Date Night

Joel and I went on a date to a Leafs game. Joel was given the tickets by one of his re-insurers. When I told Hannah that we were going on a date, she told me "you don't have to go on a date because you went on a date when you were married." It goes to show you how many "dates" we go on. Jonathan and Benjamin went to spend time with Grandad, and Hannah when with Gran to the YW broadcast. Benjamin still isn't feeling 100%, so I was a little concerned about leaving him. When we pulled up to the house, I saw that Jordan was home and knew that I didn't have to worry b/c Benjamin LOVES Jordan. When we picked them up tonight Grace said that they were good and that Benjamin stayed with Jordan the whole night.
The game was good. The Leafs actually won :) They were playing the Montreal Canadians. There were so many Canadians fans. Eden was wearing a red toque to keep her head warm, and apparently people thought that we were Habs fans as well. Eden was an angel through the game. The funnest part of the night was listening to the fans behind us. They were a bunch of young guys and were so into the game. At one point they were talking about one of the Leaf's players and one of the guys said "if they trade him, I will move with him". Talk about dedication. It was a fun night

Monkey See Monkey Do

We had one of our home teachers over tonight (Mike Chisholm). The kids were being really calm (partially b/c they wern't feeling great) as he was giving the lesson. Benjamin was sitting on Joel's lap and I watched as Benjamin kept copying what Mike was doing. I first noticed it when Benjamin was holding his hands...something he usually only does during prayer. Then he kept making these large arm movements and then folding his arms. It was so cute to watch him. Once Mike would do something, then Benjamin would copy it. I pointed it out to Joel and Mike, so Mike made even more arm movements and Benjamin kept copying him. I havn't seen him do that before. Too Cute :)

Easter Weekend

Easter has come and gone. We had a very busy weekend. We went to Mum and Dad's on Friday. We got there around 12pm. I put some egg bread in the oven and then the turkey while the kids played outside. I was washing my hands at the sink when I looked outside and saw Dad pushing Jonathan on the tire swing....the kids love playing with Pappa :) We had grilled cheese and tomato soup for lunch (seems to be a tradition whenever we are there for lunch) and then Joel went to help dad get a couple of loads of hay for the horses. The Bremners arrived around 3pm and Jordan and Shannon came around 5pm. Dinner was good. Jordan was so cute. As soon as he saw the egg bread he said "that looks just like Anne's", he was so excited :) He asked Joel if I made it a lot (usually only around Easter) Joel told him he has had it a few times, but that I make lots of other breads as well, then Jordan kept saying "it's going to be top of your list". It was very sweet. Jared and Stephanie didn't come b/c Jared had to work, but initially I made it thinking of Jared. I'm not sure if I have gotten such a positive reaction from Jordan before. The kids made "resurrection rolls" after dinner (Abigail and Ethan explained what the spices, butter, marshmallow represent). We left around 10pm, just as they were putting on "Enchanted". It was a good day. The kids were really good :)

Saturday was a very busy day. We went to the Newcastle Town Hall for "breakfast with the Easter Bunny". We have gone for the past 4 or so years.....last year Jonathan wouldn't go near the Easter Bunny (he has a thing for costumes....he won't go near Santa either), I was curious to see what he would do this year, but before we had even sat down he ran over to me to show me what the Easter Bunny had given him. The kids had fun, but the pancakes were terrible...they are usually pretty good (not as good as homeade), but this year they were cooked soooooooo long you could barely cut them. Oh, well. After breakfast we went up to "White Feather Farm" in Raglan so the kids could pet the baby chicks. They were only 2 days old and very cute. Jonathan and Benjamin pet one, and Hannah got to hold one. Very cute :) When we finished we headed to Uncle Mark's barn. Every time Hannah sees Mark she asks if she can come over and then bugs us to call Mark for the next week. We finally made it Saturday afternoon. The kids looked at all the animals....he has horses, pigs, cats, lamas (cool), donkeys and I have probably forgot something. Oh, yeah! Chickens :) Then the real fun began...the kids got to go snowmobiling. Joel has lots of funny stories about snowmobiling with Mark when he was a kid, so it was neat that our kids got to go. Matty took Hannah and Joel took Jonathan. There wasn't a ton of snow...but enough. Joel took Benjamin out and I even went for a slooowww ride with Eden (she was in the snuggly). Hannah went out with Mark later and he let her drive a little. You could tell when she was controlling the gas because the snowmobile would lurch forward and then slow right down. It was a lot of fun. More snow please so we can go again :) Okay, maybe we will wait until next year. I want spring.

