Christmas with Friends

I am starting to realize just how fast Mesele and Abinet are at catching on to things. When Brent and I first tried to explain what Christmas was, they didn't really understand. BUT, after opening a couple gifts...well, let's just say that they understand that part just fine!!

We had a little Christmas party with some friends and Mesle and Abinet were THRILLED to open up a couple CARS characters. They're noisy (thanks jill!) and the boys love them!

We had a wonderful time and I think our boys and their "girl friends" were happy with the presents they opened!

Opening presents was fun, but let's all remember that Christmas isn't about presents. It's the birthday of Jesus and He is the greatest gift of all!

Merry Christmas everyone!!

Snow Soccer!

Even after a dump of snow, Mesele and Abinet have trouble understanding that they can't ride thier bikes anymore. They still ask if I can turn on the sprinkler for them so they can run through it or if they can't do that, can they please just use the water guns?

Even though I say "no" to those things, there is nothing wrong with playing a good game of soccer in the snow! The boys loved it (for the most part) and they got a pretty good work out too!

And after using so much energy, Mesele got himself a drink of water!

The snow definately doesn't bother him!!

Winter Fun!

Yesterday we all had loads of fun playing in the snow together. We made snow angels, played soccer, and took MANY pictures. Here are just a few of those pictures and probably my favorite ones of them all! ENJOY!


Yep....you gotta love winter time!

Countdown to Christmas

It's hard to believe that we are FINALLY celebrating Christmas with our own little family! These two little boys are so curious about Christmas, what it means, and why Mommy is putting up so many "pretties" in the house!

On December 1st, we brought out the chocolate advent calendars and tried to explain what Christmas is all about and when it is. I don't know how much they understood, but they listened intently and waited until we got to the part about the chocolate!!

Now I get to hear two pleading voices everyday asking for their daily Christmas chocolate. They know that they have to eat quite a few of them before we will get to go and visit their bestest buds, Gedion and Taye, and also before we will go to Grandma and Grandpa Adrian's house.

I can't wait to see how excited they are on Christmas morning!

**Jesus is the reason for the Season**

Santa's Helpers!

I was pulling out some Christmas decorations today and the boys were "helping" me. For some reason, when they help me the only thing I really end up doing is answering a LOT of "why" questions! When they saw the Santa Hats, they had to ask what they were, why they were red, why it had some white on it, and why one had some green leaves on it.My simple answer......"It's cute, so put it on and let Mommy take some pictures!"

They love getting their picture taken, so I had a break from the non-stop questions as long as I took pictures non-stop!

Elephants in the House!

Last Saturday, we all sat down for a nice breakfast together. After I ate my breakfast, I decided I still wanted to have a Christmas orange. Now...when I peel a Christmas orange, I have to make an elephant out of it.

The boys just loved it! (after we showed them how it kinda resembled an elephant!) Suddenly the boys were hungry for an orange too, and they politely requested that their orange would be peeled like an elephant too.
And you know Daddy.....he just had to be in on the action! (am I the only normal one in this family?!?)

I'm sure that most of you are wondering why I have my camera with me at breakfast. Well, you just never know when you are going to capture that funny/perfect/memorable moment!

Have some fun with your family today! (go ahead....make an elephant. You know you want to!)

Winter's Here!

You know winter has arrived when you can make your first snowman. Yesterday there was enough snow on the ground, and the temperature was just right for Mesele and Abinet to build a snowman!They rolled the snow and ended up with a cute little white man!

I know.....PRECIOUS!

Fancy Footwork!

One of my favorite reality shows is "Dancing with the Stars." I'm sure that some of you are mocking me now that you know that, but that's okay!

Tonight when I was watching, the boys wanted to see some of the dancing too. As soon as the music started, these boys just couldn't make their feet behave! They HAD to dance!

They tried watching the dancers to copy what they were doing but that proved to be just a little bit too difficult for them.

Instead, they opted to do "free style" dance. It was so cute to watch! Of course their outfits had to be just as skimpy as what they wear on TV!! I'd give them a 10 for this performance! How about you?!?

Mommy's Big Dreams.....

Everyone who knows me, knows that I am a just a little bit of a Rider's Fan! Now that I have two little boys, I have a pretty good idea of what they are going to be when they grow up!!

The other day we were all in the city doing a little shopping and I found this shirt for Abinet. Brent thought it was ugly, but I didn't care cuz the message on the shirt was PERFECT! It says, "When I grow up I'm gonna be a ROUGHRIDER"

Both boys wanted to proudly show off their Rider Pride in this picture! Don't they look good in green?!? I mean......"Green is the colour, Football is the game......"

