My Baby is Three!

This was his birthday breakfast of choice, heart shaped pancakes with strawberries!

I can't believe that my baby boy has already turned three! Time has gone so fast! It doesn't seem like long ago that I was sitting in shock in a hospital room holding a little baby in a blue toque instead of a pink one, wondering what I was going to do with a boy, what he was going to be like, and worrying about how to raise a son. Now he's all grown up, he tells me all the time, "me a big boy now!" He has the sweetest, cutest little personality, and he just might get away with a little more then his sisters ever do, lol. We just can't seem to help it, the combo of his quirky sense of humor and the fact that he's the youngest, just seem to work in his favour. I can't help but just squeeze him and kiss his little cheeks all the time! Mason has the most adorable giggle, when you get him laughing it just rolls out from deep in his belly. Scaring me is his favourite thing to do, and when I scream (typically for pretend, cause he's not very good at scaring yet, lol) he laughs so hard he falls over. The other day I was tickling him and he was laughing so hard he told me he was going to pee his pants. He is such a happy easy going little boy, he is so much fun, and his sisters laugh at everything he does. I keep telling Michael that Mason is going to get a rude awakening when he heads to kindergarten and realizes that not everyone laughs at whatever he does, or thinks he's the greatest thing ever.

Lately he has been loving playing Barbies with the girls, and much to their frustration, always gets Prince Charming or Ken when he wants them, lol, but really, I have to side with him when he wants the boy Barbies! He also loves Batman, and anything that shoots, fights, or has wheels! He plays louder, crashes harder, and breaks more toys then the three girls combined! Seriously, for a boy that spent the first few years of his life being dressed in tutus and princess dresses, he is all boy!

He has been proposing lately, he bows, gets on one knee and says, "will you marry me?" (usually this is said to Bella, and she giggles away) then he says, "that's what prince charming do." It is so cute! He also keeps wrapping his chubby little arm around my neck and then asks me, "Mom, you want to be boyfriends and girlfriends?" I reply with, "no, I can't, I am Daddy's girlfriend," to which he responds, "no, him Bella's!" lol, he's such a sweetie, and seriously, one day, this boy is going to make a pretty good boyfriend, that is, if his sisters don't get too over protective and scare the girls away, lol.  Before bed when I snuggle in with him for a few moments we go through a little routine where he says, "you da best princess," and I say, "you da best prince," then he says, "best king you mean?" and I say "okay, you the best king" and he laughs and gives the greatest hug and loves to squeeze as tight as he can, then leaves a slobbery kiss on my cheek.

 

Mason loves to go anywhere with daddy (really, all the kids do) but especially the barn. He would be so happy if he could just head to work everyday with Michael. He tells me before bed every night, "when me big like daddy, me milk cows!" When Michael tucks him in at night he asks all kinds of questions about the farm, what tractor did he drive today, did he feed the cows, did they get milked, etc. It is so cute, just melts my heart. If he has nothing to do he will sit on the couch and read the farmer magazines and ask about the cows or the tractors in them. This is one little boy that just loves farming. He loves it so much that sometimes it breaks my heart when I think about how much Don would smiled watching him. When Mason does one of his silly antics or picks on his sisters I sometimes hear Don's loud high laugh in my mind, instead of chuckling away I get all teary eyed thinking about it, he would have gotten such a kick out of Mason. Don's brother was here a few weeks ago and I watched him chuckle as he loaded the elastic gun for Mason to shoot his sisters with, and later we showed him Mason's "will trade sister for tractor" John Deere shirt, and he laughed, long and hard, like Don would have, it made me catch my breath, it was good, it was hard, but it made me whisper a little prayer of thanks, I so appreciate having family. Family that loves us, and will make time for us, and that can continue to remind us of Don. We are blessed!!

We celebrated Mason's birthday with a big family party, all the crazies were invited, lol. It was a lot of fun, and it was kind of neat to trade in princesses and fashion shows for Batman!

Mason has become rather fond of Batman lately, and well, I must say he comes by it honestly around here, so we decided a Batman party was in order :)

can't get together without a cousins on the couch photo, this time around we added the Batman theme :)

Earlier in the week Mason had been taken out by Cheyanne on the swings and it had left a good mark on his cheek, Lexi decided he must have a bandaid for it, so there's a little bit of Spiderman at the party.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BATMAN!

