The Campout

As children, one of our favorite things to do is spend time with our grandparents. So, when the opportunity arose to sleep in their bush, we eagerly accepted. Four years ago, our family moved into their house and lived with them for 10 months while they built a house just 1 km down the road on a 1 acre bush property. Now they live there, so Aunt Nicole, them, and us are all within 2 km of each other. But, back to my story.
After talking with our cousins and parents we set the date. We wanted to hurry up and do it before it got cold, so we settled for a Wednesday night. Late Wednesday afternoon, Noah, Hannah, Titus, Cassia, Moriah, Alicia, and I headed to Pake and Beppe's. They were gone but had said we could come and set up. So we set up our tents and then went back to get our stuff. Aunt Nicole kindly brought us hot dogs and chips, and we were all very excited to be able to eat supper by ourselves.

Here is the view of our camp. Boys tent to the left and girls to the right.

Titus making a hot dog. In the corner is our supper "table" filled with hot dogs and hot dog buns, chips, and drinks. Plus condiments. 

At 5:45 we got everyone together to start making our hot dogs. First though, we had to find sticks since we didn't have any roasters. We all gathered around the fire sitting on our camp chairs and Noah (as the oldest boy) prayed for our food. I did not expect him to do that, but he did and I was very proud of him! We ate a silly supper, and I'm afraid to tell you that our table manners all but disappeared. :)

In this picture Titus was telling me an exaggerated story of how he cooked a carrot on his hot dog roaster. It was a very loud and funny story, even though it was a little gross. Warning! Do not eat a fire cooked carrot on it if it has ash on it. Oh Titus!

Just after 6:30, Pake and Beppe arrived. They changed out of their fancy clothes (they had gone out to dinner) and came to join us. After supper we all went to the front to play Red Rover. Everyone played, including Pake and Beppe. They are such good sports! 

 I was playing so Hannah took some pictures.

After Red Rover we retired to the campfire, laughing and talking. But not before we took some fun pictures.

Me and Hannah

Cassia and Hannah

Me and Titus

Moriah warming up by the fire. 

Once it began to get dark and the mosquitoes made their appearance Pake and Beppe retired and we disappeared into our tents. But not before singing and dancing beneath the canopy of the trees.  We were loud children! At about 10 we fell asleep after talking in our tents for about an hour. I woke up once at 2, and then again at 6. But I was still tired and it was really cold so I told Titus to get up and make the fire. He did, and about 30 minutes later there was a roaring fire. After eating a traditional breakfast of Froot Loops and hot chocolate, we piled our stuff in Pake's truck and played outside for some time.

Alicia pushing Hannah. Some of us never bothered to change out of our p.j's.

Hannah looking at me. I was swinging while I took this picture, but it turned out pretty good.

Titus and I were playing tether ball and I must have gotten on his side! 😊 Sometimes I get kind of competitive while playing.....

There we are again.

Hannah took these pictures, since I was playing.

Moriah cheering us on. Hannah got a great picture of her.

As per tradition, Beppe drove us all home in the back of Pake's truck. After she drove the Burggraaf's home, Cassia and I laid down and I could have fallen asleep I was so comfy. I had my pillow, my stuffy, and everyone else's pillows and blankets. We got home, and Mom was nice to us and didn't make us do school. Instead we did some cleaning and just had a very relaxed day.

It was a whole lot of fun, and I look forward to doing it again next year!

And.....We're Back!

It has been a long 5 years since Mom posted. What with moving and having six children she got very busy. But now, as the oldest, I graciously offered to take up what she has started. And I have a camera so I take lots of pictures. So I will do my best to keep you posted.
As of November 12, 2018, I will be 14, Alicia is 12, Moriah is 11, Cassia is 9, Ellia is 7, and Joel is 5. We are all growing up very fast! :)

This was a picture which Mom took when we went September camping a few weeks ago.
In the past 5 years, we have managed to take a few family trips. In 2016 we went to Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick, last April we went to Toronto for a few days, and this July we went to Williamsburg, Virginia for just over a week. I will upload all those pictures so you can see what we've been up to!
We've also gone camping multiple times, the most recent in September.

