6 months

Thursday our baby turned 6 months.  Man does time ever go by fast.  We have so loved having this little baby in our home.  He has the sweetest little disposition and always has a smile waiting for us.

We celebrated by giving him food.  Rice cereal and a Farley Biscuit. Yum - well at least he thought so.  I think he has been ready for food for while now, but I was none to anxious to go down that road again.  The kids have been so excited to see him eat food. 

Barrett at 6 month

• Is on the verge of wanting to crawl.
• loves to position himself in a push-up position.
• first tooth just poked up
• loves to have his hands and toes kissed.
• loves peek-a-boo and paddy cake

On the Night Stand

The Doctors Wife - Haven't started it yet, but will let you know if it is any good. (I only made it through a chapter of this book before I realized it was not for me)

The Book Thief - Picked up this number after a couple of my friends told me how much they utterly enjoyed it.  I was initially uneasy about reading it as the setting takes place in Nazi Germany, not my favorite time period to read about.  I am thoroughly enjoying it, in fact I would read it all night long if my eyes didn't close on me.   I own it if you want to borrow it.

The Book of Awesome - a little pick me up every day.

Gifts from the Sea - Book Club

The Family Dinner - Last year about this time my book club did poetry.  The discussion turned to Jackie Kennedy and how she and her family quoted poetry around the dinner table, then the conversation progressed to all the other things she did with her kids around the dinner table and I thought, That is what I want my dinner table to be like.

I just wasn't sure how to accomplish it.  Then last week I saw this book at Chapters. It has great advice about how to get your family talking at the table.  It suggests games, and topics of conversation, poetry to memorize, current events, word games and the list goes on.  Dinner time is about to change at our house.

Happy Valentine's Day

Our valentine's day was full of love.  I filled my kids room with notes of love.  Which was so fun to see their smiling faces as they came out and thanked me.  It was such a good reminder to me that words of affirmation is Jarom's Love Language.  He thrives off it and blossoms under praise.

I broke into Spencer's car at work and left him a bunch of love notes and chocolate.  I thought he would think it was a tad juvenile but he loved it and I in return received the sweetest note of appreciation, validation and love with my gifts. The note was my fave.  

Then we all sipped Love Potion and played Everybody's Special as part of our FHE.

Happy Love Day!

The Goal

A little bit ago Nolan set a goal for himself to finish the Book of Mormon before he turns 12.  He has done pretty good, but I could see he was starting to slow down a bit and may possibly not reach his goal.  I searched way down in the depth of my parenting and thought how could I assist him in reaching his goal. 

Then I remembered the classic challenge given to all youngsters at some time in their life. 

Read the book of Mormon and get a free dinner. 

Always a good choice.  Nolan is a bit competitive so I thought I would use this to my advantage and issued the challenge between the two of us.  Whoever finishes the BofM first buys the other one dinner.

As it stands now Nolan is kicking my butt.  I'm in 1 Nephi and he is finishing up Alma.  I still taunt him everyday that I will catch him. 

Who are you betting on, me or Nolan?

Love is in the air

I'm excited about Valentines Day this year. I'm excited to celebrate with those I love most in this world.

It's really not a secret that I don't do the whole pregnancy thing very well, in fact I totally suck at it. It is just a time in my life when I just sort of get by and hope that people still like me when I've become me again. I wish it wasn't so hard for me to get my beautiful babies to earth, but it is.

The struggle does make me more appreciative when I am "Normal" again. Last year was a total write off, this year there will be Celebrating. My head is filled with plans to make this month of Love extra special for my family. I'm excited.

I even made a few crafts which I of course copied from all those overly talented Internet gals. Here are the links Kissing Ball (I plan on standing under it until someone smooches me everyday) and Love One Another.

Things I want to accomplish in 2011

I seem to always be behind.  I did valentine card instead of Christmas Cards (which looked fabulous on the computer, but the printer made them look ugly, so I pitched them - this would be the reason you did receive my lovely card) and now I am finally writing down all the things I would like to accomplish in 2011.  I'm going to write a bazillion things thereby ensuring that at least a few will be accomplished.

