March

March brought more snow but reassuring hints of spring after this long winter. We are more than ready for walks after dinner, mornings at the park, sidewalk chalk and bubbles. The kids have been watching too much TV and our house seams to be shrinking in space as this long season goes on so a big weekend of melting snow and warm (+3?) temperatures was all it took to have my little outdoors man outside for the day. Ben...doesn't go out until I force him to breath some fresh air unless there are double digits...like his Dad. 

Ben started Piano lessons and continues soccer. He is reading ferociously and loves when I read novels with him. We recently started Charlotte's web...one of my favorites!

Jacob is enjoying preschool and loves attending with his best friend Hannah. They are such a cute little pair. He is a busy boy...such a sweet and nurturing helper to his younger sister and my little daycare children.

Elizabeth is a busy little mini Mother. She bosses everyone around, has her finger wagging at someone all the time and there is not a lock or child gate that can keep her out. She climbed out of her crib this month. A milestone I was not looking forward to or ready for! Fortunately the simple doorknob is the only thing she has not yet mastered  so she can't escape her bedroom just yet. She has a great sense of humor and loves to laugh and wrestle with her brothers.

February

It's been a long winter! We are all so ready for spring to arrive! I feel like this season has been one long day... We have tried to make the best of it but with such cold temperatures we haven't been able to get outside too much which makes it hard for little bodies with lots of energy! The kids have been troopers though! They will be well rewarded with splash pads this summer! One exciting thing that happened this month was Uncle Andrew and Aunt Robyn got married. It was a small ceremony with immediate family because this spring they will have a larger wedding in the Dominican Republic. The kids acted as ring bearers and flower girl. They were awfully cute!

Ben is heavily into lego. He impressed us with his ability to focus so deeply on a set that he will spend 2 hours putting it together, only to take it all apart again and redo it! He got quite a few sets for Christmas and has been working away at those. He is such a sweet and kind boy. Always ready to help out and he is such a good brother. We have been reading different novels at night before bed and it is a time that I have looked forward to for a very long time! I love being able to pass on some of my favorite children's novels to him. He is such a handsome kid with a quick sense of humor and we are super proud of this guy!

Jacob got to see a zoo presentation recently with some exotic animals that fueled his already budding love of all creatures on four legs...or 2...or under a shell....or with no legs at all... He loves snakes and cats and dogs the most. He walks around "spot" on his pretend leash and when he is angry at one of us he yells "I am going to tell Spot to bite you!" and upon his apology "Spot wouldn't really bite"... he asks everyday when he can get a dog...and I tell him the minute he has his own house as a grown up man he can fill it with animals! Until then... an invisible zoo will have to suffice. This kid is the definition of cute. Everything he does is just...cute. You can't help but want to squeeze him as soon as he walks into the room. He loves to snuggle and remains a fan of Little Critter books and still loves his "baby".

Ella is...almost 2. In every way. She is feisty and loud and bossy and hilarious. She LOVES Barney the purple dinosaur and cheers and dances when she hears the intro music. She has also discovered Sharon Lois and Bram from retro You Tube videos and adores them! She is our most picky eater and some days I don't understand how she possibly eats enough to sustain her into the next but she has non stop energy. She is a little pip squeek with a big personality. She loves all things "girl" and has definite ideas about what she will and will not wear. Ella loves her babies and her new tea set. It is adorable watching her play like such a little...girl. We are all so crazy about her! She keeps us laughing, in kisses and on our toes.
***And there are more photo's of her because I was a better blogger when the boys were toddlers and much more photos were taken of them! Plus she has cuter outfits....

19 Months!

Oh they grow so fast. It was like yesterday she was cooing and grinning at me with a gummy smile and today she is running around with pigtails in her hair bossing her brothers around.

This little spitfire is a ball of personality. She has got energy, spunk, cuteness and charisma to spare.

She is so quick to laugh and dance and run and sing....she is enthusiastic about everything! From breakfast to her nap she cheers and claps and grins.

Ella loves her family..."MOMMY!!" She yells at me over and over again with delight. She gently touches me as though to make sure I am still right here...and yells it again. When Jon gets home from work it is a nightly welcome home party "HiDADA!! HIDADA!!" She can't squirm into his arms fast enough.

She has a little baby doll, "Baby" and a blanket she calls "meme". She loves them but because one was handmade and the other came from who knows where they are irreplaceable and so she needs to leave them in her bed  which leads to her little broken hearted wails...twice a day. The same passion she puts into everything else also goes into a fit. So be forewarned. Say "no" to her with great consideration of the consequences.

Elizabeth loves to have her nails painted and her hair done. She loves babies, dogs and eating.

She still drinks formula because she has been so small that I worried about her growing, although she has always had a very good appetite. She just hit 20 pounds last month! (Ben was 20 pounds around 4 months!)

