February Firsts

I'm calling this blog 'February Firsts' for lack of a better title.

No too many extraordinary FIRST-ish things actually happened in February. Rather, a bunch of very ordinary, often insignificant, "life in the day of a mom" firsts happened...and a couple really cool ones.

So 'firsts' it will be. :)

Please sit back and enjoy our  month of firsts:

1. We went skating at the outdoor rink for the first time. Well, two of us did. The rest just came along for the ride. Uh....I mean slide.

I love it that Rob loves taking them skating.

Ellie has become quite comfortable on the ice. :)

 2. Micah discovered the cutlery drawer for the first time. This keeps him by my side while I do dishes (as opposed to in the toilet or on the piano). This is a good thing. :) The other thing he loves is if I give him a bowl of suds and a spoon (or in Micah lingo, "bubbo" and a "moon").

 3. Elianna got her FIRST report card!! When we told her it was report card day she asked, "Is that like a credit card?" Well, kinda...no. Not really. But we're super excited that God has wired you for school and you couldn't be doing any better!! What a great first report card experience!

(We're going on five consecutive years of her dressing crazy...I think it may be permanent!)

 4. Josh and Micah created their first masterpiece together. This is the first time Micah didn't try drawing on the table for fun. He thinks outside the box (and paper) that one does!

 5. Ellie and Josh gave themselves numerical value for the first time. Josh was worth 25 cents for the day...

 ...and Ellie could be bought for just 10 cents! I snatched up that deal in a quick hurry. I think I'll keep them. What a great deal.

 6. Micah started telling on himself for the first time. This is actually an answer to prayer.

I asked Jesus to increase Micah's conscience so he'd have a better awareness of when he was doing something dangerous or naughty. The very next day I heard, "Mooooom! Mooommmm!!!" from another room. There was Micah standing with a pencil in hand, ready to draw on some furniture.

Within a day I hear again, "Moooommmm! Mooommmmm!" and there's Micah standing on a table, yes, tattling on himself. On a different occasion I hear Micah calling right before he was going to put his hand in the toilet...again. And yet again when he was smearing his food all over the place, and continues to rat himself out daily. Coincidence? Not at all. Jesus loves to get involved with our children. I am always amazed by His creative ways of answering prayer. :)

 7. Ellie and Josh decided they liked tomato soup for the first time. And that it tastes better through a straw. And even better when out of the same cup! Whatever floats your boats, kids! :)

 8. Bapa braided Ellie's hair for the first time. I'm not really sure how that came about. All I know is it made her day. What a great Bapa.

9. My kids suddenly became 'broccoli monsters' for the first time. Man did we eat broccoli. Unfortunately, the phase has already passed. Next up: asparagus? 

10. Micah started singing and playing piano simultaneously for the first time. He puts on quite a show, if you can decipher his songs. (Favourites include 'High', also known as "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star' and "A a apple", also known as The Phonics Song.) Micah just loves the 'nano' (also known as a 'piano').

11. We put together our very first bunk bed with LOTS of really helpful help from the kids. :) Currently Ellie and Josh are enjoying it to the max (Josh doesn't even mind that he's in a pink bedroom for the time being)...but as soon as Micah's a bit older it'll be the Boy Bed.

12. Ellie and Josh had their first chance to hold a newborn during this particular pregnancy. I think it's safe to say that baby number 4 will NOT run out of cuddles. (This little guy is Casey...a super cute little heart melter!)

13. Our yard was COMPLETELY covered in snow...and REALLY covered...for the first time this winter! It was beautiful.

The kids loved it, and were even a little overwhelmed at times by the sheer amount of snow trickling down their backs and sneaking into their boots. Micah would lose his balance and fall over, then quietly say, "woof woof" and crawl away, almost as though he was trying to salvage some dignity by pretending he was a dog who MEANT to fall over and crawl. Hehe!

