Cakes

Here are some of the cakes form the cake display and contest...I took pictures of each of them mainly for my Mum to see as she does sugar craft and decorates cakes too so I know she would have enjoyed seeing this display!

My favourite was the Christmas tree....DD loved the Alice in Wonderland cake (of course, as we are reading the book atm!)

Which is your favourite?

Cookie decorating and dancing

The children decorated gingerbread men and we also watched numerous local dancing schools perform on the stage.....

Candle dipping

One of the crafts at the festival was candle dipping...the children started off with a white candle and they dipped them into special oily paints dripped onto the top of water...they twirled the dandleds around in the various colours and when they pulled them out they were beautiful rainbowy candles :)

In the hospital.........

One of the attractins at the Festival of trees was a hospital...the children were each given a name bracelet as they entered - just like in a real hospital.....then they got to try out various things like giving Elmo an injection, operating on Rudolph - when all the parts were put in the right places his nose lit up! They got to make a cast on their finger to keep, had their pulse and blood oxygen levels tested and got to pick a pretty bandaid to keep...learnt about xrays etc etc......

Money from the festival goes to the local hospitals.

It was a great exhibit.....the girls especially loved it!

Its beginning to feel a lot like Christmas........

It has been a very Christmasy few days....after spending Friday decorating the house, the weekend was spent continuing the Christmas Festivities...

Yesterday we went to the Festival of Trees in Edmonton. The Shaw Conference Centre is decorated with endless Christmas trees of every theme and colour you can imagine........there are 'shoppes' set up all around the edge of the main hall and each one has something different - crafts for the children to do, a gingerbread house display to vote on......gift shops, candy stores, and even a gift store only for the under 12's where they can go in and buy gifts for Mums and Dads etc and have them wrapped secretly!

This was our first time going to the Festival of Trees, but I think it will become an annual family tradition because it was WONDERFUL!!!!!

Enjoying the snow despite the cold

It got to a balmy -4c here yesterday but today it is cold again - it's -12 outside right now.

The children have been outside sledding...Abby is proud that she can now walk in deep snow :)

The childrens tree

Here is the childrens Christmas tree that they decorate themselves.....it is filled with ornaments from when I was a child as well as ones I have collected over the years and all the ones the children have made for me over the years! Nothing matches and it looks far from perfect but it still manages to be my favourite :)

This year Chris was amazed at how small the tree seems to be which is a sure sign he is growing fast :)

frozen balls!

The boys brought in all the boxes of decorations from the workshop and they were icy cold! In fact this little snow globe was frozen solid! You couldn't see the little santa from inside and the glittery snow was all frozen to the top of the globe! :)

My tree.............

This year my tree is red and gold with a tartan theme.......a tartan ribbon instead of garland and red and gold balls with some tartan miniature crackers placed sporadically that match the ribbon........I want a gold star tree topper as well but I haven't found one I like yet! Maybe tonight!

The first advent calendar window is open!!!

Welcome to December! Inside our advent calendar window today was a cute little penguin. Sam opened todays window - we're doing it by age....so tomorrow is Abigails turn! This is our advent calendar for this year that my Mum sent over.......I did NOT want a nasty chocolate filled one like they sell here in Canada.

Its just after 2pm.......the kids are outside sledding despite the cold. Sam is asleep.

My Mum would be horrified, but this morning we brought the big Christmas tree upstairs from the basement studio and we decorated the main floor - two trees, and the mantlepiece etc ....and now it is at that messy stage...boxes everywhere, bits everywhere and it's driving me nuts....

I decorated the main tree in the sitting room, and the kids had fun decorating their tree in the front room......their tree has all the ornaments I have collected over the years as well as the ornaments the children have made.....

Tonight we have Derek coming back - he came the other night too...he is redoing the ceiling in the hallway, plastering the hallway and finishing off the bedroom in the basement for us.......

We have to run out to get a few things tonight too.......

Lauries letter

Laurences letter to the museum from yesterday......this is the photocopied copy (for his portfolio) and it seems to have cut off part of each line so thats why some of the words don't look quite right lol!

Footsteps through fresh snow..........

sledding again!

Abigail and Laurie have been out sledding this afternoon....Abigail didn't stay out qwuite as long but Laurie was out for ages, came in to warm up and then headed back out again. The snow is a little too deep on the hill right now so Laurie is working at creating a bob sled slope thingy by digging a trough through the snow - it works well! The dogs enjoyed watching :)

Gingerbread house craft........

Here is the gingerbread house that Susannah is busy making.......the instructions can be found in this months Family Fun magazine!!! I will add some pictures of the finished house when it

it's done!!!

Playin' trains..........

Two pals playing trains :)