Song Writing

THEEEE cutest thing happened this evening. I could die from cuteness (and pride because it's MY child that was being so cute).  I was going through the kids' backpacks after dinner, clearing out the crafts and grabbing their lunch sacks to make lunch for the next day, etc, and I came across THIS beauty.
Yes. Jackson wrote a love song. Ha! Oh. My. So cute. He has this little girl friend, Charlie Wagner, at school and they have written each other love notes and pictures in the past, but this beats all. (I also wonder if watching "Little Rascals" last week had anything to do with this sudden surge of romance and singing). I asked Jackson what this was and had him sing it for me. So, he got started by singing the same, "Ooooo-ee-ooo-oo-oooo" from Taylor Swift's song "Never Getting Back Together" (need to teach him about copying other artists...) but then the rest was all him. Except he stopped right before the line about kissing and blushed. "Mom, I can't say that part." Ahahahahaha! Oh my goodness. I am in love with my child.

Well done Jax.  I didn't even start writing songs until I was 12.  WAY ahead of me!

My Teenaged Three Year Old

Ellie, today was your third birthday.  I still can't get over how grown up you are getting.  Since it was Sunday today, we had a pretty chill family birthday party.  We went to visit our friends, the Bootlands.  Jenny spoils you to death so you love her and Kanoa is your 15 year old boyfriend that you LOVE to cling to at church.  And any time you see him really.  You also love to run around with Jake and the boys, machine-guns and all.  We had a fun afternoon.  When we got home, you and I did Princess make-overs.  I got out all my fancy make up and we went to town.  I only wish I was wearing a Princess gown like you!

You told me I was the Bad-Princess Girl.  Very artistic.  After a while you decided you wanted to do your own make up!  I'm not surprised in the slightest since it is totally in your personality to be independent, although I'm a little worried that I may have started you on this love for make up a little too early!  Haha!  Clearly, you have the talent for it!
After our make-up extravaganza, we all sat down at the dinner table to make some Prince/King/Queen/Dunce/Princess crowns.

We also played pin-the-flowers-on-Cinderella. You were extremely good at it, but I have a feeling it may not have been all luck little Missy! Haha! Daddy even had a shot at it, and you all thought it was funny spinning him around and watching him pin the flowers on the window instead of Cinderella. A true "Court Jester" indeed.
 
I had big plans for your Princess Cake but for some reason I could not find the fondant for the life of me and by that point I was running out of steam.  SO we did something even more creative and fun. I gave the boys a bunch of chocolate chips and they did a number on your cake! Very creative gentlemen!

You seemed pleased with it anyways!  After opening presents we enjoyed the boys' cake and did some Skyping with grandparents.  It was a kick-back-and-relax kind of night.  I personally enjoyed it and I think you did too.  You're still young enough that you're in your own world most of the time anyway.  In fact, I think you took two bites of that cake and went right back to playing with your toys (thank you Grandma and Grandpa Ord for the Princess book and toys.  She wasn't even interested in opening anything else after that one.  Haha!).


Ellie, you are such a character.  I don't know how else to describe you other than that!  You love to be silly and make people laugh.  Your Dad says you have the mouth of a Sailor!  Not that you swear, but you love yourself some potty-words and will try to get away with saying them as often as you can.  I find that the boys are the ones telling on you more than you telling on them, ...but shouldn't it be the other way around?

You are the epitome of damsel-in-distress.  You've got that role DOWN!  When the boys get home from school you will often all dress up together, with the boys as the heroes and you in your Princess dress needing to escape some dreaded doom.  It is ridiculous-cute watching you use your imagination.  Seriously, sometimes I stop everything just to watch you kids play and see what you come up with.  Sometimes it's vines pulling you away, or a fire explosion,  but not to worry because you have the key! You are a real-life damsel some days too.  If your fork drops from the table you will cry and whine.  You've got the boys whipped into shape with jumping down from the table and getting things for you.  I, on the other hand, am trying to teach you to do things for yourself, but you are already learning at a very young age how to manipulate boys into doing things for you!  Scary. But somewhat useful I guess.  Haha!

