Isaac's special birthday!

 Isaac turned 8 almost 3 weeks ago (I'm just a little behind here). In our church (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) 8 years old is a special birthday. It's the birthday where they can choose to be baptized. We don't believe in infant baptism in our church, because we believe that an individual should be able to recognize right and wrong before they are baptized. Baptism first and foremost involves making special promises, called covenants, with Heavenly Father. This means they need to be of an age where they can understand the promises they are making (like keeping the commandments, committing to trying to be like Jesus Christ every day). You can learn more here! https://www.comeuntochrist.org/articles/baptism

We have always encouraged our children to be baptized, but we also want them to make a conscious and informed choice. So for a few months leading up to his baptism we had frequent conversations about what promises he would be making, and what kinds of thoughts, words, and behaviours that would involve. He did take some time to think about it before he answered very confidently that this was what he wanted.

But I will pause and rewind, so we can go back to his actual birthday week. The weekend before his birthday, my parents drove up from Calgary and we had pizza and ice cream sundaes with them and my sister and brother-in-law, and Isaac opened his presents from them.

 Then for his actual birthday (mid-week), we made crepes with nutella, whipped cream, and berries, and opened his presents. Part of their birthday gift is a special outing with mum and dad, instead of getting more "stuff". Isaac chose to go to the waterpark at West Edmonton Mall, and got to take the afternoon off school to do that. Then they went for McDs afterwards. Isaac had a blast going on all the slides, and definitely tuckered his dad out. We also gave him the giant lego set he had been hoping for and a new Diary of a Wimpy Kid book. He quickly rushed off to his room to work on his lego masterpiece, and the new book was read in its entirety by the end of school the next day.

Because of COVID we limited his "party" to two friends whose parents are also good friends of ours. We ate McDs (again) and I made chocolate oreo cupcakes with chocolate frosting as per Isaac's request. They played video games pretty much the whole time (with sanitized controllers!). We also did our gender reveal, because Isaac didn't want to wait until after his party. 

After what seemed like a week long party (throw Halloween in at the end as well which I wrote about here http://mgnish.blogspot.com/2020/11/halloween-and-day-of-dead.html), we had a small week long break before his baptism. COVID did not make planning this easy. I had to keep adjusting plans to keep our gathering numbers below limits and make sure we could have a COVID safe event. Thank goodness I don't have any kids getting married! Gordon was able to set up a zoom broadcast so family who couldn't be with us could be there virtually which was important for Isaac who loves all his extended family. 

It was a special day. I held my emotions together better than I had thought, and Isaac was beaming with happiness. What is really lovely about a baptism is that, if able, your family members are the ones who say the prayers, and give the talks. I provided the music via piano, and his grandparents were able to give the words of wisdom and encouragement via talks and prayers. He was baptized and confirmed by his dad (again learn more here https://www.comeuntochrist.org/articles/baptism) Being confirmed means he was blessed to have the Holy Ghost to be with him at all times when he is making good choices and given a special blessing from his dad.

**Masks were removed for pictures**

Isaac loves being the oldest. I don't think he would have been happy being born in any other position. Being the leader is where he is comfortable. He was happy he could be the first to be baptized and be that good example for his sisters (at least in this way haha!). 

Isaac is starting to understand how important his help is to me and dad as our family grows. He will often do small things for me like bring up something from the storage room for supper, help unbuckle his sisters from their car seats, or hold the door open. 

He absolutely loves to learn. His biggest current interests are Japan and Egypt. He would love to learn Japanese, and will often watch YouTube videos about writing and basic words. This has also fueled his interest in origami, which I credit to my brother-in-law Alex, but it has definitely become more  intensified since his curiosity about Japanese culture. He often watches documentaries on archaeological digs and uncovering ancient Egyptian tombs and artifacts. He takes after his father with his love of history.                                                    

He also loves learning about how things work (like rockets), how things are built (like bridges and skyscrapers), and earth science (like space, and volcanoes). 

Isaac loves to create things and work with his hands-whether it be lego, origami, forts, or comics.

He learns and grasps new things fairly quickly, and he doesn't have a lot of patience if something requires a bit more focus or mental elbow grease. This made homeschooling an absolute pain at times, but it was a growing experience for him, and he learned that he could do difficult things when he had the right attitude. 

He's an active boy who loves being out in nature and challenging himself physically.

He reads full length chapter books on his own. And he likes reading to his baby sister when she lets him.

