Christmas Day 2008

Some photos from Christmas Day! Thank you to all the grandparents for the wonderful gifts! We loved them all, although I have only included photos of a few.


Will got a Tiger in his stocking!



The Dump Truck was a big hit!




The perfect sweatshirt for our little Princess.




Daddy gets a sweatshirt too!




This Eric Carle book is a great way to learn how to tell time.




Grandpa and Will are good friends!




Here they play with Will's new service center. Kate is in the background, watching the accompanying DVD for her Disney Princess drawing kit.



A Little People schoolhouse!




Will couldn't get enough of his remote controlled Thomas the Tank Engine.




Eric reading a new animal book to Will



Mommy helps Kate with her new princess laptop. It has all sorts of educational games and music programs, and can be set to English or French!



Christmas dinner! While most Scottish and Canadian people have a turkey for Christmas, I don't think this is typical in the U.S. We went with baked ham, mashed potato casserole, peas, rolls, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie.

Photos from December

December has been a fun and busy month! It's been filled with wonderful events, like an Advent brunch at church, Kate's preschool Christmas concert, and a family Christmas Eve service at church. Most importantly, Grandpa Rich (my Dad) spent two weeks with us over Christmas! The kids had so much fun playing with him and celebrating Christmas with him. Here are a few photos from the month...


Kate and Will helped decorate the tree! Will had trouble understanding that the ornaments should STAY on the tree, however.




Kate helping to make Swedish spice cookies to celebrate our Ortlund heritage. We also made Dutch cookies, since the Koster/Hoedema families have Dutch heritage. I was impressed by how well Kate rolled the dough and used cookie cutters to make shapes! She also helped make pumpkin pies this season. From the 3 pumpkins we grew in our garden, we made 4 pumpkin pies (for American Thanksgiving and Christmas), several batches of pumpkin-chocolate chip muffins, 1 Argentinian stew in a pumpkin shell, and lots of roasted pumpkin seeds.


Our little imp! Will is 23 months now, and learning to say "No" quite frequently. We don't mind as it's a huge improvement over simply screaming! He can also say, "I don't know" which is very cute!




With Grandpa Rich in the First Nations exhibit at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum in Regina. Dad told the kids about how he lived with the Ojibwa in Ontario for a summer as a young man.



Will playing with dinosaurs in the Paleo Pit at the museum.




Kate enjoying the art activities at the Paleo Pit--no surprise there--she continues to love all arts and crafts.




I took Kate to her first movie in a theater! We saw The Tale of Despereaux. At first, she was scared of the big dark theater, but the story line drew her in, and it sure didn't hurt that one of the main characters was a princess! Of course, we got a big bag of popcorn for the full movie experience.

Mary Did You Know

We had a wonderful Advent chapel at Briercrest Seminary today, and a couple people sang the song "Mary Did You Know." I really loved it, and found this video where the song is set to scenes from The Nativity Story.




"Mary Did You Know"

[Originally written by Mark Lowry and Buddy Greene]

Mary, did you know that your baby boy would one day walk on water?
Mary, did you know that your baby boy would save our sons and daughters?
Did you know that your baby boy has come to make you new?
This child that you delivered will soon deliver you.

Mary, did you know that your baby boy will give sight to a blind man?
Mary, did you know that your baby boy will calm the storm with His hand?
Did you know that your baby boy has walked where angels trod?
When you kiss your little baby you kissed the face of God?

Mary did you know..

The blind will see.
The deaf will hear.
The dead will live again.
The lame will leap.
The dumb will speak
The praises of The Lamb.

Mary, did you know that your baby boy is Lord of all creation?
Mary, did you know that your baby boy would one day rule the nations?
Did you know that your baby boy is heaven's perfect Lamb?
The sleeping child you're holding is the Great, I Am.

