Happy Birthday Princess Aurora!!

Three years ago today God answered our prayers and gave us our sweet girl Aurora. We prayed for a long time for a baby and she was worth the wait!

Christmas and Art Class

Christmas has come and gone. I hope yours was wonderful. Our was pretty busy so I have to say, I am a little glad to be past it. I love Christmas but all the long days not at home were a little hard on the kids. Today Aurora was under the table and I asked her why she was hiding, then I realized she had fallen asleep!!

I have something exciting coming up, I will be teaching art at the missionary school here next year. I am pretty excited (but also a little freaked out) I taught art there for a year 8 or 9 years ago and loved it but then moved away, got married, had kids all that. The school is pretty small, it's the school I went to from 4th grade all the way through high school. The teachers are all missionaries most have been in other countries for many years before coming here. The students are all children of missionaries or of people training to be missionaries. The teachers all genuinely care about their students too, actually that kind of drove me a little crazy when I was in high school because if (more like when)  I was slacking off they would call me on it or talk to my parents.

Tomorrow is also a big day in our house. Miss Aurora is turning 3 tomorrow.!!

3 months!

Wednesday brought a wonderful answer to many years of prayer.My dear friend (who happens to also be married to my husbands youngest biological uncle- his mom is from a BIG family with 10 biological kids and 5 adopted ones) had a baby girl. She and her husband have a 5 year old son (almost 6) who came after many years of prayer as well.

For the past 4 years they have prayed for another (and I prayed specifically for a daughter for them :) ) Sweet little Abigail is the answer to all those prayers!! 

It was so fun being pregnant with our babies together, both Allison and I have struggled with infertility and are now both blessed with a boy and girl. 

I am just so thrilled for her and her husband and son and can hardly wait to hold Abigail in February when we visit. 

This is something I made for her, I hope she likes it, I've been playing around with watercolor painting lately. I have a few other gifts for her that are on the go but being December time kind of got away from me so those will have to get mailed later. 

 This week Gideon turned 3 months old! In some ways it seems like he's been with us for so much longer but it also seems like it's gone so quickly

 snoozing together Wednesday morning.

 his facial expressions always make me laugh

Luke 2:11

melty monster

I think Gideon migh be starting to teeth, he's chewing his hands a lot. 

I've been wanting to try melted crayon art with Aurora for months but haven't gotten around o it.Finally today we did.
We blocked out the shape of a monster with masking tape the picked our colors and hot glued them on the canvas

 then used the hair dryer for a while till it got really drippy

 then took off the tape and since some color had gotten under the tape we painted the monster

 she thinks he's pretty funny

John 14:6

it's starting to feel like Christmas!

Today Aurora did some finger painting. I've seen a ton of those hand print pictures on Pinterest so I thought we should try doing a Christmas tree one. I am sure someone has probably done this before but oh well.  Nothing new under the sun right?

So here is her hand print Christmas tree picture. The dots below it are presents.

 Yesterday we woke up to snow, so we played in it for a while.

 then Aurora and Gideon snuggled a bit.

Yes, he has a pink bumbo seat, that is what happens when you have a big sister... LOL :) He looks pretty funny sitting in it, he's still so little but he really like it.

Romans 6:23

Monday

 Here is our rock candy....

 Here they are, we decided that this was big enough for us for now

 Then Aurora played with magic sand and cloud dough, both are pretty fun!

 she was pretty impressed with her handprint

 Gideon is getting good at holding his head up!

Public school at age 2? Really?!

Is it just me or is this a little disturbing? Ok, more than a little disturbing. Here in Ontario, the Liberals are talking about starting school at age 2!

Their reasoning, more tax money because moms will go back to work.

The Early Years Study 3 was obtained by the Star in advance of its Tuesday release. In an exclusive interview in October, Mustard, who died last week, said the recommendations should be easy for Ontario, which is already implementing full-day kindergarten for 4- and 5-year-olds.

“I would come down to 3-year-olds, then 2-year-olds and 1-year-olds,” he said.

“I'd move right down, and I'd pay (early childhood educators) well, and if you are telling me we don't have the money, I'd make the point that the risk for physical and mental health problems is actually set in early development.”

(Source: http://www.thestar.com/news/article/1090591--start-school-at-2-study-urges?bn=1)

I don't know about you, but I am a bit upset about that last sentence. He is suggesting that public schools do a better job preventing mental health problems than parents could! That supposedly children will be better off if they are put in public school while they are still in diapers?! That is unbelievable!

What is this push in our society to not parent our children? I am sorry, but I did not have children so that the government could raise them for me. No way!

There is no way that a public system could teach children more than they can learn at home. (as long as parents aren't just parking their children in front of the tv all day)

Besides the tax thing this seems to me like a desperate attempt to indoctrinate or children at an even earlier age the way the Liberal government wants them. They want graphic sex ed classes in grade 3 getting significantly more graphic by grade 6 and 7. ( Source: http://www.canadianvalues.ca/SCC/index.html) They want Christianity out of schools, the list goes on and on and it's getting more and more scary by the day!

Now I will admit, I am sometimes one who gets annoyed about stuff but doesn't do anything about it, but this is getting ridiculous. Parents need to take a stand and stop this insanity!!  Aside from all the dangers of putting toddler who are often not even potty trained into publicly funded schools. (That is really something teachers should really be standing up against too, because it is the teachers who will have to worry about even more chance of being blamed for abuse) If we don't what will the repercussions be in a few years?

 We found a new game at the Bible book store. We haven't played it yet, We are going to wait and play it when Caleb is off work and can play with us. We did have a look and it looks pretty cute!!

 Here is Aurora with it, It's called Bible Snap. It looks like you could use it for Bible lessons as well. and flash cards. Very useful game! :)

 Saturday m mother-in-law is doing a small party to celebrate Caleb's promotion. Aurora and I made a present for him today using an idea I found on Pinterest from I am momma hear me roar one of my favorite blogs.  Aurora drew a picture of him on parchment paper (It's supposed to be freezer paper shiny side down but I didn't have any, i think it would work better with freezer paper the parchment paper doesn't stick when you iron it) then I cut out her drawing and used it as a stencil

 Turned out pretty funny I think. I love the crazy little drawings toddlers do!

 And she made him a card while I was doing that.

 While we were doing that Gideon was chilling in his sassy seat...

 Then this afternoon Aurora worked on her puzzle. This is a pretty big deal, she's never been interested in puzzles before and has done this one completely by herself, probably because it's princesses...

 and here he is sleeping again, he likes to hold his hair while he sleeps. :)