We went to see Gramma Stoklosa for dinner. Joel took to kids down to play mini golf and pool while gramma and I watched a cake decorating special on foodtv. We went for dinner to an Italian restaurant near Gramma....Yummy :) I had a coconut currie pasta dish with chicken and huge shrimp. It was so good. The kids were really good. They didn't run around at all. They are getting better when we eat out (which isn't often). Gramma gave the kids a whole BOX of Kinder Surprise eggs....there are 25 of them !!!!

Sunday morning was good. Joel had a bishopric mtg for 8am, so we had an earlier start than I would have liked. Jonathan was so tired from Saturday, that we had to wake him up! That never happens. The kids got to hunt for their eggs (they each had their own room to hunt in) and then we got ready for church. Before we left for church I took some pictures of the kids in their adorable matching easter outfits :) They looked so adorable :) I love getting matching outfits. It was so nice to get a matching outfit for Hannah and Eden. The kids were good for me during sacrament, yeah. Eden slept through sacrament, so that helped a lot. We had a quite afternoon watching the animated version of Ben Hur. It is shorter than the movie, but very much the same (which made me happy) I got to catch most of it while I made more Egg bread and iced a cake. We went to Valeries for dinner. Cassie and Drew had another egg hunt for them in the basement....needless to say they ate more chocolate than dinner :) Cassie and Drew are so sweet with them. They are always willing to play with them. Well....that was our Easter weekend! Busy, but very fun.

Jonathan's soccer days

Jonathan made it through his first "season" of soccer. It was a seven week program where they learned drills and soccer skills and then played a game of soccer at the end. It was hillarious to watch the kids play...there was a yellow team and red team, each was supposed to go in opposite directions, but in every game it ended up that they tried to score on which ever net they were headed towards. Jonathan had a bit of a rough start the first couple of weeks, sometimes he wouldn't participate and would just run around doing his own thing, but the past three weeks he really improved. Wednesday was his last class of this session. He was awesome the whole time. He did all the warm ups and played the drill games (i.e. fishes and sharks). One of the drill games that I really loved watching was "Messy Monkey, Clean Monkey". First they scattered the pilons all over the field, and then they had to go around and kick them over (or kick them over with the ball) and then when it was "clean Monkey" time, they had to stand them back up with their feet. It was so cute to watch him. Jonathan played great this week. He was really enthusiastic and participated in all the games. He stopped during the soccer game a couple of times to hang on the railing, but overall he was fantastic. We have signed him up for a summer session of soccer where he will be on a team and they will play other teams 3 on 3. Joel wants to coach him....I still have to call and put his name on the list.

A new calling

Joel got a call on Friday night that he needed to meet with President Ulloa. He called on Saturday morning, and arranged for our family to meet with him on Sunday morning at 8:45am. We knew that it had something to do with the bishopric as our Bishop had served for 5 years. We went to see Pres. Ulloa on Sunday morning and he extended a call for Joel to be the second councelor in the Bishopric. He was ordained as a High Priest later that morning and then set apart as second counselor. So far so good, we made it through Sacrament with him on the stand. Luckily Laura Chisolm came and sat with me to help with the kids. We are used to him having a busy calling (Stake YM Pres. is very busy between the activities, conferences meetings, and then add on never ending scouting stuff). I am very thankful that he is so willing to accept callings and support those whom he is serving. I love him very much. He is a great daddy and a super example to me.

