Rainbow Waterfall

Disclaimer: I'm super nervous to share this with you for fear you'll all think I'm crazy. I'm not. I'm also not a weird parent..... ok not usually anyways. I'll just carry on now.

I love having kids. I love it for countless reasons. Yesterday June Bug was in one or her dark moods. I walked through something with her, trying to make her feel better. Explaining things to a child, teaching them things is such a privilege. Isn't it often the adult who learns more in the process? Well here is what I walked through with her:

"June Bug lets imagine a beautiful place together. Let's imagine a waterfall, with a forest and lots of green around it. There is a large rock we can sit on to watch the waterfall. Close your eyes, what do you think the waterfall would sound like? Ok, now lets imagine that the waterfall is big enough that it's spraying water and if we stand on the grassy bank we can feel the spray on our faces. You know what else happens because of the spray? A rainbow! There is a rainbow coming from the waterfall and going into the sky, it's so bright! Ok, now look by the waterfall in the water, do you see Jesus standing there?

(This is where the Monkey piped up, "Yes, and he's standing on the water!") Well June Bug, you can go to Jesus. Just let him give you a hug. He wants you to go out there with him. You can talk to him. Tell him what's on your mind and what is making you so upset.

(She was quiet for a long time, eyes closed).

"June Bug did Jesus say anything to you? (No, I just talked to him) Did you know that Jesus gives gifts? He gives gifts like comfort, love, light, truth. You can ask him for a gift. You can always go to Jesus and talk to him, he loves you SOOOOoooo much!"

That was pretty much the extent of our conversation. It was so convicting for me! Why don't I go to him with the things that are making me sad, angry, confused? The worst part for me is that I know better! I'm not a child! I've experienced God, I've gotten the goosebumpy, so excited I can't sleep feeling of knowing Him. And yet I still find myself slumping around trying to do things on my own. Pretending that I'm doing just fine.

How much sweeter it is to meet with Him, our Saviour! He wants us to give him all that crap. It's why he died! And how sweet it is to be able to worship the Father because we are clean and purified!

This picture was actually taken from my first "real" Bible. I was probably 9 when I got it, and not much older when this verse hit me square in the face. I don't remember what my burdens were way back then, but the meaning has only become more clear.

Intro to my Children

Well the school season is upon us once again. June Bug is in grade one this year, the Monkey is in pre-kindergarten, which is just a pity thing I made up for him to make him feel cool. And Meatball is officially two years old as of yesterday. Wow! This is a good time to introduce my kids in case anyone other than my mom reads my blog someday. Here's hoping.

My nicknames for my kids just kind of happened after they were born. I appreciate people using initials for their kids, but I'm going to use their weird nicknames instead. We don't even use them on a day to day basis, but they work well for this space.

First up!

June Bug: She is 6 and simply lovely. Seriously, she's just amazing. She loves her little brothers and is usually super sweet to them. She's also very reliable around the house, not only to do her chores (when reminded), but also for little errands here and there.

June Bug loves adventures, princesses, stories, and anything artsy. She loves being outside even when it's -20 C, and she doesn't care at all about anyone else's standards on fashion. She has an amazing imagination and is usually very cheery. When she's grumpy though, watch out! She gets in dark moods, and says strangely contemplative things for a six year old.


And in her shadow but still able to run and ride faster is......

Monkey: Who just recently asked me how old he was. I was a little confused that he would forget, but then he explained that even though he's four and not five he just knew he felt bigger. So he's officially four AND A HALF.

He's always been freakishly agile. I say freakishly, but not because I'm always cringing while he's skate boarding or climbing. I say freakish because he's always known his limits and he just won't do things he knows he can't do. He's always been able to do A LOT though.

Even though he runs, rides, and climbs he's still my sensitive cuddly little guy. He's the quiet type and still takes awhile to get out what he's trying to say.

I love watching him explore his little world. He's getting comfortable with the "big" neighbourhood boys, following them everywhere and keeping up pretty well of course. When it comes to "pre-kindergarten" and chores I have to get pretty creative with how I word things and tread lightly. I can't ask him to do anything or thank him for doing anything, he'll get mad. Instead it's "Monkey, the dishwasher needs emptied and it's your turn." and then "Sweet, the dishwasher is empty, what are you up to now." I can't get all mushy on him and say "great job" or anything, he's interesting. I haven't quite deciphered him yet.

Oh, he's also a vegetarian....... sooooooo opposite of everyone else in the house. The last piece of meat he ate was when he was 2 1/2, it was a bite of hamburger. Even at that point I remember being a little shocked that he ate it. I make lots of broth, you know, the real kind, from bones. So I guess I should say, he thinks he's a vegetarian, mwuuaaaahaaa haaaa.

Right at his heels is........

