Annual Boxing Day Dinner and Fish Pond

 

Our annual dinner was once again held at the church.  I love being able to spread out and give the kids room to run!  This year we split all the food assignments up and I think it went really well.  We definitely had LOTS of yummy food!   After the dinner was done and cleaned up, we started the fish pond.  This tradition has been going on for generations and it’s fun to see my kids ‘fishing’ for their present from grandma and grandpa just like I did at their age!

   

Ben fishing for his present (with a little help from daddy!).  A whole box of cars!  The perfect gift for a car crazy little boy!

Emma reeling her present in… a Dora sticker book and fleece jacket.

Emma and Lauren in their matching jackets.  I couldn’t get either of them to look at me for a picture!  We then exchanged presents between families.  Shauna had us this year and got Lennard a quad (remote control)!  From his expression, I think he liked it!

      

Lennard took the kids and his dad home after everything was done and I stayed to finish cleaning up.  I then got a chance to hang out and play some games with everyone without any distractions!  Such a fun day/night!

Merry Christmas!

We had such a fun Christmas morning!  Emma woke up first and started down the hallway so we had to call her to come in to our room.  She didn’t want to stay with us very much, so Lennard ended up going in and waking Benny up.  They were both VERY excited to see presents under the tree and immediately started pulling stuff out.  We had a hard time convincing them to wait a bit.  Emma opened the DVD of Cinderella and was extremely happy. 

          

Emma got a kitchen set from Santa Claus and both kids were enamoured with it.  We couldn’t get Ben to look at any more presents for quite a while.  They both loved it!  Then Emma opened a box of dress-up clothes from Grandpa and we were set!  She had to try them on immediately!

           

We finally pried Ben away from the kitchen when he discovered that he got a new truck!  He wanted it opened immediately!  As for Lennard and me… we had said that we weren’t buying anything big this year because of our flight to the Maritimes in July.  I stuck to the agreement pretty well.  I’d got Lennard a Subway gift card.  Then it came time for Lennard’s gift to me… apparently I had bought him a gift (aka: he bought something and I put my name on it saying it was from me)… he opened his card first and read it out loud, “A one year subscription to Foreflight!”.  It took me about 3 seconds to clue in to what was in my present… You can’t have a Foreflight subscription without an iPad!  I KNEW he would go overboard! 

    

Ben got a tool table from Santa Claus and both kids were enthralled with it.  Emma had to try on another outfit between opening presents.

           

After everything was opened, we took a minute to have the traditional Christmas picture in front of the tree.  The kids definitely got spoiled this year, but they loved every single gift they got.

 

The rest of the afternoon we just hung out and played.  It was great!  Lennard showed of ‘my’ iPad to his dad and then the kids ‘pulled’ him in the sled.  It was so nice just to sit back and relax.

The evening we went out to mom and dad’s again and had dinner with my parents and a bunch of my siblings.  It was a nice way to finish off the day.

Christmas Eve

Most people wouldn’t think about house projects on Christmas Eve, but we figured that we had the time, so why not?!  We got the laundry room primed!! 

After dinner of the traditional French Onion soup and homemade chicken cordon bleu, we headed out to mom and dad’s for Christmas Eve.  I love that we are continuing the tradition of being at ‘grandma and grandpa’s’ for Christmas Eve.  We had a lot of fun visiting, singing songs, hearing the Christmas story and eating yummy treats.

Nysha, Levi and Dave hanging out together.  Roger and Trisha treated us to a ‘special’ dance!

This year was special as both Dave and Dad played Silent Night together for the first time while Roger read the Christmas story in Luke 2.  It brings back a lot of good memories of being at my grandparents.  I love that Emma and Ben are getting to experience the same things as I did as a child.

Dave decided to continue another tradition this year by making homemade rootbeer like grandma and grandpa used to make.  I have to say it was better than theirs was though!

We had only been home a few minutes when Santa Claus decided to stop in and say hi.  Unfortunately, the kids were over-tired and not quite sure why I was making them stand by a strange man for a picture… they were NOT impressed! 

                    

Their opinion of Santa Claus improved a bit when they discovered that he had left them a present under the tree to unwrap.  They were very excited to put their new pajamas on and climb in to bed.  As soon as we were sure they were asleep, we loaded the tree!  They are definitely getting spoiled this year!  I can’t wait to see their faces in the morning!

Happy Birthday!

It’s hard to believe our baby girl is 3 years old today.  It feels like yesterday that we were holding her in our arms for the very first time.  She is growing up so fast!  We can’t imagine our lives without her.  She is a very precocious little girl and constantly amazes us with the things that comes out of her mouth.  She definitely keeps us laughing! 

At three years old, Emma is 37 1/2 inches tall and 31 pounds.  She is definitely a ‘girly-girl’ and loves to dress-up and play house.  She loves to help make dinner and is a very good big sister to Ben.  I thought it would be fun to see what her responses would be to some questions… although I got a lot of ‘I don’t know’ answers.  I had to laugh at her answers, but I just wrote them verbatim. 

Emma requested a ‘pink cake with sprinkles’… so that’s what she got!  Nothing fancy, but she loved it!

Emma LOVED opening her presents and got very excited with each one.  So much fun!

Trip to get Grandpa!

Lennard’s dad flew in today to spend Christmas with us.  I loaded the kids up at about 1:00 and headed to Calgary.  We got there in plenty of time and then found out that the flight was delayed a bit.  Thankfully I had the double stroller with me, so we were able to just walk and explore the airport a bit.  The kids started getting tired of being strapped in, so when I found a little kids area they were very excited to get out and run!  It was great!  There were nice leather chairs for the parents to sit on, some ‘rock’ features for the kids to climb on, an activity center and a large TV with Treehouse cartoons on for them to watch.  They loved it!

Not the best picture (taken on my phone), but it shows a bit of where we sat and played.  When Grandpa finally came out, we managed to get his suitcase quickly and headed out.  He hadn’t eaten anything all day, so he was starving and the kids were ready for something to eat too, so we detoured onto 32 Avenue and ended up finding a White Spot.  Grandpa was excited to get the kids their first ‘Pirate Ship’ and I was impressed with how well the kids actually did!  Usually it’s quite the hassle in restaurants to keep them sitting and quiet, but they both did extremely well.

Again… horrible pictures, but better than nothing!  We didn’t end up getting home until about 9:00, so it was a very long day, but I was very impressed with how well the kids did being in the van that long. 

Gingerbread Houses

We had such a fun evening tonight!  Nysha invited us to do Family Home Evening with them at mom and dad’s house.  I brought dinner for everyone and then we decorated gingerbread houses and men.  The kids had a blast and I had fun taking a billion pictures (according to Lennard). 

Just getting started and waiting for the icing to set up a bit more.

     

Levi couldn’t wait to decorate his gingerbread man and got started on eating it right away!  I love seeing how hard Ben is trying to get the candy place just right.

Everyone got in to the decorating… although Emma ate more candy than went on the house!

The final product… aka… when we decided to end the night so we could take kids home to bed!

The three little munchkins that had more fun eating than decorating!

Advent Calendar

Emma and Ben are really starting to get excited for Christmas and they both love to put ornaments on the tree, so it has been lots of fun to have a countdown with the advent calendar that Lennard’s mom made  years ago.  Lennard remembers him and Alicia racing to see who could get there first as there were candies in the pouches as well as the ornament.  We didn’t put any candy in this year, but I’m sure as they get older we’ll have to add that into the mix.  I love that we have a tangible reminder of Lennard’s mom in our home.  It has been fun to tell the kids about their grandma and how much she loved them.