Creativity and Play

This year, Hope made her own Thank-You cards for her birthday presents. 

 It was a project that took about ten days,

 and she loved it!

 This year, as she is printing very well, I decided to write the words lightly in pencil inside the card and have her trace them.

 She loves decorating things with flowers, and Mum gave her some for her birthday (the fabric and brad ones you see above.) The other flowers were created by tracing ovals and circles, colouring them in, cutting them out, and taping them onto the cards. It was a wonderful project to do with her. :o)

 Finally, with all of us done with the flu, we were able to bring one of the girls' little friends over for a playdate.

 Rachel Malea is 6, and if I can't find my girls after church on a Sunday, I just look for Rachel, and they're usually with her. She has two older and two younger brothers, and will be a new big sister again in the summer. The Curious George books were a hit with all the girls.

 And I had fun making them a tea party lunch.

 Finishing up her food and casting a look across the room to see what Joy and Rachel Malea were up to.

 This is what she saw.

 Joy likes taking apart the double wheels on the tractor, as well as any other pieces that can come off. :o)

Hopey, working on the stone that the angel rolled away from the tomb for our Easter poster, but more on that in the next post. :o)

Just a setting on the dryer...

You know what they say, "Normal is just a setting on the dryer." And that's pretty much true. So, welcome to one setting of normal - life as just us.

Who's that sister sitting with Philip on the couch?

Joy is enjoying loving on Philip a lot more these days.

And yes - she is my accessory lover!

"I'm gonna chew you, blue blanket!"

I had to do some cleaning. I just had to. :o) Out came the couches from the walls, together went the couches in the middle of the living room, dump went the toy basket, and the rest is history.

In this current play set, the tambourine was turned upside down to be used as a frying pan. The toy cars were eggs. Joy thought they needed milk sprinkled on them from a dolls bottle, and Hope thought she needed the binoculars to see if the eggs were done. :o) But you knew that without my explanation, right?

My art  and activity lover. Her question to me every morning when I walk into their room is "What can we do today, Mommy?" She had painted flower petals (traced Tupperware ovals) with her watercolours, and then when they were dry she cut them out. Later, we put the pastel flowers on Thank You cards. :o)

Cookie cutters as bracelets - why not?

I've been trying to train myself to help Hope get into the habit of practicing violin and piano. She's definitely ready for it, and is happy to do music stuff... I just have to suggest it. :o)

Amy was smart and made Joy a cardboard violin, which is a huge help in moments such as these. :o) Unfortunately, Joy also remembered the red stick in her hand was a drumstick, and started using it as such on something she shouldn't - like one of her sister's limbs!!! Ahem. Guess what Mommy used the stick for then? :o)

Some grandparent asked Hope one day if Philip was "the king." Hope replied - "No, God's the King, and then Mommy and Daddy." However, in this shot he does look rather like he's got the lot of us at his disposal!

Funny faces shot #1.

Funny faces shot #2.

The kitchen towels and washcloths, folded by Hope. It actually does cut down on my time to sort them into a pile and leave them for her to fold later if she's not folding with me at the time. She loves doing it, and gets upset if I fold them. :o) Works for me, kid, well, the folding part that is, not the getting-upset-at-your-mother part. :o) We're working on it... :o)

Morning light.

A Face Time chat with a lonesome Grandma Lorrie in Denver. (You can see the tip of my iPhone supported on the blue foam puzzle pad against the back of the chair.)

Watching a movie and eating Popcorn Twists.

One writer...

...one puzzler...

...and one overseer.

And they all happened to be in teal stripes without me doing it on purpose! This was Philip's second outfit of the day, and I just happened to notice they all coordinated when I looked at the three of them together.

Oops, I missed a few!

It's funny, when I was doing that blog post with pictures from Mum and Chloe's visit, I was sure I had taken some more, but didn't think to double check that I had actually taken all the pictures off my SD card before blogging. And wouldn't you know it - I had missed a few! So here they are...

 Look #1.

 Look #2.
Can you tell the difference?
Yup - a little bit of history was made - my third born child had his first hair cut. His second born sister has yet to have her first hair cut, and she's 2! So there you go. :o)
Philip was sporting a little comb-over, and I figured it was time for it to go. :o) He has fine and quick growing hair like Hopey. :o) And Joy loves her curly hair, as do I, and it's all happy. :o)

A story on Auntie Chloe's lap, actually, I think she got about ten stories read to her in that sitting, as you can see from the pile of books beside Chloe. :o)

 A keeper. :o) I don't know who of these lassies was happier about their pictured circumstance... :o) Definitely a win-win arrangement. :o)

 Ah yes - second borns! They're the life of the party!!!

