Bread

Bread I've been making a lot of homemade stuff lately and bread has been on the top of the list. I usually make 2 different recipes. Multigrain health bread and plain white bread.The white bread uses milk in the recipe and makes about 4 loaves and is good also to make cinnamon buns. But I haven't had all the ingredients lately so been trying new recipes without milk or eggs. I used an oatmeal bread recipe i had in my recipe box recently and John wanted to take pictures of the process so here they are. Just click on the picture to see all the photos. I also found
a recipe last night on allrecipes.com which i modified slightly and wow what good bread. I even made part of it into cinnamon raisin bread for breakfast. You can see the recipe if you click here. Just thought i'd share some of the goods!

Blessings and other things!

Well I'm a serious slacker here on the blog. We have welcomed Levi James Campsall into our family on August 23rd 2011 weighing in at 7 pounds 5 ounces. He's almost 2 pounds heavier now 3 weeks later! He's definetely not wasting any time in catching up to his siblings in size! :) Dave has had the opportunity to take parental leave from work until thanksgiving so he is busily enjoying a change of pace and accomplishing some home projects as well as being a super help around the house with children and other things! Thanks Dave! I am recovering well from a fairly easy delivery so I'm very thankful for that. We are so blessed just now i'm thanking the Lord for his provision. First my grandmother, the children's great grandma, came and stayed with us over the last week before and a few days after the baby was born. Helping where she could and baking up a storm. Dave's mom also came and stayed a similar amount of time and put up meals in the freezer as well as cooking most days either lunch or supper! Then if that wasn't blessing enough my friend Melissa organized several of my friends here in town and they provided us supper every night for a week! Talk about grocery savings and recuperation time! Thanks to all those friends! Then... :) God grew our garden so well this year that i had several pick overs of my 2 bean rows.Enough to share with neighbours and still have some in the freezer thanks to Barb cornthwaite. Who babysat one day AND did up the beans I picked but hadn't the energy left to do anything with! lol We had zucchini and spaghetti squash galore and are still considering what to do with it all. Zucchini marmalade is a new hit here! Loads of tomatoes some carrots and onions and potatoes have really filled in our menu, its awesome! Another blessing came from one of Dave's uncle who took us to HIS blueberry spot and then proceeded to pick with us and gave all he picked TO us! I have blueberries in the freezer for the winter!! yay. Even small gifts of clothing and such for the new little one has been most gratefully accepted!

School has begun and my 3 oldest are now attending the public school on the next block over. It is with a bit of sadness and thankfulness that I send them. I haven't been able to put away the homeschool room quite yet... I miss them but after months of prayerful consideration thought it the best decision for now. They are doing well and seem to enjoy it. They are in french immersion which is more difficult as we are not french. I can help them to a certain extent but so far so good. Reuben and Levi are still at home with me. Reuben is having a bit of a time adjusting to no playmates so I am trying to get to playgroup and spend some playtime with him too. We recently had some family photos done by my friend at Northern Accents Photography. We hadn't had one done since Nahum was just a little baby and he is now in JK! :) Looking forward to enjoying those and sending some around.

Well hope the update is helpful in filling you in on our details! Hope that God is blessing all of you as well!

Amy

Father's Day Surprise

The children and I thought to do something a bit different for father's day this year so they helped me make a short movie for daddy to watch while we brought him coffee and breakfast in bed. I asked and he said I could share (and this way you have some pics of the children which I haven't posted any in forever! two birds with one stone eh:) Just for fun

What if...?

My little boys are napping and the older children are at school and Dave is at work. It is sooooo quiet... I found myself pondering (perhaps because i just read the book of Ecclesiastes??:) what life would be like now if some tragedy were to take all of my family from me...
Well, it would be quieter, I'd be able to go out on girls nights whenever I wanted, could read books, watch movies other then bob the builder and veggie tales, I could cook whatever whenever I wanted....
when I cleaned the bathroom the towel would stay on the rack the soap woul not be all over the counter, there would be no water on the floor or a stool to trip on....
when I swept and mopped the floor there would be no one traipsing through with work boots to the basement for tools or muddy puddle boot prints to the bathroom...
there would be no toys to trip on while cooking supper or no one spilling sauce on the floor while helping stir...
there would be no one drawing happy smiles or other interesting things on my freshly painted and washed walls...
there would be no handprints smudged all over windows and patio doors from trying to wave goodbye to daddy as he goes to work or looking at the latest antics of the neighbours dog...
when i woke up in the morning it wouldn't be to someone having peed the bed or throwing up...
I suppose we could all think of the things there would or wouldn't be if we had no children...
but for all we complain and are frustrated... i wonder..
I guess I'm thanking God today for water on the floor in my bathroom and stools to trip over and dirty boot prints and smudgy fingerprints...
Thanking God for the gift of my family...

The many faces of Reuben

Reuben is a very busy little guy but how exciting it is to raise him. He has such a colorful personality. Just thought I'd share some of my joy with you today. God's Blessings for you and your family in 2011!

Another Birthday! 1 year old Reuben!

These are just a few shots from the cake portion of the birthday. He's a fun little guy. Soooo busy and inquisitive! Happy Birthday to Reuben.

