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!!!!

Trip to the Ambulance Station

Mrs T has connections :) Her sister Sharon works as a ambulance attendant. So one day, over a month ago now, we all tramped to the station and had a tour of the station itself, the ambulance and got too meet another attendant and get some pretty cool coloring books that Sharon made up for us. Because Papa was working I had everyone and so I thought I'd have my hands full.. and left my camera at home. BAD mistake. We are planning on going back sometime for pictures. E had a bit of hesitation when we 1st got there but LOVED Sharon, and still talks about her, and soon warmed up and was climbing over everything with the rest of them. She's been in a ambulance and I think that's why she hesitated.  Sharon was a great tour guide and let them listen to each others or their own heartbeats (though apparently J doesn't have one as he couldn't find his :), sit in the drivers seat, sit in the puzzle like emergency wheel chair, turned the lights and sirens on, showed them the boards, took the bed out to show them how it worked, gave them stickers and answered questions. She also showed us the station itself with it's kitchen, living room, girls and guys bedrooms and bathrooms and storage area.  They work in pairs and so we got to meet her partner for the night as well. The kids enjoyed him and they enjoyed watching TV with him for a bit. After our tour we headed over to the local donut shop and got a quick treat before heading home :) Thanks Sharon and Mrs. T we had a great time!

A Little R 3 Year Old Birthday!

Making the cake. We were all at the table mixing and fetching this and putting that away and having fun and Baby J was fussing in the living room so we brought him over and sat him on the table. Instantly happy baby :) 

We normally have a birthday girl ribbon for the girls to wear but it got a bit umm. TRASHED last time we used it and I forgot until the last minute so I took a washable marker and made this shirt up. She loved it :)

The cake. That little people girl is 'her favorite girl!' 

It's a butterfly. Really it is :) Peach slices and gummy worms.. The green and orange things are flowers. 

R with her cake. She really liked it. The list of things she wanted on it was VERY long so I picked a few of the things that kept popping up. She picked the candles herself. 

Opening her card from Grandpa and Grandma Griggs. 

Blowing out the candles. She cried last year. This year she really enjoyed being the center of attention.

Grandma feeding Baby his 1st taste of cake.

A Dilemma

The kids really want to have a hot dog  roast. We were at some friends yesterday and saw another friend cutting wood on the side of his driveway for a hot dog roast that night. OH then the kids were SURE we HAD to have one too. So we were talking about it on the way home and I told them that we need to lose some more snow so before we have a hot dog roast. Then L pipes up with 'I got the spot mom' and proceeds to tell me where he thinks we should have a hot dog roast. Well after several rabbit trails about 'this trailer?? or that trailer? The one we live in or another one??' We finally figured out that L meant Grandpa's trailer in the middle of the yard by the two trees. I guess there is grass under the two trees and he was SURE that was the spot. So I explained we didn't want to burn the trees down so we couldn't have it under the trees. So then they had the inventive idea of MOVING THE TRAILER!! It's been there all winter and there is grass, dead, under it. So then I told them that the fire would make a hole in the grass if we had it there. E yells from behind me. "Then we would fall in!!" LOL. I laughed then explained that it would only be a hole in the grass and not in the dirt so you wouldn't fall in. J calls out that 'it's OK if there is one hole in the grass.' So I told him, jokingly, that Maggie might get terribly hungry if we burn up all her grass and then what would we feed her?  He said that 'Maggie doesn't need that little piece of grass.. SHE has LOTS!!' I countered with 'but what if she eats all the rest and she's still hungry??' He was not convinced though and they still think that Maggie can do without that little piece of grass. I was telling Papa all this just this morning and while I was talking I had a great idea. One that will save the grass and give the kids their hot dog roast. We have a nice big driveway!! :) It's all covered in snow and you can walk on it. The snow off the driveway and paths is still very deep and even J has started to fall through at least 1 level of snow. Which makes walking very hard and a hot dog roast impossible.

Bacon.

Papa sliced up some of the bacon tonight and fried some up!! WOW!!! It's awesome! This is only his second time curing and smoking bacon and it's amazing!! He did a whole pan full and it only lasted a few minutes. J is already planning a breakfast.. waffles, eggs and BACON!!! LOL. He wanted it for tomorrow but Papa is the waffle king and he's working tomorrow so we kinda decided to make it Sunday Morning.  What a wonderful thing to wake up too :)