Speaking of baby sisters (spoiler alert it's another girl), he actually took the news very maturely. I definitely expected tears, but after his initial dramatic "Nooooo!!!!!", he told me he was just excited to have another baby. 

He is still quite picky about clothes and will only wear sweat pants during the winter, except when we go to church. He prefers tshirts and shorts over everything, and I basically have to hide summer clothes so he doesn't get hypothermia in the winter. 

Isaac can be quite witty when he wants to be and likes to use "big words", which he often mispronounces or uses in the wrong way (the best!). I've stopped correcting him when he says "litorly" (literally), or "pacifically" (specifically) haha.

He asks me to come into his room every night before he goes to sleep to cuddle with him (usually it involves me standing on his bottom bunk and giving him a back scratch while he's on the top bunk). He also manages to come up with all these deep questions at night (I remember doing this to my mum), so we often have heart to hearts in this little "golden hour" before he goes to sleep.

He likes to play computer and video games, and dad is starting to teach him strategy games.

Isaac's birthday interview

Favourite food: cheeseburgers from McDs, cheese pizza, crepes

Favourite colour: blue

Favourite animal: sheep (his favourite stuffie is a sheep)

Favourite movie: Diary of a Wimpy Kid: the Long Haul

Favourite TV show: Boss Baby

Favourite book: Diary of a Wimpy kid series (he has read 1-13)

Favourite thing to do for fun: play with Zapi (his budgie)

What do you want to be when you grow up?: construction person or person who builds "completely weird stuff"

What are you most excited about about being 8: that I got to be baptized

I love this kid, and I'm excited for another year of watching him learn and grow!

Halloween and Day of the Dead

 The last week of October is a big party fest in this house. Isaac's birthday coming only a few days before Halloween, means we've had several sugary celebrations before or surrounding them acquiring pounds of candy trick or treating.

I wasn't sure how trick or treating was going to play out this year, like pretty much every other event...holiday...regular old day... But my kiddos love Halloween, so I was determined to give them a fun-filled spooky season. They've already had to sacrifice so much, and I was going to be darned if COVID robbed them of yet another childhood joy.

The weekend after Thanksgiving, we spent Saturday afternoon decking our halls in orange and black. (I may have already purchased and stashed candy for my own eating pleasure well before this point.) Every year, I make a trip to the dollar store to replenish some Halloween decor. B didn't even want to look at anything in the aisle, until we had passed from the gruesome end to the cartoony end. So we opted for some less threatening decorations than severed limbs and hanging corpses, and the kids spent over an hour whizzing about taping up bats and pumpkins, hanging little pinecone cats and spiders my mum had made with us as kids, and of course arguing over who was putting what where and other nonsense.

We made special treats like our traditional "Ghostbuster cookies" (dark chocolate cookies with white choc chips and reese's pieces), Halloween rice krispie treats, and batty oreo cupcakes (which we used for Isaac's party). 

 

Halloween is most difficult for me because of the costumes. I hate spending money on something that is generally worn for one, maybe two occasions, and I am not creative or handy enough with a needle to DIY everything. Isaac and Mia were very set on their costumes- a Halo Masterchief, and Elsa. There were quite a few costumes secondhand for Isaac, but they all involved driving 30 minutes or more to another part of the city. Thankfully I scored his on sale during prime days. Paying the extra 5 or 10 bucks was worth not having to make an hour round trip to secure a previously worn costume.

 

I also purchased Mia's costume, and while it fit her in the chest and arms, it was about a foot too long. My mum helped me pin it, and then I painstakingly hand sewed the hem for 3.5 hours over two nights. They were allowed to wear their costumes to school the Friday before Halloween, but unfortunately she tripped at recess and part of my stitching pulled free. So I spent another 1-1.5 hours the night before Halloween fixing it.

Ever since last Halloween, Scarlett has asked to be a cupcake. Every time I checked in with her about her costume throughout this year, her answer would be the same. In September, I decided I better look up how I was going to pull this off. When I showed her a picture of one, she conveniently changed her mind. She wanted to be a witch instead-which is what she was last year. I told her there was no going back, because I wasn't going to stay up all night on October 30th making a cupcake costume. About a week later, she decided she wanted to be a fox-a costume I had purchased for cheap at the end of last year. I told her either would be fine since we already owned everything for them. 

B was going as a scarecrow. She had no choice in the matter as this is my favourite costume. I originally created it for Mia using my old overalls, and a plaid shirt and hat I got at value village.

To get us in the Halloween spirit, I made a list of movie/shows to watch and we got through almost all of them. There were some old favourites like Hocus Pocus and Ghostbusters, and some we enjoyed for the first time like The Haunted Mansion and The Addams Family.

