Art Day

Since Dave and I are up early (trying to study some philipians every morning these days) i thought i'd write a wee post. Dave is working hard, planning for a maille lesson at his mom's school in the weeks to come!! how exciting!! He gets to make a project (simple one) for the kids to learn and follow along. Plus he will give some background information on what chain maille is and how it has been used in the past. i'm VERY excited for him!! So Jules is a bit 'under the weather', nothing serious...simple cough, runny nose stuff. but it makes her tired and it fills our day with a lot of sitting activities. Sooooo....i think she went through about 15 pages of paper today.... Above is her 'horse' and Julia riding it, with her feet in the stirups. At least that is what she was saying whilest she made it! :) hahaha.

Lately her drawings have been: a lot of horses, people, the letter 'h', the letter 'j' , the letter 'o' adn the letter 'a'. I love seeing how her brain is organized. it is so interesting to me that when we write letters together (Julia says: mommy how does an 'h' go? mommy says: like this....) She can follow the verbal commands of a letters' structure really well, but they follow no 'rules' yet. Her mind has not been taught the 'left to right' rule, or the 'top to bottom' rule, or anything about proportions etc. So her letters have the correct form, just not the correct format? i suppose you could say.

interesting.
i love learning together.
have a great day!!

Bible Lessons

WE just began using a family Bible Study devotional that is super fun. Julia already asks if it is 'devotion' time in her anticipation of the activity!!

The first chapter of devo's are all based on the story of Moses. So, we learned about the TEn Commandments in yesterdays' lesson and the family fun activity that accompanied the story was this:

bake cookies as a family. set out all the ingredients and measuring tools. Make the first batch of cookies without using a recipe, just put in whatever you think you'd like. Then while those bake, make the second batch using the recipe. Compare taste in the end.

SO, we learned why rules are important, in a very practical fun easy simple delightful bonding sugary way.


These have been very lovely family times so far. The hail storm during our lessons about God sending plagues on Egypt was definately a favorite that solidified"bible learning time" as FUN in our home. I am so excited. heehee. i wonder what we'll get to do today.....

Special Bulletin: Celebrating an Aunti and (the New) Uncle!

This post is dedicated to: Aunt Dianne and Uncle Stan

MANY MANY CONGRATS to you both for getting married!!! We are super excited for you, and can't wait to have you travel out and visit our humble abode someday! (or perhaps we shall see you next Christmas in BC???) Anyway, whatever the case, we want to at least see PICTURES of you. haha.

Stan, Welcome to the Family!! I have been informed of the thorough introduction to everyone you are receiving. Including the strange family 'secrets' pertaining to shoes, shirts and other mis-worn or mis-placed items. :)

Julia is very interested in meeting you (Aunt Di) and learning how to surf. I am sure this will be arranged at a later date when we can travel out to your side of the world....since the waves of Lake Huron are microscopic.

Dave, Julia and I send hugs to you......and kisses.......and warm wishes for many happy years together!! Stan, you already know this, but you have married a wonderful woman of God that is full of life and craziness!

Well, we shall let you all get back to your party. I'll give you a hint when playing Carcassonne...go for the farm land. :)

love from us here in Ontario.
Dave, Sue, Julia and Baby Naus

Mischief

"1.conduct or activity that playfully causes petty annoyance." -according to Dictionary.com

Today was a day full of mischief. I don't know all the factors of this issue just yet, it is too fresh, but i had a less than perfect day. Julia is displaying her human nature very well today (saying in a nice way that she was down right annoyingly naughty.) Anyway, i am tired. Dave will come home soon from playing squash and then we will be able to sit and talk through what needs to be done differently on our part and hers to make her understand the sour state of her heart today. It is so true that when we only deal with Behaviour, the problems don't go away....for some reason we forget that behaviour begins in the HEART and that is where we must go in order to turn her dear sweet attitude towards a greater good.

So. if you think of me in the next day or so, pray that i will have enough brains and enough heart to think of the proper discipline and to act on those measures in love.

Thanks folks.

Getting Taller...Growing like the Trees.

From one little bed in the grassy field, to one big girl bed in the lush forest. :)

Everything is so timely that i could NEVER believe in 'coincidence', only providence. honestly. God has provided for all of our needs, and he continues to do so. Friends of ours are getting rid of a lot of their 'clutter' as kids grow up and move out, and we were blessed to receive a lovely bed for Julia and a dresser for our new baby from them(plus the bonus of having them over for supper and a visit). :)


So here is little miss J enjoying her new bed. IT was hilarious...She and Holly(the daughter of our friends) played in her room on the new bed for a couple hours. (later on Julia told me they were pretending that one of them was God, and the other was/were the little children coming to him--so they were acting out the bible story about the little children coming to JEsus. i thought that was pretty funny.ahah)

anyway. that's the new bed.

i'm excited.

