Christmas so far...

For some reason I can't move my pictures around, so here they are, in no particular order whatsoever.

Sammy enjoying the boys' new "Cars" racetrack - the one requested item which we probably overpaid for which they loved. Opening up the "Cars" present.

The stockings and our scary little robbers.

A 3 kids together moment.

Christmas at Dino and Shannon's...big cousin Grace and super keen Sofi with our little Anna...and the ever fun and lovable Auntie Angie.

Anna, 4 weeks!

Gingerbread house fun.

Sammy's current little phrase to Anna is, "hey there cutie little Anna!"

Awwww....

time to play...

Can you see the resemblance?!?

Movie night - watching the "Cars" movie, intended for Christmas but discovered earlier, and therefore watched earlier.

Anna, 3 weeks!

This is how I found Sammy one day...typical Sam. Loves his food. And is...officially potty trained! He's been accident free for a few days now, woohoo!

Today was a quiet day, filled with completing the advent calendar, putting baby Jesus in the manger in our nativity scene, and then giving presents to the boys and each other, and then reveling in sweet laziness for the rest of the day. I did a 400 piece puzzle mostly by myself with a bit of help from our super puzzle boy Sam (he's been known to do a 48 piece puzzle completely by himself) and a few by Julio. The boys got bellaclavas in their stockings, and new hockey sticks, and Julio and Luke tried to make a little rink in the backyard so some backyard fun happened today, with the help of gently falling snow all afternoon long. All in all, a cozy day as the boys played and played and we did nothing much of anything, very purposefully. Well, Julio has been studying a bit, but I've mostly done a puzzle and tried to distract Julio by making him play Ticket to Ride with me. The good man he is, he obliged me two times. This has been a good day.

Yesterday we decided to have a mini party with a few friends and it was a lovely, relaxing night. Good conversations, good food and drinks and hyper kids made a good time. Funny how by 9pm everyone was gone except one friend, who doesn't have kids. She helped make us feel like we weren't complete oldies and we had good chats in an unusually calm environment with her once everyone else left.

I've been thinking a lot about "the real meaning of Christmas" this year...how we always try to tell the story of Christ's birth in a different way, to see things from a fresh angle...and how when we do this year after year it's kind of hard to be impressed in a fresh way and how really, that's a lot of pressure. I have to admit something - after all these years, I still don't get it. I don't get how Jesus went from being in heaven to being in a manger, from being only God, to being God and man. I don't really understand the immensity of His love, the gravity of His sacrifice starting in the manger, the purpose in His coming and in His dying. Will I ever? How do I talk about these things with my children when I still don't understand it all? I'll tell you what I do know...yesterday morning I started my busy day of cleaning and prepping for the party with some quiet time reading my Bible and praying. Trying to somehow put God first in the midst of my crazy life of distractions. My prayer was that I wouldn't be stressed about the work ahead of me, of trying to make things perfect, of having unmet expectations, but rather that I would enjoy the day, get things done, and have a home where Christ was central and that somehow we would celebrate Him at our little party. I'm not totally sure if that all happened, but I felt such joy all day yesterday, was able to clean the house, squeeze in a nap, make supper and party food, all without any real stress. That alone is my Christmas miracle. It may sound silly and small, but what I do know is that putting Christ first in my day has never served me wrong. Oh to do that daily, maybe by doing so, somehow I'll start to understand these mysteries of faith. Or at least marvel daily at these mysteries.

pictures of our sweetheart

Swaddled up Anna, in the hospital. Another hospital moment...Julio has mastered the art of sleeping sitting up holding Anna. I think he was posing here, but he's definitely mastered it at home on the couch.

These pictures are in reverse order, or rather just in a jumble because I can't seem to move them around...anyone have a tip for how to do it easily?

Anna, 2 weeks!

Proud brothers...they have been doing so well with her. Sammy calls her "little cutie face" and Luke loves to help out with diaper changes and holding her. He always sounds very important and business-like when it comes to doing stuff with her. Love it.

We three kids of Silvestri are.

Anna, 1 week!

Multi-tasking. The thing I've found about parenting three so far is not that it's always busy all the time, but that somehow they coordinate their lives as to all need me at the exact same time. I have now mastered the art of nursing while putting on Sammy's underwear and pants. What a skill.

The boys, meeting their sister for the first time...

Luke has not stopped looking at her in that kind of enamored way. Although today he told me he still wants a baby boy. But he's okay with Anna too.

