Helping out

(Some help more than others. ;)

Melanie is 8!

 Way back in October Melanie turned 8.  She had a great time, made extra special with family from far who could celebrate with us!  We were just recovering from hand foot mouth disease (which, CC, I am very sorry to have shared with you! :( ) and Melanie thought it was only fair that she was the only kid who didn't get it "because it's going to be MY birthday!"

 She patiently waited a few days for our outing, and instead we decorated a cake together.  (Hey, we're getting a bit better with practice!)

She thought it deserved a few extra pictures:

Games were played, new to us. :)

 Cards and presents

 (Yes Jennifer was a nuisance and had to be kept in line!)

 Oh, you mean this is going to be extra work for me?

We love Melanie!  She is going through a "drama stage" it seems, but we don't fail to notice her kids heart, her helping out her younger siblings, and her eagerness to please.  What a blessing to our family.

Work

Matthew has made almost all the pictured ideas of what to make of k'nex.

Evelyn is expanding her vocabulary in the dictionary.  

Chore time. Matthew doesn't like his chore (I assure him this is a common complaint) and either gets finished very efficiently, or incredibly slowly.

Cleaning the tusks.  Daniel has to stand on the tub so he can see himself-you can't brush if you can't see yourself. ;)

Jennifer's job is taking care of her dolls.

Melanie loves to vacuum.  Nothing could make her happier. ;)

Baking so we have something for Sunday.

 Matthew made a spy glass all on his own, and it's even extendible!

All this hard work tuckered them out. 
(Actually they all have a fever, coming down with hand foot and mouth disease.)
I probably overworked them and made them more susceptible to it.

Artist

Evelyn is constantly getting into cupboards that she shouldn't, and I am always getting crayons and pencils from her, as she has got them out when I was busy.  She'd rather I didn't put them away again, but let her color instead.

Too bad

 We were going to do our annual trip to Toronto Island, but the plan fell through last minute.  The kids were good about it, as it couldn't be helped.  Instead we had a special snack.

Then we checked out a new park we'd heard about in our area.  It was cold though, and windy.  Nathan's hopes to float a boat were unfulfilled.  We all needed our sweaters, and watermelon, even if warm, was making our fingers wet and cold.

 But we wandered down the trail, and managed to have fun climbing on parts of the park that we're made for climbing.  The play structure was still fenced and there was heavy machinery working around it-so we had to make do!

We agreed that it would have been much too chilly for our annual outing anyways!

But Jennifer still asks about going, a week later...with our friend...and I have to say, "No, I don't think we can go for a long long time(a year)."  The other kids are old enough to understand, and the younger one doesn't know what she's missing. ;)

And when the playset is playable we will have to come check it out!  Would've been fun to be the first ones on it. ;)

My sleeping beauties

I'm sure Nathan and Melanie are beautiful too, but I'm just too lazy to go downstairs at night and photograph them.  Besides, they may be embarrassed. ;)

Around the house

 Matthew figured out how to do laces!  He's happy to have lace up shoes (though I think he laces them once well, and then slips them on and off after :o )

 The kids have gotten a lot out of that old tarp-the only down side is I find little green strings of it laying around and sometimes mow them up. :o

 Daniel can do the rope ladder!

 Nathan doting on his little sister (again).

A slice of boterkoek for you

Melanie is delving into baking a little.  I try get her to do one thing a week, but more often than not she's too busy doing other things cause "I have so much to do!"  I try to be out of the kitchen so she has to figure things out, and come help only when necessary. (Oh, and to help cleanup :p )