Good news!

Looks like if we can move fast, then the trees are ours!! This is wonderful - they were going to bulldoze them all but if we can get them moved then we can have them :) Yay!! They start the WEst side of the strip mall - clearing the land etc in Jan/ Feb but the rest won't start until a few months time which means we can move them in the Spring :) The trees are gorgeous and lovely and big and mature and we have so many places we want mature trees :) So for the cost of hiring a tree mover and the people who use them (we've already contacted someone for this) then the trees are ours - soooo many :) It's wonderful!

Other good news, the house is now spick and span and all the CHristmas things are all back in storage :) I've decluttered tons of stuff the last few days and Lloyd fixed the broken bookshelf, so I can start 2008 with a clean and tidy home with room to breathe - no clutter and no mess :)

How would you feel?

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7152762.stm

How would you feel if you learned you had been separated from your twin sister as a baby as part of a psychology 'experiment'??? I think this is disgusting!!!!

I agree witht he way the women think - that there is nothing to bring those years back so why not move forward, but I still think it is so wrong that scientists feel they can play with peoples lives in this way......

Like a black and white movie......

Blah...

Monday morning....well actually afternoon but lets not get too specific here.....I feel sleepy and blah.....this room is just completely FULL of all the Christmas ornaments and decorations...two trees and just CHAOS!!!!!! I don't feel like doing any of it but I do want it all packed away before New Year.

The children are all busy playing...Chris and Abby baked the most delicious jam 'things' this morning....not sure what they are called - a little like hot jammy croissant things.....a recipe Chris learned at school. Delicious!!!

Lloyd got 10 of the lights we have for $15 yesterday!!! 10!!!!! So he is changing all the old fashioned nasty brassy things that were in the house when we moved in, into nice more modern (but in the style of the house) white lights...the kind that flies can't die in lol.....I won't have a nasty flowery lightshade full of dead flies in my bedroom any more...I swear you clean it out and wash it and five minutes later there are dead flies in there again lol - YUCK!!!

Lloyd is also trying to rescue a whole load of trees! He has been on the phone to the planning department today and hopes to get an answer soon. Basically they are building a new strip mall in town and where it is going there are LOTS of trees - mature firs and deciduous trees - gorgeous - but they will be bulldozing them all! So Lloyd is trying to find out if we can get a tree remover and move the trees instead - we would love to have them all! So hopefully we will be allowed to move them here to our land as soon as the weather allows! I hope they let us - such a shame to bulldoze them all :(

Well, I should get back to packing away all this Christmas stuff! We seem to have so much more to pack away this year! I didn't realise we had bought much this year but we needed extra plastic storgae tubs to put it all away.

I love New Year - I wonder what 2008 will hold for us all.......

My girls in the snow....

Amber and Rosie in the snow this morning.......clip shot from my bedroom window.....

Me on the wii........

This is a clip of me that Samantha filmed last night......me on the wii....bowling!!!

Our weekend.....

Last night we headed into town to Samanthas house for a fun evening of games, chat and drinks :) Good food and good company. I couldn't believe how fast the night went and was stunned when Lloyd said it was midnight! We ended up leaving around 1:30am and got home at 2am. I drove home so Lloyd could drink. Probably a good thing as the winner of each game could pick someone on the losing team to have a shooter - and of course they couldn't pick me lol! PHEW!!!!!

We played racing Grannies (two wind up little old ladies with walking frames that we raced across the coffee table - it was hilarious and now I want some lol) and then we played Trivial Pursuits 80's edition....then we headed downstairs to play bowling on the Wii...then did fitness tests on the wii (Lloyd was 52 I think) and then we played Taboo which I was REALLY good at but I kept thinking of rude things to say to get people to guess the word!!

It was such a fun night and we are doing it again for Samanthas birthday in a few weeks - Lori and Chris are hosting at their house - so I think maybe we will host in March....

And best of all, Samantha is going to look at the house next door to ours - and they are really keen :) OMG that would be the BEST :)

Needless to say, I was so sleepy this morning - slept until 10am and finally crawled out of bed at 11am. Lloyd and I headed into town to collect Laurie from his friends after he slept over for two days....we also ran into Canadian Tire to get some storage boxes for the Christmas decorations...and into Sobeys to get brussel sprouts, parsnips etc etc for New Years dinner...

Came home and Lloyd lit a fire outside and I went out snowshoeing while he chopped wood etc....then we sat by the fire for a while - then I went snowshoeing again before we came indoors....

Lloyd removed the window seat from our bedroom this afternoon too....and has put it in the girls window instead.....what a difference it makes - I'm thinking of getting a table to go in our window so I can leave my sewing machine out all the time and can sew in the window....we'll see...I kind f like the space there too.....hmmmmm

So thats all our news from the last day or so.....hope you are all having a good weekend.....the holidays have gone so fast and Lloyd only has two days left at home now before he goes back to work. It's been so nice having him home for so long....I guess April will be the next time he has longer than three days off - when we go to Toronto.

