9months

Callia received the above dress fr. my cousin when she was just born. It is 0-3 months so in the first picture Callia is about 3 or 4 weeks old - and the dress was slightly HUGE on her - I thought that I would try it on her again a couple of weeks ago and that is the second picture. I think the dress fits her better at nine months! It is a little short when standing (not too bad though) and is fine when sitting. I'm glad she was able to wear it again!!

So Miss Callia hasn't changed too much since last month. She isn't crawling but she does manage to push herself around a little bit - she has quite the stretch when reaching for something she really wants. She has no teeth yet she manages to eat pancakes at breakfast (don't worry, no syrup). She hasn't been weighed since b/f Christmas but will be weighed later this week for the next part of the flu shot so I'll up date that then. She LOVES to be upside down. She LOVES to do her funny face. She LOVES yogurt and fruit. She LOVES any type of finger food. She LOVES her mama best!;) She LOVES to play with balls, cars and dolls. She would LOVE to get into the boys lego already - it won't be a good scene in our house when she starts to move b/c we have TONNES of lego. That about sums her up for this month. Oh - she's not eating anymore at 10:30 - kinda nice to be able to go to bed early if I want to - of course that hasn't happened yet.

WEEEE!

Hey there - wow- I can't believe I have a minute to sit down and blog. The house is clean, the youngest are sleeping, Aiden has a friend over and Ethan's at school. The laundry is going, the dishwasher is emptied and dinner is figured out -phew! One thing that has taken up some of my time is our family Christmas gift. We've never bought ourselves a "family" gift b/f but Rich received money fr. work as a recognition for being with his company for 10 years and so with it we bought a Wii. Let me tell you we have so much fun on it! If you're going go to have a gaming system in your house the wii is a great one to have. It gets ya moving, kids and adults can play the same games, it something "active" they can do in the house, and it's fun when people are over (big or little). I received the Wii fit fr. Rich for Christmas so we've been having fun trying to beat each other's top scores. I don't think I'll lose a ton of weight on it but it can get your heart going if you do certain exercises on it and I figure moving a bit is better then just laying on the couch watching TV. I think boys are really geared for playing video games - it's just in them - so I"m glad we have one that gets them running and jumping (our neighbours my disagree a bit!).

Doing something right...

Every parent has those moments where they wonder if the values they want to instil in their children are actually sticking (at least I do) and then every once in a while your child does something that makes you go "Yes, they're getting it" (at least mine do). I had one of those moments tonite. Before Christmas I was feeling a little blah about our kids going to public school and only being exposed to Santa stuff (among other less favourable stuff) - not that I'm opposed to Santa but he's not the true meaning of Christmas. So all of December we talked about the real meaning of Christmas every night at dinner (diff. aspects each night) to counteract everything at school. Well, we had one of those moments (phew, something is sticking) when Ethan handed me some art he had done at school. I asked him about it and he said he had to draw something about Christmas and he - now wait, this is it - drew the manger scene - Mary, Joseph, Jesus, animals and the star. He could have drawn Santa or a tree or reindeer but he chose to draw the nativity - he was the only kid - kinda cool I think.

It's come and gone!

Callia was having loads of fun sucking on the baby's soother and then trying to stick it back into the baby's mouth.

Callia loves bling - she is always looking at necklaces, earings, watches so she received a beautiful neclace and locket from her nana and grandad

We gave Callia these little paints for small hands for when she is a bit older - we let her suck on them until we noticed that she had turned orange! oops, guess the paint comes out when you let a baby suck on the end of the container!

playing Ethan's fav. game - pictionary

The kids in their snow fort.

I can't believe that our Christmas break is all over as of tomorrow. It is my most favourite time of year. I love Christmas Eve and Christmas day - I love the food, I love seeing the family, and I love the presents (mostly reactions to what I've given) but I absolutely LOVE the week following Christmas. It is so relaxing, Rich is off, the kids have new toys and the schedule is free. This year was no exception. We were out every night from the week b/f Christmas to Boxing Day so life was very busy. But starting on Boxing Day when our plans were cancelled b/c of the snow life settled down. We were still out every night or had people over but the days were quiet. We stayed in sweats or the boys stayed in pjs practically all day. We went to Chuck E Cheese one day and had a blast. We had some friends over, we went to friends for New Years, we went ice skating, bowling, movies and the boys had a sleep over at their grandma and poppas (YIPEE). They also played outside in the snow.

That was the best part about Christmas Eve -the snow. My family came over early since it was snowing so hard so we had lots of time to go out. The snow was up to my knees. I don't really remember too many white Christmases so this was a special one. Callia was also so much fun. Her being 8months for her first Christmas was a lot diff. than the boys who were either 2 months or 4 months for their first. She liked the wrapping paper and boxes - she took everything in and was such an angel. Christian couldn't wait for Christmas to happen and he kept asking for hot wheels - he was SO excited when my parents bought him a hot wheels race track and santa brought him a hot wheels Trick Tracks. Aiden and Ethan were pretty excited too. Ethan kept mentioning that some kids at his school don't believe in Santa and think it's their parents. He never asked us directly if he is real or not - if he does we'll tell him - right now we're lying by omission not out right lying to his face (is there a diff?). We had two yummy dinners one on CE and one on CD - it was great being with Rich's fam. Anyways, tomorrow it's back to the grind of regular life - no more pjs till noon or later - no more being holed up in the house (and enjoying it) until it's time to do something fun. No more sleeping in till 9:30 (the eldest two). Hope you all had a great Christmas break!