...especially since i bought three sheets and three pillow covers for under 10$ to start out our twin-bed-size linen collection. :) Okay so everyone but me probably already knew this but: Can you believe that most sheet sets are crazy-ridiculous prices, like 25$ and more just for ONE SET??? yikes. i can't afford to linen-ize our home with prices like that! Even at the 'less expensive' family stores....yikes. i am glad for stores that recycle items so we don't ahve to pay the CRAZY prices. :) just a little rant.

loves.

hugs and kisses

This may not look like much to anyone peeking in, (perhaps a mess, or a hazardous area...) but in the imagination of an almost three year old, this is a crib that she herself built for her new baby sister/brother.

Yes it is true, Julia found the empty corner of our 'study' that used to be Su's sewing desk...and she knew JUST what needed to go there.

I was working in the kitchen when she came in and announced that she had made a crib for the baby...so i had to come and see it!

She is so sweet. aawwwww. so thoughtful too.

Anyway. another lovely day that makes me thankful for my family and my saturdays: What this day looks like--
7am-awake and wondering why. not able to sleep any more. body is done sleeping.....twiddle thumbs.
7:06-realize that dave is also awake and twiddling thumbs....so we go out and study Phillipians together. (this is no coincidence....just last night we decided to start a 'morning routine' to get the two of us studying scripture together. mornings made us cringe....but it really is the only consistant time of day....evenings are very unpredictable. so really...God woke us up...no one and nothing else could have! hahaha. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz)
8am-Julia sings from her bed, "Twinkle twinkle little star"
8:05-make mocha's for D and I.
8:10-dave watches saturday morning cartoons with the J. (a ritual that began about a month ago.today they watched "THis is Daniel COok" an Ontario based show about a real life boy who just visits different places and learns about stuff. today was: making a self portrait with an artist, learning about whales at a sea world type place, and visiting disney world and finding out what a theme park is. pretty cute.)
8:20-eat breakfast in bed watching "Daniel COok"
9am-Daddy and Julia walk to the market to buy some cheese and find out where cheese comes from. mommy makes supper for guests.
9:30-play. enjoy family.
10am-go shopping for SHEETS for julia' sNEW BED that comes from our friends' home to ours...today!! :)
12noon-lunch and stories and nap time. ahhhh. this is the life.

anyway. i am really excited about J's new bed. i will post pics of Julia in her new bed soon.

loves. enjoy the sunny day folks.

brunch.

so today has been busy and lovely. i enjoy having people over, i look forward to it so so much. It makes me a little giddy...perhaps it is due to the fact that for every 6 people we invite...only 2 can come (we are WAY too spontanious and thus our invitations are often turned down due to late notice. so sad. boohoo). So when people are actually coming, and i get to set the table, make food, get coffee on, and prepare a tray of teas....i just love it! Julia enjoys the thrill as well. she sets the table (sure it is sometimes with HER dishes and tea set instead of the real thing, but that is okay) and cooks food (in her kitchen, and often in mine with me) and talks about the people coming and dances around giggling when the cars pull up to the house. ah, joy in community.

anyway. today's visit was with Aunti Ann, Uncle Eric, Oma and Opa (mom and dad naus). Eric just returned from working in the Caribbean (tanned) and so the brunch was timely for seeing him again!

I love cooking breakfast foods, so brunch is great fun for me.

ANy family favorites out there??? special french toasts? pancakes? granola's? egg dishes??

loves. from sue.

Just Soupy

So i don't have a lot to say, except...i have such pregnant brain. ik. I am forgetting everything, mixing things up...oh dear. anyway. it isn't so bad i suppose...We visited the midwife today, delightful lady, and i am measuring "textbook" for the size of my belly, the baby, etc etc. Finally my weight gain slowed down, haha, i have already gained MORE than i did through all of my first pregnancy, and i still have 7.5 weeks left! yikes. oh well. Julia asked if she could feel the babys' bum again, so the midwfie brought over a stool and had her pat the babys' bum, very cute. haha.

