A Day in the Life of the Iler's

Monday, February 16, 2009

Ellie's 6th Birthday

Ellie's newest dress from Grandma Iler. She lloovveess it!
She wore it for show and tell! And it's purple...Grandma knows
her so well!
Ellie chose a Care Bear cake this year. We didn't get a really
good shot of it....OOPS! This was Ellie's favorite toy....a guinnea pig (which looks just like Guinners) and it purrs, open/closes it eyes, and makes guinnea pig sounds when you pet it's back. Even sleeps! Ellie takes it everywhere. Opening presents. A lot of her friends made her cards and they were so nice! A few added pics of them with Ellie and those are just so special! Ellie and Shayla (hugger) and Kysa. Shayla and Ellie have been best friends since preschool. Their mom and I are good friends from hs so that is nice for me, too! Camers speaks for all of us at the end of the party! We sat down for just a few minutes after everyone left and he was out! We all took a nap and slept until 6pm!!!! Wow! Quite a day....but a lot of fun. I think we ended up with 16 kids and at least one parent for each. Not complaining though! We are blessed to be surrounded by so many friends. Everyone had so much fun! Played games (none of Jim's suggestions, though...saving those for when we visit HIS house!), ate goodies, opened presents, and enjoyed friends. Just glad it didn't snow! Ellie ended up having quite the birthday week, really. She had a party in her class the Friday before her real birthday, on the 7th. Then she had her family party and a special day with her Grams on her birthday, the 9th. Then she had her birthday party on the 15th. And she received a few gift cards, so went shopping on the 16th! We were cleaning up and organizing today and taking down the streamers. Ellie asked why were doing that (with an attitude of 'why in the world would you ever want to take those down?'). Daddy had to gently tell her that her birthday, while lasting forever, had to now come to an end. Poor thing! =) She is gonna be a lot like me........let's just celebrate!!!! It's my birthday! Poor John, just when he thought the birthday week tradition was behind him!

Snow Day Feb 2009

Cam and Ellie on the rocks by the walking trail.
It is so fun to just walk in the snow. And throw a surprise
snowball now and then....
Not as much snow as last time, but enough! YUM! Ellie and Cam eat their weight in snow each time!
In memory of Cassie, we made a snowpiggy!
Still miss her a lot! Ellie is praying for Jesus to come
back NOW so we can all be together =)
Cam's new way of eating snow....he lies down and just
sticks his face in it. Keeps the hands warmer!
Well, normally we just enjoy the heck out of snow and pray our hearts out for more! However, this month the snow has really interfered with some serious parties! School was cancelled on
Friday 13 for a snow day. Sadly, that was Ellie's Valentine's party at school! She wasn't too happy, but did enjoy the snow. We were afraid we'd have to cancel her birthday party on Sunday when we woke up to falling snow. Ellie looked outside and yelled, "NOOOOOOOOOOO!". Fortunately, it didn't stick and started raining. So, it all worked out! We sure are getting the lion's share of the rain right now and loving it. We really need it! Camping this summer will be dry without it! Anyway, hope you enjoy the pics =) We enjoyed performing for them!

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

February 2009....loss of a beloved pet...Cassie

Cassie was the guninnea pig who lived at Ellie's preschool. When the teacher retired, the new one didn't want the guinnea pig so we gladly took Cassie in. She and our other piggy, Guinners,
were good friends. Ellie re-named them P-nut butter and jelly (Cassie was P-nut butter as she was brown. Ellie still called her Cassie, though). Cassie died after a long and happy life. There were lots of tears in saying goodbye to Cassie. Ellie has an amazing grasp of eternal life, so that did make this transition easier. John suggested we make this shroud to wrap her in. We buried her outside in our yard and Ellie wants to plant some flowers (in the shape of a guinnea pig) over her grave in the spring. At first Ellie was very sad, of course. She then would say 'the best birthday present would be if Cassie came back'. Then she would say "I wish Jesus would come back now so we can all be with Cassie". Now she is happy at night to pray that Cassie has 'another fun day in heaven' and looks forward to seeing her again. Cassie will be missed (except for when I had t chase her down in the yard) and John is certain Guinners does NOT need another friend!

Christmas Day 2008

One silly family!
Ellie and her dollhouse. She saw one house with a disco ball in it so she wanted one really bad. I made one and it came out pretty nice I must say! Dad and Cam and the train table
Beanie Babies from Aunt Noni. Hmmmm, maybe
we should start a collection or something....ahahahaha!
Ellie and daddy....though daddy is getting the
work out here!
Hmmmm, is this jar 1/4 full or 3/4 empty?
Cam loves to bounce, too!
What a day! Thank goodness the kids still sleep in! I think we got up at 8:30am, but since we were up until about 2am, that was just fine! There is so much fun in watching kids open gifts at Christmas! It still brings back the fun memories for me. Ellie's big gift this year was a pogo stick. I didn't know they made them anymore as I never see them, but sure enough, they are big around Christmas time. It was the one thing she asked for on a regular basis. My mom got her the Barbie dollhouse, which she loves. She and Cameron play so much with that! We got him a special Ken doll to play with, too! She also got a pogo stick which she loves! She isn't quite heavy enough yet to really get it going so we get quite the workout helping. Cam's big gift was the train table. He LOVES trains. He is a little obsessed with them I think it is safe to say. We had a hard time getting him away from it to open any more presents. He played with it for 45 min. before we could coax him to open anything else.
Mom and Danny came over later to open their gifts with us and we had some brunch. But dinner was the best by far as we feasted on all thing wild.....pheasant, duck, and some carribou. YUM!
Wish we all lived closer so we could spend time with all of you for the holidays! It is so much more fun with family! But you all were in our thoughts and prayers and hope your Christmas was greatly blessed, especially with love =)

