re-entering the blogging world....OUR BABY DOLL IS 1!!

Time fies when you're having fun! I cannot believe how fast this year has gone by! One year ago our Beautiful "perfect 10" entered the world sunny-side up and 10lbs looking briht eyed and bushy-tailed at the world before her. Since that day she continues to be bright eyed and bushy tailed as she can light up the room with her beautiful smile, melt your heart with her adoring eyes and make you feel so loved with her tight hugs and wet kisses! Lexi had her one year check-up today, (shocked i got her in on time? me too!) first time in 6 months that she has been to the doctor so i was excited to see what she weighed! Just as Dexter did, she hated every minute of it! And me, still claiming baby-brain, took off her diaper to weigh her and promptly threw it in the garbage only to have left my diaper bag at home!
Lexi has met every milestone fearlessly! She refused baby food from the get go and went straight to table food cut a little smaller because she could tell that's what everybody else was eating. Her favorite breakfast is shreddies, favorite lunch...leftover and her favorite supper would be the same as her brother and dad good ole spaghetti! She started army crawling at five months and graduated into the full on hands and knees at seven monts. Also at seven months she began furnature walking and standing alongside her brother at the coffee table to play farm! She FINALLY started sleeping thru the night at just over eleven months, which was much appreciated (even if was only once a week at the time!) she now sleeps thru about as often as she doesn't, but is usually pretty quick to get back to sleep when she does wake up. She has a few words (which probably only we can get) She says "fish, dear and bear" (are you surprised??) "mama, dada, kitty, ya......" well I geuss she will actually try a lot of words, but after a while they start to sound the same! As for walking, she has no desire to do it on her own! I have always said I would never be in a hurry for any of my kids to walk, but I will admit, this girl is getting heavy!! Like i said, she has been furnature walking for five months already, can walk between furnature when she thinks you're not looking, but if you try to get her to do it on her own, she just lifts her legs, or refuses to come! Inspite of not walking on her feet, she will however walk all around the house on her knees! I don't mean just crawling, she will go right up on her knees and walk like that! it is pretty cute and impressive, it must take a lot of balance and strength to walk around like that! Her favorite things to play with are dolls (she just likes to hug them!) cars, her new kitchen (from some of the cousins!) and farm alongside her brother. Lexi is so beautiful inside and out and I am excited to see more of her personality unfold!! (if you know her at all, you'll know she has a ton of personality allready and I can only magine how much more is yet to come!)

p.s. more pics to come when i get them off my camera;)

can anybody relate??

you may need more sleep when you are in the shower and can't remember if you washed your hair yet or not!

you may have a rambuntious boy when you go into the nursary at church and he has ripped off his shirt and is tackling one of the nursary workers!

you may need to re-evaluate your speech when your toddlers most common response is "are you kidding me?"

you may be the wife/mom to a redneck when you go downstairs to see they have set up a hunting zone in the basement complete with deer antlers and moose slippers hidden throughout and are shooting them with a vaccum cleaner piece one by one!

you may be a little emotional when the happy ending to monters inc. makes you tear up!

and to top it off.....Dexter has his finger up his nose
Me: dex stop picking your nose
Dex: I not!
Me: please take your finger out of your nose!
Dex: oh, i just buggin' you mom!

Classy Chicken!

This is for you Katie!

3 chicken breast (cut into bite size pieces)
some pepper
some olive oil
(cook in your frying pan)
Broccoli (enough to generously cover the bottom of an 11by13 dish)
(cook so it is still a bit crisp)
1 can of cream of chicken soup
(i don`t usually have this so I make a white sauce and add some epicure chicken stock)
one half cup mayo
1 tsp (or more) curry powder
1 tsp (or same amount as curry) lemon juice
about a cup of grated cheese

cook the chicken, and broccoli (just until it is still a bit crisp) then mix soup (or white sauce) mayo, curry and lemon juice. Fill dish with broccoli, top with chicken, then pour sauce over and top with grated cheese. Bake at 375 for 30 mins and serve over rice! enjoy!
p.s. this fits in an 11 by 13 casserole dish!

a lot to be thankful for!