It's going to be a work in progress... Here is the beginning

1. Make a Bucket List
2. Figure out some home decorating tips.
3. Add some color to my home decorating.
4. Climb a mountain with my boys
5. Be more connected to family
6. Get back to the Gym.  It's one of the few things I do for myself and something I totally enjoyed.
7. Learn more about Photography and take beautiful pics.
8. Take a family picture each month. - Totally copied from Rhonda cause it's such a fabulous idea.
9. Read my Sunday School and RS lesson each week.
10. Plan more healthy meals for my family
11. Love my kids unconditionally and see them in their best light.
12. Date my husband and make sure he knows how very much I adore him
13. Watch less TV do more positive activities with my kids
14. Kidnap my kid from school and take them out for lunch
15. Put up curtains in my kitchen.
16. Show more Gratitude
17. Beat Nolan at finishing the Book of Mormon before he turns 12
18. Do something I've never done before
19. Do something I'm afraid of
20. Get together with friends more
21. Have more dinner parties
22. Finish Barrett's Christmas Stocking
23. Learn how to cook a roast and Yorkshire pudding

Baby just woke up... to be continued

Jaroms Favorite Winter Sport

Pictures of pure happiness are my favorite in the world.  I love the boys expression in this picture.



Show and Tell and all thing Random

This is what Nolan took for Show and Tell last week.  Other kids took their pets, favorite vacation memento;  Nolan took Barrett.   He proudly showed him off and talked about all the great things Barrett can do.  He wanted to give a demonstration of Barrett's ability to roll over, but the germ factor was a concern to Nolan and he settled for telling his classmates about Barretts tumbling.

I love with all my heart how much these boys love their so sweet little brother.  Barrett is the luckiest kid to be so adored and have such great big brothers to forge the path of life ahead of him. 

1. When I sign messages off Ang in my Ipad it automatically changes it to Nag.  Nice.
2. Today was cold cold and the sun was shining brightly.  It reminded me of the classic Winnipeg winter day.   It started me remembering lots of good memories of our lives in Winnipeg.
3. I had an eye opening experience last week and came to realize that my parenting needed a kick in the butt.  I've been in oblivious bliss enjoying too much time soaking in little bare toes, fingers and giggles.
4. I bought The Book of Awesome.  Now I get to reflex on something awesome every day.
5. I almost cried in Walmart the other day when I skipped down the Valentine Hersey kisses aisle in search of my long awaited Cherry Cordial Kisses.  I couldn't find them anywhere, but I persevered and finally found a small box of them on the bottom shelf.  Yum.

Party Time

It was time for celebration, my mom had a birthday. 

We invited my mom, dad, and the French's (our closest friends from as far back as I can remember) over.  We consumed fabulous food -yes I cooked and am ever so modest, great conversation and just enjoyed a lovely evening celebrating someone that we love so very much!

I bet you are all looking at the cake and drooling over how fabulous it looks.  I looked up how to make The Keg's cheesecake on-line, because it is the best cheesecake ever created, and low and behold there was a recipe.  It was creamy, smooth and divine. 

This morning after lovely packing a piece for Spencer's lunch I dropped the leftovers on the floor. 

Awesome.

Happy Birthday Mom!

"It's not cold out"

This is one thing I will always be grateful to Winnipeg for; while all us Albertans hide in the house, my born and semi-raise son and his Winnipeger friend thought it was the perfect weather for digging snow tunnels.

Our neighbours across the way had a huge snow pile between 2 drive ways.  After trying to dig out our piddly little snow drifts, I could see Nolan and Greg debating on how much trouble they might get in if the neighbours came home and found them digging in their snow.  The desire for the awesomest snow tunnel ever won out and they slowly inched their way over.  While I sat cozy in the house they dug and dug until their tunnel was connected from the top to the bottom. 

Jarom

Jarom has been quite the busy little boy as of late.  Last week he was invested as a Cub.  He was most serious as he made his pledge in front of his Pack.  I love it when the Pack does the Grand Howl and yell for all to hear about DIB'ing and DOB'ing.  Jarom must be taking his DIB'ing to heart as he shoveled the driveway yesterday without a word from his mama.  I was most appreciative, as you can imagine, and patted his cute little head and sent him off for cookies - cause that's the kind of mom I am.

