Moving Forward

 Hazel is moving forward into the new year! It all started on Sunday Dec 26 when we were at church, the church is nicely carpeted so it had a lot more traction, but she was going forward! Once we were at home we tried it again.

Dec 26 (Video below)

It is amazing how much progress she makes day to day! That plastic lid that Jared is holding is her favorite toy so far... so it was pretty good motivation. 

Dec 28 (Video Below)

 On Dec 29 the baby gates around the wood stove got tested out and Hazel found me in the kitchen while I was making dinner! When she crawls around to find me my Mommy heart just melts! 💗

(Video Below)

As fun as it is to crawl around, it is sure tiring!!!💤

The Toy Box

Hazel has been loving her new play area and toy box. I have been putting all the toys away in the box, Hazel tips over the box and entertains herself for quite a while pulling a bunch of the toys out, and then we repeat the process...

(Video Below)

Hazel also just got a new toy to add to her toy box. This is a very special toy, according to Nana it was Mom's favorite toy when she was this age. 

Hazel seemed to think it was a pretty great toy too! I was actually quite surprised how touched I was that Hazel likes the same toy  that I did 😊

PG Christmas

A few months ago I told Jared that I felt like we needed to stay in Prince George for Christmas. How can we really become part of this community if we keep leaving when people typically would be getting together? As hard as it was to see pictures of our family getting together on Christmas and getting stuck in the snow, we really enjoyed our church family up in PG this year. 

On Christmas Eve I organized a Christmas Program which went really well and was enjoyed by all, we even had some visitors that came from previous outreach efforts, which was really neat to see! After the program we had some appetizers and desserts potluck style. 

If anyone is interested the Christmas program was recorded. Click here if you would like to watch/listen to it. 

 On Christmas Day the majority of us went to the Sinclair's for dinner. (The Sinclair's are the newest members of the congregation who moved up from Tsawwassen). This dinner truly had a family feel to it, craziness and all, as there was about 11 kids and 3 babies! We had a much more traditional dinner, it was neat to have everyone bring one of their own Christmas favorites or traditional meals to the table.

We have also been getting a true taste of a northern winter, with the record amount of snow fall in a 24 hour period! About 35 cm! For more details click here

In addition to all the snow we have also been reaching record cold for this time for the year, around -38 to -40, for more details click here

I would say we have been pretty broken in so far... but we will see what the rest of winter brings!

Even with the crazy snow and cold weather I have been enjoying winter so far. I love finding icicles...

I like the way the snow looks on the roofs... I like being inside our small cozy house with the fire and Christmas lights on!

Overall we all had a very nice Christmas and felt very much at home, we still missed our families a lot, phone calls and video calls make up for a lot, but not everything... Looking forward to seeing our families again in March! 

 

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Figured I could just send a "Christmas card" this way!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from the JT Flokstra family!

And here is a little Hazel giggle to share on Christmas Day! (Video below)

She's getting pretty good at spinning around in circles, she found it quite funny that Mommy kept showing up on the other side! Maybe the first thing on Hazel's New Year bucket list is crawling...we will just have to wait and see!

May the Lord be with you all in the year to come!

 

 

Homemade

Slowly but surely I'm starting to get more confident at this homemaking and homemade stuff. I'm realizing that this project took a while, as my first picture doesn't have any snow on it...

I stained this boards so that they could get put up being the stove and make a backdrop and a shelf for the cast iron pans that seem to always be on the stove. Which was driving me a little crazy.

Before:

After:

Thanks to Dad for hanging it up for me, it ending up being a little trickier then I had thought to hang it up...

After it was up for a few weeks, I got brave enough to try and paint a saying on it. Using the printed letters a guide it turned out much better then I expected.

Finished! Homemade and made with love! 💕

New Sounds and Songs

Pictures are great, but they don't share sounds...Hazel has been learning a few more sounds and starting to babble while playing. She is babbling away in the video below, but it is quiet so you might need to turn up the volume.

Hazel also "sings" a little bit. Hazel version of singing so far would be making louder noises when there is music playing...

Jared and I started playing some psalms on Sunday evening. I'm on the flute, Jared is play the guitar, Hazel is the "soloist".  Here is Psalm 5 (Recording below)

 And Psalm 9 (Recording below)

Jared discovered that Hazel has a vibrato button...(Video below)

Hazel is getting closer and closer to crawling, but not yet... she gets kind of frustrated at the end and does her typical "pick me up" pose and sounds. (Video below)

Note: Videos do not show up on the blog emails, you so will have to click on the blog link above to see them! Enjoy 😊

Winter and Winter Decorations

If you call them winter decorations they get to go up early and stay up longer, right?

Nicole came over and helped decorate or I guess you could say Nicole decorated and I helped... but it was super fun and easy with Nicole's natural decorating skill. I love how it turned out! It feels so much more like home with some more decorations up and Christmas Decorations always feel cozy.

I really like having the lights up, the sun is setting earlier and earlier, and having the lights on inside make it so happy that I hardly notice!

Not sure why these pictures decided to turn out green... but we made good use of our wedding lights, they go all the way around the house...

across to the wood shed...

and along the front of the bigger shop!

Blue skies, sunshine and sparkly snow! 

It is really neat to see proof of how much Nova runs around... 😄

And of course with snow comes snow removal...but the Massey is so far making the job a little easier for Jared.

Rookie of the Year

 

A well earned reward for Jared's dedication to the fire hall so far. Jared tries his best to make it to all the calls possible and has been the on the top 2-4 volunteers that make it to the calls for the last few months. The Pine View Firehall training evenings have been a highlight of Jared's week for several months now, PVFD has put a real effort into to making all of these guys into a team and making the training effective and fun. Though it is really hard to give up my time with Jared for the calls it has been really neat seeing how much he throws himself into everything that comes up. Super proud of him for all the effort that he has put in and continually surprised by just how much information he can keep taking in with all the training!

A Little Snow Angel

 A little 7 month old snow angel! Hazel weighed in at 16 pounds and 5 ounces and measured 68cm long/tall last week. She also got 2 teeth in the last few weeks as well!

I think this one is my favorite, with her face framed with the white fur and her dark eye lashes! 💖

Such big blue eyes!

It's quite hard to sit in a snow suit...

But funny to fall back into the snow!

OH! The snow is cold when it lands on my face!!!

As for those teeth we were taking about...

These are partially tricky pictures to get...Hazel bottom teeth are just poking through so they are not super easy to see on camera...and most of the time her tongue is in the way, or she moved and her teeth are blurry or she grabs the phone while I'm try to take a close up picture.... so here are the few the survived the editing 😅

Little Friends

I was babysitting for church last Sunday and just had to take these pictures! These three cuties are all about 3 months apart! Sophia with the black bow in the oldest, Hazel is next in the pink, and then Fern who is the car seat. It is so neat to see the different stages all at once. 

There is also a baby girl that was born in November and another baby due in December! So there should be no shortage of friends and playmates!

We went to Thomas and Rachelle's (Sophia's parents) after church, after they both had their naps  Sophia and Hazel got to play together a bit more. 

Guess who got the block most of the time! 😄