In Which My Baby Turns 5 Years Old....

In the past, we have combined Natalie's birthday with our Sinterklaas celebration, just sneaking an extra gift or two under the tree in Birthday wrapping paper. However, now that she is such a big girl, and all of 5 years old, and in school and everything, we felt it was time to give her a proper birthday celebration...
Here she is this morning, waiting to open her gifts at breakfast (yes, that is Christmas wrap, never mind...)

A unicorn hobby horse! And if you push the button on her ear (her new name is Sparkles) she plays Under the Rainbow and makes clippity cloppity noises. Over and over. And over. Repeat.

All she wanted for her birthday was a new princess dress up dress. If only they were always so easy to please..

Had to try on the new crown with purple jewels!

Going for a ride on Sparkles. They have been pretty much inseparable all day.

In her new finery....

She wanted a pink cake with pink icing. Pink cake was difficult (we settled for rainbow bits), pink icing we could do. Deanna helped decorate, and did a wonderful job! I did the base coat and the lettering, Deanna did the rest...

Candles!

Blowing out the candles...

5 years ago, on the day after Natalie was born (aka my actual due date), London had such a major snowstorm that the city was pretty much shut down. Had I gone into labour that day, we would have likely had to call an ambulance to get to the hospital. Or Daddy would have had to have a crash course :) She was very cooperative to come a day early, so we could spend the storm all snug and warm at home. She's been a fairly cooperative baby ever since. She is growing up too quickly, now in kindergarten two days/week. But she is still my baby, and loves her snuggle time with Mom. Better enjoy it while I can....

Don't you think....

...that this is the cutest Kindergarten class ever?

I may be a titch biased. But I think they're pretty adorable.

They are:

Back Row: Mrs. Janine Janssens (Aide), Emma Lenting (Michelle Blokker's daughter), Josiah Hiemstra, Abigail Bredenhof, Mrs. Erin Pieterman

Front Row: Ethan Pieterman (honorary Thursday student, when his mom teaches), Esther Vermeulen, Natalie Pieterman.

Missing are Mrs. Wendy Vanderheide and Mrs. Shelleen Blokker who are in charge of these monkeys on Tuesdays.

Backyard Visitors

Every winter, we hang a birdfeeder in the back yard. It is so fascinating to watch through the window as our feathered friends empty it in about 2 days! Of course, we have the usual variety of birds... house sparrows, chickadees, dark eyed juncoes, and a few pairs of cardinals. This year, however, word seems to have spread about our backyard buffet, and we've noticed some newcomers!

A few weeks ago, we spotted a red-breasted nuthatch. What a neat bird! It's been back quite regularly.

This morning there was one of these pecking around in the trees back there too.

They all regularly get chased by these pesky critters. I finally found a feeder that they can't get into!

More November Notables...

When Stu and Sherri came to visit last Saturday, Natalie and Callum discovered that it was lots of fun to jump on the bed we had set up downstairs.

See?

This Friday was a PD Day. To keep the kids occupied, we set up the tree. Then I gave them the box of ornaments. They did a pretty good job!

The end result last night:

Doesn't it look cozy?

Barbara:

I finally remembered that gift card you stuck in my pocket on my birthday! This is what I got with it:

Natalie got a new Sunday dress:

Back view (terrible flash, sorry...)

November Notables

Well, here we are at the end of November, and I have not posted anything yet! The month has once again flown by... and I can't remember what happened! Good thing I have pictures to refresh my memory... here goes:

On November 12th, the CCS Ladies Auxiliary (of which I am a member) hosted our annual Stampot Dinner Fundraiser. This is an always popular event, we cook and serve a good old Dutch meal of Stampot (kale, carrot or sauerkraut), farmers sausage, applesauce (homemade this year!), buns, pickles, gravy, and cake and ice cream for dessert! Admission is by donation, this year we had a record profit of about $1500!!! 4 of us ladies cooked dinner for 200, served it and cleaned up after. A very long and busy day, we were sure tired by the time we got home, but boy, did we have fun! And with that profit, it was all worth it!

Last year we sold off the leftovers for $5/bag. This year, someone suggested we auction them. For a lark, we roped one of the men into being auctioneer. Would you believe we made $200 on leftovers?!? One gentleman spent almost $75 on 2 Ziploc bags (large size) of boerrenkoel met wurst! There was some fierce competition, and lots of laughing... and the money will be put to good use in the school.

Zoe doing some coloring after helping us set up the tables (she put the crayons on)

Hard at work!

Check out the potato mashers - we took out all our frustrations on those poor potatoes!

We had to take time out to look at this gorgeous sunset!

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Would you believe this is November 14?? Last year we were buried in snow, this year the kids are playing outside in shirtsleeves. You'll notice Natalies' princess headband.

Swings...

