Danika's Our Excuse for a Boat Ride

Back in September, when the leaves were first starting to turn, we went to visit baby Danika in the NICU.  Since this photo was taken she has left NICU and come home!  She has some future medical treatments that none of us look forward to, but for now she is doing well at home.  And we are so happy to have her nearby.

What we got to do AFTER visiting Danika is just one of the perks of being homeschoolers. We got to go on a river tour of Winnipeg with Grandma Helene and discuss how most large cities are built on or near some sort of water source (after reading the book, Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans).

Both  boys even took turns captaining the ship!  Seamus was hesitant at first, and only wanted a short turn.  Luke would have steered the boat in circles for hours!  His erratic driving made a lot of people laugh (turning sharply towards the bank shouting, "Look at those people on the racing boat!").
  
 

Manitoba Legislature Building

Provencher Bridge

St. Boniface Cathedral

Falcon Lake with the Toews Family

Our morning coffee break view.

Last weekend we went camping with some very good friends of ours.  They have to be very good friends to go camping with us crazy people, don't they?  Because of course we couldn't just go camping.  We had to drive to the city first and rent a kayak!  And figure out how to tie a kayak to the top of the truck!  And figure out how to get the kayak to the water!  And figure out how to lose our glasses when the kayak tips over (okay that wasn't on the camping trip, that was just last night....but you see how troublesome we Thiessens are!?).  The Toews family puts up with us, and even seems to like us despite it all.  We like them too.  They're silly.  Like this:

Karen and Danika :)

The boys LOVED the boat.  They fought over who got to go out with Dad.

Who's captain of this boat anyway?!

Breakfast.  I just happened to capture that peaceful moment before all hell broke loose.

Another Thiessen adventure.  We packed up in a thunderstorm, which was good.  It was the boy's first shower in three days!

The whole get-up and proof that I was there.

I have never had anyone go to such trouble...

to give me flowers.

This bouquet traveled over 100 kilometers to sit on my kitchen counter.

Thank-you Kathy, you made my day!!
Every time I look at them, smell them, I am reminded of you - and how wonderful it is to be loved!

March comes in like a lion

Covenant

We have been attending Covenant Mennonite Church in Winkler for seven months now.  Our first impression of Covenant was a very good one, and so far nothing has happened to mar our impression, only to strengthen it.  Last July we visited Covenant to hear a particular person speak and ended up discovering the pastor, Kelvin Dyck, was someone Derek had been told to seek out to discuss his theological interests.  That first Sunday there was no childcare provided by the church, but when the pastor's wife saw us walk in with our kids she came down the aisle and asked if she could take our kids downstairs to play.  I got to sit through an entire sermon!

After the service Derek and Kelvin visited for an hour and we were invited to a potluck scheduled the next weekend.  Without talking about it much (which is unusual for us), we just ... went to the potluck with a group of people we knew hardly at all ... if at all!  Our children were played with, talked to, Seamus took seven steps in a row from the hands of Don Bergen to me, the food was delightfully healthy homemade, whole food type stuff, mostly from people's gardens, Derek sat by the BBQ with Kelvin and Dave, and I was told by several people that they were "So pleased!" to have us there and if we would continue coming to church we would be snatched up and put to work.  We left with warm fuzzies and once again, with little discussion, we decided to keep going to Covenant.  It just felt good and right.

We continued attending, and our children continued being loved on, and every summer Sunday we would eat lunch in the park or at the drive-in after church with whoever could make it.  People talked to us like we'd known them forever, people called us up when they were heading to the lake, "Want to come along?".  People carried our sleeping baby around the foyer while visiting, people asked us over to their homes for meals.  People asked for book recommendations and actually read the books, and loaned us books in return.  People found out I was a photographer and asked me to take their photos!  Good things are happening.  Different, and good.

A few weeks ago we were having dinner at the Drudge family's house.  I was talking to Rochelle and saying how Covenant just felt like a natural fit for us, and wondering what our lives would have been like if we had found it four years ago, when we first moved to Winkler...less frustrating for sure!  She responded with a phrase that has stuck in my mind and I feel speaks exactly how Derek and I feel at Covenant.  She said, "We came to Covenant and we just felt like we had finally found our people.  These are our people."

So we keep going and in very natural ways, by eating together and spending time together, each week we get to know these people a little better.  These people who are our people, and who feel like they've always been our people - we just didn't know where they were.  We keep eating and singing and praying with them, and they let our children run up and down the aisle and shout out questions during the sermon or children's story, and what's more: they answer the questions with straight faces.