Then there were six

Eden Elisabeth Stoklosa was born on Saturday December 29th, 2007 at 11:15pm. She weighed 8 lbs 8 ounces (our biggest babe). The first thing I noticed about her was that she was pink and round...such a cutie pie. Hannah came into our room (she came home from Sarah and Chris's open house with Nana and Papa) just after she came out. Hannah was in the room when the midwife said "it's a girl". Hannah was sooooooo thrilled. She really wanted a baby sister (she used to have an imaginary one before Eden was born). Eden latched on right away....and nursed for over an hour. I was so tired, but finally she fell asleep. Eden's sleeping schedule was a little wonky at first. She was really fussy between 11pm-1am and sometimes later. Plus, she would only go to sleep if she was being held. If I tried to lie her down and wasn't lying with her, then she would wake up. This lasted for the first month or so. I realized that if I changed her before nursing her around 10pm, then she would sleep right through her fussy time. As far as needing to hold her to sleep, gradually we worked her off that. Around 7 weeks she stared sleeping from around 10pm- 4 or 5am. The past couple of weeks she has been going to bed between 8:30 and 9am and is getting up once or twice....but no complaints from me. There were two nights a couple of weeks ago that she didn't get up until 5am and the next night 6am, but that hasn't happened again. Eden started smiling at 4 weeks, also about the same time as her "baby acne" kicked in (Hannah had it as well). It didn't clear up for a month...poor thing. She wasn't the happiest, but since it has cleared up Joel says that she is a new baby. She is so cute (can't say that enough). She is our "little lady" and we couldn't be happier.

Then there were five

Benjamin Isaac Stoklosa was born at 3:36pm on May 2nd, 2006....He was 5 weeks early, and weighed in at 3 lbs 1 ounce and he was born in a hospital...gasp :) Benjamin's pregnancy was somewhat difficult, but it is amazing how Heavenly Father prepares you. I have always been felt somewhat apprehensive during the first trimester, but with Benjamin it was even worse. I just knew that something wasn't right. I had a blessing by Joel and Grampa Burnfield. It said that we would have a healthy baby, but I knew that didn't mean that there might not be other problems. During my 18 week Ultrasound, the technican kept asking me about my dates, she kept going over and over them. They thought that I was a month less than I thought...but I knew my dates. When my midwife (Maysoon) went over the results with me, she told me that the ultrasound showed that the baby was small and that there were some calcified spots in the bladder. She explained this could be nothing (i.e. underdeveloped bladder, blood in bladder) or it could mean something more serious (i.e. down syndrome or cystic fybrosis). The hospital called us and asked us to have some genetic testing done, but we declined. I decided I would rather have a happy pregnancy and deal with any problems when the baby was born, then worry my whole pregnancy. We also talked this over with a friend (Paul Whitsitt) who felt the same way. He suggested we have an additional ultrasound in a few weeks to see if the calcified spots still showed. I had another ultrasound a month or so later, and the baby was still measuring small (between 3-5 weeks small for gestation). At that point there wasn't much to be done. I continued to have more frequent ultrasounds to check for the size of the baby. Everything else seemed to be fine (i.e heartbeat and movement). At 30 weeks I was transfered to an obstetrician....I had always said I would deliver in a hospital if I had to, but I guess I never thought it would come to that. I really liked Dr. Peters. She was very down to earth. She sent me for weekly ultrasounds and non-stress tests over the next month. She also felt it was important to get a second opinion from Mount Sinai (they specialize in high risk pregnancies). I went to see Dr. Ryan at Mount Sinai on a Friday. He did a ultrasound while I watched (there was a screen in front of me). After the ultrasound (and a very lengthy wait) he explained that it looked like baby was doing okay, for now. He said that he could see that the placenta was starting to break down and was concerned that if we waited for the baby to tell us that it was ready to be born, then it might be too late. He felt that baby could handle delivery at this point and suggested that I be induced as soon as possible. I took his report to Dr. Peters that afternoon and she scheduled me for an induction on the following Tuesday (May 2nd)....See what I mean about his pregnancy....I never got very big, and because he was so small I hardly ever felt him move. When he was born, he was healthy (just like the blessing said). He breathed on his own from the start. The big problem with Benjamin was that we had to wait for him to gain weight. It was hard to not be able to hold him as much as we wanted, but we knew that he wouldn't grow if he was stimulated too much. One of the nurses put it like this "our incubator is better than yours". I knew she meant well...but you still wonder what you did wrong. My placenta was sent away and the only answer of sorts that we got was that the umbilical cord was hypercoiled...and perhaps this lead to Benjamin being IUGR (Intra uterine growth restriction). Benjamin was in the hospital for 28 days. I would go to the hospital every day for 3 of his feedings. Usually I would go for the 9am and stay for the 12pm feed, go home and then come back after Hannah and Jonathan were in bed.
Benjamin is our "little peanut" or "Benjamini". Even after he came home it took him a very long time to grow. He was nursing, but not gaining...so his pediatrician told us he had to be supplemented on formula. At 6 months Benjamin gave up nursing....the bottle is much easier than the breast :( He looked like a new born for the first 6 months. I would try and hide him when we went to the store b/c I got tired of people asking how old he was and then having to give some kind of explanation for his size. I figured that he would crawl at 12 months and walk at 18 months...pretty good guess. He started crawling just before he turned one and he started walking when he was 17 months (he took his first steps at Valerie and Glen's cottage). He wasn't doing much talking before christmas (he would say a few words), but since christmas his vocabuarly has really increased.
Benjamin was a very calm and laid back baby. I thought he might stay that way, but lately he has started to be a bit of a "rascal". He used to wander all around the house, but never got into anything...now he wanders, but definitely gets into whatever he can (he made a mess with the flour on Saturday morning). Benjamin loves balls, he runs around at Jonathan's soccer and kicks the soccer balls. He wants to get on the field and play with the other kids. He also loves hockey. We have these mini hockey sticks that he loves to play with and shoot the puck. When ever there is music on he starts to dance. He also runs everwhere.....he hardly ever walks, perhaps that is why he is still small. He is burning a ton of extra calories b/c he runs everywhere. I love that Benjamin will still come and give me kisses, just because. He loves his baby sister (he can say Eden, but sometimes he gets confused and calls her Emma). He uses a high tone of voice when he is talking to her. It is adorable. He loves Jonathan (even though Jonathan sometimes uses him as his own personal punching bag) and has even started trying instigate the wrestling with Jonathan.

