Elliette. You can also see how big Marshall is getting, he sure looks long, all sitting up next to Elliette.

The girls sharing in Daddy's favorite activity, sleeping in. He is the king of this activity! It is appreciated more when it is time spent with the girls.

Having some special Daddy-Daughter time!

She is a good pretender!

Him and I are both working on our exercise time.

We spend a lot of time these days playing with Marshall as he is so easily keeping us entertained. He is happy to keep dishing out those smiles as long as we will talk to him. (Of course when I try to get the camera out he doesn't make it so easy.)


He laughs and squeals a lot as well. It is just so fun and cute. He is sure settling into a very happy baby. He is easier to get to sleep and entertain and just overall a pretty content boy. He definitely still has his concerned eyebrows but more often now he is looking around contented rather the concerned looking. He is very funny!

We are working hard to get a picture of his smile.

She sure loves her brother.

October Celebrations!

It is so fun to have Elliette's birthday so close to Halloween. We have always had a costume party for it. It is great to be able to have the kids wear their costumes more and sure makes it fun for them. This year we did a theme of dressing up and for her party. It was Dr. Seuss! Kyndal and Elliette were Thing 1 and Thing 2, Dawsyn was the Cat in the Hat and Marshall and I had hats as well. I told Paul that we were going to paint his face green and make him the Grinch. His refusal made it more true that he was the Grinch!! It was sure fun, especially for me. We got out of the library a whole bunch of books that we haven't read before like the Sleep Book, I had trouble in getting to Solla Sollew and the Sneetches. They were really fun. We have also been reading The Lorax a lot lately. Elliette picked it the other day when we were at the bookstore. It is so great!!

So at Elliette's party I was really excited to have it be like a book study. We decorated the house with signs that pointed the way to different Dr. Seuss places and warnings of things from his books like; Watch out for the Pants Eating Plants!! Sneetches crossing, and Sam-I-Am this way. The girls even got so excited and were writing their own signs, copying from the titles of different Dr. Seuss books. Kyndal wrote out a bunch of games that she made up from the books. We played a story telling game, like how the story gets bigger and bigger in And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street. We read the Lorax and made our own Truffula trees and guessed how many Truffula tufts were in the jar. We then read Green Eggs and Ham and played a scavenger Hunt of matching the rhyming words from that story. It was great that the kids had to read, write and think about rhyming and didn`t once complain about any of it. I love how we can learn and not even notice if we say it is a game. We ate Roast Beast (pulled pork) and then had a special Green Eggs and Ham cake. It was so fun!

Our little Thing 2

Marshall got a hat as well. Though this is the extent that he wore it as I didn't manage to put an elastic on it.

Turner is such a good sport. He came on time for the party starting even though the games were for the kids. He always has such fun Halloween costumes.




Amber makes a natural Pippy Long Stocking!! I loved that hair. She kept bonking it onto things. So funny!

We didn't manage to get a picture with everybody but we are always grateful for our great friends the Laws. The kids invite their cousins and Eliza and Adaline to all their things. Friends that might as well be cousins. And Nana dressed as a baby cuddling their sweet babe Clara.


Does she look excited?


She was trying so hard to blow out those sparklers. It was so cute!!

Here is a better view of the cake. It was so fun to make. I love the Green Eggs and Ham book.

Elliette wanted a Rainbow cake. So here it is! There was more purple but I had to level the cakes to stack them and that took off most of the purple. It was yummy for me to eat though.



Truffula tufts and trees.

All of the Dr. Seuss books we had.



For Halloween the kids dressed up again in their Cat in the Hat attire and out we went. Thankfully it was quite a warm day (high of 9 I think) as the kids costumes were warm enough. They were just so cute, Elliette running the fastest from door to door, I could hardly keep up with her. Especially as Dawsyn was so great at using her manners, saying Trick-or-treat, the saying Happy Halloween and Thank you. She was so cute and got a lot of compliments at each house. Then I would pick her up and run to catch up with her sisters running ahead. Once we got back in sight of the house Kyndal was finished, just wanting to get home and eat her candy. Elliette and Dawsyn did a few more houses and then headed back home. It was a really great time. Kids are what make every holiday extra special. Getting to enjoy things from their perspective and the excitement that they bring to everything. It was great, other then eating candy until we all felt sick, but at least it is through now!!

They are so excite! You would think they had already eaten a tonne of candy.










So we had a great birthday and Halloween! It is just so crazy that my little Elliette is 5 now!! She is still so little (on the 7th percentile for weight (32lbs) and less than 5th for height (98cm)) She is just such a funny little personality!! She is wild and crazy, very physical little girl, always hanging upside down off the couch or jumping from anything, a fast little runner, she is just always going. She is sure also showing us how smart she is. It is great to see that the things you are teaching are actually sinking in. She is excited to do her kindergarten work and is gaining so much confidence in her reading. It is so great to see! Well, we are sure glad to have her and help her grow. We sure love our little Eggie!

Elliette was even smaller then little Marshall here when she was born. I just can't believe that she is getting so big. It is always as odd feeling that my kids are getting so big yet they are still so small. That is definitely the case with Elliette.