Thursday we carved our pumpkins, and the 3 older kids drew their faces for us to carve as per tradition. Thankfully they can create actually eyes and noses now instead of random scribbles for us to decipher a face out of. Mia was the only one brave enough to help me hollow out the pumpkins using her hands (the only way in my opinion). 

Saturday our ward at church did a "trunk or treat" (with public health guidelines in place of course). We decorated our trunk with our pumpkins, skeletons stickers (which still remain), cobwebs and a glittery spider Scarlett picked out. I blasted Halloween music from my phone, and the kids walked to each trunk to collect their treats. They had a ton of fun! 

Our Halloween dinner was dad's brainchild. Witch's hair (spaghetti), witch's eyeballs (meatballs), and witch's blood (tomato sauce). Then I sliced up some garlic toast and called it witch's liver.

I distracted B with a bath (her favourite) while Gordon took the 3 older kids out for another round of trick or treating. I wish we could say that I handed out a lot candy while they were out, but sadly only 8 kids showed up to our door. I could only see one other house from our window with lights on, welcoming little people. After the kids spent over an hour collecting another several lbs of candy.

Afterwards we went for a short visit to Isaac and Mia's friends who used to be in their classes at school, and then it was bedtime for kids, and candy tax season for mom and dad! Isaac doesn't like nuts or caramel, so he makes quite a bit of voluntary contributions to our coffers aka bellies. 

The next day we celebrated Day of the Dead (think the movie Coco). Mia had asked me during the summer if we could celebrate it, and when I asked her why she said "Mum it's important to remember our ancestors!" Well there was no reason or argument I could come up with to counter that, so I added yet another "party" to plan. This year we focused on the kids great grandparents who have passed away-3 on Gordon's side, 2 on mine. They are blessed to know and still spend time with their Gigi, Great Grandma Jolie and Papa. I asked for stories and memories from our parents about them, and we shared those, photos, and a home video with the kids. We also baked and decorated skull sugar cookies! We had an "English breakfast" for dinner since 3/5 of our great grandparents were English, and ate our cookies for dessert.

I was seriously partied out by the end of the week, but I am pretty confident my kids made lots of happy memories in the process to make it all worth it.

COVID summer

 Even though winter is still technically two months off, it sure has given us an icy taste of what's to come this week. The chilly weather had me packing hiding away the short sleeves and shorts, and reminiscing about our summer. Although admittedly less busy and less conventional than normal, I tried to keep it as exciting as possible for the kids. I knew there was a good possibility I would be sick for August, so the kids and I made a "playground bucket list" to make sure we didn't miss any favourites. Mercifully, the city council decided to appease mothers of Edmonton and open a fair number of neighbourhood spray parks. Normally we'd been able to visit 30-40 different playgrounds and spray parks over the summer, but with COVID we just settled for a small list of favourites and some new discoveries among those that were open.

The older 3 kiddos spent the first week of July with Grandma and Grandpa in BC. They had lots of fun hot tubbing, riding bikes, hanging out with the horses, playing at the lake, helping Grandma in the kitchen, rock climbing, and visiting Fort Steele.

B had a special few days on her own with Granny and Grampy. She also got to spend time with her cousin Charlie and Auntie Paige. They had lots of fun getting into mischief, playing on the trampoline, colouring on each other with chalk, playing in the water, visiting to the zoo, and going to the playground.

 

 

 

 

 

The middle of July brought birthday celebrations (more about that here).

And then we spent the days in between playing in the yard on the slip and slide, riding bikes, going to the playgrounds and splash parks. We harvested bowls and bowls of raspberries from our happy bushes and made raspberry syrup, raspberry smoothies, and raspberry lemonade.

We also hit up several ice cream trucks. One day Mia was out riding her bike, and I went to check on her. I could hear the ice cream truck sounding like it was coming down our street. We don't live on a main road, so I thought that was weird, but sure enough it rounded the corner and who do I see but my Mia slowly riding her bike beside it, escorting it all the way to the house. The ice cream truck driver kind of gave me a sympathetic shrug, as he explained she emphatically persuaded him to come to the house so she could get money for ice cream. Thanks to Gigi's treat money, everyone enjoyed an ice cream, and even several of our neighbours came out for a treat.

