Merry Christmas! From the Lindes

Wishing you a very Merry Christmas! Here are some pictures from Christmas Eve. Enjoy!
~Wes

Shortest day

Snow has been a surprising story for us the past 12 hours. It's snowing right now and we are now well over the accumulation of about a foot so far this winter. It melted a bit the other day.

So today is the shortest daylight hour day of the year. We notice it up here, being that much further away from the Equator. I tried to figure it out and I think we are about a half hour sooner than the coast to reach complete darkness. The bright side is, the days only get longer from here until the end of June. But the kids don't notice or care. They play happily at my feet as I blog.

Christmas is soon, Emily's birthday is soon, and things are slowing down for this week. We had the staff over for a party last night. After the party was over we stayed up late playing "Scene it, Disney edition".

So for the week, we plan as a family to go skating (indoor, we haven't heard if the pond is ready for outdoor), and prepare for Christmas and the true meaning of the season. To know that Jesus came to save everyone, and did so without trumpets and fanfare... but rather He came, sent by God, to a virgin who gave birth in a stinky stable. Animals and other more unpleasant things were also present at the time of His bith. But yet this is how He came. Humble. A baby. The son of God. And I am truly amazed at what I see and experience. Especially at this time and season.

Wes.

Jayson's School Concert!

This will probably only be interesting to the grandparents. Wes had some trouble videoing it due to the super squirmy nearly three year old on his knee. I love how in this video Gage (beside Jayson) keeps yawning and Audrey (behind Jayson) is trying to take off her dress or something.

A nice quiet morning. really!

I'm sitting on the couch with the 3 kids nicely playing with a wooden train. Well, Jay and Em are and Ben is being Benzilla, creating havoc. I've got Vince Guaraldi Christmas playing in the background, the fire is lit and it is a cool -33C outside, without wind. But we are all warm inside our house, the house we are still so thankful for getting as the light streams through the front window and illuminates the far wall. I forgot to mention my freshly brewed Starbucks coffee at my side. Life is good!

It's Monday, a day I spend with the family. We plan to go skating later with Jayson's friend Judah.

Kids Christmas Sunday

Conversations with Emily So Far Today

Emily (Really excitedly): Is it Kismas? Is it Kismas?
Me (Christy): Not yet. Are you excited for Christmas?
Emily: No! Me no like Kismas!

Then later
Emily (walking by with a full roll of toilet paper): I made a mess, I made a mess.
Me: Did you make a mess?
Emily: No!

Benzilla

Benjamin is keeping his parents on their toes as he's learned to stand on his toes...well on his feet anyway. Here's his newest trick.....standing! This is one busy boy, from crawling at six months and pulling up on furniture at nearly seven. I think we're in for it with this kid. He's pretty pleased with himself. Click on the picture to make it bigger if you want to see some serious drool.

Skating for the FIRST TIME!

Here is a look at our adventure at the Twin Arenas. There's a little patch of ice for the little tots and it was perfect for Jayson and Emily to learn how to skate.
Check it out!
~Wes

B-Mobile

So Ben is Crawling. A lot. We put him down on the other side of the room and in no time, he's right beside us again. It seems early to me... he is just so determined to do or get anything he wants.

On the sickies front, Emily is feeling better. She struggled with croup this past week. Something scary happened Thursday though, which involved Emily going to emergency for the 3rd time in a week. We sat down to the emergency window in the waiting room at the hospital and the first thing that came from the nurse's lips were, "oh hi Em... Emily Linde right?" as she typed into her computer. They rushed her into a bed when they saw she had trouble breathing. But here's the story from the start...

I had just come home from being out and Emily was coughing, choking, coughing and coughing. We took her outside because we thought the cool moist air would help with croup. For most of this episode we thought she was choking on something even though she was in bed....supposed to be asleep. Why did we think that you might ask? Because we asked her if she swallowed something and she said "yes". I rushed her to the hospital and the doctor said that the worst thing to do was to take her outside, since the air is so cold it closes the trachea and whatever chance of breathing she had, it was closing fast. He took a look inside her throat and saw that everything was clear (By that point she stopped coughing), her breathing and passage-ways were clear and the doctor claimed she had an upper respiratory infection, most likely the aftermath of the croup. No other advice other than if she does it again to come in to emerg again, and then I took her home. So weird! By the time we drove home she was asleep again and had a wonderful sleep.

