Christmas Eve

In the morning, we went to Grammie and Grampies for brunch/Kathleen's (Nana's) birthday. The best part of the morning was playing with the tins. They were noisy and fun and Grammie could make them disappear! Everyone was laughing really hard.

I ate a little bit, and played with the ornaments - they were shiny and really fun looking compared to the ones at my house.

Did some visiting - then I got tired so it was time to go for a nap.

When I got home there were presents waiting at the door for me - two new balls! Thanks Darren!When I went to sleep my mom wrapped the last of the presents, and cleaned up the house because people were coming for Christmas dinner tomorrow! Dad went to the mall with Mikey to help him with the last of his shopping. When they came home - they wrapped up all of Mikey's presents! Then we cleaned up again - and put the wrapping paper away until next year. Then we went to Uncle Fred and Auntie Karen's (our neighbors) to have a visit and exchange presents.

I got two cool books to add to my little library - it seems like all of my presents are coming in twos!

Then we went to Mormor and Papa Chris' for Christmas Eve dinner. Auntie Tracy and Uncle Grant and Auntie Alicia were there too.

I ate a little more... Visited a little more - and opened more presents!

Here we are all together except Chris because he was taking the picture. I missed Uncle Andrew because I got tired and went home to bed after presents but before he got there. Merry Christmas everyone! See you tomorrow!

In Lieu of Gingerbread

Usually, I give small presents and/or gingerbread to friends for Christmas. This year, I ran out of time to complete enough gingerbread, and I am not a good shopper - and already have enough presents to buy to keep me busy at the mall...so I decided to have a martini party for friends and we could enjoy our time together.

My presents were the food and the martinis.

Turn out was pretty good considering it was so close to Christmas - and there were a couple of surprise appearances.

As usual, there was too much food.

And there was a lot of booze left over.

I predict I will be drinking martinis until May long weekend.

Jenn and Bruce - Taylor was busy playing with Chloe and I never got a photo...
Annie and Ryan
Red and Savannah
Cason and Chloe
Shaun and Ethan and Benji and Savannah
Ryan and Annie and Troy and Angela and the food.
Merry Christmas, Chris Marrie!

Santa

Each trip out of the house to go shopping is generally limited. My goal is to get a combination of two presents and/or errands done each day for Christmas.Every time we have been to the mall, Santa is on a break or the line is crazy. Not last night!

So we waited for our turn and got Ethan's Santa picture done.

At the end of the trip you get chocolate. This bought us some extra time and a trip to another mall last night to cross off one more item on the list to-do before Christmas.

Thanks, Santa!!!

Birthday and Flashcards and Molars

This week has been busy...

We have been caught up in the hustle and bustle of the holiday season - shopping and parties and visiting and wrapping and baking.

Thursday was my Dad's birthday so we had him and Uncle Grant and Auntie Alicia over for dinner and cake:

Friday Ethan had a hangover:

Actually he was getting fun, fun molars and physically conked out from the pain and exhaustion on the couch with the dog mid-morning...this is unusual, but cute the way they were sleeping so I had to snap a couple of photos.

These are the fun flash cards that Auntie Veronica and Uncle Lloyd got Ethan for his birthday - he now really enjoys them because he has so much more comprehension than he did a couple of months ago. The "Mm" card is his favorite because it has the moon. He also enjoys the fish, the umbrella, the ball and the "Yy" yarn card because it has a kitty on it.

Oh Christmas Tree

We usually put the tree up during the first weekend in December. I honestly debated if we should even attempt having a tree this year as Ethan is so... so "curious", I guess you could call it. Well - here we are putting up the tree, and I am happy to report - NO NEWS regarding the tree. Ethan was interested, and he pulled off a couple of the ornaments, but he has been very gentle and careful so far. Most of the time he leaves it alone. When something catches his eye - he fingers it and occasionally it is exciting enough to merit an attempt to pull it from the branch it is looped to. There are even presents sitting underneath - which he likes to pluck the bows off of - but if this is the worst he will be I'm excited about that!I guess it helps that we only have paper, wicker, and wire ornaments on the tree... the glass balls hanging in the dining room window are much more shiny and exciting and get pointed to a lot. Good thing they are OUT OF REACH!

Gingerbread

It must be gettingclosetoChristmas.

I remember before last Christmas carting Ethan around as a newborn to the malls for shopping, and worrying about getting things done as I was a new mom and sooo busy...

I wish I had known that THAT was easy - but it was all still so new - and even though he was a great sleeper, feeding and tending to a newborn takes up a lot of time.

Now I work during nap time - so that means to do things like make gingerbread I have to do it while Ethan is awake. It is fun, but everything takes a long time with a toddler - so I only made two batches of gingerbread instead of the usual five. Sorry for all you folks that will be missing out...

At this point I hadn't even started mixing anything yet. Just getting the ingredients out of the cupboard - as Ethan gets all the baking equipment ready for me.
First batter on a beater - he had to share with Cooper. Cooper loves gingerbread! It was a bit of a challenge to get in all of the nooks and crannies of the beater - but worth the effort.
Some of the finished product. It was a total of five days from the first mixing to the end product of these decorated cookies. Five days people! Next year I will start in August so everybody is sure to get some...

Pretty

Now that the snow has been gone for a week I am inspired to look at my snow pictures. I can't believe the snow stayed for a whole week! That almost never happens.
These pictures are all from my neighborhood. Cuthbert Holmes Park and Colquitz Creek -Portage Inlet down one side of the hill and the Gorge Waterway on the other side of the hill. The two days that it snowed the sky was grey and dark and mysterious.
After that we had a few nice cold sunny days - and people took "snow-days" and played.Now it is windy. And wet. I guess for the next few months...
Maybe this season we will get some more pretty, pretty snow. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Ready for Christmas

This weekend we put up Christmas lights outside. Then, we took them back down again to redo the decking and beams on the front porch. The entire deck was ripped off - it looked scary. Me and Ethan watched from inside. Then we put the lights on Ethan. He liked that.
My work had a Kids Christmas Party - we went and had a blast!

This was the first time Ethan had really "seen" Santa. He was a little tentative - but pretty cool about it. No screaming or anything like that.

I have had a crazy couple of months at work - now the really busy time is over and I am getting in the spirit...this weekend started us off...