You love your "My Little Ponies."  The show AND the toys.  Our neighbour, Sydney Solie, gave you a bunch of her old toys since she is five years older than you and a huge lot of them were these ponies.  You are constantly playing with them.  You also love those "My Littlest Pet Shop" puppies and kitties, which were also some hand-me-downs from a friend at church.  In fact, those toys saved my life when it came to potty-training you!  Within the first three days, you had the tinkling in the toilet down.  Pooping on the other hand?  Not so much!  I knew I had to kick it into high gear if we ever wanted to leave you with a babysitter or go out into public.  At this point you still had not had one success story with pooping on the toilet.  In fact, you even managed to explosion-poop at my friend, Darla's, house so that Joe and I could go on a temple date.  She was just doing us a sweet favour and when we came to pick you kids up we walked in on Darla cleaning your panties out in the toilet!  I felt so bad because if I were her I would have just tossed them!  SO my wonderful friend Darla brought over all these Pet-Shop toys and suggested that they could be used as some great bribing tools.  I felt bad for withholding these toys from you but not bad enough.  As soon as you realized I was not going to give you a single toy until you pooped on the toilet, you went straight into that bathroom and made it happen.  No accidents since!  It's funny how determined you can be when you want to, but it's gotta be all your idea!  Sheesh stubborn woman.  I am just glad we are passed that!  The best part is you decided you're done with diapers altogether so you are totally night time trained too.  It was all you.  You may have been the hardest to toilet-train during the day, but man-oh-man, you were the easiest to night time train.  Sounds like my pregnancy with you.  Worst pregnancy, easiest delivery!

You LOVE to sing.  You are singing all the day long.  Sometimes you are making up songs of your own, or singing a familiar tune but with your own made up lyrics.  It is so cute to listen to your sweet voice.  I hope you never lose your love for music.

You love going to nursery and you love going to what we call, "Play-Place" or what YOU like to call, "Ploo Place" (I think you like saying that because it sounds like "pooh" without actually saying it or you'd get into trouble!  Haha!  It's actually just the babysitting place at the YMCA so I can work out).  Basically, the long and the short of it is you have no fear of leaving my side.  You couldn't care less when I leave you with someone else.  I guess I'll count it as a blessing for now, ...as long as it's not a kidnapper.  On the other hand though, you love to cuddle me and be a Mamma's girl.  And read books.  You are always bringing me a book to read you.  So we will cuddle and read, but sometimes I have to draw the line after reading the same book four times straight!  You also love to play blocks.  Not build them, per se, but rather give them personalities.  Before you got those ponies you would always be coming up to me with those blocks telling me that I was the Daddy-one and the baby-one and you would be the other baby-one and the Mommy-one, etc.  Too funny.  Good thing Christmas happened AND your birthday, so you have MORE than enough toys now and aren't as desperate to be THAT imaginative.

Favourite food: cheese strings, or a "cheese of slice."  You could seriously pound back ten of those without blinking.  

You may be super-quirky and silly, but you also have a real sweet side to you too.   You love to say prayers.  You usually only bless me and Daddy and then you're done, but it's sweet because I can tell you mean it.  You also love to snuggle before bed.  After we sing songs and say prayers, either Daddy or I will tuck you in and you demand a snuggle.  Basically, I just lay by you and you get an extra song request.  Your favourite songs are "I Am a Child of God" "Twinkle, Twinkle" and "Ride, Ride." I don't mind it at all because at the end of the day sometimes it's nice to have that alone time with you and just remember how lucky I am to have you.  You may have many personalities, but I love each and every one of you!
 

Me Want FOOD!

So, I took my doctor's advice and started feeding Zoe rice cereal a few days ago.  Despite wishing I could put this off another month, it was really cute watching her eat this stuff.  She was a natural and LOVED every bite.  I almost considered not listening to my doctor and just continuing to nurse her because she's been acting happy, but then the last few days she has, in fact, been ACTING starved.  Like, I'm empty, but she wants more.  I feel so bad.  It's not like I'm wasting away as I still have another ten pounds to lose.  I should have plenty of store!  She's also been having green poops for a few weeks now (which my doctor shrugged off), it makes me wonder if she's getting all the nutrients she needs.  Stressful!  Why can't I ever remember the details of my other kids when it comes to these sorts of changes?  I don't remember them going through any of this.  Green poops?  Acting hungry?  I think it may be a growth spurt and she's just ready for more.  What else is there to say?  Seems pretty obvious.  I think.  So, I tried offering her formula and she HATED it (aren't you hungry my dear?  Just eat it!), ...and that's when I broke out the rice cereal and TA-DA!  I guess I will have to be a slave to yet another child's schedule.  Here we go solids!