First peek...love at first sight.

So, there you have it. Anna's first two weeks in pictures. Although she's three weeks old now. But I'm just adjusting to always being behind on things. The things I'm not behind on are baby snuggles, doing the same Cars puzzle over and over again, and swaddling and rocking...and loving it all. Wow, that sounds a bit more positive than my post-partum hormones can really muster, but honestly, it's been pretty okay. Thanks to a serious dose of God's grace every day.

Oh right, we had a baby!

I'm so tired and don't have much time to post, but I should proclaim from the rooftops that we are head over heels in love with our new little addition, who is, today, 2 weeks old! Welcome Anna Marlene, born November 22nd, 2:24am weighing 6lbs 10oz and measuring 19 inches long. She has been a fairly dreamy baby, lots of cute coos and sweet looks, very little crying and lots of sleeping (during the day...hmmm...). The boys, Julio included, are totally smitten as well and I can't get enough of watching them all interact with her. This morning Luke was just lying on our bed touching her head so gently and gazing at her, and Samuel just giggles and kisses her constantly whenever he holds her. Family life is great. Now to work on getting some more sleep. :)
To see our little beauty, check out www.kevingrant.ca/anna. Those are hospital pictures and I will post more soon, but at least for now you can have a sneak peek!

More rocketeering fun...a la Steve

The boys went rocketeering again the other day, while I was out being a Norwex lady. Thankfully Steve posted about it, here. Read and enjoy!
In other news...I'm on my first day of being overdue...woohoo! Let the count-up begin!

getting ready for baby and some leaves

That's my uncreative title for today's events. Oh yeah, and it's Halloween. I'm sure that'll be fun too. We borrowed costumes from a neighbour and plan to do a little walk around later, and then have friends coming over to play some games so it should be a fun night.

I think I'm officially nesting, except I've had a nasty cold all week so it's been hard to be productive. But with the help of some amazing people (Sheri-Lee and Julio), the baby room has been transformed since Thursday from crazy brown stripes on the wall amongst other colours to "oyster mushroom". And there is no longer a crib in my living room, along with other baby paraphenelia. I just came from sitting in the newly transformed room (it still needs some little touches here and there but at least it's painted), trying to imagine holding another little baby and doing this all over again. Somehow I think it'll be even more fun this time around, as Luke is so into things and understands so much, and it just feels so amazing to add another person to the mix and see what it'll all be like. The boys were so great today too, letting Julio do the painting this morning and helping to put on drawer handles, etc, this afternoon...Luke is just the most enthused worker ever. I hope that continues as he gets older and has more real skills! Samuel is more into climbing and tried to climb on every available precarious surface as we tried to get the baby room back in order. I have to say, Julio has been AMAZING wtih all of this. He didn't think we needed a baby room transformation and so I said I'd paint, but that didn't happen and he willingly prepped and primed the room on Thursday, including taking off the door and some of the door frame to get the crib out, then Sheri-Lee spent all of Emeth's nap painting away as I watched the 3 amigos wrestle and have fun downstairs, and then this morning Julio finished the painted, cleaned everything up, and helped put everything back in order. I managed to make curtains and a cushion cover yesterday too so I felt I contributed a bit. It was a nesting mother's dream come true. He even said how much he liked the room, the colour and the red curtains. What a guy. This is probably the most boring post ever I'm realizing. Moving on. (But not before a show a few pictures).

While I ran a short errand this morning, after the second coat was drying and pre-organizing, Julio and the boys had some fun in the leaves. Here's proof:

And here are a few pictures of our pumpking carving day a few days ago. As expected, Sammy was right in there digging out the goo and Luke was gagging on the sidelines. Good times.A little pumpkin craft I did with Luke. Lots of his friends are in preschool so I feel the need to whip out the scissors and glue once in a while, to clutter up our bulletin board with construction paper too.

Boo! Happy Halloween everyone!!

family weekend to remember

This was a great weekend. Often on weekends, we don't plan much and sometimes wish we had and the time slips by and before we know it, it's Monday. But this weekend we did a ton of fun, family things and just enjoyed being together. It's so great to be able to do more and more things with the guys and know that we're creating some lasting memories, at least for us.

