No accidents!

Wow! After one week, Carrie Ann went the whole day today with the same pair of panties, no accidents! I am so amazed! It just was not this easy with the other two!

And I posted a new video of our butterfly drinking orange juice.

New Posts to YouTube

We raised a butterfly. This video is from an hour after it emerged, before the wings were strong enough to fly.


Carrie Ann saying "Liberry" (her favourite place to go, after Grandma's place and along with church potluck), and "chugga chugga choo choo" with Bethany and Dora.


Bethany's class performed this song for the Homelinks final program:


Matthias' class performed the "Spanish Flea" -- this is an excerpt.


That's it for the May videos, now I'm going to work on the pictures!

Miracles

Wow, everyone else is complaining about snow, but we got very little here - and our tulips and snowdrops are coming up! The crocuses are still covered in snow, but I'm excited to see the beginnings of flowers again!

We went swimming for physio today... Matthias' physiotherapist got a concussion Wednesday night (pray for Candace), and she did not show up at all for our swimming appointment. Matthias had watched her enter the passcode for the door lock, so he opened the door for us and we went in and swam anyway. (I even turned the boiler down afterward.) Four hours later, she called up all apologetic for standing us up. I was happy to explain that we hadn't actually missed the swim, though we missed her... She said that actually, the door lock passcode hasn't been working for a couple weeks now -- so it truly was a miracle that we got in! And she was happy not to have to run over to turn down the boiler. God is great -- we could have done fine without the swim, but I think Candace needed the encouragement that, even though she can't do everything anymore with this concussion, God is still looking after her things for her!

Carrie Ann slept in her own bed until almost 5am last night, and Frank even vacuumed upstairs before Sabbath today -- miracles happen all the time!

February pictures

Hi! Sorry it's been so long. I've been spending my spare time trying to get a handle on why I'm so tired and down all the time. Well, the head-fog was likely a cold going around, since other family members have it now as well. Carrie Ann is only nursing twice a day now, and the days are getting longer (though the snow isn't as nice for sledding on anymore), so that is helping with the tiredness too. I'm trying to cut back on wheat a bit and see if that makes a difference. It is hard to be strict with wheat on all our shelves, though!

We have been enjoying some theme boxes from the library. This is from the Castle box.


Carrie Ann drew her first person this past week (on the right) -- head, eyes, body, and even arm lines. The line at the bottom is the hem of the Princess' dress. Wow!


We had a very frosty couple of days, and I couldn't resist taking a few pictures (though I'm no match for Brad and Caryn!).

More pictures are at my Gallery.

Dolphins

Rob posted a video of dolphins playing recently, which reminded me of a forward I got a little while ago:

The one with the nice music had embedding disabled, so follow the link:
Dolphins blowing ring bubbles

This is the one that came in the forward.

You can also read about the science behind how these bubble rings work -- even divers can make them!

Fall pictures

Deb, Brad and Caryn have been posting some awesome pictures of Aria and Silas, so I thought I should catch up on my pictures! For all the pictures, see the link at the side for the Family Picture Album. In the September folder, I added pictures of our trip to the beach:

Next is a folder from our trip to Calgary with Homelinks. We visited the zoo, Glenbow Museum, and Science World.

In the pictures from October, we had lots of fun playing in some beautiful maple leaves in the park.

And yesterday, for Sabbath, Frank got out the kites and we had a wonderful time flying them together!

Night pictures

Wow! The other night we went for a walk, and the moon looked really neat -- full, with a bit of a rainbow around it through the scattered clouds. I went out and tried to take a picture of it -- I actually found the moonlight setting on my camera! However, with the regular setting, I didn't get much, and with the moonlight setting, my hands were too shaky and made streaks of moon. Amazingly, my brother Rob in Korea took the very picture of the very moon, a very nice picture, by the way:


Thanks Rob! (His blog post)

