Jan 2012

 A look back at January.  Coco turned 5.  I must admit that I really struggled with this number as it meant she would be leaving me for school.  She was so excited at the idea of school and so happy to be turning 5 (and I know, next week she will be 6... time has flown)  Dad and the big kids had the Goldeyes baseball camp on her birthday, so she and I had a lunch date at Tim's.  We had Papa and Nana over for cake that night.  We had dinner with Grandma and Grandpa on Sunday.  Then we celebrated with her friends on the Monday that the kids went back to school.  A fun few days of celebrating our Sweet Girl.

Merry Christmas

 Merry Christmas to all our family and friends!  What a
wonderful time of year to celebrate all that we have been
blessed with.  I guess I haven't put up a post in a couple of weeks... sorry!  We've been busy preparing for Christmas and doing our Advent activities. And of course having a newborn around takes up some time too!  But boy is he ever sweet!   We love him so much and enjoy him more and more every day.  As you can see he is not missing many meals... he is getting so big and he really is such a content baby.

 We had a nasty cold run through half of the house.  Mark was sick for a while and his loud coughing scared Carter each time!  Then Brady got it and had a couple days home from school then it hit Colie really hard and she missed 3 days of school and probably should have stayed home longer but I didn't want her to miss all the Christmas activities in Kindergarten that last week before holidays.

This was one of Brady's sick days... still such a happy boy!

 The kids have been enjoying our month of activities, they did a great job on their gingerbread house!  (10 minutes after this picture was taken, the roof slid off... they left it and called it their tornado house!!)







Our first 4 kids in the family Christmas picture!!  I like how symmetrical an even number makes pictures look!  Guess that was good planning on our part... oh wait... planning???... never mind!

We are looking forward to the next few days of festivities with family and fellowship with friends.  As we whip through this time of year, our goal is to remind our kids how blessed we are, and to try to slow down and  focus on Jesus and the real reason we celebrate.  Merry Christmas!!

Advent

  

As we prepare for Christmas and try to keep the focus on the reason for the season, we like to celebrate each day of the month of December.  We have some family devotionals that help us think about how Jesus came to our earth to bring Peace.  And we look forward to celebrating His birth with our family and friends.  This year for our Advent Activities I planned out our month and hung a sock or mitten up for each day, inside the sock is a treat and on the paper with the date is an activity for the day.  Here is a list of what we've got going on this month:

We start our Advent Activities with a TRIP TO THE STATES!!

Start reading our Christmas Book and make a countdown garland

Make cards for your teachers and paper snowflakes

Have crepes for supper

Enjoy a family movie night!!

Decorate Christmas cookies

Deliver fudge to a neighbour

Celebrate Christmas with friends

Have a candlelight supper 

Make our gingerbread house

Make Chocolate Dipped Pretzels!

Tonight is our Christmas Lights Tour!!

Have a special movie night!

Kids make pancakes for Mommy and Daddy

Have a backwards supper

Make hot chocolate and stir with candy canes!

Enjoy your last day of school...

Tonight is IPC’s Kids Klub party

Jade Christmas Party!

Goldeyes Baseball camp!

Call 3 people and sing to them

Draw names and do something special for the person

Christmas Eve… open one present!

The kids are so excited each morning to open the sock and see what the activity is. I even let them eat the treat before school!

 
This little manger scene comes out every year and the kids still play with it (mostly Nicole) so it gets a prominent place on the hearth.

And of course I couldn't resist posting one picture of our little man, all decked out in one of his Christmas shirts.  He brings us such joy!  He's full of smile now and coos away to the kids when they talk to him.  It's going to be a wonderful Christmas.

One Month

Today my little guy is ONE MONTH OLD!  What a month it has been, it feels like he's been here forever, but it also feels like he was just born yesterday, if that makes any sense.  (If it doesn't it's because I'm still sleep deprived - I have not had more than 2 1/2 consecutive hours this month!)
Our little man has grown so much already this month.  He went through 150+ newborn sized diapers, and is now in size one!  He has officially outgrown his newborn sleepers  and truth be told, he is on his way to filling out the 3 month sized ones!
Here is a little week to week look at our Carter Boy:

My lovely sister and a few friends came over for a "Celebrate Carter" evening :)  I was so blessed and am so thankful for such a great group of girls!  Carter loved the attention and gave snuggles all evening!

We are trying to give Carter some "independant play time"  Today Nicole thought that he might enjoy looking at the baby section of the Toys R Us flyer.  I'm sure he picked out some Christmas Wish List items!

Here he is, the official One Month Old shot!  Love this guy!

Fun Facts about Carter

Well we're pretty pleased with our little man so far.

Here are a few things to know about him.

Carter's name means "one who uses a cart".  Now we've never picked names based on their meaning, and we didn't this time either, but I kind of like this meaning because it can basically be translated as "Driver".  Driver is a nickname that one of Mark's friends calls him all the time and so I think it suits our little guy!


 

Carter's middle initial is D.  He has no middle name.  This is after his Papa who is Peter D. and when Mark's parents were choosing Mark's name, they chose a D name for Mark's middle name.  We didn't love any specific D names, so we decided to be a bit different and just give Carter an initial.

Proud Papa

Carter and his 6 week older cousin Andrew

Carter is grandchild number 10 on the Letkeman side.  He evened things out to 5 boys and 5 girls.
He is grandchild number 12 on the Sawatsky side and again, he evened things out to 6 boys, 6 girls.

Carter shares his birthday with Johnny Carson, Ryan Reynolds and Dwight Yoakam.  So I guess this means he will be funny, good looking and throw in a bit of country to keep it real!

