Life.

Here are a few pictures from the past months..........

 My 2 brown sheep, as Bryan calls them.

 Victoria and Alicia at the Battle of the Thames. Moriah and Joel came too. It was quite the day, one I know my sister will never forget. Hannah (her daughter) went missing for what seemed like forever, and we really don't know how long maybe an hour give or take. Everyone was looking for her but she wasn't turning up. It was so frightening especially as time went on. Nicole finally found her at their van, which was quite a ways away. Moral of the story, always have a meeting spot for your children where ever you go!!
 The next night Bryan and I went to an 1812 Ball, it was so much fun. We went with our good friends and had a great time! We have been teaching the girls what we can remember and would so love to do it again! Next time we want period clothing!

 We celebrated Victoria's birthday day a little early with Bryan's family, Victoria made a butterfly cake.

 Alicia enjoying her cousin Daniela, she is so much smaller then Joel.

 The girls and I enjoyed a last camping trip in September, the weather was beautiful and we had a wonderful time. Bryan came out in the evenings and we had a few visitors in the day.

 

 Our yearly (if it works) trip to Greenview Aviaries, here are Victoria, Alicia, Noah, Moriah, Hannah, Cassia, Titus, Ellia, and Esther. We later found out how dangers this ride can be, when Nicole and I thought we would give Titus and Cassia a fast ride and Titus fell forward and cut his lip. Nicole took off to the Doctor while Mom and I watched the rest of the children.

 Bryan likes to take the girls swimming during the cooler months to the local public pool. The girls love it and I love that he washes their hair after! Swimming is out for the next little while as Bryan dislocated his shoulder yet again(4th time in 5 years).

 Joel was not often in the wrap, but when he needed to go in it I was very thankful for it. I think I am making supper here. Notice my THM book in the back ground. We are really enjoying their way of cooking and eating!

 This was from the summer, but you will still find me sitting and kissing those chubby cheeks! He is so sweet and kissable! He is also into everything now, at least that he can crawl to or pull up to his knees at.

 We had our first hay harvest, doesn't this picture look so country! Unfortunately the hay was too wet and most of it was not used. But it was fun to watch!

 We had 2 extra munchkins for a weekend. An almost 4 year old boy and a 1 year old girl. It made things extra busy, but I did enjoy it too. You can tell this picture was taken on a Saturday night, the girls love rollers in their hair so they can have curls on Sunday.

I have so many pictures of our little man, the girls love to use the camera! This one I just love and have thought of framing, but don't know where I would put it.

 Well, that is a little of 'catch up' for not being on here lately. Life continues to fly by and keep me very busy. I have felt bogged down by all that needs to be done around here and the fact that the girls have not been helping out enough. I gave Bryan a call at work one day for some advice about what to do with one of our girls and to let him know how overwhelmed I was feeling and he gave me some great advice! Instead of giving the girls individual chores and work times, we all work together. I do assign different jobs at the moment, like V- washes the dishes, A - dries, M - loads the dishwasher, but we all work together. I am really liking it and the house is staying cleaner. It has only been 2 days so we will see how it goes.
 I had better go as my husband is home and ready for his supper.

May Camping

I have had these pictures ready to post since the week after we went camping but have never come back to write and then post our camping adventures. So better late then never.......lets see if I can remember what all happened that weekend!

 

So back...way back on the Victoria Day long weekend we decided to back up and head to the USA for a weekend of camping. It had been a long time since we used our trailer, but I was happy to find that the spiders had not taken it over. Actually the camper was pretty clean. We never used our camping last year as I was too sick with the pregnancy. We had beautiful weather, it actually got pretty hot. The only down fall was I had prepared for cold weather with our meals like soups and stews and it was too hot to eat that. We ended up having just cereal one night! Here I thought I was doing so well because I had made all the meals up before hand!!

Our Ellia boo, she did so well! I was worried that she would keep running off but she stayed pretty close by. No one camped to close to us, I wonder if seeing all the children made them stay away!! So the girls had a couple camp sites to play on.

Our Joel......what a cutie and so very sweet, I could just kiss those cheeks all day long!! He was as good as gold and a delight to take with!!

A game of Risk one afternoon. Bryan loves playing games with the girls. He is very patient with them, I am usually too busy with the little ones to play. This time I did try to sit down, but if I remember correctly this game ended with Bryan and Victoria as I had to keep my eye on Ellia and feed Joel and the other girls got bored and went off to do other things.

