Ours to love, but not to keep

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We knew we would have to let you go eventually. We didn't know it would be so soon and so sudden. Sadly, the decision was not ours to make, and while we are not happy with it we have to accept it. As the saying goes, "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink."

We miss you and we will keep praying for you!

Our little Ina,

May the Lord walk beside you to comfort you.

May the Lord walk above you to watch over you.

May the Lord walk behind you to keep you safe.

Easter Weekend

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... and what a weekend it was. The weather was simply: perfect. The company was simply: heartwarming. The food was simply: great. Not my own words, far be it from me to toot my own horn! ☺(Side note: we had fresh asparagus, lettuce, water cress, eggs and more delivered by our family doctor. Did I mention that Kurt knows about every other person walking this earth? I am not joking.) The kids' excitement was simply: contagious. And best of all: CHRIST IS RISEN, HE IS TRULY RISEN!

Preparations! Helping the Easter bunny out a bit.
(And yes, Omi Lotti, Finn is a major tongue-sticker-outer, just like you!)

After a late night with a campfire and all, the kids were raring and ready to storm the yard shortly past 7am. We made them wait a wee bit longer though. The Easter bunny had been busy baking and still needed to hide the eggs. And managed to at least change out of sleepwear, but had no time for such luxuries as a shower or, gasp, makeup.

What a handsome couple, no?

All dressed up for church!

The children could light a candle and then got a chocolate lollipop during the service. Here is Lily making her way back to us.

And here is Grandpa making his "Hey!-Senior-citizens-deserve-chocolate-too"-face. ☺

Hope everyone had a great Easter weekend!

P.S.

Ina spent Saturday and Sunday with her family, that's why she isn't in any of the pictures. The Easter bunny left a present for her here, and she is safely asleep upstairs right now. Where I should have been headed quite some time ago! Nights tend to be on the short side here. Bye!

Happy Easter from Finn, Lily, and Ina!

Long time no post, and look who is here!

That's right, Grandma and Grandpa! We were all so happy to see them, little Ina included. She wanted to sit on Grandpa's lap right away, just like Lily.

And good ole' Cheerios are back too! ☺

Ina just loves Grandpa, and no wonder. He patiently pushes her in the swing, in her stroller or on her tricycle for hours.

And Grandma we put to work right away, too. Hanging up the wash ...

... or supervising snack time.

Finn and Lily love the presents their "adopted cousin" Andrew, age 3, sent over. Here they are playing with Lily's Dora microphone. It plays music and rhythms and it REALLY AMPLIFIES YOUR VOICE, and once the batteries are dead I sure as heck won't replace them. Unless of course Lily insists. ☺

Other things we are doing around here: helping the "littlest sister" swing

being a terror on two wheels

making muddy messes that drive mama bananas and ruin the pants

planting a crocus bulb that Finn found and carried around for a day guarding it like treasure (grow, crocus, grow, otherwise a little boy will be heartbroken)

eating at our new table

enjoying story time with Grandpa

being generally cute and soaking up the sunshine

"camping" in the yard

working hard to get the rest of the furniture built

(just look at the finished hutch in the background, ignore the goofiness)

listening to scary campfire stories

and much more!

We had a really nice Easter weekend, stay tuned for another post with pictures!

Getting there!

Neil finished painting at around 1am on Friday night/Saturday morning and now there is a good chance we will get everything in decent shape before Grandma and Grandpa come on Tuesday, especially since we had competent help on Saturday. Finn and Lily are already arguing over who will set where (Grandma beside Lily? Grandpa beside Finn AND Lily?) at the new table. ☺

The place is still a mess, but as long as the kids can find some toys everything is well.

And while Lenny needs to inspect everything ...

... Blue prefers to hang out where the potential for a dropped morsel of food is the highest - close to Ina.

"Somebody get that crazy lady with the camera outta here!"

Speaking of outside. It's supposed to stay sunny and warm, up to 21°C during the Easter week! Spring is so nice, with everything coming back to life.

For Grandpa: the "kind of like a" Saskatoon berry bush looks like this right now:

Finn loves to swing, and once he figured out how to do it there was no stopping him.

Our next door neighbours finally have their swing set up, too, with a swing for two kids - how convenient! ☺

8:30pm on Saturday. With all the kids asleep, the next building project is tackled. Step 1: sort everything.

Some time past 11pm: Step 17. Why the heck won't the drawers fit? Oh, look! There was a 50% chance of getting Step 3 wrong if you didn't exactly know what the finished thing is supposed to look like. We give up and go to bed around midnight.

5:45am: Ina is up. 6:30am: Neil manages to get her back to sleep (she does that for him WAY more easily than for me) and crawls back in bed. 6:45am: I get up with Lily. 7:15: Finn is up. I buy myself some peace and quiet (and time to play on my laptop ☺) with "Horton hears a Who".

Tomorrow I will take Finn to the doctor's to give blood for his allergy tests. We really hope an allergen can be found, but other than maybe the (bourbon?) vanilla we have no idea what it could be. And he has never reacted to vanilla before. If his reaction was due to a cross allergy (a combination of things that are harmless by themselves) we might never know what caused it.

I have since learned a few things that I never thought I would need to know. Finn had the kind of anaphylactic shock where the blood pressure dips so low that it can lead to a life threatening situation - hence the loss of vision, no feeling in his hands, blood draining from his face, near unconsciousness etc. (The other kind would be that you go into respiratory distress to the point where you can't breathe.) Then he also had the gastro-intestinal symptoms (cramps, nausea, diarrhea) and skin involvement that are typical. I also learned that asthmatic kids are more prone to severe allergic reactions than others, as if the asthma wasn't bad enough.

Keep your fingers crossed for us that the blood drawing won't be as horrible as I am afraid it will be. Finn is deathly afraid of needles, and I will have to lug all three kids to the doctor's.