Piste de vélo Bike track

 We have had a fantastic week and a half of spring break with lots of sun and no rain- perfect for our outside landscaping and paint work- and for the boys to take advantage of our cul-de-sac!  Here you can see we have drawn a chalk bike track complete with different stops in our community:  The pool, our Church, Kati and Ub's house, Josué's school, Vanessa and Gary's house (Benjamin's favorite stop) Nat's school etc.  Josué even added the river and the mountains close by.

 Benjamin figured out the runbike about a month ago and is loving it.  Every day he asks to ride his bike!

Voici les garçons en train de faire du vélo sur notre piste à vélo, fait-maison, avec de la craie.  Complet avec des arrêts communautaires comme notre église, les maisons des amis, la piscine etc.   Benjamin est très à l'aise avec son vélo (sans pédales) et insiste à l'utiliser tous les jours!!

Becoming a better husband and wife

Nathanael and I have totally embraced attachment parenting... We carried our babies, I breastfed, we co-slept etc.  It is a parenting style that has worked really well for our family and we thank God so far for how well Josué and Benjamin are developing.

We had the the chance this January and February to run Alpha's marriage course for ourselves and for 5 other couples.  It was fantastic.  It gave us a chance to talk through a lot of important topics like communication, conflict resolution, sex, love languages etc.  I think the best part of doing the marriage course  though was the emphasis on spending time with your husband or wife.

Attachment parenting (like extended breastfeeding) meant that we weren't able to just leave our babies or toddlers with a sitter and go out for a date (until later when they were more independant, and weaned!).  But we've realized that even if we aren't going out we can still make time together once the boys are sleeping- sometimes this is a cup of tea and snack together while we chat, or watching Downton abbey in french on tout.tv...  The important thing is that we spend time together, and that we talk together.

Marriage is hard work, but it is such a great blessing in our lives because it refines us to be more like God.  If all we have in our lives are superficial relationships then we have little incentive (or need) to grow.  When two lives have no real contact there is very little friction.  But, when we get close (like we can in marriage, parenthood and close friendship) then there is sure to be friction, but this is what polishes us, smooths us out and if we follow God's lead- makes us to be more like Him.

Whether you are a believer or not, I highly recommend the Alpha Marriage course, what a great gift it is!!

http://www.relationshipcentral.ca/ 

Total home makeover!!!

I would have loved to include some before shots, because it really is hard to believe what a difference painting the trim has made to our home!!  Before the trim was a pale yellow (like on the plaque with our #).  Nathanael has put in countless hours over his spring break fixing up our home- and we've been really blessed with FANTASTIC weather so it's worked out well, in fact Nathanael is still outside now finishing up different parts of the trim!  Because we painted the trim in a dark colour (Benjamin Moores' Low VOC exterior paint bittersweet chocolate) it makes the white stucco of our house look much brighter- in fact many of our neighbours asked us if we repainted the stucco...  Our home now reminds us of a tudor house!