Last Winter Birthday

Most of our family have Winter-time Birthdays, congregated between the last days of November until mid-March.  Toveli's was the final one of them....and she wanted to get her ears pierced.  So, that's what she got.

And she let Maret come along and get hers done at the same time.

It's helpful, because they can remind each other to clean them 3 times per day, and it alleviates some of the pressure from Mom to do the remembering (which stresses me out, because there are soooooo many things to try and remember).









On Saturday we had our best friends come down island to share a meal together.....but unfortunately I forgot to take photos!!!  But we had a good time.  The children went down to the river, walked to the 'gravel pit' (one of the 'visitors' named it that), walked their dog, ate too much, etc.  Us adults shared our hearts, books, ideas, computer knowledge.  We laughed and cried, and parted with hugs and "can they come back here tomorrow?" and wanting a date on the calendar of when we'd see them again.

Big sister, Rauchelle was here for the weekend too, but sadly had to go back today ;(  We always hate to see her go, but then that just means we'll be Soooo excited when she comes back again ;)

Toveli says "It was crowded in the house, some of us sat on the front deck to eat supper.  It was actually a really nice weekend.  I enjoyed it!"

Happy Birthday, Toveli!

For Anders

Happy Birthday, 5 Year Old!!We finally got to Anders' birthday, and then Laars is complaining that it isn't his today.  Anyways, we were treated to a visit by Gramma S, and my aunty Lorna (from Saskatchewan).  The children loved having them around because they were fun, interested in the children's activities and successes, and brought lots of sugar!

Anders of course was interested in gifts and food.  He picked pizza for his Birthday meal, which we haven't eaten in months so it was a real hit with everybody.  Us bigger people especially liked the Portobello mushrooms with taco seasoning to make a Taco Pizza.

He received Cars stickers, and an altered shirt.

The checkered shirt I altered from a size 7/8 to fit Anders whose a size 5.  When he opened the gift he said "Oh, that shirt" and tossed it away.  But when I convinced him that it would fit him, he tried it on and is now thrilled that he has another CowBoy shirt to wear.

And he got a bandana, the green one in the top photo.  Plus we got him new jammies that he's been wanting for a long while since he out-grew the old ones.

And celebrated with ice cream sundaes, as was his choice. 

Happy Day for a Happy Boy.

Another Birthday at Our House

Winter is the season for these Johnsons to be celebrating birthdays.  Out of the eleven of us, 8 of us celebrate birthdays (and our Anny) between the last days of Nov and the first half of March.

And so Today is Gaelyn's turn!!

Funny to see Gaelyn holding her hands out like this at our meal's Blessing.  I think she's seen the movie "Eat, Pray, Love" a bit much!

Here the girls are singing "Our God is an Awesome God"

Opening gifts.  She's wearing a shirt I bought her earlier this week at Sally Ann and I think it suits her so well.  She wanted to wear it for her Birthday outfit.

When Rauchelle was here over the weekend she got the children into loving bandanas even more, so Gaelyn was thrilled to get her own.

I'll share more about this outfit later.  Just say that Maret sewed it.

I took six of the children to the school playground because.....that's what they love to do.  Here, Gaelyn is Frozen, waiting for somebody to come and Unfreeze her.

Laars is pointing out the moon in the sky.

Anders is frozen in space.

Doesn't she look like a Happy Birthday Girl?!

Toveli pushing Laars.  Love the rosy cheeks.

Sweet Maret

Happy Birthday Gaeyney-Pooh!!

Family Fun

Rauchelle caught the train down to spend the weekend with the family to celebrate my birthday.  Its a challenge for her to find the time from work to get down to our place via the train, but it beats the bus!!She treated me to beautiful bag of wholesome, natural goodies in a great natural fabric bag with says about 'A Wise Woman......'  I was a bit giddy opening the packages as they were daintily wrapped, and we aren't big on Gift Giving.  I think Rauchelle had as much fun watching me open it as she had shopping for it!

 Then....what Mama wanted to do was for the Family to go out for a walk together.  I see this hill from the children's bedrooms and I was curious as to what was up there.  So, the rain had stopped and we trekked out.

Toveli found a four-leaf clover.

Rauchelle had brought 

bandana's for Maret and Mitchell, and was wearing some herself, but 'Jesse' was feeling left out so he mooched one off of Rauchelle to be a Bandit.

Always somewhere's new to climb and conquer.

Rauchelle is always up to fun and a challenge. 

 She did stand on this and roll it.  This is where she fell off.

Two Buds at the Top

We found a water reserve at the top of the hill, and it had a ladder..........so of course we had to climb it.  Only of course, the bottom had a metal cover to discourage climbers, but we got over that, one way or other.

The littles climbed up the backside, squished between the ladder and wall.

Evaluating how much farther he had to climb.

He got right up to the top!

Even Mama did it!

There's most of us, at the top.

Rauchelle and Toveli

Taking a leap of faith.

Thanks, family, for making my day a special, love-filled one!  I am Blessed.