Christmas Eve 2008

Playing our family Christmas gift of Kerplunk!
Our new Christmas jammies....nothing feels better to sleep in!
Reading Twas the Night Before Christmas....
Acting out the story of Christ's birth. Cameron is the Host of Heaven!
A perfect picture of Christmas love.....
Making the gingerbread house. Our second attmept. I was in
charge of the first one, which required lean-two's. By morning
it needed to be condemned! Dad is much better at this kind of stuff!
Christmas is the greatest! We had so much fun and have our traditions we look forward to. We always go to a Christmas Eve service and have a yummy dinner and then drive around looking at Christmas lights. There is an amazing house in Paradise that puts on quite the show. They have a light show that is synchronized to music. You drive up and tune the radio to a channel and then watch about a five minute show. It's amazing!
Then we all come home and settle in for the night! We start by making a Christmas birthday cake for Christ. Ellie loves this part, espcially. Then we open our special Christmas jammies and one family gift....usually a game. This year it was Kerplunk! Very fun game! John read the story "Twas the Night Before Christmas", even though we don't do Santa as he scares the tar out of Ellie! Yes, even to this day she avoids him. When kids at school ask about Santa, she kindly tells them she doesn't like him much and her parents buy her presents.) But this reading is especially cool because we have the book John's family had when he was little. And lastly we read over the story of Christ's birth while the kids use the creche scene to act it out.
And once the kids are in bed and safely sleeping......the real work begins! This year John had to assemble the train table and doll house. He's the man! =)
We are thankful all year for our blessings, but especially at Christmas. We are thankful for God's gift of Christ and accept that gift happily =)
Hope you all had a special Christmas Eve as well!

Saturday, December 27, 2008

Our first snow....2008

Our snowman....which took forever to build and 20 min. later
was knocked down....ahhhhhh, fun times!
Cameron making some snow cocoa!
Enjoying the real stuff!
Ellie making her snowwall.....she and Evan had quite a bit when all was
said and done!
Catching snow flakes.......

This is how much snow we had right as we got home....good thing we could make it home!

You can see how big the flakes were! They showed up on camera! We got home from the Russillo's rockin' Christmas party and it was snowing! We came right in, got our snow clothes on, and played! You just can't waste good snow. It was quite the snow week. We ended up with about a foot of snow and it lasted quite a while. We had lots of fun playing and went sledding once also. Which the kids lloooovvveeeee! We are looking forward to more and more snow! Though my neighbors aren't quite as fond of snow as I am so I have to keep my enthusiasm more quiet...especially while they are shoveling. =) Ellie loved building the snow fort. She added a little each day. Cameron just loved eating it. He had a hard time walking in so much snow. He reminded me of the little brother in A Christmas Story. But everyone loved it and we are ready for more! Sorry, Grandpa! We know snow 'bah humbugs' you, so send it our way! LOL!

Cameron's 2nd Birthday 2008

Ellie eating her donut off the string. See Cam in the background
with the bag?
Cam and his elmo cake....he took the elmo car off right away..
and dug right in! YUM!
Cam and his new trike! Loved the balloons, too!
Because bouncing IS fun!! A game that ends in candy spilling out all over the ground... what could be better than that? Cam's cool riding bloks toy...thanks Frantie and Fruncle!
Hitting the pinata
We had such a great time!!!! We had to stop telling Cam his birthday party was coming up as he really has no concept of 'later' and so thought it was happening each time we mentioned it. Just like his sister, his favorite part of a party is the cake. So, each time we mentioned his birthday he blurted out "cake!". We had equal number of kids Cam's age and Ellie's age. So the games worked well for both. Cam played, but was much more content to just watch everyone else. His favorite was pin-the-star-on-the-Barney. He even liked the blindfold! He also like the eat-the-donut-from-the-string game, but decided it was just better to eat right out of the bag. The pinata was a little confounding to him. He knew there was candy inside. He seemed to understand if it got hit, the candy would fall out. But when he hit it.....it didn't come out! He'd hit it and then just stare at it....presumably waiting for the candy to just start falling. Once it did break up, he got right in there and got his share for sure. It was an exhausting day, but he had a super time! We all did. He is such a great gift from God. We couldn't love him more! Thank you for loving him, and all of us!, and for thinking of him on his special day. Birthdays are the best.