I didn't feel like baking  a cake (good thing he's a boy, he shouldn't hold it against me too much, haha) so we went to DQ and added Batman to the top :)

Mason powered through his gifts, he was nuts! This was one of his favourites, a puck from cousin Dex who had gotten it at the hockey game the night before!

a few other favourites were the sister tshirt from the Coopers, and the pillow case that Cheyanne sewed for him with Great Grandma!

This was my big gift to him. I had seen it online and just couldn't help it, I had to get it for him! It's the cutest light up rain coat, and besides, he's the only boy, we have to spoil him right? hahaha.  Thanks to some helpful family at the coast willing to walk across the border for me, he got it, and it's plenty big, should fit him for a few years :)

Our birthday interview, thanks to Ladybugs n' Latte's for the idea!

Favourite Colour:? pink

Favourite Food? noodles

Favourite Show? Mickey Mouse Clubhouse

Favourite Book? Everybody Poops

Favourite Toy? Batman

Favourite Song? Da NA Na Batman

What do you want to be when you grow up? Batman, Farmer

What are you good at? fighting

What are you excited about? cartoons

What are your favourite memories from being five? ummmmm, play play-dough, cows, chickens, driving on quad (he struggled with this so I am going to add some, lol, camping, tubing, going to the barn with daddy, playing with sisters)

What is your favourite memory verse this year? hmm, a bit young for this one, I asked him something he learned in Sunday School and he said colouring :)

What is one thing you would like to say to the whole world if you had the chance? Me milk cows with my stinky hands! (hahaha, this answer cracked me up)

Emme Has Lost a Tooth!

 

Well the event that she has been waiting for since Cheyanne lost her first tooth has finally happened! Emmersen lost her first tooth while eating. The funny part is that she didn't even notice. She went to the bathroom to wash up and noticed the hole in her mouth, came running out and exclaimed, "Daddy, I think I swallowed my tooth!" Michael was surprised and asked her is she was sure, and all of a sudden she had a light bulb moment, ran to the table and found her tooth sitting on the edge of the plate. Apparently, while eating a cookie she had come across a hard piece that she couldn't chew and simply took it out and put it on her plate. Turns out, it was her tooth!

 

...and, like her big sister before her, she just had to keep that first tooth, so following the precedent set before, she offered the Tooth-Fairy marshmallows in exchange for allowing her to keep her first tooth. 

The Tooth-Fairy graciously left Emme her first tooth, and replied with a fairy sized note. Fortunately no one questioned why the note the Tooth-Fairy had left Cheyanne wasn't fairy sized, I suppose I would have had to tell them that the Tooth-Fairy must not have been on pinterest when Cheyanne lost her tooth :)

A Strange Set of Wedding Vows!

Our darling Bella is so random. The things that she says just crack me up, and most of the time I forget to write them down, but I just had to remember this one.

I was listening to Bella and Mason playing one afternoon and could tell that the Prince Charming Doll was going to be married to Bella's creepy porcelain doll that she got from her sisters at Santa's Workshop. This was how the wedding ceremony went:

Bella: "Do you promise to treat this lady with respect?" (said with the head bobbing attitude of an in charge woman)

Mason: "Yes"

Bella: "Do you promise to train her on the potty?"

Mason: "Yes"

Bella: "you may kiss" (smooch)

I have no idea where she got the idea the wedding ceremonies include potty training the bride, but for whatever reason she felt that was an important vow :)

Our Family's New Winter Activity

This Year we have taken up a new sport as a family. We have started cross country skiing. I grew up skiing with my family and so I am so excited to start doing it with our little family. Cheyanne and Emmersen are in jackrabbits so every Saturday they have a little lesson and we go for a little ski. It is so weird to be doing something with the kids that I so vividly remember growing up, and even weirder to see the people who I skied with as a kid up there with their kids! Emmersen's favourite part is the hot chocolate afterwards but she still has a lot of fun while we are out there. We have also gone out as a family a few times and I was shocked at how well Bella and Mason did. The first time out they stayed on their skis for an hour. We didn't travel a lot in that hour but they did awesome! So far Mason has made it 2km on his own and Bella has made it about 4, while the other girls can cruise all over the place.