Goals

It is at the end of January and I am FINALLY getting around to writing out some goals.  Already procrastinating!  I feel like I need to write them out or they will never happen.  Joe is very formal when it comes to setting goals.  He loves his charts and reminders and the specifics of how to get there.  I remember our first year or marriage we were talking about goals for that year and I was very surprised (and mildly annoyed) at his attention to detail.  It wasn't enough to say, "I want to lose 10 pounds."  I had to figure out how many times a week I was going to do what and for how long, etc.  Yikes!  It's good for me though.  I need someone to help me figure out how I'm going to get there and what specifically I want to do.

Be a Better Mom:
-I will do this by taking time to respond.  I yell too much and I'm starting to see this in my kids, so I will use a softer voice if I am upset about something and try to have perspective.  (Not a big deal if you've spilled your juice for the sixth time this week!  Shrug it off).
-Time.  With the boys in school for so much of the day I am starting to feel a bit out of touch.  I also occasionally find a whole day of chores and errands have gone by and I have not had any quality time with the girls.  I will give each of the kids my full attention at least once a day (this could be as simple as snuggling and reading a book together/helping me bake, or teaching them something new like a song on the piano, etc).
-I asked the kids what I could do to be a better Mom and they think I need to make them more costumes!  Haha!  I love that.  (Just glad they didn't say, "stop being a mean Mom" or something along the lines of that).  Definitely need to pull out the sewing machine and get into a groove.  Next project:  Pirate costumes!  (At some point before the year is over).
-Teach kids work-ethic by cleaning up the main room every night before bed and the rumpus room once a week. Have kids help me set the table at least three times a week.  I know this doesn't sound like a lot but I know this one will be a real challenge and then I'll have to REALLY work on goal number one.
-Make dinner (like, a good hearty meal) three times a week

Work on Music:
-I will do this by saying yes.  If I give myself more opportunities to utilize and grow my skills, then I will have more reason to practice.  For example, I am the make-shift choir director in my Ward right now and it has been fun to work on my sight reading abilities as a director and flapping my arms around like I know what I'm doing!
-Finish my musical.  I have been working on a Musical for about a year now and am finally returning to the finer details with script and song-writing now that Zoe is giving me more sleep and more breaks.  I plan on giving myself the year to really finish it.  My short term goal would be to co-direct it with Jayna Butler and a great cast when it's finished.  And my long term goal would be to submit it to various festivals/contests, etc.  Why stop at one performance when so much time and effort has been put forth?  I specifically would like to pluck away at this over the next few months using my free evenings and various afternoons when I can.  I will allow the rest of the year to be an editing process as Mark Mitchell is arranging the music and Jayna Butler is helping with the script.  I will also become more comfortable with my studio equipment and delve in a little more as far as truly understanding it.
-I realize that if I want to have awesome Christmas Eve family programs, I will need to be able to be that Mom that can sight read sheet music!  I will learn one to two Hymn/Children's songs per month and comfortably be able to play them.  I would also like to learn another piece non-church related that will test my skills quarterly.

Spiritual Goals:
-I am the Sunday School Teacher for the Youth so I will be a better teacher by preparing my lesson the first half of the week so I have the rest of the week to ponder and add to it.
-Morning prayers.  These often turn into my breakfast prayers so I am hoping to be able to do this either before I nurse Zoe in the morning or while the boys are getting ready for school.  Yikes.  We'll see how this goes.
-Daily family scriptures.  We have not been as diligent since the boys have started school since we usually do this over breakfast.  Sometimes it is rushed, so I need to make sure everyone is awake a little earlier to make sure it happens.  If it doesn't happen at breakfast I need to make sure it happens at dinner or before bed.
-Family Home Evening: Joe now has evening classes on Monday nights which kind of messes up our schedule for FHE, but we plan to have it on Friday nights until the semester is over.  We are already in the habit of having family movie night that night, so I am hoping this will work for the next few months.  I want to teach my kids leadership skills, so they will be the ones to stand up at the front and lead the music and say prayers and maybe even start helping with the lesson portion as well.
-I want to have daily opportunities to have Spiritual teaching moments with the kids.  This will likely happen during scripture-reading, but I would also like to make sure I relate to the gospel in other ways in our daily lives as much as I possibly can.