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Also, Allison had her eyes checked (finally - she's been on a waiting list since August!) and surprise, surprise, she needs glasses! With our family history, I was almost expecting it, but she hadn't shown any signs of being nearsighted.

Here she is in her funky pink/turquoise frames.

Makes it a bit easier to tell them apart, hey? Now if only people could remember which twin has glasses. Sigh. (I did take Amanda in last week, but she is fine - for now)

I asked her about a week later if the glasses were helping her see better. She said that if she didn't wear them, things far away look foggy. But not when she puts her glasses on. So I guess she did need them after all...

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Natalie's friend Mckenna's Mom had a baby earlier this month, so we took Mckenna for a day. They had lots of fun together!

We made cookies....

And they WERE playing playdough. But apparently it was more fun to wear the buckets on their heads and pretend to be astronauts.....

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In other news, our new minister and his family (the Bredenhof's) arrived in London! The installation service was last Sunday (Nov 22) and the welcome evening was last night. This morning there was a pancake breakfast at the school. I did not have my camera at any of these events, sorry.... but they were enjoyable none the less!

We are so blessed to have had such a short period of vacancy here in London! We hope the Bredenhof's soon feel at home here! Their oldest daughter is in Natalie's kindergarten class. When we stopped in the day after they moved to bring them some dinner, they were INSTANT best friends! It was really cute.... so now Natalie is not the only kindergarten student in our congregation.

That's all for now...

October Octet of Occasions (Part Deux)

5. Twins birthday continued...

..with a party on Sunday between services. We did a craft, opened gifts and had spaghetti for lunch! Since Allison wanted pizza casserole for her birthday supper and Amanda wanted spaghetti, this was a compromise - we had pizza casserole with Mike and Kathryn on their birthday, and spaghetti for lunch at the party.

Blowing out candles on the birthday cupcakes

They all ended up playing Barbies on the girls bed.

Natalie painting her rock. I picked up this cute kit at Dollarama, came with paint, googly eyes, felt,rocks etc to make "critters". Except there wasn't really enough time for the paint to dry properly.

6. Thanksgiving Day

As always, we celebrated this holiday with the Pieterman side of the family. This year we had it at CCS. This went very well, there was lots of room, and everyone had a good time.

Coffee klatching before dinner.

The girls put on lots of "shows" for us on the stage.

They found some cool props too!

The staff room was turned into the "games room".

Nana brought a pinata since we also celebrated 8 birthdays!

7. My Birthday

The kids wouldn't let me pass this one by. And yes, it was the Big One this year. Oh well. I don't feel any different, and my family still loves me. They must, they sure spoiled me this year...

Art surprised me with the Family ring I've always wanted. He made me cry!

The kids also got me a nice dress watch.

At our Book Club meeting (on my birthday), I was given an assortment of "40" collections, including marbles (since I've lost mine) tea bags, cheerios, sugar cubes (so I stay sweet after 40) and nuts. Thanks ladies!

8. Pioneer Day in Grade 3/4!

After much anticipation, this day has finally arrived! I've been hearing about it since our trip to the Pioneer Village at the beginning of October! Last week the flu hit our school pretty hard, especially in the Grade 3/4 classroom, so this event was postponed to today. I think everyone was back at school again and feeling healthy, so I hope they have a great day! They had to bring a pioneer lunch (my girls have homemade bread with butter and jam, a hard-boiled egg, homemade cookies and an apple.) and they will play pioneer games and have pioneer lessons!

Last week while the twins were home with the flu, I made them each a pioneer skirt, apron and bonnet. They picked out the fabrics. Don't they look cute?

There were lots of straw hats and bonnets in their classroom today - fun!

Their teacher had warned them that she would be very strict today, and she wouldn't smile at all! I think she was having a very hard time with this....

And thus ends my October Octet of Occasions! I hope you enjoyed them as much as we did! Stay tuned for November Notables!

October Octet of Occasions (Part 1)

1. Visit to the Fanshawe Pioneer Village with Grade 3/4
...on the coldest, windiest, wettest day of the year. We did the guided tour, where we got to...
make a roof shingle

visit the Free Press and print a page to take home

try to churn some butter

and visit the schoolroom.

Then we had lunch in the (warm!) cafe, took a quick look at the animals, and headed back to school for hot chocolate! BRRRR!! The students would have stayed all afternoon, I think, but us chaperones were too cold.
2. Surprise 40th birthday party for a friend...


The cake

The surprise (she wouldn't come in!)


The cake and the birthday girl.
3. Allison and Amanda turn 8!
Goodbye booster seats - yay!
Who still thinks they look identical? In this picture, I really don't see it.

Waiting to open gifts...whoohoo!

New pj's from Grandma and Grandpa!
]
4. Uncle Mike and Aunt Kathryn and baby Kylie come for a visit....
Somehow I have lots of pictures of this little cutie, but not so many of Mike and Kathryn. Hmm...

...to be continued....