We just adore this little girl. She is such a joy to us...we are blessed to have such smart, healthy and happy kids. I don't know how we managed to get the best ones...but we sure did!

Happy Birthday Jacob!

Dear Jacob,

 

You are so excited to be four! When we asked you what four was like you said “great! I can wipe my own bum!” Yes. Yes you can.

You can also run really fast, scream really loudly, take daring risks and tell funny jokes. Your personality continues to be a duality. You are so sweet and sensitive and you are also so tough. Depending which way the wind blows…we can never figure out which Jake we are going to get.

You are a good brother. You adore your baby sister and idolize your best friend and big brother. You are a snugly and affectionate boy…but the times where I find you curled into my lap are growing more infrequent. I will have to squeeze as many snuggles into this year as I can!

You love independence. Dressing yourself, printing your own name, using the washroom and making a snack are things you can do alone now and you are very pleased about it.

You received a “Balance Bike” for your birthday; a two wheeler without peddles which you exclaimed “Just like Ben!”. Which you are always striving to be.

Your favourite food is toast and sunflower seed butter and you will do anything for a Kinder Egg! Your favourite dinner is pasta and chicken and almond ice cream bars. Everything must be green and you do not like to play outside in the cold! “It’s too cold for me!” you will yell five minutes outdoors. You love to be outside ordinarily. I can not get you inside during the rest of the year (but we are having an especially cold winter!).

You are so handsome. Your eyes only seem to be getting bluer and when I look at you, I think you are so beautiful. You are still missing your four front teeth of course but somehow that suits my sweet, naughty and adventurous boy.

You have a funny attachment to a small floor hockey stick…you ride it around and call it “my horse Jacob”. You don’t enjoy toys as much as you do your own imagination and of course video games. You and Ben would play video games all day if I were to let you!

You still love garbage trucks! Your future aspirations entail work at the dump…or as we learned on our bus tour of the local dump “waste management specialist”.

 

We love you Jake! You make us laugh and keep us on our toes. We can’t wait to see how you learn and grow this year!

 

I love every moment of being your mother and every inch of you!

 

Mommy xoxo

Day One Hundrered and Fifty Four

December 31st 2013.

It was a nice year. Nothing extraordinary happened no matter how I braced myself for the alternative. I  have never been more grateful for the gift of an ordinary day. 365 of them this year. Baby giggles, lazy Sundays, admiring lego creations and tearing up at the first run on a two wheeler. A few runny noses, birthday cakes and a road trip. A busy Christmas season rounded out this blessedly normal year and we are looking forward to the same in 2014! xoxo

One Hundered and Fifty Three

These children are growing up so fast! Last year at this time they seemed like such babies and this year the boys are...boys.Ben  is a veracious reader and loves video games. Jacob is confident and opinionated and Elizabeth has a mind of her own and a tongue to share it with. Most frequently a one syllable word screeched at a very high decibel level the boys could never quite reach as she yells her displeasure. In a moment though...she ig grinning and blowing kisses and I am not quite sure what we are going to do with this petite little blond girl who has everyone wrapped around her finger.

Ben loves Lego. He can take a booklet and a new set into his room and in a hour have a completed model. It is such a foreign thing to me...too be able to look at all those tiny pieces and see how they will form the picture on the box. My genuine astonishment is always his biggest motivator as he is working. I can see his lips twitching in anticipation of my gasp when he shows me. I love that he cares so much about what I think and how much my pride means to him.

Jacob took his Christmas concert in his preschool very seriously. He practiced "Jingle Bells" and  "Away in a Manger" nightly until the big day. In a group of 40 children on a stage of varying heights he struggled to get to the front during the first number. His head poked around some taller children he had got stuck behind. He shook his bells furiously but it wasn't as he imagined. During a quick break between songs he pushed his way confidently front and center and relaxed. He sang his heart out and did each action perfectly. At the end of the performance the children blew a kiss to the adoring audience and stepped down to go to their parents but Jacob remained on the stage after everyone had gone blowing kisses.

Elizabeth has been lucky in health. She has rarely had even a sniffle but this fall gave her a double eye infection and an awful cold all a once. With a constant cough, runny nose, fever and swollen, painful eyes, her typical energetic and happy self was slumped on the couch with her soother and blanket laying on her lap. Her favorite purple dinosaur was on the television. She LOVES Barney. We never put it on for the boys but somehow she discovered it and every time she sees him on the netflix homepage she jumps and squeals "Baaaaaneeeeey!". She stands and dances for the whole show. On this day she didn't have the energy at all but she couldn't stop dancing. It was taking everything she had to sadly wiggle in her spot and clap her hands slowly together. Towards the end of the show she was so tired and so unwell that when a song came on she would whimper while she wiggled. A true fan she is. She is too cute (and feeling much better now).