Fun Times

Yesterday we went to the library.  I was a little worried as Ben had been sick all night, but he seemed lots better in the morning… I guess I should have listened to that little voice that said to give him another day at home.  He was great right up until we got to the library.  As soon as we sat down he started complaining that he was cold.  I had Izzy & Auri with me too, so it was a little harder to just get up and leave when they had a fairytale theme going on!  The girls were so excited to see a ‘real’ princess!  I managed to hold Ben on my lap and keep him fairly happy (not crying) until almost the end of the story time.  I finally went and got what they were going to be doing for the craft so that we could do it at home, took a picture of the girls with the princess and headed home.  The girls played all afternoon and were great, while Ben snuggled up in my bed and fell asleep for most of the afternoon!

Emma and Izzy had preschool today for a special Petland day so it was just the Ben and Auri. Ben was thankfully doing great!  (Finally!)  It was hilarious watching these two at Stay and Play.  Auri jumped on this and called it her train and convinced Ben he needed to come ride with her!  I love these two. 

Fun With Friends

We spent the morning at Stay and Play where Emma had fun making cards with my friend Dina.  I can’t thank Dina enough for being so patient and indulging Emma’s every desire in making card after card!  We had quite the stack of cards to bring home with us!

Then, this afternoon, I invited Dina’s girls, Amy and Lorelle, to come play with Emma, Ben, Izzy and Auri!  It was quite the party!  Dina treated them all to Dilly Bars from Dairy Queen and they played outside most of the afternoon.  I love that my kids have such good friends.  I hope they stay friends throughout the years.

Best Friends

I’ve been watching Shannon’s girls for her while she does taxes and it’s been a blast!  The kids get along so well together (most of the time).  Here are a few pictures from the last few days.

Monday – Emma and Izzy took their dolls/stuffed animals for a walk.

Tuesday - Ben and Izzy playing with the trains at Stay and Play.  Auri wasn’t feeling well that day so she was home with Shannon.

Wednesday – Gotta love beautiful days where the kids can enjoy popsicles in the playhouse!

Webster Gals Weekend

It was our annual girls get together yesterday (and today) out in Mountain View.  We spent the afternoon just hanging around and visiting.  I almost never get to see my cousins, so it is a nice chance to get caught up and have a relaxed visit without kids!  My mom and us girls (me, Shauna, Rachel and Trisha were there from our family) were in charge of the dinner, so we got a big baked potato bar ready for dinner.  Everyone else brought treats to snack on afterwards.  There is definitely never a shortage of food when we get together!  We then played cards most of the evening.  I left at about 10:30 or so to head home – Lennard has a rugby tournament all day today.  It would have been nice to stay longer, but at least I got last night with everyone!

Training Wheels–OFF!

One of the benefits of having Izzy and Auri over today was that Izzy brought her bike…without training wheels.  Emma wanted to try her bike and I sort of put her off.  I went inside and pretty soon she came running inside telling me to come watch.  Amazingly, she was riding Izzy’s bike all by herself!  Hooray for Emma! 

As soon as Lennard got home Emma had him in the garage taking off the training wheels on her bike.  Her bike is quite a bit bigger and heavier than Izzy’s so she’s bit more wobbly, but she’s getting it.  I took the picture of Lennard running with her just so that we’d have one to pretend that we actually helped her!  LOL. 

Seeing Emma ride without training wheels got Ben thinking.  He hasn’t ridden his bike very much so I knew he wasn’t quite ready… at least without a lot of help, but he wasn’t being deterred.  Lennard moved the training wheels up so that he’d have to balance a bit more, but that wasn’t good enough.  He finally climbed up to Lennard’s tool chest, found the right wrench and took things into his own hands!  In his words, “If daddy won’t do it, I’ll do it myself!”  The funniest thing was that once the training wheels were off and he attempted to ride, it was about five minutes before he was asking for them to be put back on!  Guess we’re going to have to spend some quality time helping him learn how to ride his bike.

Fun at the Park

It was such a beautiful day today!  We invited Izzy and Auri over to play today.  We had a fun morning at Stay and Play and then after lunch the kids headed to the park!  They had so much fun playing together.

Easter Baskets

This is what happens when I take pictures on my camera and forget to load them onto the computer!  Somehow I missed getting this posted… oops! 

