The Grandchildren............

And here are the pics of the children........

a few more :)

Lloyd and his parents and also Lloyd and I.......

Lloyds parents.............

Some indoor pictures of Lloyds parents that I took to go in a 'generational' picture frame that we gave them for Christmas - there are three spaces in the frame and they are labelled 'Grandparents', 'parents', 'grandchildren'. So I took pictures of each for the frame!

Dance class open house...

The girls dance class held their open house just before Christmas....Lloyd had taken his Dad to a hockey game that night, so I took Terry with me to see the girls dance...it wasn't organized very well as they had the younger class dancing upstairs and the older class dancing downstairs - at the SAME time!!!!!! Several parents had girls in both classes so we were all running up and down the stairs trying to get glimpses of all our children - CRAZY!!!! Afterwards there was a party style buffet and the children all got treats before we went home.....

We bought the teachers each a gift for CHristmas and the girls went up to the teacher to give them the gifts - and all they said was 'oh put it on the table over there'....how nice is that????? NOT!!!! Susannah commented on how rude that was! I'm so glad she noticed because we were able to talk about it! Next year I just won't bother!

Porcupine................

We saw this little guy pootling along the road in Elk Island Park on Boxing Day.....we got out of the car and got fairly close and he didn't seem to mind at all......we were very aware that he could throw his quills but he really didn't seem bothered by us ;)

Lets Play............

On Christmas Eve we usually take the children to Lets Play for a while - its a chance for us to sit and relax after a busy few days while the children have a blast and tire themselves out so they go to bed early :) It works wonderfully :)

We had a nice couple of hours there and the children had great fun on the slot machines too.....Susie made a friend there very fast and they played for a while.....Laurie had fun on the slide with Sam and Chris and Terry enjoyed seeing the children play!

Cranium Cadoo.......

Christmas Eve evening, we put The Polar Express on tv and then we all sat and played Cranium Cadoo.....it was great fun - Terrys impression of 'bubbles' and mine of a vampire and a pirate (Susan you would soooo NOT have been proud of my pirate impersonation lol - they thought I was the hunchback of notre dame instead of captain Hook lol - its hard to be a pirate and make no noise!!!!)

It was a fun game and Susie won both games - with different partners but she won :)

We were all in bed by 11:30pm - waiting for Santa to arrive!

Failure to launch

Failure to Launch - what a useless movie...I am not a fan of Matthew McConaughey anyway but this film was really AWFUL :( It is like a bad version of 'How To Lose a Guy in Ten Days' - makes me wonder why on earth he did this movie......

zero stars out of five for this movie.

In Praise of Slow....

I am currently reading Carl Honore's book 'In Praise of Slow' - its excellent and I spend my time nodding in agreement constantly.....

One thing that really stood out to me was the question:

To what extent is slowing down a luxury for the affluent?

Hmmm this really did get me thinking a lot - Christie I would especially love your thoughts on this (because you have experienced this from both angles and I think you have managed to live a slower life no matter what!) - but everyone that visits my blog - what are your thoughts?

I do think it is possible for anyone to slow down their lives and downshift out of the 'rat race' but I do think it is easier to do when you have a certain level of financial security....

I think for me at least it was easier to opt out of city life and move to the acreage because we could afford to - perhaps it wouldn't have been so much fun if we didn't have the vehicles, toys and comforts that make this lifestyle more enjoyable.....and Lloyds job and salary allows him to be at home more and have a calmer slower family life away from the office.....

But it isn't just money is it? Sometimes money can work in the opposite way if you aren't strong enough to stop it. At the weekend we drove around some of the expensive subdivisions in town - the million dollar homes on their 2 acre plots........

These are people with BIG money....yet it would be MORE difficult in some ways to slow down and downshift living there - there is so much of the 'keeping up with the joneses' philosophy in those subdivisions...........how easy it is it to go against that?

I am glad we opted NOT to live in a subdivision and I am glad that over the last 5 years we have managed to step away from the competitive ratrace......now we do things because WE want to - and not because its expected of us or society demands it.....we don't rush around for classes for the children and we don't over-schedule our lives......we take things SLOWly and its nice to read a book about a movement of people globally, who are all doing the same ;)

Everyone should read this book!

dishwasher

Our dishwasher is dying......noisily!!! Actually you could say it was murdered as it just never recovered after Lloyd pulled it out last year! It is very LOUD and drives me crazy......today I have emptied it and it is going through a lightwash empty with some cleaning product or other inside it to make it sparkle - you would think with the amount it is used in this house, that it would sparkle naturally but I guess not - I think we will have to get a new one......

We are also getting a new furnace and air conditioning put in - the furnace guy is coming on Thursday.....it will be so good to have air conditioning this summer.

Lloyd says that we will have two dishwashers in the new kitchen - he's right I guess - we need them - our dishwasher goes on several times a day.....maybe thats why they never last!

It's a cracker!!!! ;)

And only Brits will 'get' my title for this post lol........

So a big part of our Christmas dinner is the Christmas crackers - we pull them before the meal and everyone wears their hat during the meal :) I like to pay a little bit more for crackers so you get good things inside!!! I got a little silver tin with a sewing set inside.....

Here we are in our hats - except no one took a picture of me in my hat :) Maybe Lloyds Dad did and will send me a copy when he puts the picture onto the computer.....and Lloyd refused to look at the camera while wearing his lol! We always buy extra crackers and have them Boxing Day and at New Year too...........

Our Christmas table 2006............

Here is our Christmas table 2006..........I went with a red and gold theme and decorated each charger plate with a poinsettia flower and uh yes we are drinking white wine from red wine glasses lol - we didn't have enough white wine glasses left as they have all been broken this year - and I wanted the glasses to match lol - just pretend you didn't notice ;)

Snapshots of our Christmas........

A few pictures of our Christmas......

Gingerbread house contest....

I bought two gingerbread house kits and decided to make it a contest so we had two teams - girls against boys!! Terry was with Susie and Abby, and Chris was with Chris and Laurie.....Sam decorated the cookies that came with the kits.......

They all had so much fun!!! The girls house eventually collapsed and the boys took the contest sooooooo seriously!!!