Drew made it into the paper!

Students in grades kindergarten through seven took part in Mt. Lehman elementary's Christmas concert Wednesday afternoon at the school gym that included a production of How the Grinch Stole Christmas, as well as festive songs and caroling.
Photograph by: Rafe Arnott, Times


Parents and students across the Fraser Valley are in Christmas high gear as the holidays rapidly approach and a slew of concerts, plays and performances begin hitting schools. With the last day of classes scheduled before the winter break as Dec. 17, the time to deck the halls is looming, and teachers are working overtime on Christmas decorations, costumes and cards for students to take home to mom and dad.

Here is a photo essay of Mt. Lehman elementary putting on a performance of How the Grinch Stole Christmas on Wednesday afternoon to a packed audience in the school’s gym.

– staff reporter

© Copyright (c) Abbotsford Times


Read more: http://www.abbotsfordtimes.com/Abbotsford+Lehman+elementary+kicks+Christmas+play+season/3940881/story.html#ixzz18JFE7Mx2

Abbotsford’s Mt. Lehman elementary kicks off Christmas play season

Abbotsford’s Mt. Lehman elementary kicks off Christmas play season

Pumpkins, Pumpkins, and More Pumpkins!

Drew loves Pumpkins! Mom and my sister Debbie wanted to take the kids to the Apple barn. This was probably a month ago. I was going to go too, but I was sick. So I stayed home and the five of them went on their own. They each came back with a pumpkin. For some reason the kids were content not to carve the pumpkins right away. That was fine with me. Instead they, or more realistically Drew, took a sharpie and drew faces on each pumpkin. They sat our our house like this. About a week later our family went on a family retreat. At the retreat there was a pumpkin carving activity. Drew took part and together we carved a fun looking jack o'lantern. Unfortunately on the way home, we realize that we forgot the beloved pumpkin at the retreat. LUcky we had these pumpkins at home!

So that afternoon all 5 of us sat down around the kitchen table and carved pumpkins. We started with Drew's but soon we were carving the other two as well. We were amazed at what we found growing inside of Sophia's pumpkin!

PS - the magic eraser is really good at taking sharpie off a pumpkin!

Since this time we have had two more sets of pumpkins! Another trip to the pumpkin patch, and two field trips to various pumpkin patches! There are two more pumpkins waiting to be carved, but right now they look great at decorations by the front door! And Halloween is still coming! . . . Did I mention Drew loves pumpkins?





Love Ethan's suspenders! He's a little skinny and this pair of pants doesn't have the adjustable waistband! Thanks to Oma and Opa for finding it at MCC after they bought him a pair of Christmas pants last year that had the same problem! :)



What we found inside Sophia's pumpkin:


We decided to plant the sprouted seeds and also some other seeds to see what would happen!


A Week Later!


Two weeks later!
They seem to grow an inch or two every day! At this rate we are going to have an indoor pumpkin patch pretty soon! We'll see how long we keep this experiment going, but in the mean time it is fun to see it grow and change every day.

Drew's Happy Place!

Here I am waiting for Drew to be Drew, so I thought I would do some blogging. The intended post will have to wait. Here is the revised version.

Drew. One of my cousins came over to our new place this past spring and made the comment that Drew had finally found his happy place. On hard days it is sometimes hard to see. But I know she is right! Drew loves cows, freedom, tractors, dirt-bikes and especially trailers! Trailers? Yes, he absolutely loves to hook things up. Especially to something motorized. AKA the dirt bike. He has so many plans too. Next he is apparently getting a quad, and, of course a trailer, to hook up to it. :)

From the moment he was born, he was meant to live on a farm. I think that is why God has given us this place.

Where else could he do this:



After we ran some errands, I told the kids we could set up the little pool for them to play in because it was quite hot. I was just going to move it the 7 or so feet my self, which would have taken about two minutes, but Drew had a plan! He wanted to move it by dirt bike! His plan took a lot longer. But at least he had fun!










Proud of his achievement!


Now for the toys! Sophia mentioned that she wanted to have the toys to play with in the pool! Immediately Drew had another job to do!




Check out the straps! That is totally secure!! So secure that the tethers started bending the rubbermaid bin!