 Physical:
-Yes, I DID just have a baby five months ago but I am still stuck on those last ten pounds.  They are a pain in my butt.  Literally.  It's times like these that make me really miss my twenty year old body. If I worked as hard as I am now when I was twenty, I would have lost it all by now and then some.  But alas.  I am getting older and my body doesn't want to listen to me any more.  This happened to me after having Ellie and the thing that really got me going was the Burnhams did the Biggest Loser.  I worked really hard and ended up getting down to 128 lbs (which would be an absolute dream!).  This year the Burnhams are doing another Biggest Loser challenge but it's a little different.  It's a point system.  I get one point for working out at least 30 minutes per day (cardio) and one point for eating healthy, which includes no sweets all day AND no snacking after dinner (with the exceptions of veggies and fruit if I MUST).  The last one is a real problem for me.  I am already in the habit of working out at least 4 times a week, but this diet thing is not my cup of tea and I can guarantee that is why I am stuck at 140lbs.  SO, my goal is to get at least 7 points a week. 

Reading this back sounds a little daunting but I know that I wouldn't write it down if I didn't think I could do it.  I think the hardest part will be the sight-reading sheet music goal as I have been working on that one for years.  Some months are just better than others and I get really good at it, ...and then motherhood pulls me a different direction and all of my abilities I've been working so hard on go down the toilet. Here's to a lovely and goal-filled new year!   

Noah, My Masterpiece

I love my kids.  And I love the way Ellie is holding each of the boys' hands in this picture.  I feel so lucky that they are all such buds.  Well, ...minus all the whining/screaming/crying every day after school.  At least every once in a while they give me a little of this.  Pure adorableness.  Thank you for being cute enough to not want to strangle you at the end of each day!  (And yes, this was taken on a balmy mid-January day after church.  JANUARY!  Sheesh...).

I feel this urgent need to talk about Noah.  Jackson just had his birthday so I already talked a lot about what he's up to these days, Zoe just had her 4-month shots and I talked about her, Ellie will have her birthday at the end of the month and Noah gets left out!  Plus, the age that he's at right now is just the cutest.  I love four-year-olds.  So Noah, this post is for YOU!  You seriously warm my heart every day!  The other day at the breakfast table we were reading scriptures as a family and Joe said, "We always need to make sure we choose the right."  To which you chimed in very knowingly, "Yeah, because we don't want to choose the left."  Another melt-my-heart story happened about a month ago while we were eating dinner together as a family.  Jackson can kind of be a know-it-all at times, and you LOVE to show him that you can keep up, so he says, "I know where chicken comes from." (We were eating chicken nuggets). "Chicken. Like the chicken on a farm." And then you piped in, "I know where butter comes from." And with a dead-straight face you looked at me with your r's that sound like w's and said, "Butterflies."

I heart you.

You are totally coming into your own.  It's so fun to see.  You are really getting into spelling and can now sound out most letters.  You GLOW when you spell a word right.  It's adorable. You also love when I read to you.  Most nights you are begging me to read you a book.  You also love when we go to the library after swimming lessons.  While the other kids are playing on the computers or doing puzzles at the various stations, you will grab the largest stuffed puppy to snuggle with and then bring me book after book to read to you as you cuddle into me.  This is one of my favourite times with you.  Sometimes I think you are getting bored and I will ask if you are done reading to which you say, "No Mom.  Keep reading."  It makes me feel so loved and special that you want to spend that time with me.  

When you are not playing with Lego-guys or playing XBOX, you are drawing.  I'm sure Kindergarten has something to do with this as many paintings and crafts are made and brought home, but even after school you like to sit down and draw.  For Christmas, Granny B sent you kids a pad of paper with heads to decorate.  You kids went crazy one day during the holidays and while Ellie drew on one head and Jackson worked on four heads, you finished about twenty!  You were so proud of your work that you taped them up all over the house.  

