you know that you have poison ivy when...

you know that you have poison ivy when...

1) when you are weeding in your garden, you repeat in your head "leaves of three; let them be" over and over again
2) your bathroom counter looks like a mini pharmacy with calamine lotions, q-tips, gauze, and benedryls.
3) you wake up a half hour earlier in the morning so that you have time to bandage yourself
4) when the children come to give you a hug and kiss good-night they look for a safe spot to touch you and then decide to squeeze your pinky
5) a truck driver asks you to sign the delivery papers and then insists that you keep his pen
6) the history of your computer shows the last 50 googles as being...
    ~help, I am going insane, I have poison ivy
    ~how does poison ivy spread
    ~how long does poison ivy last
7) when you wake up from your slumber in the middle of the night you panic and try to fall back to sleep. Too late you realize that it feels like you are being attacked by thousands of mosquitos. After laying there you decide to put a bit of calamine lotion on the worst spot. After trying to go back to sleep you get up again and put it on the next worse spot. This goes on and on until you realize that you should of just taken a bath in that stuff.
Sleep at this point is the furthest from your mind. You are concentrating hard at not scratching your body apart.
8) In the middle of the night you come up with silly rhymes such as:
                           Poison ivy is a dirty rotten weed
                           It spreads with just one little seed
                           I won't tell a lie
                           I wish that it would all die
                           Poison ivy is a dirty rotten weed

Word and Deed Bike-a-thon!

Dressed in bright orange and preparing themselves for the next few hours of bike riding, you could feel the excitement of the 300+ bikers during the 6th annual Word and Deed bike-a-Thon. Strangers could not help but ask what this was for. When they found out that all of these bikers, from the ages of 7-81 worked hard and raised close to $54,000 for an AIDS clinic in South Africa, the strangers gave an impressive whistle.
Even though the clouds threatened to give way to buckets of rain, the rain held off and made the bike-a-thon a whole lot easier than last year. (think torrential down pour, thunder, lightening and picking up 400 people, plus bikes along the route)
Biking along the beautiful Niagara Parkway is a great way to spend time as a family and to meet others who have the same passion as you.

 

 

 

Joining us all of the way from B.C.!

 

Nate and his cousin Isaac biked the whole 52km. It took them a long time to finish the bike-a-thon but they did it and now they know that they could do it again!

My three little helpers. I am smart and volunteer at the water station/registration table every year.
You get to be in on the action without feeling the soreness of not being in shape!
If you think that 52km is too hard than you can join us at the 22km mark and still take part of the bike-a-thon.

 

Liam met me at the water station with a huge grin! He biked 30 km!

At the end of the bike-a-thon we met at a park and were treated to some great food!
Every year I am just amazed at the crowd's eagerness and excitement. The atmosphere is wonderful and the stories keep on rolling in along with the bikers. Even if you live further away, it is worth the drive, so mark it down for next year! It is the first Saturday of June!

