Papa's Last Scout.. HEY I can hope can't I??

Last weekend we packed up the kids, made a lunch, grabbed some snacks, and some cash and headed off down the road to pick up this new beast.. :) In case your wondering this is a 1963 IHC scout with a plow on the front :) Finally we have a way to plow our own driveway again!! Papa has been looking for a '4 banger scout' to drive to work and back and with the plow on the front the truck will come in useful at home too :) Apparently the engine in this little guy can get pretty good fuel mileage if you do it just right and I know Papa is looking forward to the challenge. He's actually in pretty good shape.. you can see the back fender is bent and there is a bit of rust (but he is 48 years old so a little rust is really good considering.) The boards on the top was the previous owners idea of fixing a small leak by the drivers side door, he had tin on top of the boards.. Papa took them off as soon as we got home. It does need a bit of work but Papa had it driving around within 2 hours of getting it off the trailer.. the clutch is shot but Papa says it's not a big deal. $100 part and a few hours in the shop. Good thing Papa is a mechanic at heart :) I can't even IMAGINE what we'd do with all these old rigs if he wasn't! (Actually I can (though Papa would NOT agree)... my cousin Steph once told me to "stick a rag in the gas tank, light it and RUN!!!" )

I got sick, some sort of sinus thing that's been plaguing me for months, on Thursday and told Papa "I'm going to be sick the whole way there." And I was, my poor ears could NOT pop!! Between that and the morning sickness.. We had to stop in EVERY town on the way down and finally got some mints to help with the morning sickness about 3/4 of the way there. They helped a LOT and by the time we got there I thought maybe this could be fun after all. Thankfully none of the kids got sick. We got him loaded with no troubles and headed back. We drove about 11 hours total.

Thankfully we did not have to stop at every town on the way back but we did have to stop about 30 minutes in to rearrange the truck on the trailer as the weight was on the back and making it go squirrely when ever we went over 80 ish. Even then we ended up going about 90 all the way home. We had planned on stopping at a cool park somewhere and letting the kids run around but it ended up raining almost the whole way there and most of the way back. Actually the rain stopped right as it got dark. We had not brought rain gear so we didn't stop. We did stop for supper and ate subs in a little place on the way. But even without too many delays we still didn't get home until after 1am. Baby J thought it was MORNING!!! and we had a little trouble convincing him it was NOT so we ended up getting to bed around 1:30am. The kids slept the last several hours in the truck on the way home but I saw about 50 deer on the way there and back and that prohibits sleep for me.

The next day was Sunday and Papa drooled on and crawled over every inch of him for several hours in the afternoon. Even took him for a little spin. Then we packed the kids up and took them to the local park.. with fries and let them play for a bit. After they were hot and sweaty and worn out.. we took them out for ice cream :)

We are thinking of a name for him.. Our Travelall is Polly, and all the other IHC have names so it's a given that we'd name this one too. It needs to be a male name that is short. Also something that we'd never use for a child.. He's the same color as a truck we had in Wa. named Alfred... So I thought maybe Al, but Papa says he's not naming his little scout after that stinking Chevy.. (I have to admit it was a TERRIBLE truck..I believe Auntie R still refers to it as "Rat crap" as it was hers before it was ours.) So then I thought maybe Burt.. but we're still looking. So if you have any ideas.. feel free to post them. We have a Leo, Clifford,  Jake, Molly, Polly, Scotty, and an Ambly so far.  The last IHC I posted about that he got for free isn't named either.. and neither is the med duty IHC his bosses gave him. So we need a few names :)

AWANA Awards :)

Awana recently ended and here is J with his awards. The green one is for finishing his 1st book and the blue one is for finishing his second book. He was the only child who finished BOTH books in this year.

 Great job J!! 

A Six Year Old Boy Birthday :)

L turned 6 last month and I just finished getting the last of the pictures on the computer so I thought I'd share them with you. 

A happy 6 year old and his cake! 

Blowing out the candles :) 

Looking at the card from us. Baby J got the envelope and proceeded to try and eat it. 

LEGO HELICOPTER!!!

R bringing L his BIG one while E, BoyT and J look on.

Opening the BIG one.. wrapped in a pillow case :) 

L getting a good look. 

Everyone needed a closer look :) 

BoyT2 brought L his gift from the T family. He's opening the cards from the kids.

Baby J liked the box for climbing.. he recently climbed his way onto the couch.

L and his fishing rod from G&G F. He's quite determined to go fishing.. SOON!! :) 

L and his card and $$ from G&G G. Thank You Grandma and Grandpa.

The 6th :)

We are

  

VERY EXCITED

 

to announce that we are expecting our 6th child :) My due date so far is 11/11/11  

Getting Ready For A Party!! L's Birthday Party :)

Papa and the kids using the apple corer peeler to get the apples ready for the pie. I had hurt my back badly and Papa stepped up to the plate and pretty much made the pies :) Thanks Babe! 

L wanted apple pie and a small cake for his birthday!! YUM!!

L mixing the cake. 

The finished cake. He wanted a lion facing forward and a rainbow! The cake got the rainbow and the pie below is the lion. 

It's a bit hard to see. But there are ears, eyes, whiskers, nose and mouth and the pie crust is the mane.

A Tired Boy.