14. Our sewer backed up for the first time, a blessing in disguise. We had been praying about wether or not to redo our bottom level for some time now. It hadn't been touched since 1960 and was affectionately dubbed, "the dungeon"...a space we didn't really use for much besides storage. TOO MUCH storage. So since the back up we've been purging and tossing and are getting ready for a complete renovation down there. We're going to rip out a wall and turn two small nearly unusable rooms into one large master suite (reading nook included!) for Rob and I, and give the kids the top level floor of bedrooms. This will enable our family to grow to six with room for everyone to sleep! And it's even a little bit covered by insurance. :) Here's Ellie, thrilled to have been given one of my old bibles I discovered hiding down there...a pink one, of course. How cool to hear her reading Proverbs to her brothers while I make breakfast!

15. And lastly, Rob and I are currently on our very first extended getaway since having kids! Thanks to my precious, irreplaceable mom and dad who are watching the kids, Rob and I have the chance to rest/relax/shop/read/cook/walk/talk/sleep/drive around in Minneapolis for five nights. We feel spoiled rotten! We're staying in a cute little apartment and doing pretty much whatever we feel like doing when we feel like doing it. UNHEARD of!

We even went and bought Rob new glasses...on a whim...because he needed them...and we had TIME!

Doesn't he look sharp?

Today is our last day and that's good, because we're really beginning to miss our chatty little cute-faces at home. So today we'll go visit John Piper's church (for the first time, in case you're taking notes) and take in some downtown shops...and then home we go tomorrow!

OH! WAIT! One more first!!

16.

This month, our

very favourite first

was seeing our tiny baby's face for the very first time.

And finding out, for the very first time,

that we are having a GIRL! :)

The whole family smitten. 

So thankful to Jesus for all His blessings!

A post about...presents.

For anyone who's reading this post that isn't Rob's parents, be forewarned: this is a Christmas post, and it's all about presents.

You see, Rob's parents sent us their money this year and WE got the amazingly fun privilege of shopping for the kids gifts on their behalf. 

But they never saw the presents.

And they weren't here for the opening.

So this post is just about completely for you, Mom and Dad!

Disclaimer: we did our best to teach our kids about the true meaning of the season. :) In fact, we had a pretty great time doing an Advent calendar for the first time. Here's a glimpse of my favourite peeps giving God the praise He's due!:

So each year when we put up our tree mid-November I buy each kid the most accurate ornament I can find to describe who they are that year. This is tough, as I usually don't have enough foresight to shop in the city nearby, and have limited selection where we live. However, the kids were all pretty pumped about this year's selections:

For Ellie, a little violin player. Ellie started piano this year (and loves it) but really yearns to learn violin once she gets her theory down:

 For Josh, a superhero moose. Josh has a red cape, and loves to jump off stairs. He also delights in saving little crying kids who get stuck in the McDonald's play structure.

 And for Micah, a mischievous kitten....

 ...because that's precisely what Micah is:

 One second he's sweet smiles...

 ....the next second he's eating the crayon and daring you to do something about it.

Christmas eve after our church service we let the kids open one gift (as we do each year) and it was their new bible for the year. Most have you have probably heard of this one, but if you haven't IT'S GOOD! We got the one with the cds included, so they can listen anytime they want. We are so enjoying this book!

Christmas morning dawned dark and early with 3 sleepy and extremely excited campers sitting in extremely poor lighting! Well, 2 were extremely excited:

 Because we had church in the middle of the morning, we decided to open one gift (from me and Rob) before church just to make the wait bearable. This game is called, "Richard Scarry's Busytown EyeSpy" and it is amazingly fun...even for me. :) I totally recommend it, especially for those children who have yet to learn to lose well , because you either win as a team or lose as a team. (Some genius parent designed this game!)

After Micah got up and we were all ready to go to church, the kids bouncing and pleading won us over and they opened their presents to each other.

Micah learning to open presents, this one from Josh.

 See that anticipation?

 See that uncertainty? Josh picked the gift he wanted for himself for Micah. He also stole it from Micah's hands as soon as he could and ended up ripping the poor little caterpillars head off. Micah loves flicking the rubber legs now...and doesn't care that it's headless. :)

Ellie's gift for Josh: a Batman lunchkit. He'll realize the full extent of how cool it is on Tuesday when we go to preschool and he doesn't have a paper bag. :)

Josh's gift to Ellie: A mermaid Polly Pocket set. As you can see, he really nailed it on the head. Josh actually has a pretty neat knack for picking out cool gifts.