2 stories

    Tyler, just two, is a small little fellow so our family doc. puts the pressure on me to have him come into his office to get weighed. Our doctor knows that I am a slacker and put visits, vaccines, and everything else on the back burner. The whole problem is that with small boys, I dread being stuck in a little office waiting for the doctor to come. Boys are a lot of fun and full of adventure but when you are cramped in a wee little room with one or two young boys it becomes something close to a nightmare. I have learned to pack the diaper bag full of books, cars, gadgets, and goldfish crackers.
So awhile ago I was stuck in the drs. office with Tyler. We waited for a very looong time for the Dr. to arrive and when he finally opened the door to his office, I breathed a sigh of relief- but his eyes bulged out. There were goldfish thrown all over the floor, books were scattered on his desk, and Tyler was spinning furiously on his swivel office chair. I tried to convince myself that there is such a thing as a state of happy chaos, but that wasn't applying here. After Tyler's check up I mustered all of my courage and told the doctor that I was pregnant. He gave me a big smirk and congratulated me. It was hard to tell what he was thinking, but when he found out that this was not a surprise for us, he could not hide his reaction. Not only did his eyes bulge out for the second time, but his mouth dropped open. He quickly recovered and told me that he would send me for a dating ultrasound. I had prepared a speech about how we see children as a beautiful blessing, but it didn't seem like an appropriate time!
A few weeks later it was time for the dating ultra sound to see how far along I was. We like to keep the pregnancies a secret for as long as possible. My sister Heather was due for her little one during the same week so I was very afraid of running into her in our small town hospital. When it was time for my appointment I found out that Heather was not in labour so I wouldn't have to worry about bumping into her.  As I laid on the stretcher in the ultrasound room and the tech started to do her observations, I told her that if there were twins in there, she had better hold my hand! I think that you can understand my fear!
She assured me that I was pregnant with one and that everything looked great. I walked out of the hospital full of joy (and relief). I was standing outside of the hospital trying to cross the road to get to my car when I saw a very familiar car approaching...my mom. Unfortunately she spotted me too and quickly pulled over. As I stood there trying to cross the road, my mind raced. What was I going to tell her? Why was I at the hospital? For cry'n-out-loud, so much for the secret. Now what do I do? As I crossed over to her car, I felt a sheepish smile tug on my lips. She had her head out of the window. "I thought that it was you. What are you doing at the hospital?" Now you have to understand my mom. She never suspects anything. Her heart is too kind for that. If I was quick enough I could of pulled a fast one on her but instead I told her that I was at the hospital for an ultrasound. A dating ultrasound. My mom burst out laughing. I was very disappointed that I had been "caught"  but she said that nothing like this happens by accident and that God had orchestrated this for some reason. She promised not to tell anyone including my dad; this was news that I wanted the boys to have the joy of sharing. A few Sundays later my parents came over for Tylers birthday but it was also the day that we were going to share our news. I was pretty sure that my dad had figured everything out so when he shook my hand and said "congratulations." I blurted out, "who told you ? How did you figure it out?" My dad looked confused and asked me what I was talking about. He was talking about Tyler's birthday. I had given the secret away!

Thank you for all of your well-wishes and prayers. For those who know me, pregnancies have the tendency to turn into a trial with sickness, kidney stones, and high blood pressure.
Before I was pregnant with Tyler I was so scared of the pregnancy that I  spent 5 months getting healthy. I loaded up on vitamins, especially vit. B, and did a liver cleanse. Prior to this pregnancy the healthy part slacked a little, but I managed to do two liver cleanses, one in October and one in March. I also made 15 freezer meals during the winter. I have had pregnancies where I have spent most of the nine months on the couch. These past two times have been easier. Right now it is still challenging with feeling sick, but it is all manageable. You need to let things slide and it is so much easier now that the boys are older and are more helpful.
In the mornings, the boys take Tyler out of his crib, get him breakfast, get themselves ready for school and pack their lunches while I sit on the couch with a bowl. After one rough morning, I was rinsing out my bowl and I overheard Nate say to Liam, "At least we know what's wrong with her" to which Liam replied, "Yeah, and at least she isn't contagious!"

a family picture

We are thrilled to tell you that we are prayerfully expecting a baby
 in the beginning of January!

Thanks be to God!




This is how we told the boys our good news this afternoon:
We gave the boys these signs and had our pictures taken. The whole time they were trying to guess
what it meant. Yes Tyler turned 2 today so he is growing, and yes they are getting bigger. But after running out of suggestions we told them the good news and Nate had such a great reaction. Liam was concentrating so hard on holding his sign right that he missed the whole thing. After the pictures were over he asked what it the signs meant. When we told him that we were going to have a baby he was besides himself with excitement. He told us over and over again how he loved babies (he does:) and went to find the baby name book to name this baby. What a joy it is to tell your children when they are older and understand it.

