A Lovely Book.
This book was given to Ayana and Moses by a family member when we brought them home. The poems are beautiful and lyrical.

Here are two of my favourites:

Cherish Me:
I sprang up from mother earth
She clothed me in her own colours
I was nourished by father sun
He glazed the pottery of my skin
I am beautiful by design
The pattern of night in my hair
The pattern of music in my rhythm
As you would cherish a thing of beauty
Cherish me

Hide Me In The Cradle Of Your Love:
Oh hide me in the crevice of a rock
Some safe place
Hide me in the cradle
Of your love
In the nook of your warmest glance
On some healing shore of the sea of
Time.

Lovely!

JOY!!
This is a quick and short post just showing you one of my favourite pictures from Erin's recent trip to India. I will show more another time...
This captures Erin (2nd from the right) and some of her team mates jumping in the Arabian Sea at sunset.
Isn't it gorgeous!

The Doodle Bop Pledge:

Ayana and Moses LOVE the Doodle Bops. They are a bit American glitzy for me, but Ayana and Moses watch their show whenever I remember that it is on!

So, at the beginning they have a pledge where they pretend to blow trumpets and sing...

"We promise to share, we promise to care all together as a team. Just stick to it, we can do it, we can do anything. etc etc"

Then, they all dance around and one of them break dances on the floor...Ayana and Moses love this part of the show and one day I spotted them joining in with the pledge too. Hilarious! They blow their pretend trumpets and try to join in, then break dance etc. Hopefully these video clips are working...let me know!

Oh...and I do believe this is the second post today....!!!

Snow Dancing!

This little video clip was taken one snowy day just days before Christmas. We were having lunch and it was all warm and cosy inside. I had some lovely Christmas music on and I noticed that Ayana was dancing to the music in her high chair...totally not prompted by me or anything. It is soooo funny. It shows her dramatic and expressive personality very well. I started to film her and then turned to see what Moses was doing and he was being his usual goofy self...also dancing in his own way. You can hear me laughing...

So here they are...this sums their funny personalities up so well!

More Christmas time memories.

Four whole days since I posted. Here are some more picture memories of Christmas.

Setting up the tree....

Opening presents on Christmas morning...

Actually, a funny story about the presents. We don't give our kids that many presents. They get nice things, but not masses and masses. Anyway, after a few presents, Moses had had enough. He actually started running away whenever a present for him was pulled out from under the tree. He started crying and saying " Me no more presents" He ended up opening some a few days later!

Probably the only child on Christmas morning that was crying because he had to open more presents!

Josh LOVES making pancakes, French toast, cookies etc. Here he is on Christmas morning making everyone a delicious French toast breakfast. It was SOOOOO good!

One of the presents that Moses wouldn't let out of his sight or reach that day was his digger truck! It even sat on his high chair tray with him :) It makes noises and has flashing lights. A childs dream. (Parents nightmare?)And here is Princess Ayana in her ballerina dress...what joy on her face when she opened this present from Oma.

Family dinner. (Notice the fork stuck in Moses's hair.) Really this was a fun family time...certainly a memory to cherish.One of the "whiplashy" things about having older children and little toddlers is that your older ones are going out to parties in beautiful dressy dresses while you are home watching Thomas The Tank Engine and the Wiggles with your babies....the whole time wondering if the older ones are OK and....are there boys at these banquets?? :) Here are my lovely girls after coming home from their youth banquet. They had a ton of fun and looked gorgeous...even if I say so as a proud parent.
So, that's it for today :) See you soon.....

Onto December...

I know, I know. I am a devoted blogger and I am putting you all to shame. You can't keep up with the posts, they are fresh every day! :)

On with the frantic catch up. December rushed us into Christmas and all the prep and joy that goes with that. We did an AWESOME advent book with the kids called Jothams Journey which was a story that was read every day and taught about Hebrew history and the coming of Jesus. We really enjoyed it as the story was written like an adventure with cliffhangers almost every evening.

On Christmas Eve we went up to Grouse Mountain to their Winter Wonderland. It had live reindeer, a great Gospel choir, skating, hiking, Santa's Workshop etc. The scenery was spectacular and we decided that this will become a new Christmas Eve tradition because at that point we are finished with the commercial part of buying and rushing and we concentrate on family.

Here we are going up in the gondola. Moses has developed a funny little squinty , one eye closed grimace that is his version of a smile.


Here is Josh skating on the mountain top....
and Santa's Workshop (We didn't go in this time but we have before.......)

Moses sliding down a little hill...shrieking and screaming with laughter...

Hanging out with the reindeer...Enjoying hot chocolate in the snow...

Hiking and enjoying the gorgeous scenery. Moses having a temper tantrum and lying down...refusing to move...snow angels and shoulder rides. All part of a snowy day out.

I remember looking around and thinking how tranquil and peaceful it all was. How beautiful. We all left very content, stopped to catch a bit of the great Gospel choir and Moses fell asleep on the way down in the gondola. Total Exhaustion. Perfect Christmas Eve Day!

Family Walks and Ayana's Third birthday :)

So, to continue with the theme of catch up, the next pictures show a couple of family pictures as we went walking on Thanksgiving (2 days after I got back from England) ...

...and then moving on to Ayana's third birthday. Here she is with a new Lego set...
...and with her kitchen set. This is cool. The tap makes water sounds and the cooking element makes sizzling sounds. Very fun to play with I have to say! :)
And a birthday hug from Oma.
Ayana had her princess birthday party the next week. The build up and anticipation was almost more than she (or any of us) could bear. Each day we heard "Is it my party today?" So, when the day actually arrived, she was SOOOOO excited. Here she is standing at the door ready to welcome guests.
And hanging out in the play tent and with mummy and Moses, waiting ...oh so patiently...for friends to arrive. (Note Moses is wearing his new England shirt!)

For the birthday craft we took individual pictures of Ayana with all her guests and then printed them off. Each little guest decorated a picture frame and then took home a party picture of themselves with the birthday girl. They loved doing this, and I loved cleaning up the glitter for the next few months. But it was worth it!

So, that is my little snapshot of October and November...I'm getting there. Only 41/2 more months to catch up.