Surrey Nature Centre

Today we visited the Surrey Nature Centre with some homeschooling friends. This place is amazing! They have all kinds of backpacks that you can sign out with amazing resources inside (binoculars, field guides, etc.) There is also a lake where you can fish for rainbow trout. And you can borrow fishing rods for free as well. The most exciting part is that the Surrey Nature Centre is 10 minutes from our home. Yay!

The nature centre had a clipboard for each kid with a scavenger hunt of things to find on the trail.

Our girls were intrigued by the fishing. On our walk back to the van, they stopped and sat on a rock to watch all of the people fishing. We are coming back here with Dad soon.

Inside the nature house they had several fun activities for kids to do. And they also had a display of nature poems.

Reading the Bible in the morning with our kiddos (except for Juliette who was still sleeping).

Last weekend our basement renovations started. We are very thankful for Brian who is helping us frame our basement and who came up with an amazing floor plan for us.

A fairy practicing piano.

Peter and Silas enjoy playing duets. Peter plays the keys while Silas presses the pedals.

The other day we drew roses. I was very impressed by the results. Karis' is above.

Ella's

Juliette's and mine.

Ella has decided to make some seasonal decorations for her desk. I think I should get her to do the rest of our home decor ;)

Silas has entered the climb up onto the dishwasher phase. I love this phase.

And Silas has also started to wave. Precious.

New arrivals, new roommates, lost teeth, and more...

A couple of weeks ago, Juliette lost her first tooth. And she has another tooth that is super wiggly! Tooth fairy compensation for lost teeth has gone down in order for us to stay out of debt :)

Peter is sleeping in a big boy bed, and he has an awesome new roommate. Everybody is pleased about this new sleeping arrangement. Peter likes to read stories in his bed with baby and I both lying down with him. If I am not physically lying in his bed, he will say "Mommy, come lie, Mommy come." And then as soon as the story is finished he points to Silas' crib and says "baby his own, baby his own." I love my boys.

"Night, night, baby."

Happy roommates.

And, by far the most exciting thing to report is that our dear friends welcomed a sweet baby girl into their family last Saturday. Chris and Serenity named their baby girl Malia and she is absolutely beautiful.

Matching jammies.

Peter's new bike helmet arrived and so naturally he needed to wear it for snack time. 

Ella came into the kitchen as I was getting lunch ready and said "look Mom, I can't even remember when the last time is that Silas fell asleep on me." She is such a little mom.

We are loving our nature journals.

And the nature trail near our house has been amazing for exploring.

Peter is loving his bike and helmet.

If you look closely at the above picture, you will notice that our girls have started to draw cars in their art books. This keeps Peter very occupied while I read aloud.

Juliette can make pretty much anybody laugh.

And Silas also thinks that Peter is hilarious.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving! We are so thankful for all of the blessings in our lives.

We celebrated thanksgiving with our neighbors this year. We enjoyed a delicious meal and great company.

Our kids were very involved in preparing the meal. Here they are decorating our pumpkin pie with stars.

We forgot to get pictures with everybody at the table. But here is our table all set to go. We did a thanksgiving pumpkin this year. We passed a sharpie around and everybody wrote something they were thankful for on the pumpkin.

I am so thankful for these 5. I am thankful that God has given them to us. They are such a gift. 

Muffin pan liner extraordinaire.

Enjoying the sunshine before the days of rain that are forecasted to come.

Sweet Silas is 7 months old today. He is as precious as can be. We love you Si-guy.

We have some pet snails currently living in our learning room. This morning we discovered they had escaped from their habitat. Luckily they were still on the outside of the jar and we were able to put them back inside. 

Crazy trampoline hair. And our crazy 2 year old boy. We love you Peter.

Happy Fall!

“I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.” -Anne of Green Gables

October is such a beautiful month. We have been enjoying the colorful leaves, and the harvest fruit and veggies. Last week we made some fall centerpieces.

Before the weather cooled down we spent some time having picnics and reading in our backyard. 

Last week we made some "autumn sticks". Autumn sticks are a piece of apple, a piece of carrot, a marshmallow and a raisin on a toothpick. Then the toothpick is tossed in sugar and cinnamon. Yum!

The kids love to color while I read aloud. The other day Ella drew this. I want to frame it.

Peter loves to help me in the kitchen.

Karis is not in piano lessons but she loves to practice anyways. 

And this is our beautiful new piano. Thank-you Grandpa Clark!

Our Community Group crew. I love these kids.

We continue to love our kitchen course. 

Grandma Jo-Ann has been here visiting for the past number of days. We had a great visit. Spencer and I got out on a date (without Silas this time!) This is the first time we have been out just the 2 of us in about 7 months. It was so great. We had dinner at Milestones and lingered long over tea. We also got to go running together a couple of times while Grandma was here. 

While my mom was here she joined us for nature group, we went to the Applebarn, and we made an apple pie.

 Campbell Valley is beautiful this time of year. During nature group, we loved seeing squirrels, huge crunchy leaves on the path, spider webs glistening in the dew, and lots of acorns.

Peter enjoyed stuffing his pockets with acorns.

We had a great time at the AppleBarn. We went on a hayride, did the corn maze, the girls rode ponies, and we left with and abundance of apples.

Peter was very fond of the bunnies and goats. He actually went around kissing each goat.

Hay ride!

Pony rides.

And apple pie making with Grandma. Yum!

Duet with Dadda.

Grandma brought a jump rope to teach the girls how to play jump rope. They didn't quite catch on, but she left us with the jump rope, so we are going to practice.

And Peter loves his grandma. This morning Grandma left before the kids were awake.  Peter walked around the house saying "where's Bama? where Bama go? No, Bama, no go home Bama."

While she was here he often approached her saying "Bama play cars. Peter's room." So cute.

Last night I was going to read Peter his bedtime story but Peter got on the couch with Grandma and requested that she read his bedtime story.

Juliette does most things with her baby. She LOVES playing moms.

Peter's very into our counting bears. He often sorts them by color, puts them in a line, or forms them into a circle.

Ella enjoys drawing in her nature book. She loves chickadees and has become quite good at drawing them.

Juliette also loves drawing in her nature book.

The other week we found snail eggs under one of the large rocks in our backyard. This morning Karis looked under the rock to discover the eggs had hatched and we saw the tiniest baby snail. Things that used to make me squeamish are now our Science curriculum.