Interview with Janet Penley: Using Personality Type to Make Parenting Easier

I enjoyed this online interview with Janet Penley, author of Motherstyles: Using Personality Type to Discover Your Parenting Strengths. I blogged about her book here and I highly recommend it! In this podcast, Penley discusses how parents can best manage their own energy, the pros and cons of having a very different personality from your spouse, which mothers tend to feel most guilty and how to deal with it, the fact that mothers with rarer personality types may feel less validated in their parenting, and advice for parents of strong-willed children (interestingly enough, a child can be considered strong-willed by one family but not another!). She reiterates the message of her book, which is that there is no perfect mother, and that each of us has strengths and shortcomings, usually two sides of the same coin! I think she has such a liberating and reassuring message. Because I have the same type as Penley, I especially appreciate her personal stories (the need for solitude in order to recharge, the constant thought stream that is so frequently interrupted, guilt over needing space).

An interview with N.T. Wright and Anne Rice

Thanks to Cara for letting me know about this fascinating discussion with N.T. Wright and Anne Rice. About the program:

"As Bishop of Durham for the Church of England, N.T. Wright is an internationally renowned author and scholar, who has taught New Testament studies for twenty years at Cambridge, McGill and Oxford Universities. In his new book, Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense, Wright walks readers through the Christian faith, step by step and question by question, in a manner reminiscent of C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity. Best-selling novelist Anne Rice has written the highly-acclaimed fictionalized account of Jesus' early life, Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt. Together these two extraordinary writers will explore the mystery of the identity of God and our interconnectedness with Creation. This Forum brings together two contemporary writers who express the transformative potential of a life of faith."

Definitely worth a listen! They cover a range of topics, from their writings, to the historicity of the resurrection, to modern day objections to faith, to the attributes that should be displayed in followers of Christ, and differences between the church in North America and the UK.

Anne Rice on her return to faith

"Well, what happened to me on that Sunday that I returned to faith was this: I received a glimpse into what I can only call the Infinite Mercy of God. It worked something like this. I realized that none of my theological or social questions really made any difference. I didn't have to know the answers to these questions precisely because God did. He was the God who made the universe in which I existed. That meant He had made the Big Bang, He had made DNA, He had made the Black Holes in space, and the wind and the rain and the individual snowflakes that fall from the sky. He had done all that. So surely He could do virtually anything and He could solve virtually everything. And how could I possibly know what He knew? And why should I remain apart from Him because I could not grasp all that He could grasp? What came over me then was an infinite trust, trust in His power and His love."

--Anne Rice in the author's notes to her novel, Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt

Darth Ortlund

I was looking through some old videos, and thought you might enjoy this short one, taken back when Kate was 2.

Some Canadian fiction I've enjoyed recently

I've been trying to read books by Canadian authors whenever I can. It's not hard to find a wide variety of quality Canadian fiction. Here are three books I've enjoyed recently:

The View from Castle Rock is a book of short stories by Alice Munro, one of Canada's most celebrated authors. It's based on the lives of her family members, starting with the Laidlaws of 1700s Ettrick Valley, Scotland. Munro takes us along as the family emigrates to Canada, and ends with stories of her grandparents, parents, and finally, of herself. She uses letters and journals from each generation to help tell the stories.



The Book of Negroes is a powerful book by Lawrence Hill, with the title taken from an actual historical document. It follows the life of a woman named Aminata, from her capture in West Africa as a girl, to her years as a slave in the American south, to her journey with other black Loyalists to freedom in Nova Scotia, and her work on behalf of the abolitionist cause. In the US, the book was published under the title, Someone Knows my Name.



I really enjoyed Luna, by Sharon Butala, since it's set on the Saskatchewan prairies. It tells the story of women in a farm community, bound together across generations as they navigate the crossroads of their lives.

Just when I thought I was starting to understand Canadian politics...

I'm an American. Presidential and congressional elections happen on a fixed schedule. Republicans may be unhappy with Obama's election, but they can't try to oust him until 2012.

So I'm trying to wrap my mind around the latest news in Canadian politics. The Conservatives were reelected in October, although they failed to achieve a majority government. Now the Liberals are trying to form a coalition with the New Democratic Party in an attempt to oust the Conservatives from power. The Bloc Québécois has agreed to vote with the coalition for 18 months. I believe that if the Governor-General approves, it would not require another election. See my previous post on the Canadian election for basic info on these various parties.

What do you think Canadians? Has this been attempted before? Do you think it's likely to happen?