 Granny and the thumb-sucking grandson. :o)

 And this was what our yard looked like as Mom and Chloe were about to leave and drive back to Lethbridge/Foremost. The weekend they were here we had our second snow storm in two weeks, and we got probably a good foot of snow while they were here.

 It was a blessing that the roads weren't dangerous by the time they needed to leave.

It was also a huge blessing to have another couple sets of hands to help with the shoveling  as we were watching a friends' house at this time too, and so we had the shoveling at our place and theirs. And when it snows non-stop for 3 days, that's a lot of snow to remove!

I just love the beauty of the snow. How great is our God!!!

One more set of company coming

With Grandma and Lydia on the road for Lethbridge as of 8:45 Monday morning, it was just me and the kids...for a few days. :o)

A sweet moment.

I'm just starting to put Philip in the Bumbo. He really likes being with his sisters and seeing them at their play.

Siblings are such natural entertainment for each other. God has a beautiful design!

I think I had changed a diaper, and then the girls got a hold of a wipe each and wanted to "clean" for me. Music to my ears!!! :o) As Hope pointed out - "Oh Mommy - your cupboards have so many spots on them." Yes, thank you, Hope. :o) Thankfully, they had a few less spots when she was done.

Joy thought her Winnie the Pooh house needed washing.

I caught them taking care of their dollies in the recliner one morning. First they fed them bottles...

...then they "nursed" them. Ah yes. The great times we have here. :o)

Philip pops a big grin whenever he sees Hope coming close to him and he's starting to get that way with Joy too, as Joy starts to learn how to interact with him. She has always loved him, but as to how to show that love... we're just getting there. :o) She mostly let Hope dote on him before, but now that she realizes he is a little person with personality and not "just a baby" I think she's more inclined towards him. :o)

He follows them with his eyes, and head.

We had another special blessing that weekend - my Mum and Chloe came up just to see the kids.

It was an extra blessing that weekend, as Josh had worked every evening of the week and was working Saturday too.

It relieved me to have someone else help entertain and care for the children.

Look at that - they match... on top. :o)

A little set of the little man:

Oh yes - texting Reid - Auntie Chloe was kind enough to "share" with Joy. :o)

Love how she uses her bear as a pillow sometimes. :o) She's my little hot-house when it comes to sleeping, and if she has any blanket on at all she pretty much wakes up damp. :o)

Drumming on the baby chub....

....and the baby enjoying the sound. :o)
In some ways, she is such a "big girl" already, like her speaking ability, and then in other ways she is such a baby still - her long afternoon naps, and diapers, and desire to be held. :o)

That boy loves his blue blanket. He calms almost instantly when he feels it round his hands and arms. Poor lad had a bout of colic that weekend... it happens when I don't watch my chocolate intake. I'm also finding he gets bubble trouble from me eating bacon. Ah well. It's good for me not to have too much of those foods anyways. :o)

Josh wasn't the only one working extra... Matthew had a last minute work trip up here too, and of course we couldn't pass up the chance to have him stay with us. :o) Hope and Joy enjoyed the videos he had of his kids on his recently acquired iPhone. :o)

Happy times.

Not sure what she was doing...

...but I just love that shirt on her. I don't think of wine purple and sage green for little kids, but she wears it well.

Just love her head of curls. :o) When she's fresh out of the tub, it ringlets even better in the back, and her piggy tails always have natural curl to them. :o) Her hair is very coarse - easy to brush. :o)

And thus we came to an end of that season of company. 18 people spending 33 nights in our home in the 57 days between January 24-March 17. That's guests with us over 50% of the time. WAHOO! We love it! We thank the Lord for this home He has entrusted to us, and for the strength and provision to open its doors and have our families visit us. We love having other guests too - so if you're reading this and you're not family, don't let that keep you from coming!!!

It was such a blessing to be able to have so many in our home on so many different weeks/weekends - helped pass the long winter days for the kids and I. The girls' most common question became, "Mom - who's our next company going to be?" :o) And I was always happy to tell them. It felt weird when Hope asked me that question the other day and I had to answer, "I don't know!" But God does. And we'll find out soon.

And in the meantime, I'm blogging, cleaning, cooking, and doing activities with the kids... and keeping up on laundry (13 loads in one week was my record with switching guest linens, finding time to do our sheets, plus regular laundry) and kids' baths and shovelling snow or ice, and all those other Mommy kinds of things. :o) Oh yeah - I got the flu too, the last one of us to get it, so I had to take time to recover from that. :o) While resting in the recliner one day, I noticed I was accumulating a large pile of teddy bears on top of me, courtesy of the girls. :o) They said they wanted me to have something to cuddle with to help me feel better. :o) God takes care of us - He does. :o)