Tonight after months of begging for a little show of what Jarom has learned in the Hip Hop lesson Spencer had to sell a kidney to pay for; we finally got to see what Jarom has learned.  Let me tell you, this Kool Kat has some serious moves.   We did however discover this kid has no skills in the skipping department -Spencer and I decided we are cool with that.

I took this picture last week, after watching Jarom come towards me, with that so sweet little grin of his.  Probably should have cleaned the salt off the mirror.

Family Photo Shoot

The Grandkids - What a cute bunch

From bottom to top Luke (Shane & Kaddi), Jarom with Nikolas (Rachel &Paul). Meg (S&K), Nolan with Barrett and Jake (S&K)

Strate Family

           Not Perfect, but totally us.

 15.5 years of marriage and going strong!



Welcome 2011

I always get overwhelmed  with all the posting I could do about Christmas and all the fun that was had, so I am skipping ahead to currant day and doing Flashbacks every now and then.

We are hoping 2011 is as good to us as 2010 was.  Looking back we had so many blessings and wonderful thing happen to us.

Baptized

Jarom was baptized on Dec 11th.  It was a great day filled with lots of memories.  Jarom was cute and sweet and nervous and excited. 

Rachel, Paul and Patrice drove down and surprised him the day of his baptism.  It was so nice to have them share this moment in our lives.  Jarom felt so loved by all our family who sent cards and special baptism messages.  Thank-you.

Sadly in all the frenzie of the day we didn't take a family picture.  I think we will take one tomorrow and pretend it was taken that day.

Peace at Home

I love the serenity of the early morning, the peace and quite, where I am alone with my thoughts and all that disturbers me is the furnace kicking in.  I get to sip a nice cup of tea as I enjoy the twinkling of the Christmas lights.  The Christmas shopping is done and I have a day ahead filled with Christmas baking with my mom. Life is Good.

Aren't these trees lovely?  Everytime I walk by them, they fill me with such sparkly happiness.  Even the boys adore them.  Wish I had thought of them, but I totally copied them from this gal - I even printed off the Subway Art.  It looks simply lovely in my living room.

In other news.  I made the grossest supper known to man tonight.  I've scared my kids into refraining from saying anything negative about my meal preparation efforts and we all sat there in miserable silence until I finally broke down and confessed how totally awful it was and we all went to Burger King.  Jerk Chicken Chili will forever be a four letter word in our house.

We're in Love

with this baby! All his hair, cute smiles and sweetness won our hearts. We couldn't get enough of him and cried buckets of tears when he left.

Don't these two have trouble written all over them?  Give them a few years and there will be tons of scheming going on in those little brains.

I wish every moment was like this one

My boys love to wrestle, fight, annoy, bicker, trade insults with one another to the point where some days I think I am going to go CRAZY.  It's almost like a Robert Munch book, where I am pulling out my hair and running around like a mad crazed women.  Seriously it's brutal.  I'm sure this is totally normal behavior, but since I grew up with only one brother, I'm not used to the wild boy ways.

Tonight was Jarom's first night of Cubs.  He was so excited,  with a mixture of nervousness thrown in there.  Nolan, Jarom, Barrett and I were on our way to drop Jarom off at Hip Hop and I overheard Nolan sharing with Jarom some of his older brotherly wisdom.  It was one of those moments that just melted my heart.  They had this nice sweet little chat; and I listened; soaking in the moment.

And So It Begins

I don't do a lot of Christmas baking, I'm learning over the years my family is more of a chocolate and candy snacking family than cookies and baking.  Although we will have shortbread cookies, it's not really Christmas without those.  Fudge is a family favorite.  I whipped up this batch last week, I was planning to use half the pan for missionary pkg and freeze the rest for Christmas, but our sweet tooth's got the best of us and it's gone.  It was oh so yummy.