Anyway, i was going to talk about SOUP. i love soup. One day a week we have a "big" meal that turns into soup for the next couple days of lunch, or for our frozen meal stock (preparing for babytime). This week was something new: SPLIT PEA SOUP. now....i know most of you may be thinking, "yuk! i was forced to eat that as a child, and my mom held the funnel while my dad poured it down my throat!" but i have found the taste delightful in my 'almost grown-up' years, adn had to make it. (no funnel for Julia, she is -of late- a very committed soup eater, adn always asks for mommy's chicken noodle soup, the homemade kind that is)

Our usual soup is Chicken Noodle, and we all love it. The kind made from the carcass of our "big" chicken meal. yumyum. nothing better than that smell of bones boiling! :)

I am in need of more soups of this kind ( made from leftover carcass, etc), since it is a weekly thing in our house, and i don't want the troops to be bored of C.N. ! :)

please give me your soup recipes!!!!!!!! THANK YOU IN ADVANCE. (a link to your recipe is fine, or an email...but let me know all the best recipes and we will try them all. Then i will post a winning soup--the one that gets the family and friend approval!!)

love from su

Previous Moments:

Ah, Friends.
Yes, we were graced by the presence of these three fine dears: D, J and C. A lovely bunch; giddy, friendly, warm and cozy. Dave and Dave have been GREAT frineds forever (well, you know, almost forever) and My Dave often tells me how he has never found another Colvin (now Colvinson), he is a one of a kind friend. And truly, they do complete each other so well in the friendship realm.


Hanging out together. singing. napping(well, the girls at least). eating.(thanks MARY!!) talking. laughing. etc etc.
aawwwwwwwwww ain't they sweet???The 'Christmas Dinner'. :) R, J, and T came to visit for the day!
hey look! we got some more snow! who is hiding in the fort?? hmmm....who indeed.
Okay, so bad picture of su, but what can i do?? This is the J and I coming home from the market on saturday. The flower vendor made J her VERY own bouquet!! it was so sweet of him. He asked her if she needed one for herself and brought her into the "shop" to get tidbits of leftover flowers to create a Julia arrangment. so sweet.

-from su, off to fold laundry. off to rest a tired body. good night!

ooooooh i love lazy days!!

Saturday mornings are so sweet. aaaahhhh....we lay around, drink coffee, watch saturday morning cartoons (okay i don't always, i make breaky, but that is okay! haha) , eat eggs in wraps and enjoy laziness. i love the no-rush mornings. i love not needing to wear anything but PJ's for the whole family, i love seeing the market trucks outside our window (because it means we get to go for a walk sometime between 9am-12am to see our market friends. aaaaaaw. i love to relax as a family. life is swell.
breakfast-a-la-piano bench.
This was a couple days ago now...but i had to post another "play moment by Julia". This was built over the course of a couple hours: beginning as her "Concert" and transforming into a "Competition" (i'm not sure what that really meant though...the concert made sense because she would stand on her little chairs and conduct or sing...but the competition...she lost me on that one!haha. perhaps it was an obstacle course???)
aaaah. i love it when she is entertained by randomness.

well, off to the market. love from us.

finally i think this will work!

we did get some snow...however, we had to run outside to walk, play, 'shovel' and make prints before it all melted away in our beautiful sunshine! :)
Julia preaching to her pig, dog and mommy was in the congregation as well, until the camera called her to record this moment. hahahaha. it was hilarious! First she set up her 'podium' and then she said, "I am the singers" and finished singing along with her CD that was playing something like "this little light of mine". When the song was done, she announced that "Now I'm the pastor" and she went right into a sermon....something about "GOd did such and such, etc etc" i don't remember her words, i wish i did ! haha. It was priceless. i want to print out this picture for our pastor, and make him a card telling him how much she must appreciate his sermons since she renacts them for her pets!! :)
SURPRIZE! visitors from afar. (sorry bad picture.....i don't have any other ones yet!)
And........Pippy Longstocking! :) hahah. i did the J's hair in braids and they naturally stick out. i liked it because every time i looked at her, i laughed. good hair-do when you need to giggle for no reason every five minutes.

snapshots

lounging with daddy during lunch break.
'fishing' from her 'boat'. Recent developments of julia's play: Our dear daughter no longer plays with toys....the trend for this week has been a lot of imaginative play (which always happens) but with a new twist....using all sorts of random things from the house. (boxes, paper roles that i keep, baskets, scrap fabric, popsicle sticks, craft-puff-ball-things, etc etc. any thing that isn't classified in the 'toy' section, anything that is in the 'random box' in our home. )

I am forever amazed at what she comes up with, what she creates, and the ENDLESS chatter that accompanies whatever plot is forming in her mind. wow. somedays when i am tired, it just tuckers me out. haha. keeping up with her mind and babble is exhausting, but very satisfying and entertaining as well.

Funny moment today: while driving in the car i usually have the radio playing. This morning it was some Bible teacher. He was speaking about the three main things that the Bible is concerned with, and in his sermon he used a figure of speach, "If we were to boil the Bible's message down to three main points"....i continued listening without much thought to his choice of words, when a little voice piped up in the back seat....
"mom, we DON'T boil the Bible!"

