How it all {possibly} began.

At some point a person gets so sick of being pregnant that it's easy to believe that you will be the first person to be pregnant forever. I had that one week before I was due.  I felt like a whale, and decided that since I was going to be a whale forever, I may as well get used to it and get on with life. 
So we went in the truck thru our back field to the small pond used by the cattle for drinking water.
Driving thru the field was bumpy... the poor baby was rocking inside me like a bowling ball while I hung on for dear life.  Little did we know... about 20 hours later we'd hold the baby in our arms for the first time:)

First things first though. Skating pictures. 

Advent season

Advent.
    A season of joy and beauty.
       A season of excitement and wonder.
            Expectation.

For unto us a child is born, to us a son is given,

and the government will be upon his shoulders.

And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
    Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Isaiah 9:6

One of the joys of being parents is seeing the world thru new eyes, laughing at lifes simple pleasures and marveling in the world around you, seeing it anew thru the eyes and excitement level of a toddler or young child.   Christmas is one of those times when at a young age the birth of our Saviour can get turned into something selfish and worldly or beautiful and praise-worthy. 
This is the third year Andy and I have decided to follow the church calendar by consciously celebrating Advent.  And the whole family is loving it.  For anyone out there interested we are using the book "Why Christmas" by Barbara Reaoch.  Twenty five days of devotions, at a childs level but still interesting and thought provoking enough for an adult. There are hymns to sing everyday, a Bible passage to read and scripture to memorize.  Kids have an amazing capacity for memorization and love the building and continuity of learning parts from Luke 2.  I'm the one having a hard time with it since we did not learn the ESV, but rather the NIV, so I stumble a little and Seth proudly rumbles on over me:) 
There's something extra special about expecting a child around Christmas as well, as I can feel the eager anticipation Mary must have felt waiting for her baby to be born.   When will it happen?  How will everything go?  Did she have patience at the end?  The Bible doesn't tell us much but I can feel her calmness and trust in God, making my impatience and nervousness seem insignificant and trivial. 
Just another reason to be thankful from the bottom of our hearts, for God's gift of Jesus, to us.

  O little town of Bethlehem,
How still we see thee lie!
Above your deep and dreamless sleep,
The silent stars go by.
Yet in thy dark streets shineth
The everlasting Light,
The hopes and fears of all the years,
Are met in thee tonight.

O holy Child of Bethlehem,
Descend to us, we pray;
Cast out our sins and enter in,
Be born to us today.
We hear the Christmas angels
The great glad tidings tell:
Oh, come to us, abide with us,
Our Lord Emmanuel!

Sinterklaas kapoentje,

"Sinterklaas kapoentje,

gooi wat in m'n schoentje,
gooi wat in m'n laarsje,
dank u Sinterklaasje."

Ahhh...  "MOM!!!  Did Santa come last night?"  Santa Claus? 
Whatever.
It was totally confusing this year.

The kids couldn't wait for the boots to go up by the fireplace and talked incessantly about Sinterklaas, but when they saw Santa in the mall, they were calling him Sinterklaas.  Which wasn't too bad except that Tristan was all excited about Sinterklaas coming with the reindeer...down the chimney...  Which of course we have to clarify:)  
And that led to how are we going to do this, the Dutch way or the Canadian way? 
So many fun things associated with the traditional dutch way, but also so confusing for the kids, and most of it's not making any sense to them due to the canadian culture.   We just really do not want to do the gift part on Christmas day as children being children, can hardly separate the birth of Jesus from Santa and receiving gifts. I'd love to hear from you my friends, how you do it, and why!
So with all that being said, we decided on a conglomeration of both:D And we told them that's what it was too.  Not full out Sinterklaas, since it was not on the 5th, but we still did the boots by the fireplace thing, and chocolate letters.  They could call it whatever. 

Andy and I so enjoy watching the excitement build, and spoiling the kids with some gifts, that hopefully get much use in the winter months.  This year Andy and I hired a babysitter and went to Lethbridge together for an evening to shop. It was fun, and so much better when Andy helps pick things out, his imagination for what's fun for little boys is better then mine, like when we went to Costco and Andy saw this rocking horse for Rowan.   Seriously? Seriously.  :)   And of course three sets of bows and arrows are way more fun then one... Yes of course. 

Gingerbread House Building (there's a first for everything)

Have you ever made a Gingerbread house?  Why do you do it?  Why is it such a tradition for so many people?  Do you keep them and eat them? Or gaze at it then toss it?
I really have no idea what it's all about.  I've never done it and wasn't planning on doing it either, ever.  I'm not terribly keen on wasting things, so building a house out of not-so-great-cookie and filling it with not-so-good-for-you candy doesn't really make sense to me.  When our church had an evening planned for the ladies and children to make Gingerbread houses my gut reaction was "nah".... but when the kids saw the poster they were so excited I couldn't be the mean mom and say no. So we went to Walmart, bought a kit and had a hoot, decorating to our hearts content.  :))  I thought I would be constantly telling them "don't touch" when we took it home, but it's Andy I have to worry about :)    Between him and Rowan... the house will be eaten in no time!