Our wonderful fire......

Our lovely fier pit that is the centre of many many wonderful times :) All the stones around the fire are ones we found amongst all the trees or lying about on our acreage :)

A few more frosty images......

Gingerbread house decorating...

On Christmas Eve, the children had their annual contest to decorate a gingerbread house......Sam decorated the gingerbread men to go by each house......Abigail and Christopher competed against Susannah and Laurence!

Last Sunday...

A few pictures from last Sunday, when my wonderful friend Samantha came over for the evening with her family. It was so much fun - a highlight of my Christmas! As you can see, we made quite a mess while scrapbooking her Moms special album!

Going.....going......

GONE!!! Chris jumping on the frost/ snow covered trampoline yesterday!

weekend news.....

Not much to report...we continue to enjoy relaxing at home...sledding...the fire pit...so nice having Lloyd home from work for so long!

Laurie slept at the twins house last night and called to ask if he could stay again tonight......so we just ran in to Costco to get some dog food and I stopped in at Michaels to buy a rotary cutter as I had a coupn that had to be used by Monday. I saw a book on quilted postcards and so I want to make a few of those too - didn't bother wth the book as I will read onine instead!

Yesterday Lloyd and I went out for brunch which was a lovely chance to just be alone together without the children - it's been a few weeks really since we've done that without focusing on the children/ Christmas shopping....we took our time and enjoyed the peace :)

Tonight we are off to a party in town - which starts with a games night - including 'snakes and shooters' and 80's Trivial Pursuits......which should be interesting!!! And its adults ony woohoo :) I said I'd drive so Lloyd can drink :)

Thats all for now - oh and thank you Jennifer for your emails - they made me laugh so much :)

Snowflakes.....

Today Lloyd pointed out one tiny perfect snowflake that had landed on my window - can you believe that I have NEVER seen one single tiny snowflake quite like that? Only in books or online...never in real life...they often seem all clumped together but the last couple of days it has been gently snowing tiny delicate perfect snowflakes......I was fascinated! So as I was sat by the fire this afternoon, I watched the snowflakes land on my snowpants and stay there....perfect! I grabbed my camera and tried to get some good pictures....I don't really have the right lens but I got a few nice shots....I think I need a new macro lens so I can get close ups in focus of these little treasures.....

How wonderful!

Someone treated me to a free year long membership of Linking Parents! How wonderful is that? I have no idea who.....Carmel sent me a pm and firstly I was looking at the webpage and saw that I had another pm and I was fretting over how to tell people I don't have access to pm's! But I thought I'd click on it anyway - and wow - I could read them!

I'm stunned! I'm not the most popular person at LP (lol) to be popular there you normally have to have endless problems and be fairly depressing......happy people aren't too popular! But someone must like me :) How great is that????

So I don't know if it was Carmel or if Carmel just wrote to let me know.....but whoever it was, I am thrilled...it's nice to have my avatar back again....but I WON'T be joining the boxing ring!!!! Even the idea of that forum makes me feel YUCK.....

It isn't so much the membership that makes me happy as much as the fact that someone chose me :) thats such a nice feeling :)

THANK YOU!

Natures Diamonds.....

Frosty Honeysuckle......

Jack Frost came to visit...

preview of things to come....

Last night we noticed how foggy it had become - we put the back deck light on and saw that the ice fog was leaving an amazing hoar frost on all the trees and we knew we would wake up to a winter wonderland today! I took these two pictures of the bush that all the chickadees sit in while they wait for their turn on the bird feeder....

Boxing Day

Today has been lovely and relaxing again :) I went out snowshoeing twice and LOVED it :) Lloyd lit a fire and we sat outside together....I played dominoes with Abigail....just quiet lazy day at home :) Really nice! Although WOW what a workout snowshoeing is!!!!

Tonight we are watching a family movie together...maybe play a game.....

It's supposed to snow tonight :) More snow to snowshoe in tomorrow :)

Best part of today - sitting by the fire outside with Rosie - Lloyd had taken Abby on the quad and Amber went with them, but Rosie sat with me by the fire and we just cuddled watching the flames and enjoyed all the peace and quiet and still air and pretty snow and the sunset :) Just lovely :)

I hope you all had a great day today....

Happy Anniversary!

Happy 48th Wedding Anniversary to my Mom and Dad today!

Thinking of you and hoping you had a lovely day!

Two more.........

Sammy......

Abby Banana.....and her new 'Daughter' Emma!

Please note: Abigail chose her own outfit today ;)