Last night, it was incredibly hot (for us) -- up to 87 F inside the house, as hot as it's been all year. We couldn't sleep, so the kids and I headed outside to the tent. Around midnight, the wind picked up, and I decided to move inside before the rain came. After carrying sleeping Carrie Ann and Bethany inside, I came back out for Matthias. As I came up to the tent I looked up. Above, the clouds were dark. On the horizon, the clouds were dark. But in the middle was a bright spot. In the centre of the bright spot was a dark cloud in the shape of a heart. Wow! Love letters from God don't usually come so clearly spelled out! I had been fighting fear, as with every wind storm since the "mini-tornado" that passed a block from our house last year. But after that, it was as if God had said to me, "I promise not to blow your house down with this storm." I tried to get a picture of it, but by the time I ran in the house to get the camera and back out, the heart clouds had blown apart. So I can't share the picture, only the thousand words this time! God loves us a lot, and he is willing to tell us -- just ask, then keep your eyes open!

Meteor Shower

Ever since we read in one of Matthias ' space books that meteor showers are a regular, predictable event, I've wanted to catch one. Well, last night was the peak of the main one, the Perseid meteor shower. We went out at about 1 am, after the moon finally set (it was casting too much light to see the meteors). In the next half hour to 45 minutes, I saw about 7 meteors, and Frank and Bethany about 5 each. (Matthias didn't want to get out of bed!) For a good write-up, see Spectacular Summer Sights: Shooting Stars by Joe Rao of Space.com. His picture is a good reflection of what we were seeing:

They will dwindle off slowly, and I read that there are more meteors in the early morning, so if it is clear, get up early in the next few days and see if you can catch some yourself!

Love and Dancing

Rob had an awesome post from his friend Tamie, about how hard it sometimes is for us to feel the love that God and others have for us. Rob's post Tamie's post
This part particularly struck me: How I am missing the joys of my life, missing the glorious cosmic dance. Not because I'm not a part of it, but because I'm deaf to just how much of a part of it I am. I can't hear that the music is everywhere.
I should tell you that when Carrie Ann dragged me outside for a walk in the rain, and we saw the rainbow, I had just been sitting on the couch feeling depressed, unloved, and unappreciated. I prayed that God would give me a sign that he really loved me! I knew right away that it was an amazing rainbow, and it was really neat that I got such a great picture of it. But it took me a little longer to suddenly realize that that rainbow was also God's answer to my prayer! Last night, watching the meteors with Bethany and Frank, was one of those times of dancing consciously along with the cosmic dance, of listening actively to the music of the spheres. God puts on a spectacular show for us, and we can miss it because we're too busy, observe it academically, or participate in wonder and praise. If we choose the third, we will grow in love and grace!
Here's the rainbow again:

... and a picture of the sky on the way home after the rainbow:

"A glorious cosmic dance." Thanks, Tamie.

Rainbow

Carrie Ann wanted to go outside for a walk, but it was kind of raining a little. I went anyway, and we saw the most intense rainbow from the park! God still loves us, everyone.

Videos I enjoyed

A link from Rob's blog led us to this neat video of a young man singing with himself!

I love the expression he uses -- it reminds me of Mr. Bean.

Sesame Street sure has changed. I like the international flavour, it reminds me of living in Vancouver.


This video came from a link on Brad's blog:

It is from this page.
I don't know how practical this is on this earth, especially in Canada, but I hope to have a living tree house in heaven for sure!

Camping

We really enjoyed the campground in Keremeos on our way to the Coast. Here is a link from their pamphlet.
Ashnola Campground
The manager was very friendly, loved little children, and sounded a bit lonely. I hope she enjoyed the big powwow she was preparing for!
We went camping last weekend (the 21st), along Kootenay Lake. It was very nice -- the children enjoyed the water and fire, the neighbours were friendly, and even though it rained all night long, it only stormed hard enough to keep me awake for about one hour! The last time we were at that spot, the waves were so noisy and close to the tent that I hardly slept all night. This time, we were a little farther and higher up the beach, and the wind wasn't as strong, so I slept much better. It's a nice pebbly beach, so even though it was very wet, it wasn't muddy at all. The wild roses along the path to the beach were all in bloom! Sorry, no pictures, I didn't bring the camera (after 400 pictures in May, I had to slow down a bit in June!).

Deep!

