moments in may!

May has flown by! We have had a very busy month filled with many moments to remember! It started off with me getting to take a trip to abbotsford with some old friends to meet my dear friend's baby girl. It was so sweet to meet this beautiful little gift at such a young precious stage of life. I could hardly wait my turn to hold that little peanut, and got to hold her extra long as she just happened to have a good nap on me. It was a sweet moment to hold this little peanut and feel my baby inside move around at the same time, pretty sure they were playing together already;) Mother's day was sweet to be reminded of how blessed I am with my precious family! My favorite quote these days is "We may not have it all together, but together we have it all!" So true!! We often make parenting mistakes, our kids "act out" and we miss the mark over and over, but together as a family we have it all, and are continually reminded that God has blessed us with immeasurably more then we couls ask or imagine!

Later in May Daniel and I took a crew of youth back down to Abbostford for History Maker! It was a great weekend to be encouraged and refreshed in the Lord, however I did realize that I am a different generation then our youth today! Their favorite bands, I hadn't even heard of, while my favorite group there (Downhere) they were all like "Down-who??" haha, but overall it was sweet to beable to look around and see a generation worshipping the Lord regardless of the music style being played. It was also sucha blessing to have family (GREAT uncle and GREAT aunt and some cousins) hang out with our babes for the weekend. They all did great, Dexter talked about what he did and ate there for days after, Lexi had no complaints either, and it was just nice for us as parents to know our babes were in good hands:)


We celebrated Grandpa O's birthday as a family, during the picture just about all the grand-kids either poked the cake, stole a strawberry, licked the ice-cream bucked, sneezed on the cake or helped blow out the candles with a mouthful of spit. But it was a special celebration for dad to celebrate another year with all his gran-kids around him:)

The infamous "olund" rendition of
Happy Birthday;) haha!
if you heard it, you know what I'm talking about;)


Daniel also turned a year older this month!! Which is always fun to celebrate, not only the fact that he was born, but that we are now the same age again and the old lady/cougar/mature jokes come to an end for another 9 months! We had a quiet birthday dinner celebrated along with my grandma who shares the same birthday as Daniel. Dexter and I did a bit of decorating which made Dexter more excited about celebrating a birthday that wasn't his! (every birthday lately he is kinda sad that it is not his yet as he is still anxiously awaiting his birthday fishing trip!) Daniel and I did get an evening out to clebrate his coming of age just the 2 of us as well, which is always a treasured time these days;)


In the moments in-between the events of May, we have continued to enjoy digging worms, discovering gardner snakes (while i try not to act scared to it doesn't become a game to scare mom with them) planting flowers, playing in the kiddy pool, walks to the park in the sunshine, day trips as a family and just enjoying our times together!

eating "little caesers" pizza in the park


and feeding geese at the park!


loving the "big kid" swings


buddies at the park





and this is the munchkin at 22 weeks!

Time flies when you're haveing fun;)

Every few months I feel like I am quickly reminded of how fast time goes!! Our kids are changing so much every day and as much as I love watching their "firsts" and seeing the changes and development in them I have to work so hard to fight back tears, as I know how much I will miss this stage of life! (I may be working harder these days to fight back tears as the hormones are probably a bit more unbalanced then usual;) Dexter is in a wonderful stage of a growing imagination! He has gone from mostly us setting up a situation for him to play in, to him creating this wonderful scene that only he knows what is going on in it, almost overnight! The other day he had gone downstairs and was camping. He created a tent, several campfire, was fishing and the whole nine yards. To me it looked like he had just taken every toy out possible and put them in different piles in the basement!

This is Dexter with his roasting stick (hockey stick)

cooking a marshmellow (cow) over one of his campfires

He also loves to create with play-do these days. When he plays with play-do he is usuallt making snakes, bugs, or somesort of food whether its pancakes, tuna sandwich or this particular time pizza!

As you can probably tell, he has made several

little pizzas all topped with different types of cheese!

in case you're wondering the cows and other

farm animals on top the pizza is the cheese;)

Dexter is growing up in so many other ways lately too. He is slowly getting better at including his sister in his play, and be "ok" with the fact that she doesn't play quite like him. He loves to play "tackle" as does his sister, and the sweet thing is how gentle he can tackle her (when he wants to be gentle that is;) and hearing the squeels of laughter from both of them. He can still be a bit rough on her, but Lexi is getting very good at defending herself, and when she can't hold her own, we hear about it! Dexter's vocabulary and sentances that he comes up with these days blow me away!! and he reasoning ability is quite impressive. The other day we took the kids to the pool in vernon and he was so disappointed that he was not tall enough to go on the waterslide. Then at breakfast today I told him to finish his food so it would help him get strong and he says, "no mom I eat lots of food so I can go down that waterslide next time!" As much as this little boy is growing up so fast, he is still such a sucker for a good snuggle and can be so happy to sit on my knee twitling my hair in his fingers while we read a book or talk about the day! I love my little man;)