Kinda random of a post. but interesting nonetheless.
More of the crazy things that happen to us.. and more to come!
Wes

This past week

This past week has been good and bad. The good is that we enjoyed a great time with Papa Linde, Jayson had a great birthday party at our house last Saturday and the youth ministry is doing well at the Church (I just baptized 4 teens on Sunday, and helped another on the same day pray to turn their life over to Christ!).

The not so good is that all of us have gone through some sickness, well, other than Benjamin. The scary part came this past weekend where I (Wes) had to rush Emily to the hospital because she had trouble breathing. It was very scary, and immediately we thought it was H1N1. Thankfully she was checked out and didn't have swine flu, but rather had a very bad case of Croop (Sp?) She's doing better now, and all she has left is a runny nose. All of us have had a sore throat, which is still bothering Christy.

But things are otherwise doing fine for us. The heavy frost we have woken up to the past couple mornings has given us reason to believe that the cold is coming soon. Which makes us want to be closer to the ocean, where it is mild and warm.

On a very exciting note (yes, more good!), the night before Jayson's birthday he asked me "Daddy, I want to be a Christian". Now, that night we had just finished his last story and we were about to pray. I was very surprised by his request, so I helped him understand that to be a Christian or follow Jesus means you need to acknowledge that you can't live your life without Him. I told him he also needs to believe in Him... that he's real, which prior to that night he always had a tough time with understanding this because God was 'invisible' to him. He already knows that there are things that are naughty that he does that God doesn't want him to do. But his genuine heart was to follow Jesus... or as he put it "I want to be a Christian". The funny thing is, the first thing I said when I prayed to give my life over to Christ, was "I'm a Christian!".

We prayed. He knew what he did. He ran to tell Christy in the other room. I cried. It was one of the most incredible feelings I have ever felt. It was genuine. On his own. I loved it!

As for a change in his life? He's still Jay, who torments his sister. But I see in his eyes a desire to be good. He's now accountable to Jesus and I need to teach him.

Thanks for listening to me share.

Wes

Creeping and Crawling this Halloween

We have a new development in our household this Halloween, Benjamin is on the move! His one little frustration; all his efforts to move forward send him backwards; but our lives have changed none the less. We now have to rescue the little guy from under the end tables, or the corner, or from Jayson's little toys. It's only a matter of time before he gets it together to move forwards because anyone who is that determined to accomplish something is sure to do it.


Jayson is doing well with learning French at school. He already is correcting his dad's accent when he teaches him words and he really wants to be "La Poule Maboule" when his class reenacts the story of "Chicken Little".

As for Emily, she tells everyone that she is in Kindergarten too. She is pretty shy, but once someone wins her heart they have it forever.

We Have a Kindergartener!

Here is Jay on his first day of school! He went back and forth between being excited and being nervous, but in the end he was more excited than nervous because he got to bring cheese strings and his soccer ball lunch box from Papa. He is in French Immersion and he learned to say, "Bonjour" and "Je suis Jayson".

We have another big boy in our house.....Benjamin! He had his first taste of solid food last week. On the menu for the evening was pureed peaches.


He liked them!

And yes that is a Flames bib...just ignore it. Benjamin is a Canucks fan like his daddy.

Ben's first hike

We've been enjoying the great weather and getting outside a lot. I wanted to include some pictures from the garden that was, well, already planted thoroughly when we got here!

But for the stuff we've planted, we've got carrots, beans, garlic (now about 8 inches high!), cilantro, oregano (our last one did not like the -30c too much), basil, tomatoes and some flowers. Today Christy made Strawberry/Rhubarb crisp, with fresh Rhubarb from the garden. It was yummy!