 A couple of days ago we had a German egg dish for breakfast kind of like crepes which we sprinkle sugar on. The kids love it and now that Baby J is eating eggs he loves it too. After eating an amazing amount of eggs he was sitting and playing nicely in his high chair. Papa was going to give him a bath so I thought 'why wash him up.. he's happy he can stay there till Papa is ready.' He was VERY sticky. I found out later that Papa had also given him canned peaches on his tray! He played happily for some time. When I got up to clean the kitchen I found him like this.

Apparently he was just too tired and full to keep his eyes open.

  Yes he's asleep. LOL. He slept for about 30 minutes and moved around a bit. He's so CUTE!! 

He woke up with a crease on his face!! 

Papa washing him in the promised bath. 

~Winter Craft Fun With T's~

Every Friday all winter we got together with the T family to do a craft, watch a movie, eat lunch and have some fun..not necessarily in that order. I've been taking pictures the whole time and I'm finally getting around to posting some of them.

One day we did puzzles.

BoyT2 and R working on the wooden puzzles. 

J and Miss T working on the ABC floor puzzle. 

Working away. Dino puzzles. 

BoyT done his dino puzzle. 

E and BoyT2 working on the little dino puzzles. 

The floor Noah's Ark puzzle.. J and Miss T at work. 

The Noah's Ark puzzle... a bit of a challenge for these 3! BoyT, E and L. 

Cool floor puzzles of 'boy stuff' :) 

Two happy boys giving each other a high five! THEY DID IT!!! 

Another day we did a neat little string game. The kids had to hang on to the button on the string and follow the string to the end of the game. They couldn't let go of the button and had to crawl if the string was low and do whatever the string did. It was a lot of fun. 

The START. 

The END. Each cup had a hand full of candies.

L following the string under the baby swing.

BoyT following the string close to the floor. 

J following the sting around the chair. 

R following the string under and around the table. The really neat thing about this game is that you could make it as easy or as hard as you need for each age group.

Enjoying their treat at the table.

Well that is all for now.... :) Have a wonderful day!! 

Little Mothers. The Things Kids Learn

E and R have been practicing to be great little mothers recently. They amaze me. The boys are BOYS they don't put their babies to sleep and make sure they have a pillow, blanket, have either gotten a clean bum or gone to the bathroom and gotten a lecture about having 'a good sleep so you will get a treat.' If the boys play with babies at all they are fighters with weapons or people who need rescuing or some such thing. R loves to feed her baby and sits him up, gets a spoon and a bowl and spoon feeds him.. not just a little. That kid is FULL. Regularly we see a girl running around with a baby doll up under her shirt. That baby is either nursing or she's 'gonna have a baby and it's still in her tummy.'

I find that they do everything that I do with Baby J and stuff I do with them as well. Both of my girls have toilet trained their baby, sleep trained their baby and taught their baby to 'eat nice.' They get them dressed, change their bums, bath them, carry them around talking to them, play with them and discipline them. It's amazing to watch.

A Night of Fun.

A local group actors recently put on a play about the history of our town. The T's where part of the group with Mr.T playing several roles and Girl T playing several roles as well. Mrs T made all the costumes that needed making and fitted several of the rest. The cast and crew all put a TON of hours into the play and it showed.  They really put on a incredible play!! Who know the history of our small town could be so interesting :) I took J, L and E out to the play one of the two days they put the play on. They'd never been to a play and they TOTALLY ENJOYED it. I have too admit that they didn't know what to expect, and I didn't really try and tell them at all. I wanted them to be surprised and they were. They did seem to think NOTHING would ever happen as we 1st waited in line and then in our chairs, but when the play finally did start they were awestruck. 

The play consisted of a lot of short skits, several of them keeping a theme through out the play, starting with the natives and going through history to today. It was enlightening and entertaining. Funny, sad, it took you through all the emotions.

After the play they had a appy sort of thing with some of the local groups doing a small snack. There was at least 8 different ethic foods from different groups who've made our little town home. They were wonderful. I really liked the smoked salmon and some little pastries with veggies and meat in them. The kids like almost all of the foods but the favorite was probably the roll cuken and watermelon :) Good old Mennonite food :) 

They filmed the play several times and apparently there will be a movie of the play released. I'm looking forward to buying it and enjoying the play again. I also love that this fun play covers an amazing amount of history, socials, and native learning school outcomes. 

R and Baby J stayed home with Papa and R and Papa played with her new princess dolls, made cookies and had a great time :) The cookies had M&M's in them and they shared when we got home that night. It was a great night for us all. 

School Trip to the Police Station.

Papa and Mr. T made a trip to our local police station recently. They were a bit out numbered. 6 kids to 2 adults but they had a great time. Funny thing to say about a trip to the police station. But when you are there to take a tour and learn more about the local police force for a grade 1 field trip FUN is the right word. The kids really seemed to enjoy it. The fathers never did say much about the 30 minutes they spent inside the station but the 3 mothers had a great time with the littles at T's house while the men and biggers were away. After the school kids and Papa's got back we had a fun time of visiting before a great lunch and a fun afternoon at T's. We had another family join us that day who also have 4 children and it the Griggs first contact with them. They are the D's. Whom you've already seen pictures of. The D's oldest child is something like 3 weeks older the J which makes him the oldest of the 13 children the 3 families. There are 3 seven year olds (A, J and Girl T), 1 six year old (N), 2 almost 6 year olds (L and BoyT ), 2 four year olds (E and BoyT 2), 1 three year old (R), 1 two year old (C), and 3 babies under a year old (T, Baby T and Baby J.) There are 5 girls and 8 boys. What a TON of FUN!!!!