Winter Activities

 

A clear crisp snowy day!

I learned how to crochet! In effort to spend less time on my phone, but still have a activity that would allow me to rest, I pick up crocheting. This was a huge mental break through for me and I have really enjoyed it.

I tried to make a few eggs with the idea of having a dozen toy eggs, but once they get played with they look much more ball like 😅

A beautiful morning that greeted me when I went to do morning chores. 

And a nice big icicle. 

A nice big snowfall earlier this winter was much appreciated! Last year we didn't get snow till much later and it makes a huge difference on all of our moods.

Watching the snow falling.

Playing in the fresh snow. So excited that I got two winters out of this cute snowsuit!

Decoration time. I asked Jared to get the Christmas decoration box, but he came back with both "regular" decoration boxes. Which turned out to be just fine, there was enough Christmas like decoration in them. Hazel had so much fun pulling out all different sorts of decorations and decorating the house on her own. She was also thrilled to find this Dutch pot set and kept herself busy making pepper soup. Having a bit of pepper left in the pepper shaker made it extra fun!

I had pulled out the decorations more as a "something we should do" this year, rather then needing to brighten up the space, which was nice. I did not expect it to be such a special thing to do with Hazel, it brought her so much joy and it was really heart warming to do it together. 

We put our shoes by the fire for SinterKlass this year. Hazel nicely decorated the table. 

Firehall Christmas dinner. Jared received the Fire Chief's Award for the second time. It is a award for doing extra things around the hall, going above and beyond just training and calls. 

Hazel enjoying the music at the Christmas program rehearsal. I made a lot of progress  mentally this year and was not completely overwhelmed by organizing, which was very nice.

Jared was outside playing with Hazel and neighbor kids, when he felt inspired to build a sled for behind the tractor. We took it for a test run around the paddock that afternoon. Jared is hoping we can take it for a ride on the perimeter trail as well some day. 

Later afternoon light and frosted trees.

Fun and games at Babine's Christmas Dinner. The first picture they are stacking little bells on a popsicle stick, and the second all the parts people are playing guess the part in the box. 

Winter Walks.😍

We brought Jade to the pool for the first time! I was really unsure of how this would go as baths have not been appreciated at all! And often when she touched water she was quite unimpressed. But Hazel loves the water and had not been to the pool for quite a while so we tried it out. Jade lasted a whole hour before she got too cold to stay in! The first 20 minutes we got almost no reaction out of her, which was quite out of place for Jade, but after that she enjoyed the bubbles in the lazy river and was splashing and trying to keep up with Hazel. I was so relived that it went so well! Looking forward to doing it again soon!

We also made it back to the library, with new books in the house I find Hazel taking quiet time on her own accord more often. She caught me taking a picture this time and tried to hide.

A new laundry strategy. Trying to fold laundry on the couch with two helpers just wasn't working any more....😅

Finally found a bathroom curtain that ties in the orange sink and teal blue. (I will be replacing the the green curtain yet)

Hazel's crown of old shower curtain rings 😄 Ta Da!

This picture really doesn't do it justice... but waking up to a nice glowing fire and bright snow outside is just such a great way to start a winter morning!

Jade, 10 Months

Jade at 10 months, still getting into everything and has a knack for finding any piece of paper, Ziploc bags, whole potatoes or onion peels that gets left within reach. (the potatoes and onions are stored on the bottom shelf of an open pantry....) Jade is still furniture cruising and has also learned to walk along walls, I'm very curious if she will walk on her own soon, or if her current skills will get her where she needs to go for the next while. Playing on the floor with Daddy is a highlight and she will do the most of her independent standing and steps (which I have all missed so far.... 😢) during that time. (Video below)

Jade loves being on the couch! As she is the only one who can't get on it I wonder if she feels left out every once and a while, or if she just likes the view out the window. 

Hazel looking and smiling...

Jade looking...

Both looking but not smiling... 😏 

This picture just cracked me right up when I saw it, when I took it I knew that Jade had made a funny face, but later when reviewing them I saw Hazel making the same face in the background as well 😄As shown, but not heard in the picture, the noise level has increased in this house with two!

I don't remember if she went down for a nap after this or not, but she sure looks ready for one. 😍

The first time I witnessed Jade swallowing! Roasted potatoes for the win! She enjoyed sucking the sauce off of the pull pork as well. She just recently has eaten some broth off of a spoon which was a huge win as she wouldn't open her mouth before! (Video below)

Typically most food gets tasted, but not eaten... Maybe some more food will make it down once her teeth come in.

"Jaaaaaddde! Nooooo!!!" can be heard often from Hazel especially when she is setting up her own toys, hence the 'backwards' play set up. Typically they both play together quite nicely and laughter is often heard as well. (Video below) 

Jade, 9 Months

 (Yes, I know they are all kinda similar shots, but I just couldn't pick a favorite 😍)

Jade at 9 months! She is busy, she is having a blast! Jade is normal crawling around most of the time and is getting faster by the day. She is cheeky, she adores Hazel and is a total Daddy suck. 

Jade has been pulling herself up on furniture much earlier then Hazel, I wouldn't be surprised if she was walking by Christmas. But behind on the teeth growing, Hazel had two by this age, so far Jade has none. Though I'm starting to wonder if she is working on a few.  

We have been warned by others that she has mischief in her eyes, which we have also been seeing come out here and there, especially when she is playing with something she shouldn't and you say "No" she just looks back at you and smiles.... 

I just love how the blues bring out her eyes!

A few months ago I found Hazel and Jade's faces to have lots of similar expressions, now just two months later Jade has way more of her own personality and her own smile and head full of red hair that looks likes it's here to stay!

