Christmasy happenings....

Christmas has been on the children's minds a lot lately :)  Abigail has already been watching a lot of Christmas movies.  Both children have been making a lot of crafts - from kits and from their own imaginations :)  

They both sat and wrote their letters to Santa, and we mailed them on Tuesday morning.  We will now be checking the mail box regularly and waiting for a reply!!  

I do love this time of year and the excitement in the run up to Christmas - all the traditions and fun!!

xxx

wednesday tag....

1. Let's start with something controversial...dressing or stuffing? What's it called at your house and what's included in your recipe...cornbread? oysters? sausage? chestnuts?    I don't know what is in it...I buy a packet of Paxo or something or other and it's lovely - its either Sage and Onion or THyme and Parsley...and its similar to 'Swiss Chalets' stuffing!!  Yum!!

2. Who do you sometimes compare yourself to?   I don't think I compare myself to anyone....but other people say I am like Mrs Weasley from Harry Potter - or Julie Walters the actress who plays her.....

3. When were you last inside an airport? Mid October..early hours of October  16th when we got back from Vegas

4. What is one side dish that absolutely must be included in a turkey dinner?   brussel sprouts.  swede, yorkshire puddings.  horseradish sauce....mmmmm

5. What Christmas song do you dread hearing?   I don't mind any of them really

6. If someone approaches you and asks for money do you give it to them?   depends on my mood and how much I have on me/ time of the month

Do you drop money 'in a tin cup' that belongs to a person on the street?    depends on my mood / how much change I have/ the person/ situation.

Do you have a specific charity you support during the holiday season and/or year round? We sponsor two children through world vision .  I love doing that.  I'm sure it won't be long before my Ex selfishly decides to stop doing it, but for now he still does it and I think it is a lovely thing for the children to do.  I also have a few local charities that I love to support.  The Stollery Hospital.  Youth Emergency Shelter.  A couple of others personal to me.

7. Share a favorite Thanksgiving memory. If you live in a country that doesn't celebrate Thanksgiving share a favorite memory associated with food. I love our family walks every Thanksgiving afternoon to take family pictures.  

8. Insert your own random thought here.   I am tired.  Very VERY tired.  Very grateful for the plumber this morning - what a great guy!

Laser light show!!

To end the Celebration of Lights, they had a laser light show.  There was fog let out for the lights to go through...and then the lights were set to music.  It was really good!!  Sam loved it!!  It started with little green and red lights dancing on the ceiling and then the music got louder and the colours changed and got brighter and went crazy - and made amazing patterns on the walls and were dancing on people :)  It was fun!!  :)  

A great way to end the Celebration of Lights!

And of course we then headed back to the car and drove home through the town and ALL the Christmas street lights were on!!  :)  

Beautiful!!

The Christmas season has begun!!!

xxx

Festival of Trees...

Snapshots from our afternoon at the Festival of Trees and the Celebration of Lights.

It was a chilly day but I'm so glad we went - we had a lovely afternoon - everyone had a lot of fun!!  

Sherwood Parks Festival of Trees

Some of the decorated trees in the competition at the Festival of Trees in our local town.

The winner of Gold was the bottom one - which was by the local Garden Centre.  

Girls sleepover....an Instagram memoir...

Abby and her friend slept in the tent last night...they set up camp in the front room:

Susannah and her friend played a few games, relaxed and took endless pictures of themselves with iphotobooth:

This morning we filled the house with the gorgeous scent of warm cinnamon buns:

I enjoyed mine by the fire, where I sat and enjoyed the morning sun and watched the birds at the bird feeder.  The Nuthatches are back, as are the Bluejays and Woodpeckers.  The Chickadees were very busy eating as much as possible because of the cold temperatures!!!

Saturday ramblings....

The girls each have a friend sleeping over tonight....Abigail and her friend have set the tent up in the front room and are 'camping' for the night :)  

Susannah has her friend Maddie who used to go to her school, staying over.  

Laurence is staying at his friends house in town.

My afternoon was spent driving here there and everywhere dropping kids off and picking them up, but they are happy and have had fun.  Sam has been busy playing Minecraft.

