Spring is Springing!

Spring is finally springing!!!! It's been a LONG cold winter and so we are quite excited about this! The weather was still very cold last week and then in a BANG spring weather was here! But we are Canadian enough to know that in this season of the year we could very well still have some more cold weather....and yes, even snow. In fact we would probably be quite surprised if spring actually decided to stay! So for now we will enjoy these melting days and soak up all the warm sunshine we can!

Today I went for a walk and was pleasantly surprised to see how much snow has already melted! I was so excited to see dirt!!! There is still a lot of snow on the yard so it's hard to tell how much it's actually melting until you go down our lane out into the open. Here is a picture I took on my walk today. I am hoping that the weather will stay half decently warm so I can say good-bye to the treadmill and have my daily walk outdoors. It is so much more enjoyable and I feel so refreshed afterwards. Nothing can compare to fresh air and sunshine!!!

Just down the road from our farm

And because spring is springing so quickly, this means our ice hockey season ended abruptly because our rink is quickly melting. This is always a happy/sad time of year as the daily fun of ice hockey will be missed! But already the gap has been filled by bringing hockey into the machine shop! As I write most everyone is out there playing a good ol' game of floor hockey. Not the same, but something to fill the time. It will be quite awhile before our yard is void of muck and mud and we will be able to play soccer, football, baseball and other sports outside. So for now this will do just fine!

This past Sunday we celebrated the life of our sweet little Elijah! It's hard to believe that it is already 3 yrs. since he joined our family. And we are so happy he did. Life would not be the same without our Eli!!! He is a little talker so it's a good thing he always has plenty of people to talk to. He is very opinionated and keeps us on our toes with his verbal freedoms in check. He likes to play with tractors and trains in particular. He doesn't like to be left out so when his older siblings are playing a game that he is too young for, his nose gets easily pushed out of joint. We are working on that! Eli loves to be outside (even when it is really cold!) and I expect that we will hardly see him once the yard is dry. Plus he is itching to go with his daddy in the tractor already! Another little farm boy :)

On Eli's birthday we had to bring Mark's parents into the city to catch a flight so we took him along and stayed in a hotel overnight (because their flight was early a.m.) It was very different to have just one child along. This rarely happens! Funny thing is....we were staying right beside the hotel we stayed in after we left the hospital the night Eli was born. We didn't want to stay in the hospital overnight, but it was too late to drive the 2 hours home (after being up all night and day!) so we opted to stay in a hotel. We told Eli this story but I don't think he understood :)

A funny story. We were checking out of our room and waiting for the elevator to go down to the lobby. One opened up and we told the other 4 people who were waiting that we were sure we could all fit in. The woman said, "Are you sure, we have a lot of stuff!"We assured them that we would be fine and piled in. On the way down she said, "Good thing our oldest son isn't here or we for sure wouldn't have fit!" She then proceeded to tell us what a lot of work it was to pack for all 5 of them when their oldest son came too!!! Mark and I gave each other an amused look as we listened to her go on! We decided against giving her the shock of telling her that if we brought all of 11 of our children living at home we surely would have never fit in the elevator! And packing for our family....well that's a whole different story!!!! This time we decided to just give each other "the look" and let her go on thinking that 3 children was a huge family :) It's times like this that we realize how different our life is than other families....and how much we like it that way!!!

Elijah Hudson

(1 day old)

Elijah on his 3rd birthday

We are still working strong on the school books but everyone is counting down the days until we are DONE!!! This year we did something a little different. We divided the years school work (for the oldest 5) into quarters. There was a goal incentive at the end of every quarter. If you got your work done, you received the reward, if not...you didn't :) I am happy to say that so far everyone has earned their quarterly reward. Some by the skin of their teeth...but they made it none the less!! We did this mostly to motivate some who were having trouble believing they could get a certain amount of work done. Our 4th quarter ends the 30th of March so everyone is seeing the end and some are putting it into an even higher gear and have gotten some subjects done already! We are all excited to have the bookwork part of school done for the year!

Josiah is our newest student. And what an eager learner he is! He really, really, REALLY likes math and is often found writing numbers or adding things in his head (out loud:). He is also having a lot of fun learning to read. I don't think we have ever had one catch on quite so quick! It's a very nice treat!

Josiah doing one of his favourite school things...

math drills

Over the years I have learned that in order to keep my sanity teaching school while having toddlers/pre-schoolers under foot, it is in my best interest to have a schedule of activities for them too. I have made up a 5 day schedule with 1/2 hr. time slots of activities for them. If they are playing well and still quite entertained by the time the 1/2 hr. is done, I will keep them at it a little longer. Some of our activities are lego, building blocks, play do, coloring, magnetic books, cars/car mat, playmobile, puzzles and looking at books, just to name a few. This has been a great help in teaching them to focus on one activity for more than a few minutes, to play together and also to clean up after themselves. There are moments when I feel that it is maybe more work than help, but in the end it keeps order in our day while teaching them some great character qualities!

 Building Blocks

 Lego

And of course with the soon arrival of spring comes something we have been looking forward to for months. Baby time!!!! Time is flying by and it won't be long before we will meet our sweet little one face to face. Things are continuing to go well in this pregnancy and I am hoping, because everything is looking good, that my Dr. will let me go at least until my due date. And hopefully I will go into labor on my own!!! 

5 weeks until due date!

Baby's growing!!!

And that is a quick update of what's going on around here!