Then there were four

Jonathan Adam Stoklosa was born on Wednesday, October 20th 2004. He weighed 8 lbs 2 oz. He looked like such a little man when he was born. He had a lot of dark brown hair and a natural part to the side. He had a perfect little boy haircut :) There was some debate about his name. I wanted Isaac for his first name and Joel really, really wanted Jonathan....I love the name Jonathan, but was afraid that everyone would try and call him John or Johnny....in the end, the name Jonathan had more meaning to Joel than Isaac did to me. Jonathan is named after Jonathan in the bible. Jonathan (son of Saul) was a friend of David's. Saul wanted to kill David, but Jonathan protected him. Joel admires the love that Jonathan had for David....thus the name Jonathan. Jonathan has the most beautiful auburn hair. I cut it for the first time on his first birthday. Before I cut it, he had blond streaks in the front, and a really long, dark auburn streak in the back. He has gorgeous ivory skin, amazingly long eyelashes, and incredible blue eyes. He is my beautiful blue eyed boy....Even though he is my beautiful boy, he has gone through (and still is) going through some "stages". He didn't really start talking until he was 18 months old. Prior to that, he would just scream to get what he wanted. I didn't mind it too much, because I knew that he would stop once he learned to speak. Jonathan loves balls. Ever since he could walk, he has been able to kick a soccer ball (much to Joel's joy). We enrolled him in organized soccer for the first time in January. He did really well the first week, but the next couple of weeks he just wanted to do his own thing. He would just run around the huge indoor field kicking the ball, but didn't want to join his team. The past couple of weeks he has been great. He has been participating in the drills and playing the game. It is so cute to watch him. I still have to get a picture of him in his super cute soccer uniform.
Jonathan loves movies with "bad guys". He turns anything he can find into a sword or a gun...I am not too happy with this, I am more than happy to let him watch Hannah's Barbie movies, but even these always have a bad guy of some sort. Jonathan is very passionate. When he is in upset (most often b/c he has gotten in trouble) he will run to me and just cling to my legs and apologize. He is also very energetic...we used to call him the energizer bunny. There was a long time when he had no interest in TV. He would just run around the house getting into everything. I was very happy once he would sit still for a few minutes and watch a show. Some of Jonathan's favourite movies are: Shrek and Shrek 2 (it sounds like "Shrek tooth" when he says it), Narnia, Transformers, Mulan, and Lion King (see what I mean about bad guys).
Jonathan loves his baby sister. The other day I asked Hannah to hold her on the couch for a minute, then Jonathan asked if he could. He sat with her (propped up by the couch arm) for at least 20 minutes. I kept checking on them, and he was content. She fell asleep and he kept kissing her head. It was soooooo cute. It is funny, because the first couple of days after Eden was born, Jonathan wasn't really interested in her. It was like he didn't know she was there. Once I said something to him about his baby sister and he said "she isn't my sister, she's your daughter". What a cutie pie :)