Ellie's:
 
Jackson's:

Noah's:
 
 "Baaaaaaaa!"  (I envision a deep demon-like voice coming out of that thing).  I had to eventually take them down so I wouldn't have nightmares.  Haha!  But I LOVE how proud you were of your work.  And yes.  They ALL looked as "good" as this one.  You even went the extra mile with some of them by completing their bodies in stick-form.  Well done Noah. Way to pay attention to detail!  I love it.

Okay, and I can NOT forget to talk about your best bud, Zoe.  She is your life.  You get home from school and you go straight to her (whether I'm nursing or not) and touch her face and talk to her and make her laugh.  She is much more responsive these days so you especially love that she thinks you are funny.  Lately in your prayers (like practically every day this week), you've been asking God for me to have another baby in my tummy.  The faith of a child kind of scares me, so finally Joe and I asked you what that was all about and you just responded that you wanted to have another baby like Zoe around.  It will be a boy and you have already named him.

You like babies.  Period.

Thank you for being the only one in the house to ask me to sing to them.  Most days when I sing around the house, Ellie and Jackson tell me that it gives them a head ache, ...but you like when I sing songs to you before bed time.  Your favourite these days is, "A Child's Prayer."  You still even let me caress your cheek and stroke your hair as I sing to you as well.  I love those moments with you.

Thank you for continuing to be my sweet, tender boy.  I love you.

Love,

Mom

A Little Gift

Allow me to explain this picture.  Sarah, Jenny and I have had this ongoing inside joke about a doll head for years.  For Christmas one year, Jenny and I were looking for a gift for Sarah and came upon the weirdest gift we had ever seen.  A porcelain doll head ornament.  No body.  Just a head.  We thought it was hilarious.  Since then we have hidden the doll randomly throughout each others houses.  Well, it's gotten more difficult to do since we've all moved away from each other.  And our original doll has gone missing (or someone's holding on to it and I have no idea where it is!).  So, a while back Sarah and I purchased another doll head - a sister if you will - and sent it to Jenny for her birthday a year and a half ago inside a bag of chips!  Haha!  Well, after Jenny's visit a couple weeks back she hinted that there was something that she left behind.  I immediately knew what she was referring to!  For WEEKS I was extra observant thinking I'm going to find this creepy head in the weirdest of places.  The freezer?  Under a towel?  Inside a pot?  Mostly, I just wanted to prepare myself so I wouldn't get freaked out.  Well, just yesterday as I was searching for a pair of shoes to wear to church, I came upon this bag with this note and the doll head destroyed!  Haha!  Since it is not the original doll head it makes it that much more hilarious. Thank you Jenny.

May the doll head live on.