 

our story of trying to grow grapes

Way back in 2005 we bought an old farm house with great visions of restoring it and living off of the land.
I have always loved working outside and I actually find weeding kind of therapeutic. So when we bought 10 acres of neglected grapes - I thought that this would be a great way for me to stay at home and make some money on the side. I secretly felt a little like the Proverbs 31 woman.
First Adam had to learn how to drive this old, beater of a tractor that we inherited when we bought the farm. We didn't think twice that he had to learn how to drive a tractor, get a sprayers license, or that we both didn't know a thing about growing grapes.
In June of 2005, I had a two month old baby, a 19 month old terror, and Adam was working night and day on renavating our house. The grapes needed to be hoed. No problem. I spent hours trying to keep the weeds down and  had the challenge to keep Nate out of the construction zone. This is when we realized that we had the worst soil ever. Pure clay. I broke hoes, cried, moaned, and nursed my blisters. In the end we gave up. Next year would be better we thought . We let the birds have a feast at harvest time and determined that we would try our hardest with these grapes in the following year.
Grapes don't just grow. The season starts in the winter. Adam spent Saturdays pruning or should I say learning how to prune. On Easter weekend it is time to tie the branches to the wires. In the heat of the summer you need to sucker. This is taking the little shoots off of the bottom of the vine so that all of the nourishment goes to the main branches. And, yes, I felt like a sucker. I could hear the rest of my family splashing and relaxing in my parent's pool down the road, but I needed to sucker these ridiculous grapes. Finally that awful job was done. It wasn't nearly as therapeutic as I thought it would be. Adam worked long hours in the office or out of town, and devoted his Saturdays to spraying the grapes.

Finally it was time for harvest. Too late we discovered that the birds already figured this out.
We were behind and it was time to start picking. The previous owners decided that there was more money to be made if you grew table grapes so this is what they had planted. This meant picking all of the grapes by hand, packing them attractively in baskets and trying to sell them. Hours and hours of intense labour. My good, hard-working family came to the rescue. They couldn't stand it when they drove by and they saw the barn lights on and two very tired looking people (Adam and me) dragging the baskets of grapes around. By now the grapes were known as the grapes of wrath.

 

 

 

 

 

At the end of the season we knew that grape growing was not for us. We carefully packed boxes full of grapes and we brought them to our neighbour who would sell them at the market.  He took one look at our boxes and in his Polish accent said, "Fuller. I want fuller." We humbly went back home and packed the boxes fuller. Three times he sent us back home. On the third time Adam said, "Thats it. This is over." And that is when we officially stopped being farmers.  We didn't exactly loose money trying to grow grapes but we figured that we only made $0.08 per hour.

Andrew and grandpa

For a few years our neighbours took care of the grapes and after they were done hand picking we could come by and fill our baskets.
This year the rest of the grapes came out so that we could dig a pond. It was a bitter-sweet moment for me. There is something wonderful about walking out to the field and picking fresh grapes.
The grapes also reminded me that it is okay to try hard at something and realize that this is not for you. You never know until you try, and you can learn along the way. It is always nice when family comes along side and encourages you. I am sure that my parents thought that we were a little on the nuts side, but they came and helped. That was a good example for us for when our boys are older and say "I've been thinking....."

from the home front

Here are some odds and ends from the past few months.



When we were in Florida, (way back in March)  we went to this colourful little island. We watched the locals catch crabs for their supper
and the sun set.

Andrew learning how to dive. The pool was a big hit for everyone.

This little guy was a handful and a half. He slept in the walk-in-closet of our
room and quickly figured out how to climb out of the playpen. Every night
the doors parted open (think parting of the red sea) and he would look at us with a wicked little smile.
 He may be small and short, but he is very agile.

Olivia does very well with all of her boy cousins:)
The house that we rented had a beautiful canal behind it. The boys spent their time
fishing and we even went alligator hunting in the canoe. There were three baby alligators across the canal.
We found a church near the home that was very welcoming and the preaching was Christ-centred.
We looked forward to being there with the rest of the congregation and felt blest. It is so nice to go on a holiday and be in a church that is truly edifying.