John's Birthday

This is one attempt at a recent self photo shoot. We are all in it at least:)


Dirt cake is chocolate cake cut up ,mixed with chocolate pudding, topped with oreo cookies put through the food processor(to resemble dirt) and topped with gummy worms. Fun fun:)

Well the day has come and gone. My John boy is now a whopping 5 years old! :) He Got to have his friend Jackson sleep over. I took them skating, then we had at John's request Mac and cheese with hot dogs and a veggie platter with ranch dip and "Dirt" cake for dessert. They went sliding with Daddy after that and watched a movie with snacks and crashed without a peep between the 4 of them!:) I think it went great.

Pictures

Chloe's Birthday

Princess Chloe:)

Prince Charming??:)

Chloe asks every year for her birthday to go to a hotel with a swimming pool. So the last couple of years we've headed down to New Liskeard to the hotel(far enough away to warrant needing a hotel and not too far we couldn't do it in a weekend.) for her birthday. Despite the kids having the flu I think we managed to have fun. 6 years old.. wow. She is quite a little lady. I'm pretty proud of her. The cake was baked by and decorated by daddy:) He's pretty talented ya know!

I'm not sure how many more years we'll be able to do that as it's getting pretty cramped for bed space in one hotel room with 6 people! But it's fun for now:)

Boys

Boys are a special breed! :) I once read a saying that said

Little boys are the only thing God can use to make men!

Sometimes i catch myself daydreaming what my boys will be like when they are grown. A missionary, a humble servant.. a sometimes even wonder if they will stray from the Lord.. my prayer is that it wouldn't be that way. I ask John lots if he will still give me hugs when he is older. He assures me faithfully that he will.. I thought i should write this down somewhere just incase he needs a reminder!:) Gotta love those boys.

Photos

This is just a couple of quick photos of our recent trip to the toronto zoo and marineland last weekend. We met up with my grandmother who had never yet met the boys. I met up with a cousin and her fiance at the zoo and my brother and his son at marineland. All in all a good holiday and hopefully it won't be 5 years before i see my family again.

Blessings

Amy

A First!

Dave is always telling Chloe to stop stretching she's not allowed to grow up, she has to stay daddy's little girl. But progress and change is inevitable.. Chloe has lost her first tooth.. here she proudly displays the prominent hole where "the tooth" used to be. What a cutie!

Blessings

Here are a few pics from the last week of the children. Sometimes I can hardly believe how fast they are growing up. Nahum will be 3 at the end of the month.

Nahum was playing watersquirters with daddy and the other chidlren but he said he kept getting water in his eyes.. after the glasses were on.. look out!:)

John at green lake at kettle lakes provincial park. See the rubber dingy in the back ground. That's dave and chloe fishing!

How sweet!

Reuben is so jolly and rolling all over the place. He was 5 months on the 23rd of may.

A couple new to us additions...

Well seeing as i blog soooo often. I thought I'd update on some of the things happening here. We recently purchased a van for our growing clan. We are very thankful for it. It currently only seats 7 but a roomy easy to do up car seats 7 . It has the option to get a second back bench so in the future we may end up with that arrangement. For now we have lots of leg room and storage and towing capability. Which brings us to the next addition.
My brother in law had a tent trailer which he got from my mother in law and was looking to sell it. So ,with a name like "CAMPsall" we thought it would be great to move up from the tent we've used for the past several years. It makes the threat of bears a little less scary:) We used it for the first time on the may long weekend. It was wonderful. We hope to enjoy it with the children again this summer.

2010 - Amy - Picasa Web Albums

2010 - Amy - Picasa Web Albums

Reuben

All is well

Again an update on Reuben. I had him at the fracture clinic this week and the doctor saw on the xray that already he's starting to grow new bone to heal the break. He's also gaining more movement in the arm as the healing starts. The doctor said that in a year's time if you were to take an xray again we probably wouldn't be able to see where the break was! So what a relief. He's going to be fine and have a fighting chance with those other "rough boys" as Chloe calls them!:)

Reuben update

These are a few pictures from Christmas at my parents.
Reuben and I joined the crew Christmas morning from the hospital. It was a good day.

Just a little update on Reuben. I had him at emerg monday because when he was born he had gotten stuck with his shoulder under my pelvic bone after his head had been delivered so in order to get him out in a timely fashion the doctor had to reach in and get his right arm out and up over his head to turn him enough to get the other shoulder out. (yeah.. ouch) but during that process his collar bone was broken. I had been noticing his cries seemed out of pain when i moved him certain ways and he had little movement in his right arm compared to his left. I have an appointment at the fracture clinic this week with the specialist to see if anything might be done or if it's just a leave it to heal on it's own process which is what the ER doctors thought. But otherwise he's doing well. He and I are just about in the rythym for nursing. About 2 weeks old is when things start to toughen up during nursing for me and also his night times have been pretty easy going.. i get some solid chunks of sleep. Last night I slept from about 10:30 until 5:30. Nahum didn't even wake up. Nahum will often wake up once or twice a night to either pee or just say " I hug you" or something like that. Cute children i have:)

It's a boy!

Before:)

After.

Reuben Jack Campsall was born at 11:45 December 23rd. 9 lbs 1/2 oz, 19 inches.

Glory to God as there was no induction necessary.. he was just finally ready to make his appearance.