On Friday night we had fish and chips at home, which was a real treat. We used to go to Fergie's at the Forks for fish on Fridays but since my gluten scandal we haven't. I had a craving and my amazing husband cooked up a feast...he's the best. After that, we went to Pan Am Pool for some swimming fun, and it was really great to see the boys get so into it...plus the water was pretty warm which helps. I could hang out in the kiddie pool there without kids, just because it's warm. It's nice that we have kids now so we can justify doing things like eating cotton candy at Tinkertown and sitting around in warm water. I digress.

Saturday morning the biggest treat of the day was that we all slept through the night until nearly 8am. Lately Sammy's been making his way to our bed at some point in the night, and comes to my side of the bed, and hours later I wake up and find him there, completely unaware of when he came. This morning I found myself squished between Sammy and Julio, on my back, with my arms above my head like a pencil. Not so comfy at 8 months pregnant. But the night before...sleeping bliss. On Saturday morning we had crepes, and then went to a hobby shop and bought a rocket and launch pad and engines for some rocket fun. Julio had made a rocket with the boys about a week ago and just wanted the engine to launch it, but we didn't have a launch pad so we got a kit that had another rocket in it. It was fun to look around, especially for Julio, as they had a ton of model boats, cars, planes, trains, etc there. At one point Luke looked at Julio and said, "You can't buy everything you see you know!" The man at the till kept joking, saying things like, "which kids are getting this for, you or them?" I think it was his classic line...sounded like it wasn't the first time he'd used it.

Saturday night we went to Marble Slab Creamery which was so delicious and even had some great options for me which was so nice. Amaretto ice cream with skor chunks...yum. Then we went to Indigo Books, which Julio had never been to and which has an amazing kid section, so the kids played and we looked at books and relaxed...a nice end to the day.

And today was the grand finale of greatness...launching rockets in the park with our good buds, Stephen and Benjamen K, and Kevin, Robyn and Claire. There are some videos below that shows the fun. The kids and the adults were enthralled and it was the most beautiful, warm fall day. We ended it off with snacks and a baseball game where all the kids got home runs every time.

With three weeks or so to go until this baby arrives, it was nice to have a weekend to relax and enjoy time together. It's so hard to believe that before we know it life is about to change forever yet again.

35 weeks

After babysitting my boys for two hours while I was at a doctor's appointment, my lovely sister Robyn took these pictures for us. The photo shoot ended abruptly when Sammy got a stool leg in the eye...he's okay, but it shook me up a bit and I was wearing a white shirt and there was blood so...these are the best of what we got.

Hot off the press

Some stories from this morning...

This one I like to call "Luke and Gramma Anne's sketchy theology"
Luke says to us this morning: "Do you remember that chocolate bunny I got from Gramma Anne and Papa Ron? How we went with that rope, and it went over that thing (the banister) and we got chocolate? Gramma Anne told me that when Jesus dies on the cross again we can have another one!"
And Sam, this morning, has been playing away while we lie in bed, building with duplo and sucking on his beloved soother. So finally I started pulling it out of his mouth when he came to visit us in bed, and he said, "I go ni-night". So he hops into bed with me and sucks away. Then I tried to pull it away and he's just craning for the silly thing, finally I give in, give it to him, and he looks at me and says..."I'm happy".

Luke's theology

Much amusement around here this morning. First of all, Luke was having a typical morning sing-a-thon, at the top of his lungs (which he does in church too for the few lines he knows, much to the amusement?? of the people around us), and was singing "Forever, He can move the mountains, He is mighty to save, He is mighty to save. Forever, author of salvation, He rose and conquered the GRAIN, Jesus conquered the grain..." Loved it. I just pictured Jesus out in those fields. I told Julio what he had said and he felt the need to bring in more suitable doctrine, so he told him that it was actually "conquered the GRAVE" and did Luke know what that meant? This is how the conversation went, more or less:
Julio: Do you know what "conquer the grave" means? It means that not even death can hold Jesus back, that He is stronger than death.
Luke: But he wasn't axed, was He? Because you shouldn't axe people, that's bad.
Julio: No, He wasn't axed, but He did die and then He rose again and lives forever!
Luke: Yeah, I know, He was nailed to the cross. Or maybe they used screws, because screws are better right?
Julio: They were nails, not screws...they didn't have screws then.
Luke: But screws are better.

