Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from our home to yours!

"For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord." - Luke 2:11

Pre-Christmas Fun

Last week we visited Dadda's school for crêpe day. Our friends Corinna, Sophie, and Penny joined us as well. All of the girls put their French into use and ordered their crêpes in French.

Ella completed her Frozen lego set from Grandma. 

And Juliette completed her Friends set.

And Momma and Dadda completed Karis' Little Mermaid set. Thank-you Grandma!!

So far Peter has only knocked one of the sets over :)

On Friday we decorated Christmas cookies with the Wiens.

Despite being 6 months younger, Caedmon is now the same size as Peter.

Peter loves to be read to.

Our Advent readings have been so special this year. The girls are very into the readings and have been asking some great questions. Our family discussions have been so much fun. 

Bookworms.

The girls opened their gifts from Grandpa Clark. They love Monopoly Junior and ask to play several times a day. It is at the perfect level for them. Thanks Grandpa Clark!

Every now and then this chatty little girl gets removed from the girls' room and put in our bed. This way she can go to sleep and (hopefully) stop chatting non-stop. Then I get to transfer her from our bed to her bed. The other night I took a picture of her all snuggled up with Peter rabbit.

I love this picture. Wearing his "Handsome like Daddy" onesie and Dadda's shoes. Peter can walk amazingly well wearing Dadda's shoes.

Pete's Circuit

Peter loves to grab our stool, drag it over to the couch, climb over the couch, run to the stool and repeat... We call this Pete's circuit. He often works up quite the sweat in the process.

In other news Peter cut 6 new teeth in the past week and a half. For Peter and for Spencer and I, this experience was about as fun as it sounds ;) But we are thankful that he now has all of his one year molars!! We are also feeling thankful that he was his smiley self again the past couple of days. Oh yes, and we'd also like to thank infant Advil!

Violin Recital

Ella and Juliette had their first violin recital tonight. Ella played "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star". Juliette wasn't feeling quite ready to play on stage, so she opted to come up and take a bow instead. They were both very courageous to get up there in front of the audience and we are proud of them.

Here is a video of Juliette practicing at home. She has improved so much!

December Fun

We did some Christmas paintings the other day.

This is Ella's painting of a donkey, Joseph, Mary, and baby Jesus. She said "baby Jesus has a lot of black hair because most newborns are born with lots of black hair."

Karis was interested in mixing all the colors together to make "a very beautiful color."

And Juliette painted a rainbow and wrote "God loves us."

4 in a tub :)

Our baby boy recently dropped his morning nap. So he gets sleepy around lunchtime. I can never get enough of these snuggles.

And we had a nice visit with Grandma Jo-Ann last week.

The girls were invited to a little ladies formal tea party for their friend Alaina. Ella and Juliette attended the party and Karis got all dressed up and had a date with Dadda.

Here is my baby bump at 27 weeks.

We had our community group wrap up last Thursday. The kids decorated gingerbread houses and we sang Christmas carols.

Here is a picture of us waiting to get on the Stanley Park Christmas train. Peter showed less patience than his 3 big sisters. We had a fun night riding the train with Grandma.

Ella Lost a Tooth!!

After weeks (months?) of talking about and showing us her wiggly tooth, tonight was the night that it fell out! Ella lost her first tooth. She is very excited to see what ends up under her pillow tonight.

We are mostly thankful that we don't need to watch her smile with her loose tooth poking through her lips any more. It was starting to make me a little queasy. 

Spencer and I discussed how much money we would put under her pillow tonight. He was disgusted at my suggestion of a 5 dollar bill. He then went into a math calculation to show me how much money we would be spending if we continued to pay $5 per tooth for 5 children. He does present a strong case.

Other...

Sometimes spending the day with 4 girls is exhausting. 

Last Thursday we invited Mrs. Roz and her kids over for a French story time. The girls have been learning how to sing some songs and read some books in French and we wanted to put on a story time like they do at the library. Our guests were very gracious and it was fun having somebody to share our learning with.

The girls read translated versions of "Piggie and Gerald" books. 

On the weekend we put up our Christmas lights.

Peter sometimes pretends that he is doing rest and read. He likes to do what his sisters are doing.

Karis has been working very hard on her printing.

And she often has a little buddy who likes to scribble on a piece of paper to keep her company.

And sometimes he misses the paper and just scribbles on the desk.

And tonight we decorated our Christmas tree!