Dexter "taking Lexi down" in a gentle,

yet football like manner:)

Now Lexi!! I feel like one day I had just said to Daniel that she seems like more of a baby then Dexter did at this age, to waking up the next day to a full on toddler!! She went from choosing not to walk (tho everybody could clearly see she was able) to running overnight! She went from baby babble to several words that more then just us, the mom and dad, can understand. Some of her favorite being "pickle butts" whenever a camera comes out (ask daniel about that one;) to veggie tales, puppy, right there, and of course "no" in many different tones and volumes depending on if she is choosing to show her sweet side or fiestier side;) And can I just say, this girl is smart!! If you don't believe me cause I'm just the mom, ask her great grandma, who continually comments on how she can't believe this little girl does not miss a thing! Lexi is quick to tell us what she wants and is very good at getting the message across. She loves to climb on things and join in with Dexter's crazy fun. I am fairly confident that this girl will be the life of the party wherever she goes!

Lexi, crawling up to the table to finish off Dexter's

breakfast while he went to the bathroom!

Our big girl loves to help with the dishes!

Lets hope it's still this much fun in another 10yrs or so;)

Sneaking into the swing to catch up on a

good book;)

I love my little girl so much!! and I know she loves

her momma, but she is still a "Daddy's girl" at heart:)

Daniel and I are going to be out-numbered!!

So I may be a little late on this one, but Daniel and I are going to be out-numbered early next fall! When we got to the time where we were ready to tell people we kinda forgot that everybody didn't know already and haven't really told a lot of people. And now everybody is finally finding out when we are almost half way already and I'm afraid this pregnancy is going to go by too fast! I am however thankful to be this far along as I am slowly starting to feel better and like I have some more energy again. Right off the bat we had decided to hold off telling Dexter for as long as possible because he's not even three yet and we figured he wouldn't really get it and it is still so far away, well I slipped up yeasterday! He asked me to spin him around outside and I was kinda tired and told him I couldn't cause there was a baby in me and it might make me feel sick! (bad excuse, I know!) Well he jumped on that right away, and this is kinda how our dialogue went,
D "Well let me see the baby"
M "you can't see it right now because its in my tummy"
D (lifting up my shirt) "ya, i wanna see it right under there"
M "the baby is going to be inside mommy for a long time because it needs to grow and get lots of sleep before it comes to play with you"
D "well, but I want to hold it right now!"
M "when the baby is ready you can hold it ok?"
D "ok"
630am the next morning as he crawls into our bed!
D "is that baby in your tummy?"
M "yup"
D "now can I hold it?"
M "no Dex, its still a long time away!"
at the breakfast table
D "did you go buy that baby in your tummy for me?"
M "not really"
D "oh, did daddy go buy it for me?"
and it goes on and on and on! See why we had decided to wait! here's hoping he moves back to the fishing trip quick!!

a long 3.5 months!

So last week we got word that Mom and Dad Derksen official were able to reserve campsites for the Jan Lake fishing trip! Yae! I never gerw up in a "fishing family," however, I have no question in my mind that our little family will be a "fishing family" through and through! When Daniel and I were dating, it became very apparent very early on his love for fishing, some of our first unofficial dates were catching perch out of Gardom Lake off the docks. When we had been dating about 9 months and Daniel was back in saskatchewan working he invited me out for the family Jan Lake fishing trip. Ovbiously I wanted to go because I hadn't seen Daniel in a while, but I was a little concerned about how 3 days of nothing but fishing would go!?! Well, I can honestly say I was very pleasantly surprised! This was real fishing! We caught fish left, right and center! I could have stayed longer catching fish and having a fish fry everyday on some random island in the middle of nowhere! It was a beautiful place, great company and tasty food! Since then we have been back once when Dexter was just about one and had an equally great time. Even at so young, Dexter LOVED the trip! He drove the boat with grandpa, ate grandma's pepperoni, said "fish" a lot, liked to look at the fish and even napped like a champ on the floor of the boat! And now we get to go again this year with two sets of grandparents, two great-grandpas, a great grandma, two uncles and an auntie! This fishing trip just happens to fall on Dexter's birthday weekend (which makes for easy birthday party planning!!) and "someone" told Dexter already that we are going fishing in sask for his birthday! Well, Dexter is so excited he can hardly stand it! I caught him laying in his boat the other day (which is actually the couch) hugging his pretend fish right up by his face. I asked "what are you doing Dex?" to which he replied "just thinkin about fishing!" Seriously!?! He is going to have such a blast on this trip - hopefully Lexi will enjoy it as much as Dex did when he was young too! So far he has done some fishing already this morning, but hasn't actually asked about the fishing birthday party, here's hoping he forgets, at least for a few months! I too can't believe we still have 3.5 months to wait! I can't wait for the first fish fry on some random island!

the savings fund!

his ice fishing hole,

"just thinkin' about fishing!"