 

Hazel, Three and Half!

Our sweet little Hazel isn't so little anymore! She is 41" tall and 35 lbs. She has grown into her big sister role well and typically plays very nicely with Jade. So far Hazel is the only who can get Jade to laugh the most! Hazel's favorite things are anything pink, kittens and baby chicks. She is still a "slow warm" but has become a lot more comfortable with her friends and extended family over the past months. She loves to help and will often pull up a chair to help with any cooking, baking and egg washing. Going for drives is often the highlight of a day, and if she is in a comfortable setting is quite chatty. Hazel is very snuggly when tired, or likes to find cozy pillows, blankets and a favorite stuffy, which will change from day to day. Audio books have become a good source of downtime and rest from all the extra playtime.  Her imagination and pretend play are the cutest things to watch and listen too, I even caught her chasing a pretend baby bird across the kitchen and catching it in her hands gently. We are both enjoying watching her grow up, even if it has seemed to go much to quick, especially with a little one in the house as well.

Enjoying Home

Two sleeping girls in the middle of the afternoon and I had to decide whether to take a nap with them, clean the house or try catch up on blogging, blogging won 😊I am very behind on my blog and am missing most of the summer, rather then try and sort though a whole summer with of pictures I decided get past my writers block and just continue from my last post. Hopefully I can get to all those missed memories soon!

Had Grandma Wendy over for a visit, which has been very special. We both don't have much family close by so it has been neat to be part of each others lives. 

Hazel and her beloved kittens. The whole story on that later on. 

Very much enjoying our big playpen, they both come in rather sandy, but they play so nice!

Having kitten friends are extra motivation for Hazel to play outside

We had a big Thanksgiving dinner at the Voorhorts on Monday evening with the church family, and a little Thanksgiving dinner with W&A on Tuesday evening. We have finally stopped being down in the valley at opposite times and were able to get together which was really lovely!

Went outside for a fire after dinner, burn bans are finally off and Jared was itching to get though the burn pile that had to wait all summer. The sparks with tails was so fun to watch.

Hazel can now crack, mix and scramble her own scrambled eggs. A good skill for a chicken farmers daughter 😊

Hazel's kittens. 

Pirate surprised us with having another litter early this fall! She ending up having them in the neighbors wood pile, I guess our was feeling a little over crowded.... When the neighbors found them they dug them out of their wood pile and returned them to us, we weren't sure what we were going to do with them as we already had lots of cats, but Hazel was instantly attached and Pirate has continued to let us play with them so they got to stick around. We put them in box Jared's shop for the first while hoping that Pirate wouldn't hid them from us in there, which worked great until they were able to get out of the box and explore and one of them fell into a oil pan 😬Jared ending up finding it soon enough and we got to see is dawn soap takes oil off of kittens as well as it get oil off of ducks. The kitten did survive, we named it Oliee, it is the fluffy kitten in the picture. The two other grey ones are Custard and Pudding, they look very similar beside have opposite long socks. The striped on with the white paw Jared name Tiger. 

Once Oliee was mostly dried off and moving around we return it back to Pirate who promptly moved all the kittens to our wood shed. I was thinking that was going to be the last we saw of the kittens, but the next morning Oliee was out and about and to Hazels delight was happy to follow any pair of boots around. (Hopefully in my catch up I can find the video of that). Oliee is now the most loved kitten and the first one Hazel goes looking for when we are outside. 

Hazel wanted two pig tails, so I tried it with all her hair this time, which I though looked cute. When I showed Hazel the finished product she happily announced "I look like a goat, meeehhh meeehh!" 😅 After that I couldn't quite un see it. 

Enjoying the variety of the fall weather, we got a lot of hail one afternoon. Hazel had fun putting it in a bowl, bringing it into the house and making hail soup with her toy dishes. 

One of Hazel's favorite things is to match Jade. So when there was two owl toques in the winter clothes bin she was thrilled!

Found a new fridge! We had been looking since we got home from our late September trip as the freezer had stopped working when we were gone.... even though it did start working again when we got home I didn't quite trust it. In my mind we just needed to pick up a fridge, so a 6:00 pick up time was fine, but getting the fridge into the house, getting the old one empty and then out and then setting up the new one while trying to put two kids to bed and put the food back into the fridge before it thawed out turned out to be quite the task! But the new fridge has been working well and the old one is making its way to the barn as another egg fridge. 

Setting up the church basement for a potluck, our first once since the renos started last fall. Lots of TLC was added in the previous weeks which made for a very cozy environment. 

Home made tortillas, yum!!!

Our weekends worth of eggs to wash. We typically wash our eggs every day, but Sunday, and then end up washing Sundays (and sometimes Saturdays) eggs on Monday. Washing and packing eggs takes us about 15-20 minutes a day and about 30- 50 minutes on a Monday depending on how behind we are and how much Hazel likes to help. It has become quite the efficient task, and very rewarding! 

Flokstra enterprises also officially has a Facebook page to keep our regular customer notified. Not sure how many are actually on it... but that's the idea. 

Feeding the kittens some warm soft food on a crisp morning. 

I hung some lights on the clothes line so we could see the food table when we hosted a Pineview families fire one evening. They looked stunning in the sunshine and blue sky. 

A frosted plant the caught my eye. 

Set up this crate for a few chickens who were getting pecked at to much, hopefully they will heal up and we can put them back with the rest. 

Climbing on the tires with Hazel. 

Breakfast Pizza for dinner as we celebrated a whole month of eggs sales at full production, 200+ dozen sold in a month.  

Hazel and Oliee

We got a little bit of snow on Saturday night and Hazel was outside right away on Sunday morning!