Sundays

We have this odd habit of always being early for church. It happens because of four things.
1- our clocks are set 10 min. fast
2- I hate being late for anything
3- we live 5 min. from church
4- our children wake us up around 7:30am (it wasn't always that way, we use to get up at 9am and still we were always early)

It usually turns out that we are between the 1st and 3rd family to arrive and sometimes when we are the 1st we drive around to waste time. I always find it amusing when people around me complain about not being able to get to church on time. I don't see the problem! :-)

I have discovered something that helps us on Sunday mornings. Sundays is the only day of the week that I 'have' to be somewhere at a certain time (unless we go away during the week, but that doesn't happen all the time) so I always get ready for Sunday mornings before they happen. I don't look at Sunday mornings as a sleeping in day (though I have slept in some Sundays) I have a set schedule to how my Sunday mornings go, this is it.

Bryan or I get the girls dressed first thing when they get up. I like to lay the girls clothes out the night before so that it is easier for Bryan.

Then I do hair either while they are eating, or before or after it depends on if we are running late.

Our breakfast use to always be waffles with a little bit of honey or syrup, no drips no mess. We grew tired of waffles all the time and have switched to bagels with butter and a very little bit of jam. Again no drips no mess. I find getting the girls dressed first gives us more time but then you have to be careful what you feed them for breakfast.

Then they get shoes on.

Bryan and I take turns getting dressed before and after breakfast, depends on who gets the girls dressed. We never take showers Sunday morning and I usually ask Bryan to shave Saturday night. I never curl my hair Sunday morning, I do it Saturday night, if I do it at all. Of course there are exceptions, but this is the norm.

We like to walk to church when the weather is nice so we have to leave between 9:15 and 9:25am. If we drive we leave at 9:30-45.

If you remember our clocks are are 10 or so min. fast so really we are leaving earlier and there for arrive earlier. I never think about our clocks being ahead when we are getting ready, like I said I like to be early or on time. I am very particular about being somewhere when I say I am. But don't worry it doesn't bother me when others aren't like that. :-)

I like being early as part of getting ready to sit down in church, is everyone going to the washroom, and since we only have 2 washrooms and our family has 3 girls, it can take time. But since we are one of the first families to arrive we get it first. Bryan always takes the girls while I get the baby ready.

So there you have it, our Sunday morning routine.

The funny thing is, it seems that we are late every time we are greeters!! :-)

Still no pictures.....