Meatball. He just turned two, although we've been referring to him as "the two year old" for months now. He's thick and chunky and delicious, like a good salsa. The Meatball is usually chasing after his siblings, tearing the kitchen or garage apart, or napping (thank goodness!). I love having two boys and seeing how completely different we can make two of the same gender. They are both active, but Meatball is like a tank. He just tumbles into the scene without much thought to what he's doing. He's an entertainer and thrives on the attention. The only time he really slows down is when the tinker toys are out. He's great at putting those little things together. Oh, he also naps still - insert heavenly music here -. I make him sound like a crazy kid, which he's totally not. He's just really active and big.

I'd also like to include Caleb here, our wee babe who's in heaven waiting for us all to get our butts up there so we can finally meet him. I can't wait! He was only 14 weeks in my womb before we had to say goodbye. I miss having him growing there. I would be 17 weeks along now and feeling his sweet little kicks. Instead I'm sleeping on my tummy, wearing my favorite jeans, and crying when I least expect it. It's already easier than the first couple weeks, but in a different way. It's like the loss settled deeper inside me. I'm dreading February and all it's emptiness, and praying we have another member of the family someday (not that it replaces him in anyway of course).

This post became something very different than the post I thought I was writing about educating at home, things I do in the fall, or different talents people around me are blessed with. Those were my thoughts when I first sat down here. My brain is weird at night. Next time I'll try this in the morning.

Summer is not for Sewing, so I Cheated.

Here's a couple projects I did a few months ago. I've been saving these pictures to blog about during this craft lull to make myself feel better for doing nothing in my poor abandoned sewing spot. Soooooo here's my sweet little Princess and Prince. I was inspired by this blog post to make these fun crowns. This was a fun spontaneous project and gave me great satisfaction to finish both of them. I spent two afternoons working on these. Now that I've made them I could do another one super fast. These would be a great birthday present for people who would appreciate them. Some people would not like this style, even Miss June Bug isn't totally crazy about it, but she does like the fact that it won't get stepped on and broken like the cheap loonie store ones. I like run on sentences, sue me. Moving along now.

 

I made Prince O's crown second so it's a lot better. I didn't follow the instructions, it's just not how I roll, but they worked out great anyways.

 

The Princess wanted lots of sparkly beads on hers and even helped me sew them on, she's getting really good at hand sewing and embroidery.

 

I love this wonderful friendship they have, they worked so hard on getting their arms around each other just right for a picture.

 

Here's my segway to my next project, new chair covers. Our chairs came with off white, which looked super great for the first five minutes. Then we blinked, had three kids, and booom our chairs looked so bad they would make Monica (from Friends) have a hissy fit. So I got this great oil cloth and my wonderful hubbie took the chairs apart which forced me to have to finish a project, yay!

 

Cute foot on pretty chair

 

The monkey fell asleep on the pretty chairs one day, such a funny kid. He doesn't really nap anymore, unless he just falls asleep in his creative spots, like the big toy box.

 

Seeing him like this just makes me want to curl up in my comfy bed. He slept like that for about 15 minutes!

 

Here's June Bug working away writing the names of her family. She has memorized everyone except the 'lil meatball.

 

Such a sweetie. Hubbie likes to buy camera equipment a lot, which normally really bothers me because it's expensive and he really doesn't even use it all that often. However, his newest purchase is a new favorite for me. A 1.8 50mm lens gently used for only 50$, boo yeah.

 

Another project by June Bug, for some reason she is always the biggest person in her family pictures. I wonder what the meaning is behind that. We also have a dog in this picture, which we don't have in reality. It's a little easier to decode that meaning: June Bug wants a dog.

 

Even though it kinda looks like he's pooping in this picture I included it because it really shows what the 50mm lens does. Love it.

 

And that's it for fun pictures. The fam has fallen into a great summer routine this month. Lots of backyard play, watermelon eating, gardening, and trying to stay on top of keeping the house at least tidy and some kind of decent food on the table a few times a day. I was debating on doing this blog post or doing a special one for baby Eva, but I guess I'll do that one next week. Most of you know what's going on with her anyways, so for now I'll just say how happy I am that she is doing SO much better, praise God! I'll go more into depth with it all later, it's been an emotional couple weeks that's for sure. Gotta go to bed, so sleepy, night!

While the Cat's Away

My sweet girl just finished up pre-school this week. It has been so good for her to get out and do her thing, I feel like she thrived in that environment and gained a lot of confidence with the interaction. (Here they are after her pre-school field trip to the fire hall.)

 

Poor Monkey Moo on the other hand did not like his big sis ditching him all the time. I really tried to avoid the temptation of having him watch T.V. all the time, which is the only thing he really wanted to do. So instead of me having that chunk of time to bake, sew, or whatever, I was stuck playing lego, cars, toss the ball, chase, you name it. Ok I'm not actually complaining, it was fun of course. It was nice for him to have Mommy all to himself ('lil Meatball naps in the morning still so he's a pretty boring play mate). The best time I had with Monkey during the last few months was when he asked me to paint his face like a pirate. I had remembered this blog post I had recently read, so I wanted to make his life as a pirate a little more realistic. I didn't do nearly the quality job that Dana did, just a blanket pinned to the wall for a sail, and an empty toilet paper roll for a telescope. He didn't want a patch, so that made it easier too. Even though it looks like he had fun, it was just different without his sister to play with. Poor little guy looked pretty lonely in that ship all alone.
"Land ho!"