Thanksgiving was such a great weekend for us! On Sunday we had thanksgiving dinner at my grandmas house with the family, which was amaing food as it always is when grandma cooks! (I am thankful for my grandma and the fact that daniel and i live the closest to her right now and therefore get lots of good leftovers!)Then, on Monday Daniel decided we were going out for the day! (I am thankful for my husbands spontaneous side even though we rarely see it!!) We left the house mid morning with a few plans made and didn't get home until bedtime, it was the best family date day we've had in a while (I am thankful we made it all day without any meltdowns!!) Our first planned stop was DeMilles to check out the pumpkins, the animals and the corn maze, but as I went to unbuckle Lexi I smelt an all to familiar smell!! Yup, she blew out all over her undershirt and down the leg of her tights!! So instead of getting out, we jumped back into the van and went to zellers!
(I am thankful for sto and go seat that lay flat and make it really easy to change a messy diaper! and that Zellers had a sale on baby clothes!) after using all the wipes and re-dressing Lexi we headed back to DeMilles! The animals were really fun to pet and feed, Dexter never gets tired of animals and tractors and I think Lexi is following close in his foot-steps! Everytime an animal came close she got so excited and kicked her feet and giggled! We went a little ways into the corn maze but Dex got distracted and just wanted to take the corn out to feed the animals!
Next stop was lunch! We picked up a couple of little caesers pizzas and walked down the peir in salmon arm for lunch. Eating pizza on th dock has been a date that Daniel and I have done since before we were married! (I am thankful for good memories! and a long dock for Dex to run down and burn off his energy!) By the time we finished eatingand playing on the dock it was time for the kids to nap so we packed everyone back in the van and grabbed McDonalds coffee to-go and headed out to kingfisher to see the sockeye run. When we first arrived the smell was pretty strong (I was very thankful i wasn't pregnant or I'm sure i would have gotten sick!) Then we noticed that Lexi blew out once again! So we had no more wipes and no more clothes, so we improvised as we knew Dexter would not be impressed if we missed the fish! We used McDonalds napkins and did a pretty good job cleaning her up, then wrapped her in the sling to keep warm! once we headed down to the river, the smell wasn't bad at all! Needless to say Dexter loved the fish and continually informed us when he saw any dead ones on the beach (which was often) and that the fish in the water were red sockeye! (I am thankful that we really do have the smartest kids around! haha!)All in all, we really had a wonderful day, and all I could think of was how incredibly blessed i am, a beautiful family, surrounded by God's amazing creation! It doesn't get any better!

New outfit for Lexi = $15
Pizza = $10
2 McD's coffee = $3.45
Making Family Memories = PRICELESS!

p.s. I had some great pics to attach, but i have tried for a week to attach them and its still not working so I am going to post it anyway,

boys vs. girls!

So today i had Bella and Emmy over for a bit and never get tired of watching the differences between boys and girls. We are downstairs at one point while emmy and bella are pretneding to be babies and dexter thinks he's playing right along with them only he is calling moose and on a hunting trip. Next I come down to catch dexter tackling bella to the ground (i never stopped it cause everyone was laughing) and as they get up dexter says to bella "taco me" asking her to tackle him in return and bella's sweet response it "tickle, tickle!" as she strokes his belly and arms! Finally I am watching as Bella coddles her little lamb and finds a cute teddy bear recieving blanket to wrap it in then lovingly rocks her "baby to sleep" I notice dexter watching her so he goes and grabs this big ugly moose slipper, wraps it in a ginormous fleece fishing blanket and shakes it to sleep then throws it into a box for a nap! I wish I had my camera, it was so priceless! Ovbiously God made man and woman different and it shows up at such a young age!

keeping up with the boy already!

Well, Lexi already is working so hard to keep up to her big brother, I can see her competitive side coming out already! (don't know where she got that from!? haha!) she has reached so many milestones around the same time Dexter did, and some even before!

Smiling - both by 3 weeks for sure (and yes I know it wasn't just gas!)

Sleeping- neither slept thru the night by 7 months, but Dexter did sleep better then Lexi does

Rolling from front to back (consistantly)- Dexter 8 weeks! Lexi 12 weeks

Rolling from back to front (consistantly) - Dexter 12 weeks, Lexi 14 weeks
Commando crawling - Dexter 5.5 months, Lexi 5 months

First tooth - dexter 7 months, Lexi 5 months
Furnature walking - 7.5 months for both
First overnight youth trip - Dexter <3,>

Clapping - Dexter...don't remember, Lexi 7 months

Hand and Knee crawling - Both 7.5 months

First BC Lions game!! Lexi 7.5 months, Dexter...still waiting!

He caught her!

playing in the crib!