That was about the end of Theology 101 this morning. I was amused.

learning

Luke learned how to pump on the swings the other day...what a moment that was! I was inside doing a bit of sewing in the dining room and peeking out here and there while the boys played outside, and saw Luke pumping away on the swing. He had almost gotten it a few times, but this day he really got it and just kept swinging. Every time I looked out he would smile or giggle and I could tell he was just so extremely proud of himself. He said he wanted to swing until dad came home, so he kept going, and by the time Julio got home over an hour had gone by. When that kid puts his mind to something, he can do whatever he wants it seems! And he has the determination to keep at it...but if he doesn't want to do something yet, it's like pulling teeth to get him into it. He amazes me.
The next day, during Sammy's afternoon nap, Luke looked at me and said, "Mom, what can I learn today? Yesterday I learned how to pump, what should I learn today?" So I asked him if he wanted to learn how to bounce a soccer ball on his knee, or learn his letters (prime example of not really wanting to learn something yet!), or talk about shapes, or do music. He opted for music. So we went to the piano and spent the next 45 min or so playing songs on the piano together...me playing the melody and him playing some notes and both of us singing along. I played some hymns as he asked me to play some songs from "that Bible book" (the hymnal) and he even sang along to those. I love that he is into music, he sings so much of the day and mostly I love it. Sometimes I just wish he had a volume switch.
Today the same question came up and Julio told him he could learn how to patch a bike tire with him, so they worked on that for a bit of the afternoon. What will he ask to learn tomorrow? Any suggestions on things that may interest a 4-year-old to learn?

Samuel learns too, just mostly all the wrong things. His vocabulary has expanded into every possible version of 2-year-old potty talk, and honestly I don't know where he gets a lot of his choice expressions. His current favorite is "I poopoo yours head off!" Nice. The problem with him is, as soon as he knows it's not allowed it makes it funny and way more desirable to try out again and again. I am at a parenting loss - this child truly thinks he's a comedian and loves to get a rise out of us! Tonight we had company for dinner and he just sat there goofing off at the table the entire time - putting his corn on the cob on his head, putting his hands in his milk, eating like a crazy person - he makes me nuts. He's a little climbing machine too - always climbing on tables and couches and trying to get up on their bunk beds in every possible way other than using the ladder...yikes. He climbs on us too, which is only sometimes fun for me. Yet, for all his shenanigans, he is always so quick to give a hug or a kiss, is quick to say sorry for his misdemeanors, and has curled up on the couch with me to cozy up a couple of times this past week and just lay there with me for the longest time. It's amazing how the same little person can make you crazy, make you laugh, and make your heart soften into a pile of mush all in about 10 minutes. That's our Sam.

(My most recent project - aprons/smocks for the guys, much requested by Luke)

birthday bash

Last night we celebrated the boys - ice cream style. My big plan was to have an "easy" year, and that became the joke as the party got bigger and more complicated. We normally just do a family birthday with both sides of our family and do a bbq and dessert, but that seemed like a lot for me this year so we decided to just do ice cream sundaes instead. But then I thought it might be fun to have a few of their friends, mostly from our small group, as Luke especially has made some good friendships that are becoming more significant for him and I wanted to have those people too. But when I told Luke that we were just going to have ice cream sundaes for dessert he said, "and cake too, right?!" uhhhh...but of course! And not to be left out, I thought I should also make gluten-free cake for myself and the couple of others who are gluten intolerant. So our small, easy party with one dessert turned out to be a party with about forty people, ice cream, tons of toppings, cake and cupcakes. And guess what? It was pretty easy :). Thankfully the weather was good, people brought their own lawn chairs, the kids were great, and the boys had a blast. And by 8:30pm everyone was gone. I think it was my favorite birthday party yet.

Now the boys have some new toys, some of which were even handmade, Luke got his painting easel which he was asking about for a long time, a cool desk that matches their room and a few other things. Now comes the task of purging some old toys...I have been trying to convey to them that we don't NEED so much stuff and that it's good to give things away too, so we'll see how that process goes.

Birthday boys, excited about gifts.

An amazing hand-made barn, made by the oh-so-talented Michelle.

Rainbow cake! I got this idea from this site. It was a hit, and really quite easy to do. Basically just a cake mix with a bit of extra stirring.Gluten-free cupcakes - I can't be left out :).After eating so much icing in the afternoon, Luke actually decided that he didn't want cake right away, just ice cream, and didn't even finish all his ice cream and in the end didn't try any of his cake! But seeing as he ate his weight in icing in the afternoon I don't feel so badly. He usually just eats the icing off of cakes and cupcakes anyway.

And now it's 10am and I'm still in my pyjamas as the boys have been content to play with new things. Birthdays are the best.