We went camping in Rondeau, a provincial park less than 10 minutes away from our house, for a week. This is our campsite, and across from it was Pake and Beppe's. They came out too, as well as our cousins. It was a lot of fun.

Here is Alicia, Beppe, Joel, and Moriah playing Chrominoes on Monday. It rained a lot, but they were still able to play. Joel is a whiz at this game, even though he's only five. He is so good and he wins quite a bit. :) 

One of the things we did was fishing. As often as we could, we fished.

Our tackle-box

all opened up....

Cassia trying to figure things out. She is the bravest of us all, putting worms and hooks on and taking off fish by herself. I can do worms, but fish and hooks........ I just get Noah or Titus to do it - they are more than willing. ;)

Noah sitting patiently, waiting for a bit. It was a beautiful day. 

Another favorite of ours was swimming....even in September the water was warm, since it had had all summer to warm up. And it was a great opportunity to take pictures as well.

Well, duty calls. I need to get going on my school and customers. 

Later!

Some December Pictures

 

December flew by like most months. Here are a few of the highlights!

 

 The girls Sunday hair. It is always fun to come up with special hair styles for Sundays. They usually like rollers in their hair on Saturday nights. Victoria doesn't do it anymore since her hair does not hold the curl very well. Alicia usually does, but I think her hair was too wet this time. Victoria and Alicia have very thick hair. In this pictures Alicia has a 4 strand French braid and Victoria has something like a bun. We have checked out you tube for some neat ideas.

 We ended up with everyone sick for about 2 weeks before Christmas. The girls only had fevers and were tired so it made for lots of cozy time laying around reading or watching movies.

 We were able to make it to almost all the family gatherings. Bryan's family we had to reschedule and then I thought we were all better but the day of I was really sick but decided to go anyway and then the Moriah started feeling sick just before we left and I think had a fever by the time we got there.

 The 4 oldest girls got Lego from Bryan's mom and have been really enjoying it. We don't really have anywhere for them to play since Joel is crawling so I let them play on the dinning room table. Pieces still end up on the floor and I know I have sucked up a few with the vacuum but we try hard to not lose the little pieces.

 You will find me here in the kitchen for a big part of my day. One of the girls must have taken this picture. I feel like I need to work on the cooking as it has seemed rather boring to me lately.

I will leave with a picture of our Joel, one of his sisters decided to do his hair! I think it looks really cute but I am not ready for gel yet! I am busy enough with the 5 girls! I have been debating about cutting his hair but I think I will wait until it gets in his eyes. He has a little bit of curl in the back. I know once it is cut he will look like a little boy instead of a baby! He is getting further and further away from being a baby. He is not walking yet but is cruising more and more. He discovered the stairs so we have to keep an eye on him. He is constantly saying "yah, yah, yah" it is very cute. I hope he doesn't learn 'no' too soon, but with all the times I tell him "no" about climbing the stairs I am sure it will be his next word.

 

Homeschooling is going really well this term. I wrote out the girls schedule until for the rest of year and Victoria will be done in April and Alicia in May. Moriah and Cassia not until June. The oldest 2 do a lot on their own and I continue to work with Moriah on her reading waiting for her to catch on. She can read some but it just hasn't clicked  yet. I am slowly starting Cassia on the road to reading so we will see how it goes.

 

Life is busy here, we had a relator come through the house yesterday for some advice on what to fix up for selling our home and to let us know what we could sell the house for. We are anxious to get started on redoing our upstairs bathroom. We have to take down all the tile and put in a new tub, and flooring. The laundry room is almost done just some painting there and then Joel's room needs wall paper and the trim throughout the whole house needs some touch ups. We were happy with the price the relator thought we should be able to get as it was a little higher then we were hoping.

 

We are not sure if we will be putting the house up for sale now, but my grandparents are looking at moving so it could be any time (we are looking at buying their house). We are waiting to hear how much they want for their house to make our decision to buy it or not. So we have some big decisions to make. We really want the next house we buy to be the last, moving all the time is not a great way to save money!! :-) So we shall see what this new year will bring!! 

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!!