Festival of Trees

On Friday Malia and I had the privalege of going to the Festival of Trees at the Western Development Museum to see the displays and to listen to the Osler School Choir. Alex is a part of the Choir and enjoys singing with all the other kids. I think the reason he likes choir is because he adores the director, Ms. Bodnar who also happens to be his teacher!




Malia loves wearing dresses and skirts. She shines when she's all dressed up!




My beautiful girl! I love red on Malia!



Malia was mesmerized by this display. Very fascinating indeed!



Sometimes it's very difficult to get a good picture of a little girl that has a mind of her own. I did manage to get a few decent shots!



And for all you Rider fans, they even had a Rough Rider tree! Yeah!



And a Rough Rider gingerbread house! Go Riders! Go!

Payback!!

I finally got to go a way for a week-end! By myself! Fun! Fun! Fun! I flew to Abbotsford to join 2 of my sister-in-laws for a week-end of girl time and shopping! We had a blast! I left Friday and came back Monday. Malia handled my absence very well even though she kept asking for me and had a few meltdowns. She even slept well at night! Now that I'm back she thinks it's payback time! She has been crusty and pushing the boundaries all over again. Silly goose! She wants lots of hugs and "Mommy time". I can handle that, its just been very busy with Christmas coming and just catching up. However, the break was well worth it!

Malia loves to listen to music and spends lots of time on the couch listening and sometimes drawing.



Malia has started drawing or rather scribbling on paper. It makes her feel very important and grown up! She loves to spend time with Morgun. They play very well together.

Morgun's 8th Birthday!

My baby boy is 8! Its sad and exciting at the same time! Sad, because I never get to spend enough time with Morgun, exciting because he is becoming such a gentleman! Morgun adores his older brother, and will generally pick the same things Alex picks, whether it's clothes, toys or birthday cakes. I usually insist that I make a different cake for each of them. This year Morgun REALLY wanted a ship as well and I couldn't say "no" to a boy with beautiful blue puppy dog eyes. Morgun gave detailed instructions as to where each "lego guy" should be positioned. As you can see the drama on this birthday ship is indeed captivating!
I think this cake turned out a little better than Alex's. I used a different icing, NutriWhip with a couple tbsp of icing sugar added. It was much easier to ice this cake and it didn't look all dry by the time I served it. And its not disgustingly sweet!







Malia loves cake and enjoyed the boys' birthday partys, even though it was very noisy! She has become obsessed with her birthday and couldn't understand why we were not making a cake for her and buying her gifts. Every day she would cry when we told her she would have to wait. After about a week she finally understood that " Malia's Happy Happy to You long time". She still talks about her birthay numerous times a day. And she loves to point out that "Morgun and Alex birthday all done!" I love this picture with the icing all over her face and even coming out of her nose! That part is rather gross, but thats life!

Sour Skittles

Malia continues to explore new foods. Candy seems to be relatively new to
her. Like every child she LOVES candy. Here she is trying some sour Skittles. I knew she would have an interesting expression and she did not disappoint! :)




As you can see, she is very comfortable in front of the camera. I'm so glad she no longer asks what I am doing every time I am taping. She would say and do the cutest things, but as soon as the video camera was pulled out, she would stop. Malia loves to watch videos of herself and begs and begs to watch them again and again.

Alex's 10th Birthday!

It's hard to believe that our oldest is 10! Double digits! Scary! Time does fly and I feel that every day I am desperately trying to make the most of every moment and make as many memories as possible. Alex loves to read and experiment. The fingerprint kit was a hit!



I have tried to convince our boys, over the years, that a bought cake would be much nicer than any creation I could come up with. I have never been able to convince them that this is true. So every year I make them a cake of their choice. This year Alex wanted a ship with lego guys on it. Shouldn't be too difficult. Right?!? Well, lets just say the ship encountered some rough waters and leaned a little. Although, Alex never did notice.



I couldn't be prouder of my boy! Not only is he handsome, but he has a huge heart and works hard to be God wants him to be!




The cake tasted delicious! Of coarse Alex was the first to pick which piece he wanted and picked a part with his favorite mint candy.

To The River

Wow! Amazing things DO happen! Two posts in 2 days, not bad! It will likely never occur again. :)
I finally convinced Malia to sing while I was recording. She loves to sing, listen to music and "play" the piano. She has an incredible nack for picking up the tune to any song she likes. She is constantly asking to listen to "Sing, Sing, Sing" by Chris Tomlin or "EIEIO" on her kids CD. She absolutely loves the singing in church and her favorite music is definitely worship music! She is amazing to watch during the worship service. Its like she is worshiping her wonderful Maker. I had never seen a young child so innocently worship God, even though we have taught her very little in that regard.

We have a Hannah Montana CD in the Tahoe and every time we drive she asks to listen to the song "Butterfly". In this video she is singing "To The River" by Brian Doerksen.

Costumes! Oh the FUN!!

I'm a little late in posting pics of our kids in their Halloween costumes. We spent the evening with friends, carving pumpkins, decorating cookies and, of coarse, eating!
Malia was a very cute little ladybug! She didn't carve a pumpkin, but she loved decorating cookies and was upset when we didn't let her have as many as she wanted. She continues to love food, but for the most part has learned there is a limit.










Alex loves carving pumpkins, even though they're gooey and gross!

The snarly pirate, Morgun.


P.S. Apparently some people think I don't post often enough, so I'll try to post more often. Its always the last thing on my list. And as its always been my days are usually very full. Anyhow, if you (you know who I'm talking about!:) ), would make some comments I may just be inspired to post more often! :)