The Better Half

What a wonderful second half of Rob's holidays we had! We spent a lot of time resting and playing and the whole week was extraordinarily peaceful. This post we'll let the pictures tell the story!

We spent a lot of time in our PJs reading books. (Ellie is turning into a book worm like her parents. Here she is "reading" her Bible.)

Ellie and Daddy sharing a story. Ellie is tickling herself, like usual.

Rob's brother Tom sent us new speakers for our computer for Christmas. When Ellie and Joshua got up from their nap, they re-discovered the world's best toy ever:

The Box.

Ellie dumped a whole bin of play food in The Box for Joshua and he was happy to sit there for almost half an hour.

Ellie used The Box as a sticker book and a bed for the next three days.

Her friends often joined in the fun, too.

Ellie also spent a lot of time nurturing one of her favourite dogs, "Zammy". He was a $3 garage sale find. I don't really like noise-making toys (and he barks "E-I-E-I-O" when you pull his string) so I was hoping to leave him in that particular garage. After some unusually insistent declarations of love for the little spotted fellow, I let her take him home. I've never regretted it!

Giving Zammy a "lolly pop".

Joshua playing quietly with his favourite farm toys. When the afternoon sun shines into our living room like that, it seems to make everyone quite content to just enjoy life.

Ellie spent a lot of time dressed up as a princess, thanks to her uncles Tom and Farzad who like to indulge her princess obsession! She felt very beautiful...thanks guys. :)

(Note that Joshua is still sitting in The Box in the background...)

One sunny morning during Joshua's nap the rest of us had a Play Dough party:Concentrating!

Rob's masterpiece - Archie Asparagus (for those of you who know Veggie Tales)

The stuff that came out became known as "Spaghetti Minder". Don't ask. Ellie makes up names for everything.

I don't know about you, but I think Rob was having as much/more fun than Ellie!

Wednesday (once our stomachs were finally feeling somewhat normal) we decided to go on a very special and rare outing: McDonald's! Aside from Joshua deciding that he hates cheeseburgers, the meal was perfect. Totally peaceful and fun.

Another great aspect of the holiday was that we got some much-needed cleaning done! One day we rearranged our bedroom and purged our boxes of books that we don't read anymore. Anther day Rob steam-cleaned all the puke stains out of our carpet. Unfortunately it didn't dry over-night...but the kids didn't mind:

Ellie (for a reason we'll never fully understand) enjoying some air on her tush.

Joshua was a bit more captivated with our dehumidifier buttons.

We had my sister Karla and her family over one evening.
Regan and Ellie now go down to Ellie's room and play alone (quietly) for long periods of time. This is how we typically find them:Pretending to go to sleep and dressed up in each other's clothes and panties.
It never ceases to amaze us, because they used to fight. A LOT.

And lastly, Joshua turned ONE on Friday! We decided to hold off on his party until the end of January (too close to Christmas!) but we did celebrate a little by going to the swimming pool. It was wonderful.

Getting splashed in the face.

Apparently our kids are not real go-getters in the pool. They like the water, but they like watching everyone else like the water even more!

That ball never left his sight (or his death grip).

Dumping water on Daddy

Another really fun peaceful outing. I felt so thankful and blessed by all the rest God gave us this week. Today we are back to our regular routine refreshed and healthy!

p.s. More to come about Joshua's birthday after the party in late January.