An afternoon (well only a few hours) at the beach on Sunday. When I booked the camp ground I looked up a church for us to attend and found a little Baptist church close by. It was fun to visit as the congregation was very friendly. The service was very different then what we are use to, but the love was the same. We had driven by a beautiful splash pad on the way to church but it was not opened yet so we went to the tiny beach at the campground.

A few of these big boats went by, causing some nice waves for the girls to play in.

This was the first time Bryan and I just sat and watched our girls play at the beach. It was really nice!! The girls met a couple of new friends and had fun playing in the waves and making sandcastles.

Cassia master riding a bike with training wheels and would ride back and forth between our campsite and the one next to us. She was pretty proud of herself and very disappointed that we would never let her bike when we went for family bike rides. She is not fast enough for that yet!

I sure do love our excersaucer! All of our kids have loved it and it is great for taking camping!! Lets see...........Joel would have been about 4 months here!

Nursing again!! I do feel like I nurse a lot, though it has slowed down now that he is eating more solids. I like the pictures as I know one days I will miss all the times I had to sit down to feed one of our babies!

It is never too soon to learn to read right Joel!!

Here is what a end up with on the camera when the girls are using it in the basement! Some fun wacky pictures! I enjoy letting them take the camera and snap pictures and videos of what they see and do.

Look really close at what Ellia is wearing. One beautiful Sunday morning we arrive at church and I opened the van door to behold my youngest daughter wearing a rubber boot on one foot and a shoe on the other and both are for the left foot!! Everyone got a good chuckle seeing her walking around church that Sunday and they still talk about it!! Note to self : check foot wear before going anywhere!

There ends the month of May. I am in the middle or I guess nearing the end of a painting project and we already started some school. I will try to get some pictures up again soon, more recent ones as Joel has really changed and is growing so quickly! Life is pretty busy though! Some days go really well and I think I am finally catching up and then I fall behind. I am appreciating having older girls and the help that they are. I am trying to rely on them more and train them up. The other day Moriah said to me "I can't wait to go to college" I looked at her a little surprised, we don't really talk about that. She went on "yep, I want to be a mother, I am going to go to college for that." Then looking at me not sure of herself " Do you have to go to college to be a mother??" I told her that she doesn't even need to go to college to be a mother, I could teach her even that!! :-) Lord willing all my girls will get to be Mothers some day!! Despite all the hard work it is very enjoyable!!

Busy Days

 Working on trying to get a picture of all 6 children! Not so easy! Today we are enjoying some at home time with a craft (I felt inspired), laundry, reading, and admiring our little boy.

It seems that the time is flying by, days fill up so quickly. This week has been a bad home school week, as in we have not done much. I have not been feeling well and then with Monday starting out with appointments (I ended up getting my sister to babysit for me, I didn't think we would all fit in the Dr. office), we just never got into school. We did do some math and some reading but not much. The weather was so nice the girls were outside a lot more!! Yesterday they went 'swimming' in the muddy water in the yard. They had fun and I was thankful that I got all the white parts on their clothes white again!

 Not sure why this picture is sideways, but it is so cute! Do you think they all look alike! I find the youngest two look the most like me. Especially Joel, he has the dark hair and skin like me, but his eyes are darker brown.

 Here is another girl, we kept adding a few until I decided to try all 6!

 Everyone wants to hold Joel, or be near him as much as possible. We actually have certain days for each girl to hold Joel. We call it their 'special day'. They get to get the mail, help with making meals, ride on daddy's back to bed, collect eggs and chose the movie to watch. So it is a pretty important day.

 Today our craft is making flowers out of paper towels for Bryan's grandmother. It is her birthday this weekend and we will be seeing her on Sunday afternoon. We are waiting for the paint to dry and then we will put them together, I hope it works!

 Finger painting is always exciting and it is very rare to get to do it!

 Even Ellia got to join in this time.

 Here is our 3 month old, who weighs 17lbs. 3 oz. and I think he was 26 in. long. He gets up once a night and naps about 3 times a day. He is so happy and content and we just love to kiss him all the time. We love our little boy!

 Here is my now 2 year old! When I got the excersaucer out for Joel I knew she would climb in as all the girls have done before her. Usually they climb in and then 2 seconds later scream to get out. Not Ellia, she seems to really enjoy it. I like it because I know she can't get into anything!! Unfortunately she can often get out on her own now!