 

Mason was so excited to have his own skis to hold

 Our first family photo on the ski hill

 giving Mason a little tow

 A hot chocolate break in the challet

 

We even found a good place to go for a quick sled (although this was pushing it a bit, a few melt downs happened during the sledding portion of our day)

 

The girls and I on our first day at Jackrabbits!

Family and Christmas

For me Christmas is all about family. I love that at Christmas time we all make a point of being together and celebrating. We make sure that our kids know that the reason for Christmas is to celebrate the birth of our saviour, we talk about the sacrifice and the love that God had for us to send his son as a gift, but I also really want to them to grow up remembering it as a time where families got together and just loved each other. (Maybe that's my way of holding out hope that they will always come home for Christmas when they have their own families, or at least let us come visit them, hahaha) Of course there is stress and there is tension when families get together, but for the most part there is joy. For us Christmas starts at least two weeks early. We get together with one side one weekend, and another side the next weekend, Christmas day is filled with family, and often we follow it up with another celebration after Christmas, and if we are lucky we even carry on the Christmas joy into the new year. Each gathering brings special moments and memories. I love watching my kids get together with their great grandparents, great aunts and uncles, cousins, their dad's cousins....it is so neat to see them so loved by so many. I know that they will grow up knowing they are loved. I feel overwhelmed at how blessed we are to have so many people in our life to love us. It is such a precious blessing, and knowing that helps when the sorrow of missing the ones we loved so much becomes suffocating, when we begin to wallow in despair, carrying the burden of grief through holidays can feel like an impossible task, and yet when we are surrounded by so many people who love us, somehow it makes things just a little lighter, it makes it just a little easier to find joy, in what seems joyless. God has been so good to us!

Our first gathering of the season was with the Martins side of our family. We had a lot of fun and a lot of joy together. One of the highlights were the games we played together. My kids absolutely loved playing charades with the family and singing Christmas carols. Cheyanne even brought along her violin and played God is so Good for everyone. It was a great time!

While we were in Abbotsford we got together for a Haak caroling session with our Grandpa and Grandma Martins. It was a lot of chaos and a lot of noise, but it was also very precious to be there and share a small portion of Christmas with them. We took awhile to get a photo with all of the great grandchildren, but we finally got it without any tears! :)

This is the Haak gathering at Michael's aunt's place. I believe there was at least 40 people there and the family is still growing with four new babies arriving in 2013! It is one loud evening, but a lot of fun! So neat to see everyone catch up and enjoy each others company regardless of how long it has been between visits.

The kids and Great Grandpa Haak, such a wonderful man!

The Olund family Christmas photo on the hay wagon has become an amazing tradition. We get together Christmas day at the farm and enjoy a loud, messy, Christmas dinner, and then we all bundle up and we hit the hay wagon and go for a hay ride along the river bank. It is so beautiful. We live in an amazing place and the beauty of God's creation is so evident as we cruise along the snowy river banks that border our property. This has become one of my absolute favourite Christmas traditions. I love how every year we can look back on the photo on the hay wagon and see how much each kid has changed or how each family has grown.

This is our typical get all the grand-kids on the couch photo whenever we are all together, with a twist. My dad's Swedish relatives sent us all Swedish socks for the kids so we wanted to get a photo to send them with all of the kids wearing them. Dad also made a Huscavarna Swedish "Lager" saw, it's hard to tell in the photo, but I think the gist of the joke is that it's powered by beer :)

Our final Christmas get together was at the farm house with our smaller Haak family. It was fun to watch how the cousins had grown up this year and were more excited to open presents. This year a few of the presents, which may have been purchased by us, were bigger then the Christmas tree. The kids got a good laugh out of the deal, and we got to send our little nieces home with stuffies three times the size of them :)

As I mentioned above, we are truly blessed to be loved by so many. These photos and gatherings don't even represent all of the wonderful people that God has placed in our life to love us, to pray for us, and to just do life together. From close family to relatives that live at a distance, to friends all over, THANK YOU for all that you mean to us, for how you have blessed us, and I hope that we can be a blessing and serve you in the way that so many of you have touched our lives. I feel overwhelmed at how lucky we are to have each one of you in our life, and thank you often doesn't feel like enough, but just know that you are appreciated, and we have felt the difference you have made in our life.