Zoe and Snowy

Zoe, today you had your four months shots and you were a total trooper.  I personally hate that babies have to have shots at all because you look up at me through your tears as though you are saying, "Mom, why aren't you protecting me from this nasty lady who's making me feel all this pain?"  I feel so bad!  But, it's over.  For another two months anyway.  Right now you are 64 cm long and a whopping 14.7 lbs, ...which isn't great Zoe, but it's alright.  We can do better than that.  Haha!  Actually, your Doctor thinks I need to be feeding you more, ...but your cheeks and thighs are telling me differently, ...I'm not sure who to believe.  But then I think, a baby's cheeks AND thighs can ALWAYS be fatter.  So, I now get to introduce you to rice cereal a month and a half earlier than I'd like to AND supplement with some formula.  What happened to my "Moose Milk" that I've been famous for with the other children?  Anywho, this is going to get tricky.  With you being number four, and the older kids now having more of a schedule I was really hoping to put off baby food for as long as possible.  With my first, I couldn't WAIT to feed Jackson food, see him roll over, crawl, talk, etc.  But with you?  I am willing you to SLOW DOWN my child.  We don't need to rush this.  All that being said, let's talk about what you're up to at four months: You've been rolling over for about a month now, ...which is great.  But not when it's time to sleep.  You will roll over from your back to your tummy in your  crib and then get frustrated because you're now not only stuck on your tummy, but your arms are still trapped in a swaddle.  It's really annoying.  Please stop it.  Today, I am trying the no-wrap thing and it takes you longer to put yourself to sleep, but I think you'll be much happier in the long run.  I hope anyway.  I just checked on you and there you are lying on your tummy as sweet as can be and my heart almost exploded because of all of the cuteness you exude.  Well, we shall see how the tummy-time sleep goes!  You'd be my first child that I've had to stop swaddling this early.  It's weird.  I guess it's time though, because either you end up on your tummy OR you just bust our of your wrap anyway.  So I'm really hoping you get used to this no-wrap thing.  You also LOVE to coo and talk.  You've always loved to and you've always been loud, but these days you are playing around with more vowels.  My fav is, "Ooooooooooowaaaaaaaaa."  You are right at home in your jumper, so now when I hold you, it is not enough to just stand on my lap, you have to be jumping the whole time.  Talk about a great work out.  For me.  (Hmmmm... maybe that's why you're not as hefty on the scale, you've been working out!)  You also love to suck your bottom lip under when you are tired and ready to sleep, or sometimes right before I feed you because you get overly excited.  I love it.  It is easily one of my favourite things about you right now.  You also give your smiles away easily.  At the doctor's office a random lady said hi to you and I'm pretty sure you made her day with the smile you returned.  It was a very tender moment.  You haven't been the snuggliest baby in the world, but since Christmas you have really surprised me here and there.  Tonight you snuggled with your Daddy for a good long while as we had our weekly Friday Family movie night.  It was so sweet!  Zoe, I love you so much that my heart wants to just DIE every time I look at you.  I feel so lucky to have such a happy and beautiful girl.  AND I feel like I need to brag about how good you sleep.  Even the doctor was amazed and told me I was spoiled because I can usually get a good solid 12 hours out of you at night (sometimes 13).  It is a dream.  However, I WILL say that you are a bit of a crib snob and will usually only sleep peacefully if you are set down to sleep.  You will NOT sleep in my arms at church.  But today as we drove home from your appointment you fell asleep in your car seat and were so zonked that I was able to carry you from your car seat to your room without waking you.  I decided since you were totally out that I would take advantage of that and hold you in the rocking chair.  I love just looking at you and admiring your beautiful Spirit.  There is something about you that brings such unity to our family and makes it feel that much more complete.  Thank you for being such an easy, gorgeous, happy baby.  Keep it up!

The next few shots are from last week.  It was hovering above zero and I wasn't sure how much longer our snow would last so we went outside and made a snowman named "Snowy" ...which quickly turned into a snowball fight.  Joe helped the kids build battle stations in our back yard.  It was so fun and so cute to watch them all play together.  I feel like each phase of life just gets more and more fun.  Enjoy the pics!  

Jenny's Visit... The Long Version

So as I mentioned a couple of entries ago, Jenny and her gang came to visit us the day after Christmas and it was so nice to have family around to visit with.  It also helps that she is one of my besties, so we had a great time.  My other bestie, Sarah, wasn't there and Jenny and I could feel a real void without her.  So we decided it would be fun to make a video for Sarah in honor of her absence and to let her know how much we were missing her.  We had a BLAST!  At first we were going to make a movie about the Elf on the Shelf being the "Coke bottle serial killer" that we have so often seen coming from 7-11 passing by Sarah's place.  We (and by "we" I mean Jenny) would make up elaborate stories about how this creepy guy must be getting Diet Coke for his victims that he keeps hidden in his basement upon their final request (probably because that would be Jenny's final request before her death sentence).  As dark as that sounds written out, it was still somehow pretty funny.  Anywho, as we got into details we thought it would be more fun to have Sarah actually BE the elf.  As we continued to film over the several days that Jenny was here it just kept evolving and getting weirder and weirder, laden with millions of inside jokes.  We laughed so hard.  The best part was the randomness at the end where "Sarah" goes crazy and starts quoting from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (and worst because I was the one spinning around with the camera and we did NOT do it in one take.  Haha!).  Once we were all finished, we watched Sarah watch it via Skype.  Tears and laughter.  Totally worth it.  And it ALMOST made it feel like she was really here with us because we were thinking about her so much throughout our visit together and did all the things we thought she would like to do.  We posted it on Youtube, so if you'd like to watch the greatest film (not to mention, best ACTING) in the history of mankind, search the title, "Elf-Sarah's Visit."  Next time she WILL be here with us!  April, why do you seem so far away?