Every day trip that we did, I dressed the boys in orange. We could see people
counting them and commenting on their blond hair. We heard a lot of "are these all of your boys?"
"Are you going to try for a girl?" and we even over heard people muttering, "Have mercy. Look at all of those boys."
Dressing them up in bright orange worked out perfectly. We could spot them easily and do quick head counts.

 

Liam turned 7 in the beginning of April. He is a fun loving boy who has a great sense of humor:)


And then... we had a pond dug.

Day #1

Getting stuck in the mud. Dad to the rescue!

 

The boys loved watching the diggers. Andrew woke up one morning and said, "Mom when I woked up I looked out the window and there was an execvator and a bonedozener!" What a wonderful way for a little boy to wake up. It was hard to get work done that week because it was a lot of fun watching the progress and the digging.

 

 

Opa taking down the swing set.

 

The pond has filled up quickly and we are wondering who is going to be the first one to jump in!

Some geese have already made their home in the pond. We also have some mallards and
a great blue heron occasionally stops by.

Hopefully the fence will go up this week because this little guy needs to stay indoors until it is.

a mouse in the house

A few nights ago, all was quiet. Adam was at a meeting, the boys were tucked in bed and it was finally time for me to sit down and read. With my book in my hand, a bowl of ice cream on the table, and a cozy blanket wrapped around me, I looked around and felt a smile spread over my face.
All of a sudden...SNAP. I tell you, I jumped. The book went flying and my heart did a few somersaults of it's own. A rotten mouse. They have been invading my kitchen all winter long. I do not need to write about  the mess that they make and what they manage to chew apart. They are my enemies. I picture myself opening the cupboard and the mouse jumping out at me with mighty mouse strength and it  plastering itself to my face.This has been the worse year yet for mice in our house. I could not understand their invasion because we had a cat, but it all began to make sense when I was at our neighbours house- my parents.
Our cat was also visiting there when my mom spotted our cat looking at her through the patio doors and said " That cat needs some food." "Oh, no it doesn't. It needs to catch mice." I replied. My mom whipped open the fridge and out came a chunk of cheese. "Mom - that cat does not need $5.00 worth of cheese." I insisted. But the cheese wasn't enough for the cat. My mom poured a bowl full of cream and then microwaved it to make it nice and warm for our cat. We have not seen our cat since.
Anyways, back to last night. After I heard the mouse trap snap I waited a second and then horror of horrors, I could hear the mouse whimper in the cupboard. Instantly it started to thrash around dragging the big mouse trap with it. The mouse was going bazerko. I did what any normal adult woman would do. I called my dad in a panic.
The conversation went like this: " Dad you need to come over right now. I got this live mouse thrashing around in my kitchen and it is just terrible. I cannot handle this at all dad. Adam's not home and I really need you to come over right now. I will wait outside for you. " A few moments later my super dad is over and the mouse is taken out to the back field. It had one paw stuck in the trap.
After all of the excitement I settle back down on the couch with my book on my lap and I stared at my melted ice cream.
Sin lures us just like the mouse is lured to the trap. We convince ourselves that holding that little grudge, or speaking an unkind word, unthankfulness, or that "at least I don't do this" thought is just a quick small area of our lives. We dismiss these sins because we are working really hard in other areas of our lives. (Let's be honest; the things that we think we are working hard on tend to come more easily to us. Are we really working hard at all of the "small" things?) And just as a mouse thinks that it will quickly grab some of the peanut butter, we allow ourselves to be lured into these sins because it is just a quick passing thought. We deceive ourselves when we believe that God doesn't care about the "small stuff." And then snap - God reveals His holiness to us and that quick thought that we had stares at us with big blackness. What a Holy God.
But unlike my dad who dropped off the wounded mouse in the back field left to fend to itself, God takes our hurts and our guilt and tenderly points us to His Son. What a Gracious God.