Delivered! Right to your "door"!

Enjoying the fruit of his labour! This boy is not afraid of a little hard work! :)

We LOVE you Drew!!

This weekend was a very special time for our family. We were blessed to be able to attend two family events.

First on Sunday we got to go to the baby dedication for my cousin's Andy and Sharalee and there baby Kiara. Kiara is a very beautiful baby, even if she does puke a lot, and loved by so many people. The dedication was held at Arnold MB Church, in Arnold. I love going to that Church. It is a small Church that seems like a big family. And I know that Andy and Sharalee have been blessed to attend there as well. God is definitely living and moving there. It was a great service. I really loved how real the dedication was, and how much conversation their was about the importance of the parents being dedicated to raise Kiara up in a way that is pleasing to God. Which I have already seen in Andy and Sharalee. They are such great parents. Way to go guys. Keep up the good work!

After the service and some time of visiting, we joined some of the family for a lunch at Boston Pizza. It was good conversation and food. I hadn't been there for a long time. And hadn't seen some of those cousins for a long time either. I miss getting together with everyone. Maybe I'll have to do some more planning this year. Adults need play-dates too! :)

After the restaurant I was lucky to get to help another cousin decorate the Church for her wedding. I have been helping her with some of the flower details. It was cool to spend time with her, and everyone else, and see everything come together. She did a great job with all the wedding planning! She was just a baby when my Mom started babysitting her. She has grown into such a beautiful, godly young woman. I am so proud of her. It was also fun for me to learn more about her, and about flowers.

On Monday, the Wedding Day, I picked the flowers up from the nursery at 9 am and was busy for the rest of the day. The Wedding started at 4pm and so we had most of the day to finish the live flower parts of the decorations. My Mom and sister and I met at the Church and we made flower arrangments for the centers of the tables at the reception. My Mom brought some flowers from her garden as well. Together we made 17 wild/natural looking flower arrangements in about 3 hours. Then we moved to the sanctuary. My sister and I cut, wrapped and hung bright pink Gerbera flowers on the pews. It looked so pretty!

Onto the next task, I quickly went home to make a hot dish that I was asked to bring to the wedding. It was a potluck! It was a neat idea. There was a lot of great food to taste. Too bad you can't taste everything. And then there was the dessert buffet . . . Back to the days events. As I was making my dish, Mark took the kids to pick up the babysitters. When they got back, I was just finishing getting ready and the oven timer was going off. Perfect timing. A few last minute words to our wonderful babysitters, and we were off again! This time it was a little more relaxed. It was so nice to sit back and enjoy the evening and the wedding. Date-night! It was so great not to worry about anything, and enjoy all the beauty of the decorations, flowers, commitments made, God's blessings to a wonderful couple, conversations with friends and family! And in the end I even got to take some flowers home! I love flowers. Especially on this rainy rainy day! So glad the sun was out for my cousin's special day!

Thanks for the wonderful day, guys! We love you!

On August 26 -

What a bitter-sweet kind of day. First it started sweet. Mark and I were celebrating our 1oth anniversary. My Mom had offered that her and Dad could come and babysit for us, so we could go out for dinner and the evening. Sweet! Definitely sweet! I was really feeling like a break would be a good thing, plus I was excited to be celebrating our tenth anniversary!

The day started ok. Well the first 15 minutes or so. Then it seemed like the kids had all woken up on the wrong side of the bed, just like everyday this week! (Maybe they are coming down with something or maybe they are all growing again!) Oh well, here we go! After the morning we headed out to do some errands. I thought maybe a change of scenery would do everyone good! Didn't quite work the way I planned. At least the final leg of the journey the kids all relaxed and enjoyed the ride. So the CD stories were on and I took the long way home.

I was just starting to feel more relaxed driving down the main road that runs by our house. I looked over at our field and noticed one of the cows was laying down. A little weird I thought, concerned, I pulled into my brothers driveway, got out of the van and made a bit of noise. The cow got up and it seemed there was no problem. I got back into our van and continued on a little further heading to our house. I looked back and saw something strange, bloody, hanging from the cows butt. I parked the van, set the kids up to play, put my farm boots on and headed to the field to check it out. Just about as soon as I got there I realized that she was in labour. How exciting! Mark got home from work about 5 minutes later and we made the appropriate calls. We were told that it would be fine if we still went out for dinner etc. So that was our plan. Until then Mark went back to check on the kids and I went back to check on the cow. The hoofs of the calf were coming out further.