Then there were three

Hannah Eve Stoklosa was born at 4:36am on Wednesday, January 15th, 2003. She was long awaited as we had had some trouble with previous pregnancies. She was born weighing 8 lbs and looking like she had just returned from a vacation in Florida. Hannah has brought us so much joy over the past 5 years....it is so hard to beleive that is has been five years. I used to hear people say that they couldn't remember when their kids were that small...I used to think that I would never forget the different stages my kids have gone through, but recently I have begun to realize that I can't remember as many of "little things" that I would like to. Hannah is a beautiful young lady. She sometimes acts much older than 5, and at other times much younger. I find this frustrating. I know I expect too much of her at times, and at other times I she shows me that she is capable of doing much more than I expect of her. Hannah is loving. Ever since she was a baby, she has loved to cuddle. Lately we cuddle on the couch together while watching Food Tv. She wants to be a "cooker" like Rachael Ray when she grows up. When ever I am making dinner, or baking she is always asking if I will show her how to make that when she gets bigger. Last year Hannah competed in her first triathalon (Kids of Steel) and she loved it. It was so cute to watch her swim across the little pool all by herself. Joel helped her in the transition areas I her brothers and I cheered her on. She said the running was her favourite part. She competed in a duathalon in September and came in 1st for the girls in her age group. We were so proud of her. Hannah has taken Highland dancing for the past 2 1/2 years. She loves to show you her "highland hands". Lately she really wants to learn how to tap dance. She was given a pair of black church shoes that she calls her tap shoes. Even though they are too big for her, she wears them around the house constantly to practice her tapping :) Hannah is in JK and is loving it. She has just started to read :) Last week she brought a book to me and asked me to help her. She is able to sound out all the letters and can sometimes figure out the word by herself, but most of the time she needs help putting the letter sounds together. I think she is doing awesome :) What else can I say about Hannah. She is a true little girl. She loves to dress up...never puts her clothes away after she has finished playing with them. She loves to put on makeup (luckily the makeup she got from a friend for her birthday is all gone), she loves her baby sister and is looking forward to sharing a room with her. She has a great imagination and loves to play. I love my baby girl...even though every time I call her that she tells me that she isn't a baby. She is my little Hannahla and her daddies angel.

There were two

I don't have any great story to begin with...so I will just begin where our story started. Joel and I first met at a YSA dance when I was 19 and he was 18. His Uncle Mark came up to me and asked me if I would dance with his shy nephew....I agreed...we danced....Joel said I was not very encouraging and only answered "yes" or "no". I thought I was being friendly. Needless to say he didn't ask me out :( Joel went on his mission to South Africa and I went to Utah. I came home from Utah and he returned from his mission a year and a half later. We met again the first week of December at institute at the Heyland's apartment ( CES missionary couple from Alberta...Sis. Heyland is from South Africa). I had a job interview at work earlier that day. I can still remember the outfit I was wearing (brown pant suite with a goldish turtle neck) Joel couldn't keep his eyes off me :) even when I caught him staring at me he didn't turn away. We started hanging out as friends and then started dating in January. He proposed at the Sacred Grove in March 2000 while we were visiting Palmyra for the Temple's open house. We were married on June 17th 2000.