Some sleepy babes!

This is Dexter at a recent dinner time. We had spent a lot of time outside that day and he complained at dinner that he was cold so we told him to go sit on the vent to warm up then come back to the table to finish eating......he didin't quite make it back!




This is Lexi after again being outside in the afternoon and her napping only 40mins before that!

Our kids don't need a lot of sleep, but when they do sleep, thesleep hard;)

What a Boy....and such a Girl!

I never get tired of seeing the differences that God has so ovbiously created between guys and girls, especially when it comes to our kids! Dexter is such a boy in so many ways that we could not have possible taught him! The other day we were driving out to my sister's place for our mom's bible study/book club when I went thru a big puddle which caused me to hydroplane a bit, no big deal, but you could feel the van move with it and Dexter's response in the back seat is "YAE MOMMY, FIST PUMP MOMMY, FIST PUMP MOMMY!" (Fist pumps are a pretty big deal in our house, you get them for really exciting things like finishing your supper or being extra nice to your sister;) If you just mention the word "fishing" around him, he instantly goes nuts and is looking for all the fishing stuff and heading to the door, on a recent ice fishing trip with his dad, he was playing with the fishing stuff and somehow got a hook stuck in his tongue??? Not sure if he was trying to be a fish or what but even that has not put a damper on his fishing spirits! He also is very proud of himself for being able to reach the toilet without a stool anymore, shooting and cutting up a bear, deer or moose and milking the cows and cleaning the barns. I'm sure as Lexi gets a bit older she may play some of these games with her brother, and though she can be a rowdy little girl, she already displays so many "girlie" personality traits. She can make anything a necklace from a scarf, or stuffed toy, to the handles on a gift bag. She also loves to carry her dolly around and pat its back.

As far as what everyone is up to these days, Dexter's new favorite response is "no problem dad" and "are you kidding me?" He continues to LOVE having friends over to play and being outside. He had his first movie theatre experience on the weekend with all the older cousins and was a champ, although a bit shell shocked, he pretty much just stared at the big screen and didn't react to much of the movie, but he did thoroughly enjoy a giant sucker from his auntie! We brought out his toy fishing rod again (which has been put away for a while) and he cannot get enough of it! He will make the couch his boat and fish off that, he has a little tent with a hole on top that he makes his ice fishing hole, and he loves to teach anybody who is interested how to "reel" in a fish. He is going to be well prepared for the family jan lake trip!

Lexi is the fastest knee walker around, and continues to babble more and more. She has some pretty distinct phrases like "spank da belly" and has more understandable words all the time. She has "accidently" taken up 6 steps here and there, but still refuses to attempt to walk when you try to encourage her to. When she does decide to walk she is going to think its so easy compareds to her knee walking! She loves to bath with Dex as he gets her laughing so hard, and she is slowly getting into a better sleeping routine. All in all life is "normal" around here, we are anxiously awaiting spring as i am looking forward to not having to find a spot to hang wet snow gear, but we have enjoyed winter so far.

I will lave you with a couple pics!

Dexter's first time skating!

Skating night!

Lexi's one year pics!

Lexi "enjoying" her macaroni!

an awkward conversation!

So the other night, we were enjoying a nice sit down dinner with our family and another family who is a few stages of life ahead of us (they had teenagers) While the conversation around the table was mostly based on our kids because they were entertaining everybody and slightly misbehaving, when the dad of the other family asks me "so Renee, do you miss nursing?" and I'm thinking, hum kinda weird that you ask, but answer, "well when i was finished I was ready to be done, but once I was actually done I do miss it a bit, but she was getting so hard to nurse I had to realize that I was just holding on for me and not for her," as I am finishing that statement I realize everybody is staring at me blankly, to which I finally catch on , "oh, you meant nursing, not BREASTFEEDING!!" talk about AWKWARD!!needless to say we all laughed so hard we started the ugly laugh, which carried on into tears, sweatng for some and Dexter becoming quite concerned about why everybody was crying!