We had to do all of our filming during our evenings together, because "Jolly Holly" (which is our elf's name) is NOT to be touched or she loses her magic.  Jackson watched the video when we were editing and saw me touch her once during the MASH scene and reprimanded me.  So we spent our days snuggling and chilling.  Many-a-movies were watched and many-a-board games were played.  I heart Milo!  After a while he would skip his Mom and just come to me if he wanted anything because I would always give it to him.  "You want another fruit snack?  SURE!  Let me be your favourite Auntie!"  Jenny captured us snuggling.  I love that kid.  He was always down for snuggling with me.  Except for when he wanted to be inches from the television screen.  I miss you Milo!  And Ellie, as you can see below, was in love with Brett.  "Oh you're playing games on your Ipad?  Let me just steal that.  There!  Now you can watch me play!"  Oh dear.


I love this shot above of Ellie and Milo chillin'.  One of our not-so-many ventures out of the house included the library (that's what happens when there are sick kids and napping schedules to be had).  I love our library here and take our kids often, so I knew Milo would love it.  Even if it meant us chasing him around, I didn't mind.  He was so cute and loved all the play-stations.   This is seriously one of my favourite places to take the kids.

The day after Jenny's gang arrived, we received our first snow-fall!  It's like the sky was waiting for their arrival.  We were so excited to finally have snow to play in!!  Maybe I was the most excited.  So, we got all our snow gear on and played!  The younger ones didn't last as long, but Jackson, Ellie and I stayed outside a little longer building snow castles with our neighbour, Sydney Solie, while Joe shoveled the heavy, wet snow!  Love these captures of the kids.

Thanks for taking the drive, Jenny, to come and visit us. I've been looking forward to it for a long time and am looking forward to many more visits back and forth during our stay here!

New Year, Burns and Toilets

It is officially the New Year.  Happy New Year!  Yeay!  I guess it was officially the new year in my last entry, but like I said, my brain wasn't working, so here's another attempt at having profound thoughts.  I will try anyway.  My first thought is, I've been reading this book by Stephanie Nielson called, "Heaven is Here" about her journey of being a Mom of four (now five) as a burn victim.  She talks about her near-perfect life in Part One of the book which quickly becomes a touch obnoxious.  Is anyone's love-life that mushy or perfect?  And then I remembered when Joe and I were engaged and I am pretty darn sure we were that annoying too.  In a good way.  Well, good to us anyway.  At any rate, the first part of the book is her "perfect" life, and right now I am almost finished the 2nd part where she survives a plane crash and is in the hospital healing.  I don't remember the last time I cried so much.  She was an 80% burn victim and was in a coma for three months and spent another two healing and doing physio.  The darkest time in her life was when she not only was wrapped in bandages and couldn't move, but her eyes were also sewn shut for two whole weeks to allow them to heal.  She couldn't move OR see!  How awful would that be!  My favourite part was when she was trapped in the airplane with no one to help her (that sounds bad, just keep reading) and just as she was resigned that this was how she was going to die, she saw her Nana from the other side and talked her through it until she was safely out of the plane and the flames were rolled out.  What an amazing experience!  Yes.  I DID bawl.  But I think that MOST of the bawling happened as she talked about her children.  She was lying in a hospital helpless while other family members were taking care of her kids.  That would kill me.  And even worse was the children's first visit to the hospital to see their Mom for the first time after five months!  At this point, Stephanie had just barely seen her own face in the mirror days prior to this and was appalled by herself.  I still have yet to finish Part Three of the book, but I can only imagine that it is about healing at home, emotionally and physically and getting used to a new life.  But I have had so many thoughts NOW, and wanted to write them out before I forgot.  I feel so grateful to be able to read about her journey.  We have some things in common so reading about all that she went through breaks my heart and makes me feel like I am not allowed to complain ever again.  In some ways it has made me a touch more paranoid.  The other night Joe took the boys out to run errands.  They were an hour late.  It IS Joe, so that's not terribly uncommon, but not answering his phone IS.  He wasn't picking up.  Where was he?  Was there an accident and now I am going to have to go through the same trials as Stephanie and this book was just preparing me?  Noooooo!  Well, he DID come home in one piece.  And so did the boys.  I hugged each of them as they came through the door.  And then I teared up as I hugged Joe.  I admit, it was a bit dramatic.  But this book has made me even more aware of how fragile life is.  Knowing my paranoia, I'm not entirely sure that's a good thing.  But it truly has helped me be more kind and loving towards my children.  If anything ever happened to me I would want them to remember their KIND Mother, and not their impatient Mother who is always yelling or annoyed at something.  Which has been especially helpful in potty-training Ellie this week.  It also helps that Joe has been here because nursing a baby while trying to ALSO potty train your two-and-a-half year old (well, almost three-year-old) is kinda tricky.  Might I report that today was day three and there were NO accidents!  She also hasn't pooped yet today, nor has she had a successful poop-story yet so we shall see how the rest of this adventure goes.  Thus far she has been pretty good about telling us when she has to go and we even went out in public today without any diapers.  Victory!  So happy this time around is SO much better than my first attempt.  Only one bum to change instead of two.  So.  Very.  Happy.