Totally enamoured!

Ellie's gift to Micah: ELMO! He is in that Elmo obsession phase that all our kids have gone through. In fact, he has an internal clock that goes off at around 6 pm every evening...when he'll come to me and repeat,  "Elmo? Elmo? Elmo?"...until we put an Elmo movie on for him. It's as though Micah knows it's his cranky/naughty hour, and only Elmo will suffice. :)

After church Rob quickly put on his pyjamas to make it feel more like Christmas :) and the kids gave him his present: a gift card for skates! ...which he's already bought and broken in much to the kids delight! They wiped out more times than we could count, but loved every minute of it. (pictures to come, I'm sure)

Ellie and Josh opening their 'big gift' from Grandma and Grandpa: puppets....

 ...and a puppet theatre!

....which is way too much fun!

Micah actually puts on some of the best puppet shows. :)

 (and Josh now hides behind the puppet theatre instead of the couch when he has a guilty conscience. :)

This gift from Grandma and Grandpa to Micah was the biggest hit out of all the gifts (literally)! ALL of them love it. It took Micah about one second to figure out how hard to whack those things, and whack 'em he did! Over and over and over, with this hugely satisfied look on his face.

 ....making all of us giggle!

 Ellie with one of her gifts from the Balfours - a set of twistable crayons. Probably the most-used gift thus far! This girl is a craft-a-holic.

 Micah's other gift from Grandma and Grandpa - a guitar! Again, loved by all. :)

 Rob took a picture of me to prove I was there.
I had just opened up my present from Ellie and Josh: four little snow globes. FOUR. Ellie DREAMS of owning a snow globe...so obviously I needed some. :) They were super cute, and yes, I gave one to Ellie to keep. :)

 Micah thought they were for licking:

 Josh and his gift from Grandma and Grandpa: LEGO! TONS of it!

 Micah unpacked the box for him and declared, "WOW!" after pulling out each little bag and tossing it on the floor.

 Ellie's other gift from Grandpa and Grandma: a felt sandwich making kit. Super fun!
(p.s. we love Melissa and Doug toys, in case you hadn't noticed. :)

 A gift from us: scrapbooking SCISSORS in all cutting designs...

 ...and our kitchen table was COVERED in bits of paper for three days. (Note for any parents of new toddlers out there, we were pumped when Ellie was small and we realized that scrapbooking scissors don't cut fingers but are easy to use!)

 Micah giving his gift to Daddy: hot sauce!

Micah playing with some Playmobil Grandma and Grandpa sent in the mail just as a little add on. :) They love loving the kids with gifts...and we are all blessed.

On a side note,

 a couple in our church wanted to bless our kids anonymously with some gifts. So each of the kids got one gift that was labelled, "from Jesus". I only got a picture of Ellie with hers. It's funny, she's not really into dolls, but when I asked her what her favourite gift was at the end of the day, it was this one! It totally warmed her heart. Josh got a bulldozer, and that was his favourite gift, too!

Anybody else's living room look like this after all is said and done? Sure makes me think about how much stuff we really have. It also sent me deep into purge and give-away mode!

 

Totally random photo: Our neighbours brought us a bunch of their leftover turkey, much to this meat-lover's delight:

Oh yes, and lastly (whew. finally!) Rob bought me SNOW PANTS! I totally didn't realize what a blessing it would be to own some! We had a super mild week and I got to really enjoy sledding and shovelling and sleigh riding outside with the kids for the first time ever! Hopefully they'll fit my bulging belly for at least one more month. :) And hopefully we get some decent snow around here. It's been CRAZILY wonderfully mild so far this year!

Another random photo that just makes me happy: Micah's favourite way to warm his toes - on the vent! He's so his dad's kid.

Thanks Mom and Dad, for loving our kids with gifts.

They were and are super blessed by all of them!

We love you!