 Ellia loves it when Daddy brings home pizza. So for a birthday supper we had pizza! I love it when the girls want pizza from the store because then I don't have to cook!! And we found out that when you buy pizza during the week it is cheaper then on the weekend!! So guess what Cassia wants for her birthday?

 

 Meet Jeffery and Joel, Jeffrey was born 3 months before Joel, can you tell? Jeffery's mom had given me a lot of his newborn clothes, but when Joel was born he was the same size that Jeffery was at that time, so we were not able to use any of his hand-me-downs! I passed them on to a lady in our homeschool group who does foster care and has a sweet little, tiny, newborn baby boy.

 My 2 youngest, Ellia loves her baby brother, sometimes a little too much!! She often asks where "buddy boy" or "baby Doel" is. She gets very excited to see him. There is a huge difference between these two, but I hope they will grow to be great friends!

 My pictures got a little mixed up, this is from Ellia's birthday supper. We love to eat pizza and watch a movie, thanks to Daddy! I am pretty surprised at how much pizza our family can eat when we buy it, but when I make it we eat a lot less!! Maybe because I try to make healthy pizza with whole wheat flour, and lots of veggies on it!!

 All the girls in our church are very excited for the upcoming wedding of Matt and Jessica. We had a bridal shower for her at my parents house a week or so ago and the girls were pretty excited about that too! The girls all crowded around to watch her open presents and she was very sweet taking her time and letting them see what she got or even help open the gifts.

 

We all love any excuse to get together, but this one was especially fun. We are all looking forward to the wedding in June!

 

So that is what we have been up to lately. We are loving the spring weather and are looking forward to camping. I always get so excited about camping this time of year! We hope to go in May for the long weekend. I know I vowed to never go camping with a nursing baby again, but Joel is so good that I think it will be okay!! It is only for the weekend, so we shall see.

 

Swimming with Daddy

 

Sometimes I have wished that Bryan was like some of those husbands that help with dishes, laundry or cooking. Bryan doesn't do those things, at least not very often. He bought me a dishwasher because he really does not like doing dishes. He does like a clean house, so in the past when things have gotten really bad he has pitched in. Like this past week when I had to go away in the evening with the 3 oldest girls and I had not managed my time very well, leaving the house a disaster! I really did not expect Bryan to clean up. To my surprise not only did he do the dishes and clean up the toys but he even vacuumed too!! That was so nice! But that is all beside the point. We are all different in what we can and want to do! Not a lot of husbands who do all those things would do what my husband is doing right now! He took all 5 of our girls swimming at our local pool! That is five girls between the ages of 2 and 8 years of age! I really did not expect him to take Ellia, but was very thankful that he did. The girls love to go and since it has been rainy and cold this week they have not been out much. I have been extra tired due to a too busy weekend and then some late nights this week. They really needed to get out and get some exercise. I know that Bryan would have never thought he could take all 5, but I love that he does it and it really helps me out, plus the girls have not seen much of him this week so it is great for them all!

This was taken when we were in Toronto. At the local pool the girls can touch and they have life jackets for the little girls. There is also a big slide and a little slide and lots of toys. We also love the family change room that has a shower in it. Bryan even washes the girls hair for me!!

Here you can see the 3 oldest girls clinging to Bryan, this use to be how swimming was for us. Many children piled on pulling every which way and holding on for dear life!! But now they are swimming (at least if they can touch or with a life jacket). The girls can stay in the pool for hours, jumping in and just playing around! I am really looking forward to this summer.

 

 As to me, I am not feeling so great. I am on my way to a nice hot bath with Epsom salts. I have a sore throat and am very tired. Also, I was nursing Joel and looking down at him and brought my head up and pulled something in my neck, so I can't move it to the right at all. I am hoping the bath will warm me up and relive some of the tightness in my neck.

 

Joel continues to be a sweet content baby! Almost sleeping through the night, last feeding between 9 and 10 pm and then sleeping until 5am. He is smiling more and cooing! He enjoys his excersaucer and mat with toys hanging over him. I take him to the Dr. this week for a check up so I can find out how much he weighs! Monday is the day, we have dentist appointments for the 4 oldest girls in the morning and Joel's appointment with the Dr. in the afternoon! I am taking all 6 kids to both appointments, so I shall see how it will go! I am planning on bringing lots of snacks and drinks to keep every one happy!