Anywho, I got a little off track.  Back to this book and my awesome thoughts:  Read it.  I recommend it.  OH!  And just one more part that I loved in her story that I just HAVE to share.  When she was in a coma for those three months her husband, Christian, came to visit her as soon as he was physically able to (he was also in the crash with a broken back and burns).  As soon as he touched her hand, her heart level spiked and the nurses rushed in to see what was going on.  They told him he had to let go of her hand, ...and then it went back to normal.  So then he spoke to her and the same thing happened and the nurses said he should probably say goodnight.  Just his touch or his voice made her heart race.  And she was in A COMA!  I thought that was the most romantic thing I'd ever heard.  Oh my.  I love it!  But going back to my profound (and lengthy) thoughts, the thing that I have most felt from reading this book has been to be grateful for what I have for Pete's sake.  I have a beautiful body that has all of its limbs in place.  I can walk, kneel, run, swim, bare children.  I am healthy.  I can SEE!  All of these things that we take for granted.  Like I said, I am not allowed to complain again.  Not about my stretch marks, or about my wrinkles, or about my cellulite, or about a long list of many things that I am sure I could come up with.  I probably will.  And it will be about something ridiculously small.

But then someone should slap my hand.   

Anywho, thank you Stephanie for sharing your story!  It has changed my insight and helped me to be more grateful for my life and those around me.  It has also reminded me that God loves each of us and takes care of us in His own ways.

The end.

Iphone 5

I was going to write about something profound being as it is the start of a new year, but I'll leave that for another post when my brain is working.  For now?  I will talk about my new Iphone.  For Christmas, Joe upgraded my iphone for me.  Yeay!  I now have the latest Iphone 5, and for those who know how well my last phone functioned, you would be happy for me.  I think Joe's biggest worry was that I wouldn't use it as much as he would (because I rarely used my last piece of junk), ...but I think I have been proving him wrong!  I am now on instagram (look at me!  I'm only like a year behind everyone else!), and have been taking pictures and videos on my phone like nobodies business.  I always wondered why so many people would constantly post such low-quality pictures all the time when they could be using a nice high-quality camera.  Now I know.  Utter convenience.  I've got my phone here.  Why not whip it out?  Well, I did that a lot this past week as I have gotten to know my phone a little better.  I hope Joe is proud of me.  I am turning into a true Burnham.  Cannot put my dang phone down!  No.  Not even for an entire board game.  Haha!  Okay.  I'm not that bad.  

Yet.

So, this post features Jenny and Brett's visit as they came the day after Christmas for five days.  It was perfect timing.  We were so ready for visitors and who better than my sister and her fam.  We ate.  A lot.  Played in our first snowfall, watched movies/shows, took care of sick kids (poor Abbott and Jackson!), went to the library, went to Les Miserables (amazing!), played board games, ate some more, and loved each other.  I will post more about their visit once I steal some cute pics from Jenny, but for now this is all I got.  I was SHOCKED to see that I did NOT take as many pictures on my beautiful Nikon as I usually do because I was way too busy taking low-quality pics with this darn thing.  Whatevs though.  I am officially addicted.