The Night Before Advent

"... and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." (Isaiah 9:6)

Tonight we had our "night before advent party". We are so excited to celebrate Advent and our hope and prayer is that we keep Jesus at the centre of all we do this Christmas season. 

"The children were anxious for His Story to start,

these visions of love dancing loud in their hearts.

And God in HIs glory, and us, in Jesus Christ,

settled only for a Christmas all about Christ."

-Ann Voskamp

We drank hot chocolate and ate Christmas cookies. We gathered around our nativity and the fire and looked over our Advent book that we will be using for the next 25 days (Unwrapping the Greatest Gift - Voskamp). We gathered some branches for our Jesse Tree and looked at the ornaments that we will place on it. I am so excited and thankful for this time of year. It is a gift.

Yesterday we put together our nativity set - thank-you Grandma Jo-Ann!

I also pulled out our collection of Christmas books from our bin and picked up some of our other favorites from the library. Our girls were so excited and greeted them like they were old friends.

Spencer put up our lights today. We all feel so grateful for our new home and can't wait to celebrate our first Christmas here. After our lights were up, we went out on the street in front to see how they looked in the dark. Ella said "if we didn't live here, we would definitely include this house in our Christmas light tour."

And our girls have been in full decoration mode, their desks look very Christmassy!

We put Santa up in front of the playhouse.

We love the way our mantle looks.

My 7-year-old has her Christmas cards ready before I do. But then again, anybody who knows Ella well knows that card giving is her favorite thing to do. Grandma Jo-Ann, keep an eye on your mailbox, her first card is addressed to you.

The wonder of Christmas.

Last December we used to drive to Whalley to see this beautiful Christmas tree. Now we live here. 💕

Our library has an amazing display of Christmas trees sponsored by local businesses. Karis' favorite tree is the Eric Carle tree. She loved the book "The Hungry Catterpillar" and was excited to see all of the caterpillars and butterflies decorating this tree.

I love my little sous-chefs.

We just finished reading "The Year of Miss Agnes" as our family read-aloud. This book was so wonderful and was about a teacher who teaches in a one room schoolhouse in Alaska.  Our family identified with the book because Miss Agnes has a very similar teaching style to this momma. Some parts got me all teary. Juliette loves it when I cry during read-alouds.

We are now reading "The 24 days Before Christmas" by Madeleine L'Engle.

A family game of Sorry by the fire.💜

This girl and our globe. She is fascinated.

From Whalley to Whistler

Last week we went on a very wet nature walk to observe moss and stomp in some puddles. We love going for walks together, even when it is raining heavily - sometimes the walks in heavy rain are the ones we love the most.

I'm really happy with how nature journaling is going this year. I am keeping a journal along with the kids this year and this seems to be making an impact on them.

The "figure" skating lessons that I signed the girls up for are not quite going how I had envisioned ;)

Last weekend Spencer and I went up to Whistler for the Village Church marriage retreat. We had an amazing time listening to great teaching on marriage and we also just loved spending the weekend together. An added bonus was taking a shower 2 days in a row.

And running together is always something we love to do. Running in Whistler was beautiful.

On Monday it was Ella's turn for a date with Dadda. She loved seeing all the Christmas lights in downtown Surrey.

Grandma Jo-Ann watched these 4 while Spencer and I went away. We are so thankful for my mom. And Silas spent the weekend with our friends Jordan and Jessica. We are grateful for fabulous friends. Our kids were well loved over the weekend.

The game Sorry is an absolute hit around here these days. The girls would play all day if we let them. Grandma was the gracious participant in numerous games of Sorry while she visited us.

Karis has upped her Lego game and is making some beautiful princess houses. 

And we have some sickness going through our house this week. I am thankful for my 3 girls who are helping me care for their sick little brothers.

Videos...

Some videos from the past few weeks:

Things they say...

Before I forget some of these sweet memories, I should write about them. I love the funny things kids say. Here are a few from the past weeks:

Ella has been staying up later reading books because her 7 year old body does not need as much sleep as it used to. Sometimes, even after the reading, she struggles to go to sleep and she always knows the perfect thing to ask for a few more moments together before bed.

Ella - Mom, can you please read the Bible to me?
Me - I would love to read you a Psalm
Ella - Psalm 119 please.

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While reading Nursery Rhymes the other day we were reading "There was an old woman who lived in a shoe, she had so many children she didn't know what to do."

Juliette - Mom, that woman is exactly like you - except for the shoe part.

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And during a conversation with Karis the other day...

Karis - Mom, when you raise your eyebrows you have striped on your forehead.

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And when I put my sweet boys to bed Peter likes to spend a few minutes yelling,

"Mom, baby's not crying. He's not crying. Baby's not crying. Baby's sleeping." (repeat 5 times, very loudly)

Silas - "Waaaaa"

"Mom, baby's crying. He's awake. He's crying."

Thank-you dear Peter for this play-by-play :)

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I love days with these 5 blessings.

The turning of a month

Pumpkin carving

We loved going trick or treating around our neighborhood.

Elsa, the Purple Fairy, Dorothy, the chicken, and the frog.

Counting and sorting all of the candy!

And when Spencer and I went to bed, we found that our girls shared most of their candy with us and made us Halloween cards. So generous.

Here is a look at our nature tray at the end of October. Each month we start fresh again and put our findings on the tray. During our walks in the month of October, we picked up a few snails, some bright red leaves, a few large maple leaves, hazelnuts and acorns. 

Peter went on a date with Dadda last week. He did not want to go out for hot chocolate like the girls do - all he wanted to do was ride his bike.

This little man is getting big!

The girls love playing cars with Peter. This usually involves lining all the cars up in a straight line, and then moving the whole line to another location, one by one.

Peter loves to feed Silas, but needs some guidance on what Silas is able to eat.

I think that my love language is having my husband read to our kids. Gary Chapman should consider adding that as a 6th love language in his book.

On Thursday the girls started skating lessons.

Their lessons are a part of a homeschool program through the City of Surrey. They often give discounted prices to things like this and offer them during the day since the ice would normally sit empty. 

Our nature group ventured down to Stanley Park last Friday.

Ella collected several shells covered with barnacles.

Peter held doggie and tiger close as we walked. Although the above facial expression doesn't indicate this, he loves being outdoors and going to for walks.

A double crested cormorant drying it's wings.

We also saw a couple of harlequin ducks. They were beautiful. Ella though they looked like they were wearing jerseys.

A mallard and a wood duck. 

Our love for birds is growing! Later this week we also saw a red-headed woodpecker and a heron at our local pond. Spencer laughs at our excitement over these findings.

We met a new raccoon friend. This was very fitting since we just finished reading "Kildee House" - a book that has raccoons as some of the main characters.

And Silas has started to pull himself up to standing and cruise around a little. 

"It's so good to be known, always welcome at home, the Father's love."