We were excited to get a phone call from the Greyhound bus depot in Lethbridge yesterday saying that there was a package there for us!  Since my sisters were coming out for Easter dinner, I asked Shauna to go pick it up for us.  There was a little confusion at the depot, but eventually they got it figured out and found the package.  When the guy writes down our name as Nic Hols and files it under H… yup… that would make it hard to find!

We waited until all the cousins were gone before the kids got to open their package and they it was a good thing.  The shrieks of excitement were deafening!  They were so excited!  They got thoroughly spoiled and each item that got pulled out of their baskets was suddenly their favorite!  We can’t thank B&T enough for their thoughtful gifts.

Emma immediately gave a big hug to her new stuffed pink bunny. 

Finding necklaces just about popped our eardrums!  She wanted to wear them immediately.  She is such a girly-girl (sometimes).  Ben was SO excited for the glow sticks! 

Ben was off playing with all the toys he got.  Emma had fun checking out every single item over and over!

Easter Dinner

About a month ago we extended the invitation to my family to come to our house for Easter dinner.  We were actually surprised that everyone said that they would come!  Then came the fun of trying to figure out how to seat 38 people for dinner (Matt ended up not being able to come because of work).  I was actually impressed at how well it all worked.  We had all the food on the island and just did a buffet style dinner.  I had two long tables set up in the living room as well as two couches for adults to sit on and then the long table in the dining room and a small camp table for kids.  It was a little crazy getting everyone through the lineup, so I think everyone had a place to sit… I didn’t see anyone standing (thought I might have missed them if they were). 

For having 22 little kids in the house, I was very impressed with how well they played together.  I didn’t hear one fight over toys all day!

Rachel made a Reece’s peanut butter cup cake that everyone devoured and we even got in a quick ‘Happy Birthday’ to my nephew, David.  He is turning 12 on Tuesday!

I had to laugh looking at the front entry with all the shoes and coats.  It made me thankful for the money we spent expanding it!

We tried to get a group photo of all the grandkids.  Since it was snowing outside, we had to do it in the living room.  The older kids thought it was funny to make faces in almost every picture and the little ones just wanted their parents.  At least we documented the moment!

Then we attempted to get a family picture… what a joke!  We were worse behaved than the kids!  This was the closest ‘normal’ picture we got… except for mom.  Ha! Ha!  She thought we were doing a silly photo, but the rest of us didn’t get that memo! 

It was seriously such a fun day… a zoo, but really fun to have everyone together and get a chance to visit.  I wish the weather would have been a bit nicer so we could have sent the kids outside, but it all worked out okay. 

Easter Egg Hunt

We decided to keep things super simple for Easter this year.  We’ve been trying to teach the kids the real reason we celebrate Easter, but we also want them to have some fun too.  With that in mind, they each got a booklet of stickers, some chocolate Easter eggs and a small ‘gift’.  Ben got some new plastic balls for his T-ball set and Emma got a necklace with a bunny on it.  They were both so excited with their baskets.  Then, Ben realized that there were Easter eggs hidden around the living room.  That definitely boosted the excitement level!  He was hilarious to watch!  He was finding eggs right, left and center and Emma was finding the odd one and then looking around trying to figure out why she wasn’t finding more!  They eventually found them all and were thrilled to find out that there was more chocolate in them!

After the hunt for eggs was done, we decided to surprise them with new scooters from us.  They have been so good at hanging out at the hangar while we’ve worked so many hours this past year.  We bought them a while ago, but thought that it would be a good time to pull them out now since we just finished the last sheet of OSB this weekend.  Now they can ride them around the hangar while we finish up odds and ends!

To say they were excited would be an understatement! 

One More Thing Done!

Yesterday and today we have been working on getting the ceiling sheeted in the hangar.  Lennard has worked so hard.  I was watching Jeffrey all morning yesterday, so I didn’t get out until after lunch, but my parents helped out lots.  I helped all afternoon too.  Then, this morning, with mom and dad’s help, we got the rest of the sheeting up before 12:30!  Hooray!  It feels so good to have it all done!

We’ve got to put up the rest of the lights now, cut and install an attic door and put up the other fan and then we can get rid of the scaffolding!  We won’t be painting for a while (have to stop the money train at some point!), but we’re going to get things cleaned up and organized now. 

It’s hard to believe that a year ago this weekend we had the wood delivered for the hangar!  No wonder it feels like we’ve spent most of our time at the hangar this past year!