We assembled the shell at home so the icing would harden before decorating. 

Seth and Jayden VanderGaag - buddies

For the Love of Learning

 We've been chugging along merrily in our school books.  Our school morning starts with singing our memory work - we've been following Coaldale Christain School - bellowing out the national anthem and reciting the books of the Bible.  Then comes Math and Explode the Code, copywork, journaling, science or whatever happens to float our boat that day.  Dad comes in the house for coffee at 10 am which means a break for all, time to get the wiggles out and fill those hungry (again) tummies!
October has Thanksgiving in it which is an excellent time to cultivate an attitude of gratitude and focus on the gifts we've been given (Thanks Ann Voskamp for changing 'the world' with your book 1000 Gifts! Haven't read it? Better get on that...it's been on the New York Times Bestseller list for 60 weeks straight!).  We did this each evening by hanging a leaf with something we were thankful for on the tree I put on the bulletin board.  I love what the kids came up with.  Even Rowan was insistent about putting that tape on the back of his leaf and picking a spot on the tree to hang it. He came up with his own answers too, which were usually things he loved that day like his toy truck or driving in the truck with Daddy.   

With the arrival of October 31st, we did some reading and learning about Martin Luther.  Which of course leads to all those other questions... What is a monk? Why would someone ever be a monk?  Why would people ever not like someone just because he wanted to believe only what the Bible said?  ...we took alot of detours, which made things quite complex. So we'll do more on it next year.
November is a long dull month on average so we decided to do a project on Canada.  What a great place to start eh?  ;)   A trip to the library brought home many fantastic resources, and we had alot of fun making some crafts to go with the things we learned about, including the flag and other symbols of Canada.  We dug in depth into Ontario and Alberta and mapped the country out according to province/territory, mountain ranges, natural resources and different animals.  It was the highlight of every day.  After going over the two official languages I was later testing Tristan and asked him what the two official languages of Canada were. He replied "english and...." so I helped out by saying "Frrrr..." He exclaimed "FRISIAN!"  Ahh.  A son to make his father proud;))    I guess he hears more Frisian then French here, so what do you expect, right?

(Tristan)

(Seth)

Experimenting with circles

Watercolour pencils (I think I have to get in on these. Super Fun!)

 And last but not least we had company from Alma Ontario yesterday which was really enjoyed by Andy and myself.  It was a family friend, Mr J. Post. Thank-You so much for taking the time out of your busy schedule to drive out to Purple Springs! He came loaded down with gifts from not only him and his wife but also Beppe, aka Mem.  It was like an early birthday for all of us!  So last night the kids went to bed late as we indulged and played the new games they received.   We were spoiled, and greatly enjoyed it:) 
Thank-You from all of us!

"Hockey, hockey and moooore, hockey!"

A good neighbour here called us up a couple Friday evenings ago asking if we wanted to put our kids on the Taber Christian Pond Hockey Team - his boys were too old for the younger team and they had equipment they were willing to give away. 
Andy and I thought about it over night and decided to give it a try, much to the kids extreme happiness.  Although we both do not want to be duffle bag totin' hockey parents, we were pleased with the description of this team, Christian, Parent run, non-competitive and no traveling (always the same arena).  And compared to the Coaldale kids team, which is early in the mornings on Thursdays, this was much better for us, 3:30 Saturday afternoons. 
I don't have real great pictures since Seth can't contain his excitement long enough for me to get a steady shot, and Tristan has to get on that ice.  It's way too adorable to watch, and to see them try so hard.  Seth gets right in there, skating madly after the puck, even managing to score on the first game! *Cheers!!!* Tristan is such a little squirt, and he's still learning how to skate but he is so intent on doing well that he manages to follow the puck around without falling. All the kids are between the ages of 5 - 9, some decent skaters and others laying on the ice not even bothering to get up.
These boys are so tired afterwards they can hardly hold up their heads in the big helmets, but are already saying they can't wait till next week.  
So far, so good:)

Fall, officially over.

Fall is over! We know that now. It's white outside, and cold. Minus 10 on the thermometer feeling like -20. Yesterday was still a beautiful day, all week was nice actually but we knew winter was coming so we cleaned up the last of the garden, cut down some weeds and carved pumpkins before they collapsed from the cold and the melted mush needs to get thrown in the compost, only good for fertilizer.   And as you'll see, when one wants to pose for a picture... naturally the other two need their turn too. :)

Andy recruited Seth and Tristan to jump on the weeds in the hopes more would fit in the back of the truck. After I saw this I requested they wear their helmets...just a tad dangerous in my eyes! 

Pumpkin carver 1

Pumpkin carver 2

Poser 1

Poser 2

Poser 3 :-D