We love Carter

Well we are home and things are going quite well.  We seem to have been blessed with quite a content little guy.  Of course having a new baby around is an adjustment no matter how good they are.  The kiddos are adjusting in each of their own ways as well.  I did not anticipate what that might look like this time around and I'm finding myself surprised at the different needs of kids at older ages.  Carter needs me physically but the others (especially the girls) need me emotionally.  There have definitely been moments where I've felt completely drained.

The kids came to the hospital the evening that Carter was born and they were so excited to meet him! 

Jayme was the first to hold him and nothing says "I love you big Sis" like having his first poop ever on her lap!

Brady was super pumped to have a brother. He said many times during the pregnancy that he hoped for a boy, but was prepared for ANOTHER sister!

Nicole started trying to rock Carter right away and asked if she could carry him around!

   

She came up to me in my bed and hugged me and said "Congratulations on the birth of your new baby"  What a funny girl she is!

We're so thankful for our little guy, we feel so blessed and overwhelmed at God's goodness to us.

38 Things

Well it's my Sweetie's 38th Birthday today and I thought I'd do a little tribute to Mark...
Of course there are more than 38 things to love about Mark, but I will limit it :)

He is the best husband and father I could have ever hoped for or imagined he'd be (1 and 2).  He is calm, caring and considerate (3, 4 and 5).  He's always thinking of us and putting our needs ahead of his (6).
He is FUNNY (7)  I know I know, sometimes I try and say that I'm the funny one,  but we all know the truth :)  He makes me laugh everyday.
He is a Godly man, full of integrity (8).  He is wise (9) and committed (10).
He gets up before 5:00 every morning to go to Jade (11) and he is loyal and dedicated to his work (12 and 13).  He is an amazing leader there too (14).  And he does it all with a smile on his face (15) even with the sometimes lack of sleep.
He keeps my van clean and full of gas (16 and 17).  He will even go out specially in the evening to fuel it up so I won't have to the next day.  And when I say clean... I think we all know what clean means to Mark!!  He also keeps it running well (18).  I'm so thankful that we rarely have to pay for mechanical work to be done. 
He is healthy and active (19 and 20),  I like that my guy works out at the gym 2-3 times a week...he's strong (21)  and he is active with our kids too (22), he will play basketball in the driveway or football in the field at the school by our house or take them skating in the winter or any other number of sports and activities.
He DOES NOT complain (23).  Seriously, not about what I make for suppers, what he has to take for lunches, what he wears, or where we go (I am the planner!)  He is super content and easygoing (24 and 25). 
He goes for walks with me (26).
He is always happy (27) and makes others happy too (28).  He can talk to anyone and make them feel comfortable (29 and 30)
He will do stuff around the house (31).  Like dishes, vacuuming and fixit jobs!
He is not all consumed with money (or the lack thereof!). (32)  He never questions me when I spend on groceries or things for the kids or myself. (33)
He takes care of all the outside jobs, mowing the grass, taking out the garbage and shoveling the snow (34).
He is handsome (35),  he looks good in jeans and great in a suit (36 and 37)
He is fun to be with (38), after 15 years of marriage, he is still the number one person I want to spend my time with and I don't get sick of him!!

Happy Birthday Mark ~ You are loved!

Getting Ready

 Well we are getting all ready for Baby Letkeman to make his or her appearance.  We're feeling pretty prepared now.  We've put together a baby room, we bought the crib from Ikea and the shelf from Home Depot, but the chair and change table are from elsewhere in the house.  I repainted the change table and spray painted the baskets and lined them with fabric.  (Have I ever mentioned how much I love spray paint!!)  I plan to add a pop of colour once we see who is here... we will add red accessories if we have a boy and we will add purple accessories if we have a girl.
 We even have the cute little baskets filled with cute little diapers and cute little sleepers!!  Our due date is drawing nearer, and we are getting
anxious to meet this little one and see who has
 been hiding in this belly for the last nine months!

 We have put Brady and Nicole together in the same room.  I'm still not convinced that this was such a wise idea, but what choice did we have?!!  There are definite moments of love and dislike between these two and bedtime often contains a bit of drama.  I guess it's to be expected when you combine the Drama Queen and the Tease together!!  We bought a loft bed for Coco and managed to put Brady's big bed underneath it.  We tried to keep a side of the room decorated for each of them with pink and princesses on one wall and hockey and lego on the other!  His dresser tucked neatly into the closet and they've actually been working pretty well to try and keep the room tidy, with a shared space like this there is not a lot of room for clutter!

Thanksgiving

 Happy Thanksgiving!  We've had a wonderful weekend... Saturday we drove out to the lake and enjoyed the day with friends and family.  It was so great to have the whole family there for dinner.  Uncle Mark was the King of Quadding once again!  One last time before we closed up and winterized everything.

 On Sunday we went to a wedding to celebrate an amazing couple, and spent the evening with our Letkeman family.  Again so great to have all the Manitoba family there... we missed you Ontario family, but had fun "chatting" with you all!

Today has been such a great relaxing family day... big breakfast, pumpkin pie for lunch, turkey sandwiches at 2:00 and more relaxing!

So so so so much to be thankful for :)

Mmmm Fall

 I love love love Fall.  This year especially I am loving the cooler weather.  I love the colours of Fall and I absolutely love the flavours of Fall!  Mmm... pumpkin, gingerbread, and the yummy spices that go along with those!  I decided to have a baking day today to stock the freezer a bit and to have some treats for lunches and to give away to teachers and neighbours.  I made Mini Pumpkin Scones, Pumpkin Loaf and Gingerbread Biscotti.
They all turned out great.  The house is warm and smells amazing!  I really love Fall!

After school snack and happy kiddos!

Glasses

My lovely girl got glasses!  I was surprised that she was so excited about them.  She's had them about a week now and she is not quite as keen about them as she was, but she's been wearing them and taking very good care of them.