I tried a new recipes this year, I got it from our ward RS party.  It was oh, so good.

Creamy Milk Chocolate Fudge:

2 cups sugar
1 cup whipping cream
20 large marshmallows
1/2 cup butter
2 tsp real vanilla
3 cups milk-chocolate chips (Callebaut is best, Chipits are 2nd best)

1) Place chocolate chips, cut up butter, and vanilla in large bowl. Set aside.
2) Combine cream and sugar in medium sized saucepan. Whisk over low heat until sugar is completely dissolved (about 20 mins).
3) Add marshmallows and turn heat up to medium. Fold in marshmallows until melted.
4) Boil mixture over med heat for 6 minutes (stirring constantly).
5) Pour cream and sugar mixture over chocolate chip mixture.
6) Stir vigorously until mixture is creamy and smooth.
7) Pour into 8x8 pan lined with waxed paper
8) Cool in Fridge, use waxed paper to lift fudge out of pan, cut into pieces!

You're invited

Bumbo Chair - My new best friend

Now his best buddy has one to!!! (Porter Taylor)

Chocolate dipping day

I know, your mouth is watering.  Dipping chocolates is a tradition that runs through a few generations in my family.  We even have a secret family recipe.  The fondant (say this in your mind like the Cake Boss, it makes it funnier) melts and in your mouth. So delicious.

Chocolate Dipping Day is a crazy intense affair, some of the dippers wanted to stop and finish up another day, but I am a task master and I cracked that whip and even though it went into the wee hours of the morning we prevailed.

We made:

Lemon - my favorite

Chocolate orange

Maple Brown sugar - Spencer's favorite

Root beer

vanilla

Amaretto

Maraschino cherry - Nolan's favorite

If you come for a visit we'll be happy to share.

Tid Bits

1. We all think this baby is so cute, we can hardly stand it.  He in return thinks he has the greatest family ever.  He love Nolan and Jarom and smiles at them whenever they come around.

2. I visiting teach with a sister that has all girls.  Last month I had to change Barrett's diaper in front of them, her 4 year old twins went home and talked about the baby with the "tail" all night.  So funny.

3. Christmas so stresses me out.  Every year I say I'll get the shopping done early so I can enjoy the true meaning of the season, but I never do.  I stress out about everything and find myself wishing I could skip Christmas all together.  I know that makes me a Grinch or a whatever. 

4. My favorite movie is Sense and Sensibility. I always cry at the end.

5.  Even though he is not such a great man, I very much enjoy Hugh Grant as an Actor.  I think he is great a romantic comedy.  Doesn't have much of a variety, but I enjoy what he does.

Free Time - what's that?

Man oh Man I have lots to share with you, but someone who is oh so cute seems to take up all my time. 

I'm hoping to do some bulk blogging tonight so hopefully all week you will be treated to little exerts of our lives.  Or at least dozens of pictures of our little guy, cause let me tell you we have a few.

But most importantly we celebrated another birthday at our house.

This so fun kid turned 8. 

Yep it's a big one. 

He is getting baptized. 

We're excited for him.

We got him an Ipod.  He was so excited he did the dance of joy.  It was so fun.

This is his cake. It was actually quite cool.  I did a rainbow cake, so the inside was chalk full of colors.  Jarom talked for days about how he wanted to do the writing as well as decorating his cake.  It killed me, but I let him do it.  It says:

Jarom

Happy

Birthday

Look hard and you'll see it. He had 7 girl friends.

THE STAMP

This is it folks.

The Stamp. 

This is what Spencer spent 14 years working towards. 

It was exciting to have it come in the mail the other night.  We all took turns holding it and caressing it.  We oohed and awed over it.  We are thinking of building a special display cabinet with a spotlight shining on The Stamp for all to view.

Halloween with the Courts

Pulling out the guts - Gross

Jarom's work of art. He was totally into the pumpkin carving this year and did a great job.

Nolan and Greg's Pumpkin

This baby went as the cutest baby ever

Nolan was suppose to be a rockstar; but he was this instead.  Scary

Ninja

This picture reminds me of a certain gift to Rachel at her wedding.