Double One's

Today's Birthday Girl, turned a Double-One

Her idea was to make pancakes herself, and serve it to Mom and Dad in bed!  Yeah, she does the work on her birthday and serves her parents!!  

She's been painting and creating, like Maret always does.  These are just some of the recent pictures

and her hard at work.

One of her Grandma's gave her a book on Drawing and Painting Wildlife, so I'm sure we'll be seeing even more and more of that around here.  Today she's been painting horses.

Happy Birthday, Maret.

(DPP) Fourteen

A new ink-well.  A new calligraphy pen.  A new art, becoming.  

A new 14 year old. At our house.

Today we had Everette's family over to celebrate Danaka's birthday 

and feast on something besides turkey dinner.  

And feast we did. 

We played games.

Took lots of pictures.  

Even pictures of others taking pictures (thanks Laars and Tasha!). 

'Rock, Paper, Scissors' reverberating through our heads. 

Lots of giggles, tickles, and wiggles.

  

An extra 5 pounds, and still a stuffed fridge.

Fun Fun Fun

Happy Birthday, Danaka!

Crazy Day for a Party

We had it all planned out.

Saturday we would meet Rauchelle in Nanaimo and pick Layne up at the Duke Point ferry.  We'd go for lunch and spend some family time celebrating Layne's birthday which was actually the day before (Friday).  Then Chelle would return to O's where she lives, and we'd take Layne home with us for the weekend.

Then we made the Birthday call to Layner Friday morning and sang "Happy Birthday" to her.  She announced that what she had planned for the afternoon had fallen through so now she was free and could come over today (Friday, her actual birthday).  So with some quick phone calls we changed plans for the day. 

Instead of a fairly quiet day at home preparing for Shabbat (bake bread, vacuum house and clean bathrooms) we whipped into action, got the bread rising, baked a cheesecake, did the house work, made a bed up (on the floor) for Layne, packed changes of clothes for the little guys, ate quick lunch and hit the road by 1 pm to pick Layne up at Duke Point 22 hours ahead of our original schedule ;)  and proceeded to travel up to O's for the One-Day-Late American Thanksgiving Dinner intended for an American who had to cancel coming and which turned out to be a Birthday Dinner for Layne instead!!  With fresh challah that rose beautifully in spite of getting a few chills en route, and an Oreo Cheesecake Danaka baked before leaving home, and an awesome meal put on by Lisa and Rauchelle.  It was a huge Success.

 HAPPY BIRTHDAY LAYNE!!

Miss Minimalist’s Gift Avoidance Guide

 Christmas is just around the corner, and I know that alot of you are busy with thoughts about Giving and Receiving.  We personally haven't been doing the Gift Exchange practice for about 10 years, I think.  My how time flies ;)  But it was an adjustment to make, and put some uncomfortable strains on some relationships around Christmas time particularly.  We were accused of ruining Christmas for Grandma, not allowing her the joy of giving gifts to her Grandchildren (which wasn't true, but .....Whatever), and taking the fun out of Christmas, and being Scrooges, and Extremists, etc.

But, looking back over those years, we are glad we put a stop to the insanity around the consumerism of Christmas (and Birthdays) as far as it pertains to our household.  And that's all we can do.  As it pertains to me and my house!

I subscribe to Miss Minimalist and really like her Gift Avoidance Guide, on how to help others adjust to not giving you a bunch of needless stuff to clutter up your space.

Enjoy the Guide.

Miss Minimalist's Gift Avoidance Guide

Lisa O's Birthday

I made this yummy Breakfast Pudding for the Birthday Girl.  Simple but beautiful and delicious and filling.  Just blend 2 bananas with 1 avocado in a food processor.  We sprinkled on a bit of cinnamon, and decorated with the flowers. Viola!

And the Birthday Girl got beautiful flowers from the neighbour.  And last night we celebrated with Dream Cake which was a huge success.  Tonight she's off to the Ball (a restaurant, I think) with the family and mother-in-law for more celebrations.

Happy Birthday, my friend.

Mitchell Turns 12

This is our last year before Mitchell is a teenager.  Only 365 more days to go and we'll have 2 teens in our household.  Yahoo!  We love the teen years.  You hear so many people fearing having teens in their family, but Everette and I have always enjoyed it.  We've been looking forward to it ever since Layne and Rauchelle were about 6 & 8 years old, and a 'friend' who owned the local A&W would inevitably say "You just wait until they are teenagers!" and then go into a long story about the horrors of teens, while inside we were rolling our eyes and thinking "we aren't afraid.  It'll be great!"

And it was.

And it is.

We've got Danaka as a teenager, already thinking about getting her driver's license in less than 3 years.

I'm sure it won't be long before Mitchell starts thinking about driving, and owning a car or truck.  But for now, he's 12 and his mind isn't on those things. 

Today he was glad to have (most of) his family with him.  Layne caught the bus out from UBC to spend the day here, and we bummed around the condo for the day as I think we over did the sun-thing yesterday.  We talked, and watched "Inkheart" & "August Rush", went swimming, checked out the used bookstore, ran errands, and ate