Ah, i laughed. and then explained in toddler terms what a figure of speach was....it is hard to understand that people use word pictures that aren't really real or truthful things when you have a toddler mind that is set to understnad BLACK and WHITE. but we tried.

anyway. loves to all. hope you laughed too! :) we can all use a little good medicine! :)

first date...

our little girl all ready for her first movie date!! aaaaaawwwwww what a milestone! :) haha. here is the sweetie pie and her aunti K ready for a day at the theatre! What was the show? CHAROLOTTE'S WEB! :) a favorite playtime-pretending story of Julia's for the past few months now, since it involves farms, "county fairs" and oversensitive animals. haha. They had a splendid time eating popcorn and watching the movie together.

And when the movie was done, they came home to a dinner party for Uncle Ad. It was a relaxed party in which i didn't have to cook! (love those every once and a while eh? no matter how much cooking one enjoys, it is always nice to not cook occassionally) Pizza and salad and veggies and laughs and scrabble and craziness.i did make one thing. Salmon stuffed tomatoes. not as good as i hoped, but i suppose that may have just been my preggy belly telling me it was toooooooooo tomatoe-y tasting. (Julia got a salmon stuffed BOAT instead of just a plain ol' tomatoe! :) heehee)
And cake. i made a little cake for all to enjoy....you can't have a goodbye party without a cake! haha Julia helped me whip this one up and i was pleasantly surprized. Starlight Yellow Cake, delicious! Mama Naus put icing tips in my stocking this year (great gift!) so that i could learn a new art form, and this cake was the first attempt. nothing too artistic going on...just a plain style, but LOOK AT THE COLORS! hahah. i love it.


Chillin'. Goodbye Ad, have a great year at school!!!!!!! When you get home i will no longer be two, but one, and the one that is departing will be like....three months old already!!!! wow.
That was our day. and night. and now i need to rest. oh yeah...Dave and I won at scrabble. teeeheee. WE WON!!

From Old to New

The annual journey from the old year to the new has occurred and we are all feeling fresh, invigorated by new beginnings, the chance to reorganize life's priorities and throw out a lot of 'stuff' that has accumulated over the 'old' year and been replaced by all those extraordinary boxing day sales.
Okay, so we aren't throwing out a lot of stuff, but it is a theme in North America around this time of year. have you noticed the heaps and heaps of things at the curb come garbage day? (like the 'old' exercise equipment -still in package,tables, kids toys, mirrors, artwork, etc) I find it amusing and suddenly i'm inspired to go door to door with the idea of Freecycle for all these folks who received new things while the old still had many years of life left.
I have been further amused by another custom we hold to in Canada.....while glancing through the adds in this weeks paper, i noticed a trend: organizers. bins. storage sales. Every major store was having a storage/organizer sale!! (which is awesome because i love organizers and bins and making my house look like it has some order to it......one day one day...haha)
So the cycle will always continue i suppose: buy stuff, use stuff, get new stuff, need new stuff to organize old stuff and new stuff. (the repetition was not due to poor grammar skills, although i do have poor grammar skills, it was more for emphasis) :) haha.

Ah, the last Christmas party of the season. Mama Naus held a family reunion at her home complete with relatives, food and chatting. We left early to prepare for the adventure of a weekend away! yipppppppppeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Saturday morning we left as soon as possible for Brampton, and our journey was enjoyable. Around noon we arrived at our friends' home where warm fellowship, good food, and much spoiling-of-the-naus' was awaiting us.
The kids are so so soooooooooooooooo adorable....unfortunately i didn't get any snapshots of Jacob, the latest addition to the family! arg, silly me. i didn't take a lot of pics of the weekend, but we had a lovely time, and you will just have to believe me even with the lack of picture-proof.Micah is hilarious. janet says he has a mischievous streak, and you can almost see the sly twinkle in his eye while he sips his hot chocolate here (pic above). Below, Micah sports his new 'crown' as Julia looks on, "Queen Micah" she says. hmmm...we'll have to work on titles...

Our days and nights included: talking, tea, games, kids, games, kids, food, church, friends, rain, kids, tea, really good ice wine, games, kids, staying up until 2 am playing Scotland yard and Catan, visiting the Clarke's ( they are so so fun), and driving home listening to Mark Driscoll talk about the Gospel of John.

Great weekend. THANK YOU J AND P for opening your home to us!!!!!!!!!!! It is wonderful to spend time with you and your lovely family!

love from the four of us.