I tried again, but it isn't working to get pictures on here! I think it might be due to our slow connection. If you remember just after I started this blog we got rid or our Internet connection to just have a break from being on line. Well, I am rather embarrassed to say it only lasted like a day and half and Bryan discovered that our computer would pick up someone elses signal. It worked really well for the first month or so, but lately it is slow. Bryan and I disagree on whether or not it is okay to not be paying for Internet and since it has been slow I think we might just go ahead and pay for high speed again. I would love to have high speed for watching movies and TV. shows again.
Anyhow, all that to say I am sorry for not having pictures to show you!
We had a wonderful time at the Zoo last weekend. I was thankful that we did not take Cassia as I was pretty tired by the end of the weekend. I figured out that at least for our family the zoo is best for children over 4. We had been there for about an hour and Alicia wanted to go back to the hotel to swim. And the last half Moriah complained about being tired and I gave her piggy back rides. I did find it rather funny that after complaining about being tired on our way to have our picnic lunch. All 3 girls were running circles around us after eating their sandwiches. I didn't know that p&j sandwiches give little girls so much energy!
We spent the whole day at the zoo and enjoyed seeing all the different animals that God made. My favorite was the lion, because he actually roared for us. I had never heard a lion roar in real life before.
On Sunday we decided last min. to go to a Reformed Presbyterian church that was close by, I mean very last min. but we made it just as they were singing the first song. It was a small church and congregation and they were a delight to visit with after church. When we had arrived a little late I had noticed an older lady wearing a hat in church, after the service and just before we left she came up to me and mentioned how encouraging it was to see the girls and I wearing hats in church too. She was such a sweet lady and she made it feel like we had some sort of secret friendship since we were some of the few that still cover our heads. We get that often when we visit a church if there is another lady with a head covering. It is nice to be an encouragement to these older ladies. They were such a sweet friendly church that we would love to go back and visit. I always enjoy visiting with other church families, especially when they are small like ours!
When we got home Sunday night and we went to our own church service and found out that my parents were planning on sending Bryan to pick up a car in Kingston the next day. Kingston is 6 hours from our house 1 way. We decided that it would be nice for both Bryan and I to go since he was just driving there and back. I called our babysitter as soon as we got home and after a couple tries, got a hold of her. She was able to babysit and since we had to leave the next morning at 5am her mom brought her at 10pm Sunday night so that she could sleep over. We are so thankful for Jessica and the care that she gives our daughters and the fact that they love to have her come. The more children we have the harder it is to find a babysitter!
So Bryan and I took off at 5am Monday morning and arrived home at 6pm Monday night. We stopped for lunch but otherwise were driving that entire time. Please do not think I am complaining, it was a delightful 13 hours of no interruptions. We were able to talk and enjoy some quiet. I thought of a Erin, Rachel, and Carrie, as I drove by the exits to get to your houses and wished I could stop in for a visit. Bryan and I loved the scenery past Toronto and dreamed of living in the middle of nowhere with just our girls and living off the land! Often I wish I could be selfish and whisk of far away from everything so that Bryan and I could really enjoy our girls and watch them grow and delight even more in their growing. It does help that we have as of late been reading and watching Little House on the Prairie. I told Bryan that if Pa and Ma could build a log cabin, I am sure we could too!! IN the end we decided that in reality we should just stay where we are........at least another 2-3 years!
Tuesday I spent cleaning up from our weekend trip and doing laundry. Yesterday I did some cleaning and talked to Krista, a good friend from South Carolina. We talked for 1 hour and 45 min. Her boys slept and mine watched little house and played. We talked until my girls got too noisy and her boys woke up. Today we went away all day to my mom's and did some biking and had a picnic lunch. Tomorrow I need to finish cleaning the house as I am hosting Ladies Bible study for this month and that is tomorrow night.
And hopefully soon I will be able to show your some pictures of my sweet little girls!!

Our Moriah

I am trying to upload pictures from Cassia's 1st birthday, but for some reason it is not working, so instead I will tell you about our Moriah and what she was up to this past Sunday!
Sunday morning Alicia came to snuggle with Byran and I around 6:30am, I fell in and out of sleep after that. I thought I heard Moriah come down but since she didn't come snuggle I figured I must have been imaging it. A while later Moriah did come to our bed and I noticed that her shirt was dirty around the cuffs and her face was dirty, it looked like candy. I didn't think too much about it as Aunt Nicole had given her a sucker the night before and though she was told she couldn't eat it until after church the next day, they all had managed to get into them a little on the ride home. Bryan went and dressed the girls and then when I started to brush Moriah's hair I saw that she had a bunch of what I thought was candy in her hair! Now I was really starting to wonder how a little bit of sucker could go so far. After finishing her hair and Bryan came down with the other girls Bryan told me that it was not a sucker that Moriah had gotten all over it was JAM!! My immediate thought was why would she open the fridge and get out the jam and start eating it!? But then I realized that I had left the empty (or what I thought was empty) jar of jam out on the counter after getting a new one. So when my little Moriah came down that morning she saw that jar and remembered just how yummy jam is and she may have even remembered when her dear sweet older sister had used her finger and cleaned out a nutella container and since mommy and daddy were still in bed why not enjoy some extra jam!!
So my instincts had been right and Moriah had gotten out of bed that morning, she was too busy enjoying some jam to come snuggle!! Of course a good mother would have put her in the bath and washed her hair, but me, I just got out the water bottle sprayed the jam area and off we went to church.
But that does not end my Moriah story for that day. For that night at church after Bryan had taken Cassia out of the service Moriah found Cassia's tag blanket, it is a small blanket about 10"x10" with different shaped ribbon for Cassia to quietly play with (for some reason Cassia didn't understand the quiet part that night). Anyhow, Moriah found it and started playing with it and since I was tired and the other girls were not sitting still I just let her play with it. But then I turned to check on her and there she sat with her hat off and in its place the tag blanket. She looked so funny sitting there with the blanket on her head and then when I went to take it off her head and put her hat back on she told me that she wanted to wear the blanket. And since the blanket covered her head just like her hat I figured why argue and I let her leave it on her head. I turned to focus on the minister again and couldn't help but wonder what he would think when he scanned the congregation and saw Moriah with a blanket on her head! Eventually Moriah started playing around and put her hat back on then took it off and put the blanket on, so I did end up taking the blanket away. But I sure did have a good laugh (on the inside because we all know as a mother you have to be carefull what you let the kids know you think is funny less they repeat it and it is never as funny the second time).
So that is a little bit of what my Moriah is like! Oh, but then the other day while we were eating lunch she was sitting there not eating and I told her to hurry up and eat. She looked at me and said "Mommy, I am thinking- thinking about going to the zoo. I think about the zoo at breakfast and I think about the zoo at lunch" What a munchkin. Of course all the rest of us were thinking about the zoo too, as we are going there this Saturday. We are all very excited to sleep in a hotel and swim in the pool and visit all the animals. The girls are also very excited that we are going to have a king size bed at the hotel so that all of us can snuggle together!! We have often talked about needing a bigger bed when all the girls pile in with us in the mornings. It is so exciting to see the girls excited. So hopefully I can figure out why I can't get pictures to upload and then I can show you are pictures from the zoo too!

