February 23rd

Little Natalee Ann with her pink bear.

And she's done! Off to play and spit up somewhere on the white carpet. Crawling sure is fun!

Caleb's Family Snack Club

On Monday, our first Louis Riel Day, we had our first "Caleb's Family Snack Club." At school, Caleb is in a Snack Club (part of the school's winter special interest groups that meet once a week, and Caleb's snack club meets Monday at lunch time). However, because there was no school on Monday, we had Snack Club at home! Caleb had made fruit salad before at Snack Club at school, so this was a great first snack for us to do at home. And that meant that Natalee could also enjoy it with us!

We started off with cutting up apples, oranges, grapes, bananas, and kiwi...Caleb LOVES to use knives! (yikes!) He is very careful. He also likes to help me make supper whenever he can. He has cut onions for me before and is working on his salad making and tossing/mixing skills .

Oh, don't forget the chocolate sauce on the fruit salad! They did this at school, so of course, we had to do exactly the same thing...
YUMMMMMMMM!

Now for Snack Club, Part II - Spiders

Get 2 round crackers, put peanut butter on them... insert some licorice legs (preferably eight), sandwich the two crackers together, add peanut butter again to the top cracker, and use two candies for eyes!

Another good snack! Joshua and Caleb both made their own. I made Andrew's, as his peanut butter spreading skills would be too much for my patience threshold. Happy Snacking!

February 16th

Natalee, still in toque with suckie in place after a walk home from school, finding stuff to play with...she loves to crawl!
Andrew enjoying his wrap at lunch time. He eats as much as I do!
Caleb thinks it's funny to be difficult when it comes to taking pictures...ha ha, Caleb!
Andrew's favourite books. He has never shown an interest in books until Christmas. He got, among others, these two books, which he likes to call his "home reading". (Caleb and Joshua have home reading books we need to read and record every school day). Anyway, these are two which we read on a regular basis, sometimes more than once a day. His favourite stories in the "Farmyard Tales" are "Runaway Tractor" and "Tractor in Trouble".
Some interesting cloud formations I saw yesterday...waiting for yet another blizzard/snow storm that did not affect us too much here in Winnipeg.

On the Move

As you might assume by the title I've chosen, Natalee is finally getting somewhere! Not very far nor very quickly, but there is some intentional direction to her movement now! It's only a matter of time before she will be crawling everywhere!
Checking to see how the "rear wheels" are doing...
Look where I got today!
Andrew in his Lightning McQueen p.j.'s. He's super excited about them! About the only movie he'll ask for is "keen", so getting these p.j.'s really made his day!
Caleb wearing his "spy gear". He got it for his birthday last year but we only got it out the other day and put batteries in it. Surprisingly the batteries haven't run out yet, and it's already been 48 hours!

January

Natalee's picture for January 23rd, 2008.
Natalee has a new favourite place to play - in front of the fridge with the magnets. Of course, this is often the place she is most happiest when it's time to make meals or put food away, so not the most convenient play place, but she hasn't been pushed over yet by the fridge door.
Andrew insisted on having his picture taken with Natalee. Bunch of goof balls...Natalee fits right in with the rest of this goof ball family!

Bath Night

Yesterday, all four children were in the bath tub for a moment while I quickly got a picture of them. Natalee did not stay in the tub with the boys. There's hardly enough room for the three of them!

The Softer Side of Caleb, Joshua & Andrew

Caleb loving his sister, despite her crying...
Joshua's beautiful, long, dark eyelashes...
Andrew's stuffed animals & a doll that's actually Natalee's...and the shepherd from the Nativity Set that's still not put away. He likes to carry around the shepherd or Joseph. Actually he calls this shepherd "Joseph" because Joseph is stuck in the back of the barn and Andrew can't see him...

Natalee's Favourite Toy

Hair, Frost & Crafts

Natalee's already 10 months old. Why does 10 months sound so much older than 9 months? Is it the change over to double digits? Natalee now has seven teeth and her hair is growing! Slowly, but it's growing. The boys had haircuts yesterday, so now her hair is actually longer than theirs! She still isn't crawling, maybe due to the fact that she had several unpleasant falls shortly after Christmas.

The boys and I did some crafts the other evening. Andrew and I made this envelope puppet.
Natalee...feeling her teeth.
We had heavy frost on the trees one morning when we woke up. This picture is actually taken when I was taking Caleb to school at around 12:45 pm. and you can still see the frost on the trees. It was very beautiful.
Joshua was doing a puzzle and I put Natalee beside him. Andrew sat down beside her and I thought it made for quite a cute picture.
Joshua giggling after a giant tickling episode.

Christmas

Christmas morning at our house. The boys dumped their stockings before Mike & Natalee were out of bed.
Natalee and the doll Caleb picked out for her.
Unfortunately, due to illness, we ended up staying at home on Christmas Day. Mike was very proud of the impromptu CHRISTMAS DINNER (chicken, potatoes, salad & veggies) he whipped together in under 40 minutes (as I was not in any shape to make anything). He asked me to take a picture and blog it so you can all congratulate him on a job well done! It was nice to spend Christmas Day at home, but I wish it had been because of a snow storm instead of me being sick. Oh well, maybe next year?
The 1000 piece puzzle I finally finished today! Caleb was running around the house with the camera, and this is one of the better pictures he took.
THIS is a "Tech Deck". A small skateboard that you do tricks with...with your fingers, that is! Joshua has his full of stickers.
Yesterday we were in Morden for a family gathering. This is Natalee and her second cousin, Taylor, who is just a couple of weeks older than Natalee. Taylor is crawling all over and furniture walking. I was hoping Natalee would be motivated by watching her move, so we'll see if she too will start crawling in the next couple of days.