 

Once August hit, my nausea started kicking into high gear. I still made it a goal to take them to the park at least every other day, and was mostly successful at that. My mom planned to come up the middle of August to help out, and I counted down those days with eagerness. My mom is the best. As soon as she sees a basket of laundry to be folded, a dish to wash, or a kid to help she sets to work. The day she got here, I think she spent the first half hour sorting out my kitchen and then getting everyone supper. 

Unfortunately we ended up getting some virus a couple days after she arrived. Gordon ended up coming down with a fever, sore throat, and cough and I was terrified he had COVID. Especially since the kids started dropping like flies within a day, and two days later I was the next victim. It wasn't COVID, but whatever it was, was brutal. Every muscle in my body ached, my joints felt like they hadn't been moved in years, and my throat was excruciatingly sore. I was exhausted. I felt so horrible, that I didn't even notice when I was nauseous until I was throwing up. I was equally terrified that my mom would catch it. I just couldn't bear the thought that she was up here taking care of us, now even more than she had originally bargained for, and that we would make her sick in return. I prayed my heart out every night that she would be immune somehow. Thankfully, that prayer was answered. I'm not sure how any of us would have fared without her here.

 

The week after, we were able to go camping with Grandma and Grandpa. We stayed in a cabin outside Hinton, and basically listened to Isaac and Mia fight over the top bunk for the first hour we were there. Mia also lost her first tooth! 

We surprised them and the kids that night with news of grandchild #7/sibling #4, and I was glad I wouldn't have to feign health anymore. Although I was feeling pretty good comparatively the last two days. 

We visited William Switzer Provincial Park on our first full day. That included a mini hike around the lakes, a visit to Jarvis Lake where the older kids got to canoe with dad and Grandma for the first time, and a hike up to Athasbasca lookout. Mia, ever our most daring, went into Jarvis lake in her underwear and tshirt, because we short sightedly didn't pack any swimsuits. In our defense it was cloudy, the high was maybe 17 (but felt colder), and all of the adults were in hoodies and sweats. But I should have known that wouldn't stop her. Scarlett also decided to wade in, but neglected to follow her sister's example and take her shorts off, so at least she would have something dry to wear on the bottom when she was done.

She ended up being naked from the waist down after that, and that's how she hiked the lookout (we only passed one person on the way up). We had to strategically place her in our family photo at the "peak", to keep her modest, but we did capture a few "cheeky" moments on the way to the top! It was only about 700m to the top, but all uphill. The kids complained that it was hard and long (even though their two year old sister was walking it without complaint). I told them that not all hard things are bad, and that lots of the time the reward was worth the effort. When we got to the top and saw the view, Isaac yelled "THIS WAS TOTALLY WORTH IT!". *Ding ding* Score one for the mama.

That evening we enjoyed relaxing at the cabin. There was a group of musicians in the cabin next to ours who would sit outside and play their instruments. They were quite talented and the music gave me East Coast vibes. It seemed like they could just agree on a song and all start playing together in perfect harmony. They even let Mia come over and join in with them at one point!

The next day Grandma and Grandpa left for their Jasper hike, and Gordon and I took the kids on a little exploration adventure. Unfortunately the poor road condition kaibosched one of our stops, but the main highway ran along the Athabasca river, and we found a place we could park and hike down to it. It was beautiful and sunny, and we were much better prepared with bathing suits this time. We spent several hours there throwing rocks, wading in the river, having a picnic, watching the trains, and enjoying Mia's ninja moves with a giant stick she found.

Then we explored the Beaver Boardwalk in Hinton. Basically it's a series of footpaths and bridges over the marsh/wetland with lots of ducks to see!

 We made smores over the campfire, roasted marshmallows, played at the playground, and stuffed our faces with way too much junk food.

On Sunday we left for home, and were excited to get a visit from Auntie Becky, Uncle Michael, and Theo for the week! The kids had so much fun with them playing at the park, playing Wii, and wrestling with Uncle Michael. As much as I love the extra space, there are times when I really miss my sister living with us and just being able to chat about whatever, whenever. Being around 4 little hooligans for 10 hrs a day with no face to face adult interaction can be a little mental. So I really loved having them there as well, and it was fun to catch up Becky and talk all things mom-life.

Isaac and Mia had one day of school before the long weekend, and then we enjoyed our last official summer hoorah with a trip to the corn maze. 

I remember back in March, being told my kids were home for the next 5.5 months, and thinking one of  us was not going to make it (most likely me). And then all of a sudden their backpacks were ready, and school supplies were labeled, and they were off again in the "real world". Although we all breathed a collective sigh of relief once school was back in, I can't help but be grateful that I had so much extra time with them.