We also took Benjamin on his first hike to Pinnacles Park. It was a lot of fun and Jayson enjoyed being 'the keeper of the binoculars'. Emily got a little tired, but Jayson enjoyed his mama's stories about bears, wild animals and Grandma Donnie's cottage.

At the moment, Benjamin is sleeping soundly in my arms while I'm trying to type, and Christy is making up a square for us to have a night-time snack. mmmmmm......

~Wes

Last Moments at the Hospital

This may be embarrassing to Emily when she gets older.....but I tried to stop her....

Baby Pool Results Tabulated.....

Drum Roll Please.................

The bragging rights are presented to Auntie Anna, for guessing the date and closest to the time!

With honorable mention to Auntie Jen, for guessing the date, and Auntie Teri for guessing the gender and the closest to the weight!

More photos of Day 1

Introducing, Benjamin William Linde!

Hey!
Yes it's been a long beautiful day, because Benjamin is here! Yes our third born came into this world at 8:57am today, May 3rd, 2009, weighing 8lbs 1oz! For now, I'd just like to share some pictures and update you on some more later.
Enjoy these with us!

~Wes~

Counting down the days!

Hey so DH here. I'm getting excited for the DB to come along. I hope my DW doesn't think I'm a dork for using these abbreviated blog words.

Baby is coming soon! We've got most of the planning done and are pretty much ready for the baby to come. I'm really excited, especially to see what he/she looks like. I really want to know what the gender is, but I know I can wait.

Yesterday was an amazing day out in our back yard. We really love it. We planted a whack-load of garlic, cleaned out some garden beds and racked leaves. This past week I also ripped apart a partial fence that was keeping us from seeing our children play in the backyard. (It used to be there for privacy when the previous owners had a hot tub... which unfortunately they took with them!

I love playing with the kids. We played fireman and firetruck today and we were putting out fires... fake ones. Emily laughed every time my fireman fell off a cliff... again, a fake one.

We had drizzle today and Quesnelians were complaining quite a bit. We had not had much rain since the snow melt, so we could not complain. I've had so much time to get out and work in the yard lately, it's felt really good!

Class is going well (guitar class). I'm learning a lot. It feels weird though when you mark an exam and you can see students not try... and get a poor mark. It reminds me of how I was in school.

Anyway, thought I'd blog to not let DW run away with all of the posts.
till later,

Daddun.

Baby Pool Final Draft

Jayson: Boy, 6 lbs 0oz
Grammie Lee: Girl, May 2nd, 7lbs 6oz
Auntie Anna: Girl, May 3rd, Big, 1:02pm
Jen the Auntie: Girl, May 3rd, 7lbs, 7:00pm
Daddy (Wes): Girl, May 6th, 7lbs 1oz, 1:03pm
Papa Linde: Boy, May 7th, 7lbs 3oz
Uncle Rob and Auntie Karin: Boy, May 7th, 10 lbs!
Grammy Parker: Girl, May 8th, 7lbs, 1oz, 8:01pm
Granddad Lee: Girl, May 8th, 7lbs 2oz
Rod Heppell: Girl, May 9th, 7lbs 1oz
Rebecca B.: Girl, May 11th, 7lbs 13 oz, 12:34 am
Granddad Parker: Girl, May 12th, 8lbs
Teri the Auntie: Boy, May 12th, 8lbs, 2oz
Uncle Mark: Boy, May 15th, 6lbs, 7oz
Uncle Jonathan: Boy, May 20th (his birthday), 7lbs 11oz

And just for fun:

Baby Jayson, 6lbs even, 11 days early:


Baby Emily, 7lbs 9oz, on her due date:

So, our baby is upside down, just the way he/she is supposed to be :) It was neat to see the baby this far along, I could see the hair on the baby's head and the little cheeks were chubby. The baby's heart rate was 150 bpm and he/she is measuring right on schedule to be all ready on the due date. The ultrasound technician estimated the weight to be 6 lbs. That's how much Jay weighed when he was born! Maybe Rob and Karin will win the baby pool with their 10 lb guess, I sure hope not! The baby was covering its eyes with its hands so the picture is hard to make out, but if you inspect it carefully enough you can see lips and a nose.