Last week Derek read the scripture out of Luke for epiphany Sunday and Seamus wandered around up front before finally standing beside Derek and leaning his head against his leg.  After a few moments Derek leaned down, picked him up and continued reading.  Nobody blinked.  Nobody grimaced.  Afterwards someone said to me, "Seamus made that passage come alive!"  Thank goodness for community that includes and embraces our children, and values and honors our aged and debilitated.  This church has made these things real for me by loving my family, and sweetly and graciously expecting me to love them back.

All I Want for Christmas

Before Christmas, Luke and Derek went down the hill on the toboggan Derek used when  he was a kid.

And they made father/son snow angels.

After Christmas Luke and Papa raced each other down the hill: Papa on the old toboggan, Luke on his Christmas present.

"All I want for Christmas is a sled with a steering wheel and brakes!" says Luke.  And, thanks to Gramma and Papa, he got it!

Merry Christmas!

Although it doesn't make me proud, I'm going to tell the true story of this Christmas morning, so that we will remember what having kids is really like (it's not all as cute as the photos I post!), and so that those of you who read this will know that my life isn't all lollipops and twinkle lights.  This Christmas morning started out with the lighting of the Christmas candle, the reading of the Christmas story, a poem and a prayer.  It was lovely, and I really imagined that Christmas morning would be topped off with a jolly opening of presents, a family meal around the table, and a movie from somebody's stocking.  Well, as soon as the stockings were opened there arose shouts of, "But I wanted that!" and "I don't like this candy, I want a different candy!"  And I am sad to say, those shouts were from my very own son.  As you can imagine, gift opening was put on hold, a very angry four-year-old was sent to his room, and everyone heaved a big sigh.  This idea of a "perfect" Christmas morning is, apparently, not attainable until our children learn a very important lesson about gratefulness, thankfulness, graciousness, and humility.

So we very literally pushed the pause button on gifts, I attended to the pancakes, and Derek went downstairs and had a chat with Luke.  Seamus was just wandering around in his new hat, eating a caramel, totally oblivious to the challenges that accompany the rather arduous task of maturing gracefully.  Eventually Luke decided he was ready to be gracious, maybe if he didn't like the caramels he could still say thank-you and then give them to someone who appreciated them (don't worry, he discovered he liked them; we are in a phase where anything "new" or "different" is automatically labeled "bad"), he even began to understand that the What of the gift is not as important as the Why...I hope.

And so Luke decided he wanted to hand out the presents to his family, Seamus decided that collecting the paper and putting it in a box was more fun than opening presents, and eventually (much later than planned, and after much hungry crying from Seamus) we ate pancakes.  Seamus ate five.

I cannot know that my son learned exactly what I hoped to teach him.  But all we can do is try to explain, and live like we believe it.  Giving is wonderful, receiving is delightful, and giving and receiving graciously is truly a skill worth the effort of learning (and teaching). 

One of the lessons I have been struggling with lately is that Luke is his own person, very separate from me.  For the longest time he was part of me, then for a while he was an adorable accessory, now he is most certainly his own person - developing thoughts and ideas with no input from me.  I would have thought this would be obvious, but after so many years of, "Say buh-bye! Say Gramma! Go potty?" it's hard to wrap my mind around the fact that this little person will decide if he needs to go potty on his own.  He will call out what he's thinking during the church service when the moderator asks what she thought was a rhetorical question.  He will wear nothing but gitch around the house all day and ask for a knife to cut his pancakes at breakfast.  He will be himself, and I can only hope now that we will love each other enough that he will continue to want to be like me...and I can set a good example.

Merry Christmas!  May your Christmas enlighten your family relationships, as ours is doing, and promises to continue to do.

Freezing Rain

 I know this was several weeks ago, and I am far behind with posting the blog, but these photos were worth dragging up and looking at again.  We had a spectacular freezing rain earlier this month.  It was inconvenient, and made driving dangerous (and of course we had to take Seamus to the Emergency Room for a bleeding ear infection on a slippery Sunday morning), but the freezing rain left the most charming icicles, icy branches, layered flax, and made each tiny blade of glass a frosty, shimmery glove.  You almost felt sorry to walk on the cruchy grass (do the blades break or just the ice?), only it was so satisfying to hear it scrunch beneath your boot!

You can see the ice on the back door, looking like a textured glass, nestled comfortably atop the poppy head like a snug hat, and shimmering in the sunset light on each stubbly corn stalk.

Winter in Manitoba has its perks.  Pesky, yet pleasing, perks.