Peanuts

A few weeks before the babies first birthday I did something dumb. I decided that they were close enough to one to have a taste of peanut butter. But I didn't limit it to a taste: I gave them each a piece of toast with peanut butter slathered on it. They LOVED it!

Fairly quickly in, Mattias started rubbing his eyes and complaining a lot. But he kept eating. He hadn't napped well that day, so I assumed he was just tired and ready for an early trip to bed. When he was about half done, I clued in that, no, the whining and complaining and the face rubbing were not due to lack of sleep. His face was getting puffy and it was super red. He was having an allergic reaction to the peanut butter!

I got the Children's Benadryl and Jon got him out of his seat and took him upstairs to wash him down. He was quite a sight. But the Benadryl kicked in pretty fast (I'm so glad we had it on hand!) and he calmed down fairly quickly. I wanted to share a picture of him while he is still looking yucky but not at his worst. Poor guy!

It turns out that here they generally don't offer peanut products to kids under 5. I asked the paediatrician about it and he said it is due in part to cultural tendencies. Peanut butter just doesn't have the following here that it has in North America (here they seem to go for Nutella over PB). Take those two factors into consideration: late introduction of peanuts and general disinterest in peanut butter, and I guess that's why there is such a low number of kids with peanut allergies! There is not a single child in Elijah and Brady's entire school with a peanut allergy!

So my advice, should you ever have a baby in your midst: don't bother with peanut butter for at least a few years.

Brady the Brave

We have had such a busy 6 weeks! There is so much I could tell you, so I will start with December 18th: Brady turned 5!

I can hardly believe how quickly the last 5 years have gone and how big and smart and wonderful Brady is. And so BRAVE! In the last 17 months we have had two big moves (the first from Caronport, Saskatchewan to Spruce Grove, Alberta and the second from the Grove to Aberdeen, Scotland) which can be trying on anyone. But especially trying for a very shy and introverted preschooler. Throw in the birth of your twin baby brothers and the decrease in parental involvement that forces on you, attending a number of different churches, losing your cousins when they move overseas, moving overseas, too, starting school fulltime within a week of that move, joining a football (soccer) team with a coach with a heavy Scottish accent, finding another church.... (Whew!) Brady has been so brave through it all!

He is also very stubborn (which drives his mommy crazy sometimes) and it is almost impossible to get him to change his mind on things. Still, we are so proud of him for being true to himself even through his stubbornness. A quick example: He was struggling with understanding all the instructions as football practice and was the youngest and smallest boy on the team (which was for 5 to 8 year olds). He decided he didn't want to play anymore and no amount of requests or demands from me or Jon would make him budge. I was worried that he would regret his decision to quit but he is totally great with it, actually. He still loves football, but has decided to wait until next fall to try playing on the team again.

Here is the Birthday Boy opening gifts before school with the crew.

And here he is at his long-awaited party! Brady was soooo excited to have his friends over to celebrate and decided months in advance that he wanted it to be a Wall*E party. (That really just meant that we did a Wall*E cake.) Because he was turning five we let him have 5 friends over (and didn't make him count brothers!). He chose 3 boys from school and 2 girls from church. They had lots of fun.

On a different note, here is a picture of the boys all playing together. The big boys love making boats and airplanes and forts. Here they are on their fishing boat (using badminton racquets and blankets as fishing poles and nets). You probably can't tell, but Jesse and Matty were ecstatic when we actually let them join them on the boat instead of pretending they were fish swimming in the ocean.

Elijah the Marvelous

Elijah is an amazing boy. We discovered very early on that he is extremely bright and that God has blessed him with a kind and sensitive spirit. We love that about him. And those of you who know him will agree that with that sensitivity and concern for others, he also has a real dramatic side. That is something that we don't always know how to handle and neither does he.

Elijah is very quickly growing up. And he is also growing more and more dramatic. Sometimes I wonder if at night when we've got him all tucked in and ready for bed if he lies awake planning his next big performance. Let me tell you, the other day was a doozy!

As I recall we'd had a bit of a "rough" evening that included some reprimands from Mom and Dad. He and Brady were supposed to be getting ready for bed. Suddenly he bursts into the room and shrieks, "I know what you're doing!"

I look at Jon who is looking at me with as much confusion as I am feeling. "What are you talking about, Elijah!?"

"I know you are trying to kill us! Why do you have this knife up here!?" he exclaims as he pulls out from behind his back...





my 2 inch metal nail file.



After a quick explanation of what the weapon actually is, things return to normal. At least for a few minutes...

Jesse & Matty are 1!

I wanted to get something up here now that we've sent out Christmas letters saying we have this thing! So here are a few pictures of our sweet babies on their first birthday!


While I don't love having Jesse and Mattias always matching, I must admit that it is pretty stinking adorable when they are!


They were pretty confused when it came to cake time. They both reached for their cakes, grabbed hold of some icing, then looked confused and as if they wanted their hands washed. (Of course, Jon was the master cake decorator.)


The babies got the Little People garage from Grandpa & Grandma Zed. They love it! Many a morning has been spent happily dropping things down the lift and fishing them out, then throwing things down the circular exit ramp. Although they don't fully get it, they do love it!


Well, that's all for now. I need to go work. But I will be back to post and chat about other events that have happened, especially since moving to Aberdeen! (And I'll be sure to include pictures of Elijah and Brady, too!)

New Location

It is doubtful that we will be posting much here anymore. The last half-dozen times we've tried to post pictures here blogger has shut down on us and, frankly, it seems the best place for this these days might be facebook. So until the next one comes along, that's where we'll be. This website will remain as an archive of sorts.

Thanks for meeting us here. See you wherever else the airwaves take us all!