 

Using the crib, his quilt, and a "sail" made it feel totally authentic, ha ha.

 

"Arr!"

 

His pet pirate monkey

 

How can a pirate even be that cute?!

 

Even pirates need to pick their noses, especially bored lonely pirates.

 

Pirate popcorn, because pirates have to eat a lot of coconuts on all those tropical islands. We saved the rum for mommy and daddy, ha ha. I just melted this coconut stuff with butter and put it on their popcorn, it was super yummy.

 

Of course when June Bug got home she wanted to dress up too. And yes, pirates are still tuff whilst drinking milk from a sippy cup.

 

Look at those sweet pouty pirate lips! So sweet.

 

Sweet angel face.

 

And how could I do a post with no baby in it? Here's the cutey looking at a stuffed giraffe rattle I made him. It was a quick satisfying project, sorry it's blurry here I don't actually have a good picture of it.

 

Here it is unstuffed to give you a better idea of what it looks like. I love fast projects that actually make me feel like I accomplish things.

 

Well the sweet boy is awake now so off I go.

Gardening

More and more I realize that I'm officially old. I like, no LOVE, gardening. Ok ok, I realize that alone does not qualify me as old. I also like fruit cake, puzzles, quilting, and I'm really clueless when it comes to high tech computer lingo stuff. I've even been known to play scrabble and sequence on occasion. I never thought I would do any of these things back in the days of bikes, bubble gum, and boys. Maybe it's because I'm turning 30 this year, or maybe it's because I have a bunch of kids that I'm responsible for, I don't know what the reason, but I've been feeling really old these days. But that's not the purpose of this post at all, I don't even know where all that whining came from! Let's move on to the subject at hand. Gardening!!!

 

This is Matthew last year building my amazing garden beds for me. They are 6 feet deep (a little too deep, four feet would be perfect) and 20 feet long. There is room for two there, but we only did one last year because I was all pregnant and awkward.

 

This is a picture of it once it's all planted. I marked off squares for every two feet and loosely followed the "Square Foot Gardening" technique. It's a great book, definitely worth a read. It made weeding and watering almost unnecessary.

 

We built a two foot deep bed along the side of the house where it's sunny all day. It was perfect for peppers, cucumbers, and tomatoes because it's so hot there.

 

Here we are pruning tomato plants. Meatball got to just hang out in my tummy for the whole thing, lucky guy. This is the side bed again, in case you didn't notice that:-)

 

And here's my little dancer posing in front of the main bed some time in August.

I will have to add more to this post tomorrow because it's late and I can hear a chicken in my basement which means it probably got out again. Chicken in my basement, what?!?!?!? Yes, you heard me folks, we have sweet chickys that like to escape their nice warm enclosure, so I must run. Ciao!

Hello Lonely Blog

Let's just skip over the apologies for not blogging in forever and move right along. I'm just putting pictures up right now, we'll see what the next few weeks bring, maybe I'll write some stuff now and then. For now I'll try to explain some of these photos. They get posted in the opposite order than I want them, good 'ol blogger, someday maybe they'll change it so I can just click and drag, oh that would be wonderful. Ok, so we have Monkey Moo's birthday party here, the big 3! We were in Calgary for his birthday and my mom put together a wonderful party. We did the little kid party the weekend after. So he got to invite three little friends (some older siblings got to come too), and we had a camping party. We set the tent up in the living room, made cute little "happy camper" shirts, ate hot dog men, and a s'mores cake. I don't remember what other pictures are on here. Oh there is June Bug and her first day of pre-school, Papa got to drop her off on her first day which was special because when she was about 3 for some reason she said she wanted Papa to come with her on her first day of Kindergarten, to which his response was basically "Nothing could stop be from being there." June Bug has her daddy AND her Papa wrapped around her little finger, in a good way:-) Oh there is also a picture of her playing on the iPod, I just love this picture, she's way too grown up! The last picture is Monkey getting his hair cut. He has a couple extra doses of cute. And the rest of the pictures are Meatball cuteness. Looking at pictures of him almost makes me want to go snuggle him, but he's fast asleep and will stay that way until 7:30am. HA I wish.

Sweetest Baby Smiles

Getting tired of the photo shoot

Three Wee Babes at Birthday Party

Digging into the Gifts

Happy Campers posing

Smores Cake

Hot Dog Man

Kids Eating "Camping Food"

Uncle and the Kids who adore him

Cutie La Roo

Cutie La Roo 2

Papa and some of his biggest fans

Upside Down in the Bumpo

June Bug growing up too fast

June Bug and Papa at Pre-School

Monkey's Haircut