Ever have that, when you are made a liar just as you are saying something???
I was just admonishing Bethany to keep going without being afraid, because, after all, you never sink in past your knees -- when I sank right to my thigh! I was sitting on the snow, one leg kneeling and the other fully buried!
Frank took us up to the summit for our yearly springtime snow play -- it is really fun to play in the snow when it is already hot in the valley. Even up at top, the air is warm and the snow cool, creating perfect conditions (if you don't get too wet). It was a little meltier this year than last, though, and I went in deeper than expected! I was sure glad I was wearing my hiking boots, which were tied tight and didn't come off when I pulled my leg out!
More pictures in my picture gallery, see the link at the right. I didn't comment them yet, I will get to that after our trip.
PS I posted a few today, keep on reading until you get to an old one!

"Train!"

"Zane! Zane!" Every night between 8 and 10 pm we hear this word, accompanied by train whistles, ringing through our house. Carrie Ann is fascinated by transportation right now. This morning, she looked out the window and said, "Duck" (which might mean crow), and then Bike, Tar (Car) and Zane (Train) were her next three words. "Kuck" for truck, and "yeyitata" for helicopter, as well as "hot ah babayoon" (up-away!) for hot-air balloon, up up and away! have also entered her vocabulary, due to a DK Reader from the library called "On the Move" -- which she wants to hear at least three times a day!

I got out Matthias' old wooden train toy, and she enjoyed playing with it! Tonight, the train stopped on the tracks (it was around 8 pm, still light out). Carrie and I rushed out with the stroller, to see if we could get closer before it left. After two blocks, we saw a line of stopped cars (52 of them in fact). The engine had switched to another track and was dropping off four cars behind the seed and feed place in town. We watched it shunting back and forth, and finally waved goodbye as it disappeared down the tracks. We even got to wave at the two engineers, as the got on and off the train to switch the tracks back and forth. I hope they had a smile at the little baby who dragged her mom out at bedtime to watch a train! Maybe they appreciated their job just a little more than before!

On the way to the train, we saw the most incredible sunset, with alternating pink and blue lines streaking up from the top of the mountain. I wished I had my camera, but anyway, I stopped for a moment and thanked God for his incredible painting with mountains, clouds, and bent sunlight!

Linux!

Welcome to my first post from my new Linux Mint set-up. Yay for alternatives! Well, it's taken most of this week to get most things working, and I still need to copy over all my files. However, it is the first time we've gotten Linux working for us, so it is definitely coming along.

Remember my post about Carrie Ann and her "bike hat" theme? Well, she still wakes up every morning with the words, "Bike--bike--bike, hat--hat, owie" (pointing out the window on bike, patting her head, or mine, on hat, and pointing to her toes on owie). We did some biking this week -- Matthias managed 5 Mommy strides without me holding on (no training wheels), and Carrie Ann was ecstatic to get her turn. At bedtime she found the bike helmet again (which didn't make it into the shed), and wanted to wear it a bit longer:

She got me this week once! I suddenly noticed that the Carrie Ann noises from the other room had stopped a couple minutes ago. When they didn't start up again, I went to check on her. After looking in the living room and bedroom, I headed upstairs. When I didn't find her there, I checked the bathrooms and laundry room. Then I made sure the house doors were closed! A little nervously, I started on my second pass through the house, this time calling her name. As I stuck my head in the bedroom calling, "Carrie Ann, where are you?" I heard a little snicker. Sure enough, when I looked a little harder I found her hiding in the closet! Bethany has played hide and seek with her before, and that is one of their main hiding places -- but she has never played it all by herself before! And who told her to be so quiet when she was hiding? Life is sure fun with imaginative little ones around!

Matthias also surprised us today. We went for a hike up Balancing Rock Trail, and he practically zoomed up and, when it was time to go, zoomed back down again. He complained a little bit about cramps, but he still kept going so well it was hard for me (shepherding Bethany) to keep up with him. Go Matthias!

Lion Love

A friend of mine sent me this link in an email, and it is worth sharing!

'Several years ago this woman found a sick, malnourished lion cub in the jungle. She took the cub home and fed him and brought him up until he was too big to keep anymore. She then made arrangements with a zoo in Colombia to take the lion. Here's a video of what happened when she went to visit him in the zoo for the first time:'

http://www.telestereo.com/Archivos/video.swf

Isn't that amazing?!