Trip to the Mall and the flu

I happen to have a husband who enjoys shopping and buying things for his girls. He has been wanting to go to the states for a while to do some shopping as there were a few things we wanted that we couldn't get in Canada. So I suggested we go as a family for our birthdays. I have to admit that shopping with 6 children does not sound all that fun to me, but I was preparing myself to just focus on having fun and not on actually looking for things. The week before out trip we went to some friends and we ended up getting the flu from them. Moriah came down with it on Wednesday. It seemed to happen 3 days after being exposed. So I kind of figured one of the other girls would come down with it on Saturday. I continued as planned preparing for our trip. I had the house cleaned, meals for the weekend made and extra clothes, buckets, and paper towels packed. I knew Bryan really wanted to go and the older girls were really looking forward to it as well. Friday night Joel was up every few hours and Cassia started throwing up. Saturday morning Cassia seemed pretty good, she was talking and looking fine. So away we went. We got about 30 min. from home and Ellia started throwing up. This would have been a good time to turn around, but being the way I am (stubborn) we continued on after getting Ellia all cleaned up. I figured we would just not feed the girls then they wouldn't throw up. I had 2 strollers so they could each go in one and I could carry Joel (I had forgotten my wrap). We got to the border with Ellia throwing up one more time. I was beginning to wish I had stayed home with the 3 youngest, but we kept going. We got to the mall and to my great surprise we really had a great time. It wasn't too busy, the girls were super good, and Joel, being his usual self did wonderfully. The sick girls were quiet and slept, they are the ones who would have been the most work. We found some great deals on Sunday shoes and boots for next winter and then went for lunch.

 I commented to Bryan that I was really enjoying our day out after all. In my defense and so you don't think I am completely crazy for taking sick girls shopping, this is the first time any of our girls have had the flu. They have thrown up here and there but never the flu, so I was expecting it to be like before and everyone would be better soon. That is not how it went. I could not keep Ellia from the food and a drink and the whole time she was eating I was praying that she wouldn't throw up in the mall.

 Cassia was so sick that she didn't even want anything.  Just some snuggle time with Daddy. The other girls were so busy talking about going on the carousel ride that they didn't even notice anything else. They were busy figuring out who was going on what horse and what the horses looked like. They did realize that Cassia would not be joining them, and were only all the more happy because I said we would have to come back another time. It was so cute to see them so excited.

 Our little man, oh ,what a boy! I love him so much and it helps so much that he is so good!! He slept or was passed around between all of us who could carry him. The girls and I had fun looking for bargains and deciding what we liked and if we really needed it!! I can see many more fun shopping adventures with these girls and little man. We are gonna raise Joel up to be a very understanding husband!!

 Finally the time came for the carousel ride. They were so happy and I was rather happy that it only cost $1 a child. Daddy helped them on and then they rode by themselves. The last time we tried this Victoria was 3 years old and she cried the whole time! This was a much better experience. They loved it! Just imagine them chattering away to each other very excitedly!

 The icing on the cake was the stamp they got getting off the horses!! Of course they all wanted to go back on again! But we had a little more shopping to do. We managed to hit 2 more stores loading everyone in and out (it sure was nice having Bryan there to help!). Then we headed back home. My prayers were answered, no one threw up in the stores, but Ellia did throw up twice on the way home! I had a lot of laundry to do once I got home. I had used up all the extra clothes I had brought and a whole roll of paper towels. I really did enjoy the trip, despite the throwing up. I was ready to get everyone cleaned up and off to bed once were home.

 Sunday morning, the 2 youngest girls are still sick and I am not feeling well either. I have a horrible headache because my neck and back are so stiff from carrying Joel. He is a content, but heavy baby and I am not use to carrying him around. I am looking forward to my chiro appointment on Tuesday!

The girls are really not feeling well, Ellia has been throwing up all day. I keep telling myself not to let her eat or drink anything but she looks so pitiful that I end up giving in. I just put her to bed so I will no longer be tempted. They really did get the flu this time, fever and diarrhea and it is lasting a couple days. I am wondering if Victoria and Alicia will get it on Tuesday. I just really hope Joel doesn't get it.

 So that was our first adventure to a big mall and having the flu. Next time I think I will stay home when one of the girls starts throwing up.