Well, pretty much everyone knows that we’ve been having an awfully fun time using the iPad here for both fun and for our homeshcooling.  I wanted to quickly share some art my girls had completed on the iPad!  The backgrounds are pre-made, but the drawings are theirs.

Drawn by Rose (5)

Drawn by Kaelynn (8)

Smack. Put up on my virtual refrigerator door successfully!  If you have an iPad and want to check out this app for yourself – iLuv Drawing Animals, you can find it here.

My blog has been fairly silent for the last few days owing to the long-waited arrival of our newest child!  Here she is with our oldest daughter shortly after her birth.

Anne was born on December 15th.  She weighed 11 lbs. 12 oz., 21 1/4″ long – our biggest baby so far, and actually, the biggest baby our midwife has ever weighed in her career!

Labour began at around 2:30, got going good at 4 am, we pushed 17 min and Anne arrived at 8:11 a.m.! Her big sisters (7, 4, 2) adore her.

No tears! Our easiest and fastest labour ever! Fourth home waterbirth. This is our second QF baby, and this has been the BEST birth and recovery we’ve ever had. We are so richly blessed!

When you have a house full of little girls, scenes like this aren’t unusual.  I’m so glad that we have all these little girls so they can help each other get all dressed up for exciting princess dance parties like this one.  Kaelynn is a huge help when it comes to helping her little sisters get dressed up for creative play sessions (check out the gloves!)

Another pregnancy picture for you all .  This one is from our ‘official’ 40 weeks 1 day, so this past Tuesday.  I was having a bit of a struggle getting our camera card into the card reader (we eventually gave up on finding a cord – we discovered it was proprietary to Kodak and NOT so easy to find at all!)

A grandpa-aged fellow came up to me at the Walmart the day I wore this, looked at my belly (which our oldest was cuddling while we waited in line) and said…”Wow!”

Indeed.

Sometimes I feel like the WORST mom when it comes to taking pictures of my children.  I’m even more negligent when it comes to sharing pictures here on my blog!  This one is from Kaelynn’s birthday last month!  She absolutely loves this ‘ballerina’ outfit she got from us.  And there’s little sister trying on the tights that come with it!

We bought Baron when he was 10 months old, four years later, I’ve never regretted the decision.  He is an incredibly sweet dog, and we’ve been so blessed by his kind disposition.  Though he’s a guardian breed (Pyrenees/Akbash cross), he’s incredibly loyal, cuddly, and devoted to our family.  He’s also huge – latest guess 150+ lbs.  He’s solid.  He’s already starting to look like winter, but his coat will grow to be MUCH thicker than this.  Every Spring when we brush him out we get several 5 gallon pails full of white, fluffy fur.

He sleeps during the day, and barks all night keeping the coyotes at bay.  We purchased him after reports of bear sightings in the neighbourhood; we’ve yet to see a bear on our land, but he does a good job at chasing off the smaller varmint.  The only caveat is that you need to have at LEAST 10 acres for a dog this size, 20 would actually be better.  Without enough roaming room Pyrenees can start visiting the neighbours, and you wouldn’t want that .

Baron, we love you!

Today was actually a BEAUTIFUL day, so we were all outside enjoying it.  It’s still only around 1 C…above freezing!

After we all went for a big walk around the field (little girls on sled), Kaelynn and her Dad had a snow fight, and I took baby into the house for a nap, they built this snowman together. It was warm enough for sticky snow – yay!  Don’t they look proud of themselves?  First snowman of the year!

And I have the pictures to prove it!

Our hay supply for the year that we cut off our pasture is under the tarp, there’s some beautiful wheat straw that we picked up from Larry’s parents (absolutely gorgeous stuff – incredibly golden), a snowman and our big dog .  This photo was taken at 3 p.m. sort of gloomy, no?  Already our days are becoming shorter and shorter.  The thought of winter makes me long for heaven – ah to be warm all year round!  Here in Alberta we have winter for at least half of the year.

I know, I know – I’m a bit early .  After my pictures of my older daughters – here and here –  in a hole Larry dug for their swing set (it’s a big ‘un!), my Dad asked for an encore with our youngest daughter.  Well, this isn’t the same hole – that one got filled in by the time the encore call came in – but living in the country, it seems we always have a hole handy!  So my husband Larry grabbed our baby and snapped a quick photo – here you go Dad!