My Bed-Making Machine!

Mesele LOVES to help out with just about anything! When we are finished a meal, he likes to put the dishes into the dishwasher (even though I usually rearrange them afterwards!), and after carefully watching me make the beds, he decided that he could do that too!

Today I watched him make the beds and it was so funny!! He hangs off the side of the top bunk and pulls the blankets up. He doesn't want to sit up on the bed cuz that would make wrinkles where he has already smoothed things out!

When he is ready to make the bottom bed, he crawls right under the bed and pulls the blankets down to make sure that it will be a nice, smooth finished product!

And TA-DA! The finished product is quite amazing! This boy knows how to make a perfect bed! Now I just have to teach him how to make my bed and things will be just perfect!!

MOMMY.....I'm flying!

Yesterday Daddy was playing/wrestling with Mesele and Abinet. After a little while, their game turned into "airplane rides!"Abinet would get up on Dadddy's legs and yell, "Mommy, I'm flying to Ethiopia!" His plane didn't look all that stable, so I don't think I would want to ride on his plane!

Of course Mesele had to try doing the same thing. He hopped up on Daddy's legs and became another airplane. They sure love playing with their Daddy and I'm glad that he has the energy to keep up with them!

Case of the Missing Tooth!

Well, Mesele has lost his first tooth already! He is quite proud of the empty spot in his mouth and will proudly show it off to whoever is willing to stop and look. About a week ago, he was eating a crab apple and that was enough to loosen the tooth just a little bit. At first it seemed that the tooth would stay there for a long time yet, but this little man wiggled and wiggled it until it FINALLY came out!Once it was loose enough, he pulled it out himself. Now I have a little tooth sitting in my room and I guess it's time to bring the Tooth Fairy into the picture. (Any ideas as to how much money you give for a first tooth?) He's just growing up TOO quickley!

Our First Family Thanksgiving!

This year I got to make a Thanksgiving meal for MY family! No, I didn't cook a turkey, it was just a little chicken, but it was good enough for the four of us.We all ate WAY too much food. Mesele is such a chicken lover that I think he had about 3 0r 4 helping just of chicken! He has an appetite just like his Daddy!
This morning, we showed the boys how to break the wishbone. They didn't make a wish because we weren't quite sure how to explain that to them and we had a hard enough time getting them to understand how to break this bone. After MANY attempts..........
Mesele won!
It was a great Thanksgiving and I look forward to the next one!

Movie Night!

The other night, Daddy was gone for the evening so I decided to do a movie night with the boys. I was a little bit nervous because they have never sat through an entire movie before. One evening my friend Jill had been watching the boys, and she put in the the CARS movie. She told me that the boys seem to really like the little bit that they saw. I borrowed that movie from her and Mesele was just about jumping out of his skin when he found out that's what we were going to be watching!While the boys started the movie, I made supper and brought it to them. They ate at a little picnic table and, to their delight, they got to have pop!! I could get them to pose for the odd picture, but they really didn't like to be disturbed while watching! They peppered me with questions when they didn't understand what was happening in the movie, but still didn't like to tear their eyes away from the screen!
After supper was done, we all had a little bit of popcorn. It was so cute to watch them in their first movie experience. After the movie was done, Mesele looked at me and asked, "Can we watch it again, right now?" I guess they really liked the movie!

Another Injury

Hello everybody! I'm back with some more pictures to share with you all. These probably aren't the best pictures to be sharing, as they involve more injuries. BUT....life with toddlers involves almost daily injuries now! The other day, Abinet and I took Mesele to pre-school. After we dropped him off, Abinet wanted to go for a long bike ride around town. He LOVES riding bike, especially now that he is on a "big" bike and not a tricycle. Well, we started off and headed towards the one "hill" in Osler. When Abinet got to the hill, he tried one of Mesele's tricks which included lifting your feet off the peddles and trying to balance.Ummm......Abinet doens't balance so good. His bike started to wobble and he couldn't stop it. Yes, he was wearing a helmet, but the helmet didn't protect his little chin! I was so worried that he bit his tongue or worse, but thanfully, he just scaped up his chin. It was nothing that a Curious George Band-Aid couldn't fix!
As soon as George was stuck on him, he was as good as new. I actually had to ask him to make a sad face because he couldn't stop smiling! Yep.....he's cute!!

Apologies.....

Hello Eveyone! I haven't forgotten about blogging for you, I'm just lacking some decent pictures to show you all. It seems like we have been running around everyday doing something, and yet I don't have any pictures to show for it! I will try to do better and hopefully I will get some pictures on here in the next couple of days!