In other news, we bought a van, yeah! Now we're all set to travel as a family. Here's our new (to us) wheels:

Baby Update and Other Stuff

Baby Linde will be making his/her appearance in 5 weeks, give or take a week or two! The baby clothes are all washed and waiting to be used, and the pink clothes are fighting with the blue clothes though over who is going to get put back into storage. The baby is doing well. The heart rate was 144 bpm at my appointment last week which is just barely within the girl range according to the old wives' tale. I'm going for an ultrasound on Monday because my doctor suspects the baby is transverse and would be unlikely to turn at this point. That would mean a cesearean section which is good and bad. Good because it would be nice to know exactly when the baby would be coming, and it would be a week or two early which would be great! Bad because, well, it's a surgical procedure and would take more recovery time and I wouldn't be able to pick up Emily which would make her sad.

We're in the middle or a minivan hunt right now. We'll be an official 'family' driving around in one of those!

Why We're Here

After Wes had worked tirelessly to pull off a concert in our small town with non-local bands (a really big deal here) it was really encouraging to read about the event from the band's perspective, check out their blog:

http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=127645629&blogId=475838640

The groups were super talented and the youth loved it!

Good Job Auntie Teri!

Love Jayson and Emily


Ok, so maybe some translation is needed here. Emily is saying, "Good job Auntie Teri", then she goes on to say something else in her own language which we don't understand yet. Jay was saying that Auntie Teri was going to be a policeman but I think he realized that wasn't quite right halfway through. We'll have to teach him to say "police officer".

Get Your Back Off the Wall

Hey, we've been waiting for the opportunity to catch our kids dancing to Family Force 5's song "Get your back off the wall". In the following video, Jayson is featured in a dance he made up called "the ladder" and Emily, well, she's just rockin' out!

See for yourself!

-----------------------------------
Jayson: Boy, 6 lbs 0oz
Grammie Lee: Girl, May 2nd, 7lbs 6oz
Auntie Anna: Girl, May 3rd, Big, same time of day or night Christy was born
Jen the Auntie: Girl, May 3rd, 7lbs, 7:00pm
Daddy (Wes): Girl, May 6th, 7lbs 1oz, 1:03pm
Papa Linde: Boy, May 7th, 7lbs 3oz
Uncle Rob and Auntie Karin: Boy, May 7th, 10 lbs!
Grammy Parker: Girl, May 8th, 7lbs, 1oz, 8:01pm
Granddad Lee: Girl, May 8th, 7lbs 2oz
Rod Heppell: Girl, May 9th, 7lbs 1oz
Rebecca B.: Girl, May 11th, 7lbs 13 oz, 12:34 am
Granddad Parker: Girl, May 12th, 8lbs
Teri the Auntie: Boy, May 12th, 8lbs, 2oz
Uncle Mark: Boy, May 15th, 6lbs, 7oz
Uncle Jonathan: Boy, May 20th (his birthday), 7lbs 11oz

Recapping the past little while...

Hey so things are busy, especially this week. I took advantage of an incredible opportunity. The public schools here are not keen on Youth Pastors walking through their hallways, but God has given me an answer. This week I took a position teaching Guitar during C block at a local high school for this second semester. Now I'm not saying that I'm going to walk down the halls thumpin' kids in the head with a Bible, because that's not my role. My main goal is to teach guitar and build relationships with the teens and teachers of this community.

Well, anyway it's going well. I had my third class today. The kids are great. The violin students are a bit of challenge, not because of attitude but because I don't know violin! haha. Well I know enough about music to get them going on arpeggios, scales, etc.

Here's the latest Pool.. which, will be closed soon! Get your guess in!