I had heard that cows don't like people watching to closely, so I backed off a little and planted myself on the field, enjoying the peacefulness of the cows and the field. I really need to do this more often. Steve, my brother got home from work and came to check on the progress, not much more had happened. I finally had to go and get ready for dinner.

Mark and I headed to White Spot in Mission and then headed off to a movie. Funny thing is that my brother and sister went to the same restaurant for dinner too! They were going to hang out while we were out. They were actually planning on going to see a movie too. But declined that part once they found out that we were going to go the same show!! That was very nice of them. We ended up going to Dispicable Me. It was pretty good!

Unfortunately, the bad news came once the movie ended. Our calf had been still-born. We rushed home, to find the Mother cow crying over her young. It was so sad. You could just feel her pain and sadness. We were soon met by Murray's farmhand, a friend, who owns the cow. Once we got the calf out of the field, we realized that it was a pretty descent sized Bull-calf. There wasn't any indication of why he didn't survive. It was a shorter delivery, didn't seem to be too difficult. Even if there was someone there, it wouldn't have helped. I guess this is all part of living on the farm. Some make it and some don't. It's not like there are many doctors visits, ultrasounds, monitors, etc. Just nature. It's sad though. I know it's just a cow. But it's still sad, for me anyways. Especially when you see her staring out at the place where she had her calf and cries out to it. Mostly at night now. But how can you comfort a cow? Give it more apples?

I just feel really bad for her. Maybe it's because we lost one too. And that empty feeling you have once they are gone. I still think of her and remember our Megan Emily. How long does a cow remember? They sure remember when it comes to food! I quess they are the strong silent type. Do they think like us? Feel like us? Or is it just us humans projecting our feelings onto them. I've always loved cows. These big calm beasts. I'm so blessed to live here and have them in my backyard. I guess we've kinda gotten attached to them...

The rest of the night was a little depressing. We were both feeling a little sad. Mark got a headache and we went to bed! Happy anniversary.

Well at least our celebration won't be a total bust, we hope to go away for a weekend, if we can, in fall after things have settled down with school, and the beginning of the year.

Beginnings and endings . . .

Haven't done this in a while. Thought it might be time for a little blurb.

House update: We have moved into the farm house!! It is not done, but we are in! We are so excited to be in. Additions to the before and after pics will be coming, but not quite yet! I know it's been awhile!

In other news, It seems that there is never enough cleaning and organizing being done, so after a couple hours I am almost done! Done for the day, and ready for my bed, well not the bed, the mattress! It will all come together yet!

Today was a kid day and I wasn't actually home that much, so most of my cleaning and organizing had to be done after the kids were in bed. The twins had their field trip today, so after dropping Drew off at school, we drove out to White Rock, Crescent Beach.

The beach was warm but windy. The parking was full so we had to walk for a ways. During the first ten minutes, Sophia fell into a "puddle" and was pretty much done. Luckily I had packed extra clothes, but even with the new clothes she'd rather sit on the blanket on the grass. Oh well! We had fun on the blanket. I think they both might be catching a cold, so that didn't help. I got some nice pictures anyways. After the treasure hunt and "beach time" it was time to head to Crescent Park. Lunch, park play and games! Definitely went better for my two! All in all they ended up having a pretty good day. Fun though, since Sophia has been asking to go to the beach for months :)! And when I asked if she wanted to try the beach area again, she told me it was too dirty!! We'll definitely have to plan some more beach days later in the summer!

Then we were off to pick up Drew from school. It worked out pretty well. This is the last month of kindergarten, so his schedule is a little up in the air. Some days are full, some part time and some days totally off. Today he had his full day, which worked great with the field trip. Tomorrow he has off and the twins have school in the morning. It will be fun to get to spend sometime just with him. It doesn't happen too often.

Well I really should end this so I can go to bed and be ready for tomorrow!

Goodnight!