We also called in at the library as Susannah reserved another two books from the series she has been reading.  I can't believe the speed at which she is getting through the biggest books!!  She has a real hunger for books as the moment!  I love it :)  

Abby and Natasha have been making 'worry dolls' tonight and are now playing a few rounds of 'Spot It'....Susannah and Maddie played a game of Othello and I played some rounds of 'Spot It' with them.  

Tomorrow we are going to have cinnamon buns fresh from the oven for brunch and then we are heading out in the cold to the Festival of Trees, the Snow Globe Auction and the Celebration of Lights...before dropping the friends home and picking Laurence up and heading home....

And then that will be another weekend done

xxx

five questions.

1. Do you have a go to song that always puts you in a good mood?

Fisher - Beautiful Life

2. Are you a real Christmas tree kinda person or do you go with a real fake one?

Fake.  They don't dry out and leave a mess everywhere.

3. What are you thankful for?

So many things - but especially being born with a 'cups half full' personality.  I tend to be a very positive person and this has done me well throughout my life :)  

4. Which fashion fad from the past do you wish you could wear today?

I had this lovely pale grey with faint pastel checks in it dress...I called it my skating dress...It was from Tammy Girl.....I loved it...I must have been about 10 or 11.  It was soooo comfortable and pretty and sweet :)  

5. Do you wait until the "low fuel" light comes on before you fill up the gas tank?

No not always....depends what my plans are, the weather, what I'm doing, where I'm going....if it's raining then i'll wait...or if its dry but I know it's going to rain or be cold tomorrow I will fill up sooner - or if I hear prices are going up....or if I'm going to be running about a lot the next few days I will fill up...or if Laurence is with me it's nice to get him to do it ;)  

Pampered Chef!!

Last night I met up with Sharon for supper, before heading to a friend of her's home for a Pampered Chef/ Lia Sophia party.  

The girl that did the Pampered Chef was great and created a really yummy buffalo chicken dip and then made this amazing trifle (above) from graham crackers, bananas, lemon, cool whip and vanilla pudding, and melted chocolate.  Yum!!!

The Lia Sophia lady used to teach at Glen Alan school, so we talked about that for a long while as well as issues regarding discipling children these days (or rather the inability to).  

I really loved some of the jewelry there, but $100 for a bracelet or $108 for a pretty piece of costume jewelry....I just can't fathom paying that.  

I won the door prize last night from the Pampered Chef girl - yay!!  I won some bamboo spoons :)  

I think I'm going to have a Pampered Chef party in the new year....

It was a fun night and I'm glad I made the effort to go despite a long day and a migraine - thankful for Advil pm which helped me sleep off the migraine last night!!!

Thank you Sharon for inviting me last night!!

xxx

Homeschool field trip.....

Yesterday we had another field trip at the science centre.  Sam and Abby both had classes to take.  Sam took 'Bubble Bubble' and came out with a beautifully scented picture created by soapy coloured bubbles.  He seemed to have had fun making all kinds of concoctions that created bubbles.  

Abigail took a grade 4 class - Umbra Penumbra - which was about light and the eclipse etc etc.  She enjoyed her class too.  

While there, we also went to the star theatre and watched a show all about the planets in our solar system.  It was show that was a little like a tv quiz show, and we all got to shout out the answers when questions about the planets were asked!  It was really interesting and I think we all learned quite a bit!

We also met this cute little guy:

Who turned out to be a Horseshoe crab!!

They are arthropods (have exoskeletons) and are considered to be 'living fossils'!!

Very interesting looking creature!!

Wednesday tag....

1. What song reminds you of a specific time in your life and what is it about that song that makes you remember?  Sooooo many songs remind me of soooo many things.....a few specific ones would be:


Come on Eileen by Dexy's Midnight Runners - this song always reminds me of Youth Club in West Coker.  I won a dancing contest to it and got to pick a chocolate bar from the tuck shop (haha)  I chose a Taxi - my favourite!!  The Simon Greenwood and I had to dance together because we both won.....grrrrooooosss!!!  hahahaha!!  So not cool!  