Jayson: Boy, 6 lbs 0oz
Grammie Lee: Girl, May 2nd, 7lbs 6oz
Jen the Auntie: Girl, May 3rd, 7lbs, 7:00pm
Daddy (Wes): Girl, May 6th, 7lbs 1oz, 1:03pm
Papa Linde: Boy, May 7th, 7lbs 3oz
Granddad Lee: Girl, May 8th, 7lbs 2oz
Rod Heppell: Girl, May 9th, 7lbs 1oz
Rebecca B.: Girl, May 11th, 7lbs 13 oz, 12:34 am
Uncle Jonathan: Boy, 7lbs 11oz
Teri the Auntie: Boy, 8lbs, 2oz

An actual web log

Yeah, I'm getting tired of the snow. There's still over a foot of snow sitting on our lawn... crusty on top from melting, and now it's in the -10's again so it won't melt any more. The good news is, the sun is shining and it warms up our house quite nicely. It's definitely sunnier here in the interior, just... well, consistently colder.

Christy and I have been tired lately, but she's the only one with the reason to be. She's preggo and I'm... well, I guess staying up too late, occaisionally up with the kids at night and it has to be due to the sleep debt of years of not getting enough. Because really, it looks like enough sleep but I'm always so tired. One of the things that I've found really works is a present I got from my dad. Yes my dad found a deal, that was already on a deal, and got it for a deal. So I bring my grounds to the office and occaisionally enjoy an Americano, which is always tempting to keep all 4 shots for myself. But *sigh* yes I really should share with the rest of the staff. It's actually enjoyable to share, especially with the Children's Pastor. He loves coffee just like me. The other Pastors have to have it more like "Flavoured hot water"... sort of like church coffee. Which I dislike by the way.

On to other things... I'm moving into a new role at the church. I'm now going to be called the Pastor of Youth and Worship... officially. Kinda cool, but also very daunting.

Anyway, Christy said I should write more and I haven't, really. But once in a while I'll share little things I guess and maybe someone somewhere out there in cyberspace will read my blog and be like, "Hey, I read your blog". And I'll be like... "cool". And then they'll be like, "yah". And then I'll be like "Peace out homie", which really isn't me if you knew me.

I'm out!
Wes

PS - keep checking and guessing our baby pool! Pool will close March 1st, so that no-one can be accused of cheating.

Updated Baby Pool!

Jayson: Boy
Grammie Lee: Girl, May 2nd, 7lbs 6oz
Jen the Auntie: Girl, May 3rd, 7lbs, 7:00pm
Daddy (Wes): Girl, May 6th, 7lbs 1oz, 1:03pm
Papa Linde: Boy, May 7th, 7lbs 3oz
Granddad Lee: Girl, May 8th, 7lbs 2oz
Rod Heppell: Girl, May 9th, 7lbs 1oz
Rebecca B.: Girl, May 11th, 7lbs 13 oz, 12:34 am
Uncle Jonathan: Boy, 7lbs 11oz
Teri the Auntie: Boy, 8lbs, 2oz

Fun in the snow

So we are settling in to Quesnel. The other day (Wed) we went to Lebourdais park and did some sledding with our (Jayson and Emily's) new sled! I didn't think we would have a problem, but we had just gotten a dump of snow and it was very deep! So since the kids couldn't walk in it themselves (it was up to Emily's waist in parts) I had to help sled them up the hill too. Well, at least I got a work-out out of it.

I'm including some of our exeriences in the snow on this blog. Enjoy!

Daddun

PS - Make a guess for the baby pool!

Baby Pool

Ok, so here's the infamous Linde baby pool for braggin' rights.
This is the third (and maybe final) pool.

If you'd like to send in your guess, please do! Just follow my (Wes) lead.
The due date is changed to May 10th (as of the last ultrasound).

So. here it is:
Jayson: Boy
Daddy (Wes): Girl, May 6th, 7lbs 1oz, 1:03pm
Rod Heppell: Girl, 7lbs 1oz, May 9th
Rebecca B.: Girl, May 11th, 7lbs 13 oz, 12:34 am