A Shopping Trip with 4 Girls

Today I took the girls to Fabricland, I want to make a new purse/diaper bag. So I thought it would be okay to take everyone and since we don't often have the van, away we went right when the store opened. I gave the girls the 'talk' about being good, staying close to mom, speaking quietly, and not running around. And of course the incentive of a 'treat' when we went to the Bulk Barn afterwards.
We were walking around and the girls were being very good, I was having a hard time finding what I was looking for. So we went back and forth and around the store. As I was looking at some material a man approached me and asked if the girls were all mine. I get asked this a lot when we are out and about and of course replied with a smile and a yes! I think the man was rather bored, as he seemed to be waiting for his wife, so after the usual, "you are one busy lady" he commented on how it was very different for someone to have more then 2 children. He seemed really happy to see someone with 4 children. He mentioned how we are getting immigrants instead of having our own children. I didn't really say to much, other then that we really enjoy our girls. He continued to tell me that he has a 28 year old daughter who has no desire for children, but that he would like for her to soon so that he could enjoy his grandchildren. I was a little surprised and mentioned that I too was 28 and really enjoyed being a mother to 4. That pretty much ended the conversation and we continued on our way. I still was not finding what I wanted so we went to the other end of the store and met the same man there. He commented to me that his son is 24 and not married and has no desire to marry or have children, the poor man seemed a little sad over not having grandchildren yet! He then asked me how many siblings I have and after telling him that I had 2 older brothers and a younger sister and that that was an average size, he was rather surprised and said that he thought 2 or 3 was average. I told him that I grew up in circle of 4-6 children per family. The man continued to marvel over all the children and that was the end or our conversation.
Lately I have chosen to do most of my shopping without the girls, but it was refreshing to take them with and be able to show the world that there are still families that have more then 2 kids. I am surprised that he didn't ask why they weren't in school, but I didn't want to get into all that too. I am very use to all the comments that our family gets, I think it has more to do with having all girls and that they are so close in age, but really is 4 that many!? I know a lot of families with 4 or more it doesn't seem large or out of the ordinary. But I guess outside the church it must be!
Anyhow, I wanted to post this to remind myself to not be afraid to take my children with, it can be an encouragement to other people. And it helps teach them how to behave in public.
So that was our morning, after shopping we came home and enjoyed the beautiful sunshine, playing outside and biking!