Lexi is just over 8 months now and she is such a doll! She can be so girlie and sweet one minute, and the next she is right in there holding her own against Dexter while fighting for a toy! She loves her brother so much, he can not only make her giggle, but full out laugh at times. It is so fun to watch them start to play more and more together. Already Lexi is showing that she is very strong willed, she is nearly impossible to get any food into! She refuses to le me feed her almost anything (although she has not problem eating ice-cream off a spoon or from a cone!) The only way I can get solids into her is cheerios (that she feed herself) some fruit in those little netty chewer things (that she does herself) some grated cheese (that she feeds herself) notice a pattern here! I know soon it will be nice that she is so independant with her eating, but right now I feel like she is not getting enough solids into her (never mind the huge mess she leaves behind!) although I am not too worried as her height is in th 97th percentile and her weight is not far behind in ariound the 80th percentile (which is far bigger then Dex was at this age!)

Lexi continues to be a daddy's girl, but I would say I'm a close second! And she just makes us smile and feel so blessed to have her every day! (although if we were getting more sleep we may remember more of these milestones!!)

chewing on some raspberries!

Lexi LOVES bath time!


Too young for this!

Well, I just felt I wanted to remember a few of these milestones, so I will finish with a few more pics!

6 Month pics

and just like that, summer is over!

Well, I have completly neglected my blog this summer as we have been so busy! Today was the first day of school, and back to reality begins. I have thoroughly enjoyed having Daniel around more the last couple months while school has been out, but he was back at it today and already has more days booked this week and next! (thank you Lord!) We had such a great summer although I would have been fine to enjoy another month of it!

We started off our summer with a trip to Calgary for a Derksen cousin wedding (which was beautiful!) We began our first real road trip with both kids which ovbiously didn't go as planned but actually went better then we expected. Our kids travelled wonderfully and Dexter didn't even need to watch a movie, he was content to sing and play farm and babble our ears off pretty much the entire trip. Lexi also travelled amazingly which was great!

Thanks to my dad we got to stay 2 nights in a hotel (he gets some free stays for staying so much with work) which although far less romantic then it used to be was still a lot of fun! The first night Dexter woke up, made it over to my side of the bed, found my cup of water and dumped it in a suitcase all before we even woke up! Thankfully it was daniel's suitcase and not mine! haha! The second night was a little less eventfull although still entertaining to hear Dexter talk in his sleep. And even though we had a king size bed, it felt like a twin because we had to sleep with Lexi in between us and even then (at 5 months) she moved so much that w were literally hugging the edge of the bed while she slept sideways up-side down and whatever other way she could!

That Sunday, the kids and I carried on to sask while Daniel flew home to work. The kids and I enjoyed a week and a half hanging out with family (although I do not want to spend that much time apart from my hubby again!!) , then Daniel joined us for the last week to celebrate grandma and Grandpa Douma's 50th. What a beautiful celebration we had! You can definetly see God's faithfulness throughout the generations in that family and I feel very blessed to be apart of it.

What a blessing to have so many believers in one family!! Grandpa Douma spoke at the 50th and shared this verse. "Unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labour in vain." Psalm 127:1a This blessed me so much because I just came to that realization (once again) that its not about us,but all about HIM.

Shortly after we got home from sask, we went on 9our first family camping trip. With our car literally full to the brim, we took off to good ole' noisey creek! I have so many great memories there as a kid and it seemed like the normal thing to do to bring our kids out there too! We really had a blast even though it was a short trip, we cooked over the fire, swam in the lake, played with some cousins and ate a lot of s'mores!! Dexter and Daniel even caught a little fish (i'm not sure which one was more proud of it!)

Just after we got home from camping our first of many company this summer arrived!! We really enjoyed the different family who came to stay and the kids definetly loed the extra attention! While the different groups of company came and left we spent A LOT of time at the river where both Dexter and Lexi loved to play and splash a round. Pretty sure Lexi ate way too much sand, but it didn't seem to bother her! We also did a lot of raspberry picking (yum!) froze and canned peaches and just enjoyed sweet memories as a little family,

Another priveledge we had this summer was going out to Gardom Lake Bible camp where Daniel was the camp speaker for a week. It was so encouraging to hear Daniel speak and see lives changed for the Lord. He has a wonderful gift of not only speaking to the kids, but building relationships with them (and the staff) and being an encouragement to them also!

and just like that summer is over!

my dedicated fishermen catching walleye in sask!