Please keep checking in cuz you never know when I will be back with more pictures of ME!! Okay, okay....I will put on pictures of the boys. Don't start freaking out, I know you don't check this blog to see me.

So Long, Goodnight and I'll catch ya'll later!!

Learnin' The Game

The other day there was a football game on TV. It wasn't an important game cuz it was just Winnepeg and Edmonton playing. Mesele wanted to learn a little bit about this game, so he sat close to Daddy and daddy tried to teach him some basic concepts of the game.After a few minutes of "teaching" the TV screen had MANY fingerprints all over it, but Mesele was slowly catching onto the game. He would get so excited when he could find the ball all by himself!
We can only hope that one day he will be as big a football fan as Mommy and Daddy are!
WE GOT RIDER PRIDE!

Riding Our "New" Bikes

I'm sure that everyone knows just how much Mesele and Abinet LOVE to ride their bikes. Well, for Mesele's birthday, we got him a knew bike. He was so excited!! The problem is that the tire doesn't hold any air. Brent has tried to fix it, but it's still broken. We already put the training wheels on Mesele's old bike, and there is NO WAY Abinet is going to let Mesele have that bike back. Oh dear......Daddy felt bad for Mesele yesterday and decided to give him a ride on his bike. Mesele just hung on for dear life and laughed like crazy! Thanks to Daddy, Mesele now thinks that he can ride that big bike all by himself!
Abinet just minds his own business and cruises around on his "new" bike. I think he's feeling quite grown up, now that he no longer has to ride a tricycle.

He even decided to show off a little bit for the picture and stand on the peddles! He really is growing up. What happened to my little baby?!?

Camera Shy? NO WAY!

For a while I started to think that I was taking too many pictures of the boys. So, I put my camera away and thought I would only pull it out for something really special. Well, one afternoon, the boys were out riding their bikes and Mesele came running in saying we needed to come to the garage and take a photo. There was nothing exciting, just 2 little boys sitting on chairs thinking they were too cute to resist. (It was too cute!)Another afternoon, Abinet was riding his "donkey", Mesele, and they wanted me to get my camera. They were disappointed when I didn't bring the video camera. I guess they wanted to watch themselves on TV afterwards. I took a few photos and then, to their delight, I got the video camera. What a bunch of actors! (Must get it from their daddy!!)

Mesele's 4th Birthday Party!

We had a wonderful day for Mesele's birthday party. We stayed outside and all the kids had fun taking swings at a Pinata, and jumping in our "Jump n' Slide." I think there were about 17 kids here in all, and when the adults came, there were about 40-45 people. I know.....what was I thinking?!?!? I hope everyone had a good time. I know Mesele REALLY enjoyed it and he and Abinet are having a blast playing with all there new toys. Thanks for coming everyone, you helped to make this a very special day!

I Finished the Cake!

After a long, tiring day I put the boys to bed and looked in my kitchen. Now the work was really going to begin. I had to decorate a cake for Mesele's birthday and I was a little bit nervous about doing it. I started decorating at 8:30 in the evening, and at 11:00 I was finally done!! I am fairly impressed with how the cake turned out. In fact....the cake looks MUCH better than I do! After taking a few pictures of the cake, I stuck it in the freezer, left my kitchen in a disasterous state, and went to bed! I needed lots of sleep in order to be ready for the party the next morning.

I will post some pictures of the party tomorrow. Stay tuned for more.......

Mesele's First Day of Preschool

Yesterday morning was Mesele's first day of Preschool. He was so excited! When he woke up, he thought he should be going to school right away. He didn't like it when I told him that he was going to have to wait a couple hours before we could leave!! He loaded up his back pack with shoes, snack and his stuffed animal. Then.....it was time to go.

We rode our bikes over to the school and Mesele met his teacher, Mrs. Wassenaar. He had no problem walking in and seeing the other kids. I think I was closer to tears then he was! The two hours that Mesele was gone were a little difficult for Abinet. He's never really been apart from his brother, so this was a new test! Mesele is anxious for another day at school and I'm sure that he will be lovin' school all year!

Learning to Write My Name

Daddy thought that it would be a good idea, if Mesele tried learning how to write his own name. He only starts pre-school tomorrow, but Daddy was very determined that this would be a very good thing. At first Mesele was a little bit frustrated that he couldn't make his letters just like Daddy, but with a little coaxing, he continued to try!

The end result isn't that bad! It's too bad there are so many "e's" is his name because that was the harderst letter for him to do. I think he was hoping that they would be a few more "l's" cuz that was one that he liked to write! What can I say....My boy can write his name and he's only 3!! (for two more days...)