Lucky Stars by Dean Friedman - this song was a BIG favourite of mine and my cousin and I made dances up to it all the time :)  


Careless Whisper - reminds me of when my friend Kirsty died - they played the song at her funeral.  It also reminds me of so many school disco's of that time as it was always the last song played at the end of the night - the slow dance for dancing with the boy you ended up with :)  


2. What's something you've given up on?   Getting money back from three people I thought were friends who turned out to be extremely thoughtless selfish individuals who used me :(


3. What's something you'll never give up on?   My children and fighting for what I believe is their best interests.


4. If you had to cook something from scratch in the next hour what would it be?  Either a cake or bread....or maybe jam tarts...or a pie of some kind.  maybe I'd make a chicken dish to go in the crockpot.  Hhhmmm or maybe flapjacks (oatbars).


5. Have you started Christmas shopping? Decorating? Listening to Christmas music?  I have done most of my Christmas shopping and feel pleased with my progress.  I like being prepared like this and knowing December won't be as stressful.  I have a few decorations up already but no trees up yet - maybe next week.  I haven't started listening to music yet, but the children have - and they've watched a few movies too - as soon as the snow arrived they started to get excited!!


6. What do you know about your parent's wedding? It was on Boxing Day 1959.  I know what my Moms dress was like as I wore it when I played a Bride doll in a brownie concert.  I believe my Aunt was sick or something on my Moms dress at one time???  So maybe my Aunt borrowed my Moms dress???


7. I can't believe  how fast this year has gone and how much we have accomplished.  It has been an amazing year with such exciting and fun experiences.  New friends coming into our lives.  It will be fun  and exciting to see what the NEXT year brings!!!  

Friday Fill-ins....

And...here we go! 

1. As you can see It has been another eventful week in the life of me :)

2. The Christmas season of festivities begins very soon!

3. I love to buy things at Goodwill and alter them to suit my beautiful home.

4. I already have almost all my Christmas gift(s). 

5. What's up with all the grouchy people around at the moment?  Geez we all have problems but seriously - life is too short!!!  get over yourselves!!

6. I like to keep my journals and pens beside my bed so they are right at my fingertips in case I feel like writing and time......

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to going out with Sharon to a Pampered Chef and something else party (can't remember what the other thing is lol), tomorrow my plans include going to meet a lady at a BBQ at the Harley Davidson store to give her a canvas for a silent auction she's holding, picking Abigails friend up for a sleepover, grabbing some groceries and Sunday, I want to take all four girls and Sam to the Festival of Trees and the Celebration of Lights then head home for a quiet evening!

Our Thursday....

A winter storm blew through our area today - even though it is officially still Fall!!

The school buses didn't run in our area, so the children were all home for the day.  I had paperwork to do  this morning and then some chores to do.  Lloyd swapped his evening to have the children until tomorrow evening because of the bad weather, so I made supper and put that in the oven (hash brown casserole - but made with tuna instead of ham.  To be honest you couldn't even taste the tuna and the kids didn't even know it was in there until after they were finished and I asked them what they thought - and then they told me they thought it was ham!!  So that was quite a good way to get them to eat tuna fish!!)

I vacuumed my bedroom and bathroom and the children did theirs too.  All the laundry is done and I got caught up with all my receipts etc for the upcoming classes.  Downstairs was dusted and the kitchen cleaned :)  

This evening Sam and Abby have been doing Origami - making paper cranes - as well as cutting paper snowflakes, making paper aeroplanes (flying love machines as Sam calls them as he draws hearts all over them).

Susannah is sat with me by the fire.  Rosie is with us lying on the floor by the fire too.  Sam and Abby have now gone to watch Kung Fu Panda.

I am going to have an early night after I get Sam and Abby showered.  I might work on my 'Journal Your Christmas' book for a little while - I did the cover last night.  I want to start it this weekend when we go to the Festival of Trees.  I never wait until December 1st as our festivities always seem to start in November!  

Tomorrow we are off to the Science Centre for another Homeschool Day and more classes.  Then the children are off to their dads for the evening and I am heading out for a Pampered Chef evening with Sharon :)  Yum!!

My book worm....

Susannah is getting through about a book a day....her head is ALWAYS in a book, and while I LOVE that she has FINALLY fallen in love with reading, I must admit that there are times when it drives me crazy that she won't put her book down to do anything else....nothing else gets done...she doesn't talk, she doesn't want to go anywhere or do anything UNLESS she has finished her book and needs another!!  And if you dare to disturb her midst-chapter she is like a bear being woken mid-sleep!!!  GROWL!!!!!

My gorgeous girly....