The childrens tree...

This is the children's Christmas Tree....my favourite...the one with all the different ornaments - the ones we have collected over the years and the ones the children have made or we have been given. Nothing really matches, some are broken but can't be thrown away because they are too special - like the ballerina Susie had in her stocking one year (she is missing her leg but Susie loves her too much to throw her away).

The fairy on the top is 'Terry'....she adored the top of Lloyds Christmas tree as a child and Lloyds Mom sent her over to us from England last year. She will now sit on top of the childrens tree every year and we think she looks like Lloyds Mom so we have named her 'Terry' :)

The fairy lights on the bottom of the tree stopped working after about an hour grrrrrr so we have to go and buy more - some LED ones which I have put off buying as I really don't like them - don't like the bright colours :( oh well I know they are environmentally friendly and safe

Decorating the cookies

Decorating the cookies after they had cooled.....

Baking sugar cookies

Lloyd and Sam were out all morning, and then they picked Susie up from her sleepover at lunchtime.

As it was raining all day, the children baked sugar cookies this afternoon...they took the time to cut them into all fancy shapes like cows, trains and stars, but in the oven they all meshed into one big blob lol! OOPS!!! so we cut them into squares and weird shapes and the children had fun decorating them anyway! They said they still tasted great!!! And the house still smells great!

Sams first proper hair cut!

Sam went to Regis today with lloyd to have his hair cut by Erin. I think he looks very cute :)

Thinking of you Tess!

Thinking of my wonderful, sweet friend Tess. I know tomorrow is going to be a difficult day for you, but please know you are in my thoughts and that if you need anything, all you have to do is call! I hope that you get all the answers you need and that very soon you are on the mend and back living the life you love so much :)


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Starting to feel a little more festive....

I'll add a few more pictures of things around here over the next few days...slowly I've been decorating the place, but I still don't have the main tree decorated or the house fully decorated....the children have decorated their tree but I haven't taken pictures yet. I am not as organized this year but I will do that this year....the renovations have me all out of sync this year and I feel self conscious taking pictures when I have a house full of men all day....this week there have been extra workmen around the place - Bell workmen wiring the place for PVR etc and next week we have the electrician here and also the plumber putting in the new furnace in the garage for my bees.....and that furnace will also heat the next addition and our master suite. But yes, I am slowly decorating the house and making it a little more festive. It is nice to sit with the fire on and the pretty fairy lights glowing and have the snow outside making it feel cosy outside. The workmen have put all the pot lights in the porch now and it looks soooooo nice and makes the house look really nice and even more cosy!!! The pot lights go all the way around the wrap around porch!!!

Indoor S'mores maker....

Tonight we finally got around to using the indoor s'mores maker that Lloyd gave me for Christmas about two years ago!!!! Turns out I had bought the wrong fuel for it though so we STILL ended up using candles in it (lol) but we had great fun roasting our marshmallows in it and making s'mores by the fire....we sat and watched 'Christmas with the Kranks' while we ate them....

Susannah has gone to the theatre in Edmonton with a friend and is sleeping over, and Chris wasn;t interested, but Laurence, Abigail and Sam all had fun tucking in!

Mini Marshmallow structures!!!!

Abigail and Sam had fun building with mini marshmallows and cocktail sticks! I built a pyramid and a spider too :) It's a yummy craft :)

Sew much fun...

Abigail had today off of school.....a trial run of homeschooling I guess you could say ;) We spent much of the day 'crafting'. Abigail did some cross-stitching and then used some felt and created a gingerbread house design. She has stitched the shape of a house and is stitching on buttons and other embellishments onto the house to decorate the gingerbread house. Here is the house with just the square of the house even before the roof shape has been stitched - I will take more pictures as it progresses. As I type though it has already progressed much further and I am really impressed because she has done it all by herself with no help except for the occasional help with threading her needle.

Keeping busy.....

My back is pretty sore today but I find it's worse if I sit still, so I am keeping busy and keeping on the move. I washed the floors this morning, cleared the ice from the front steps and outside by the mudroom door - it warmed up over night and a lot of snow melted and the turned to weird ice chips - really slushy and slippery. So i cleared all that away. I've checked on Charlie a couple of times and given her food and fresh water and some company. Taken coffee out for the workmen and chatted to them.

The Bell guy came out again today (satellite tv) He was here yesterday and again today - he has put new lines into several rooms and run new cables for PVR to several rooms and brought a new remote control for the box downstairs. We don't want PVR but we wanted the cable installed ready. He's prepping ready for addition too.....some of the lines were disconnected when the porch was dismantled so that had to be reconnected.

Ardalta came out this morning too to pump out the septic system so we are all set to go through the winter with a nice empty septic system - thats good!!!

Yesterday we had no hot water coming through the tap in the kitchen - turns out that where the wall had been opened up outside, there was not enough insulation at present for that pipe - because at the moment it's open to the elements! So I went and told them and within minutes they had sorted it out and we had hot water again - Susie had been happy not to be able to do dishes before school lol!

Abigail didn't go to school today - she asked to stay home again so I let her. She won't be going after Christmas anyway. So this morning she did some sewing - cross stitching and then she started stitching a gingerbread house on felt - I just gave her the thread and felt and left her to it with that one! After that we built towers and creatures with mini marshmallows and cocktail sticks! They have had time on the computer, watched a Christmas movie, chatted with the various workmen here, helped me with chores, decorated Christmas cards, and played together. I will add pictures of their crafts onto the homeschool blog.

If anyone would like access to the homeschool blog please leave a comment with your email address and I will send you an invite to that blog!

Tonight Lloyd is making butter chicken for dinner yum - I wish he knew how to make the Indian desserts too - we went to A Taste of India for dinner again last night!!! OMG it's so good there!!! I swear I only go for the dessert - I hope no one counts how many trips I make up to the buffet for dessert ;) one guy must have watched because he came up to me and asked what it was I was eating and and asked what they taste like - I described them and he tried them and then I saw him go back for more too so he must have loved them too! YUMMY!!!! That family had a little girl with them who sounded JUST like Vals youngest!!! :) I kept thinking it was him :)

Three days

Abigail only went to school three days this week. On Monday she didn't want to get out of bed and today she got out of bed, but at 7:30am she came in to my room still in her pj's and asked if she could stay home. She is just NOT happy at school.

Last week she went to school two days.

I have noticed a few things though - the less she goes to school, the MORE she loves to read and go back to her work books as 'fun'.......she sees them as quiz books - you know, the way we all see Sudoku and word search books as adults. When she started school she lost all interest in them and she stopped reading for fun - it was a chore and something she HAD to do as homework and for a set time - she had to get the clock and would time herself for the 15 minutes and then stop!!!!

But before school, she would just read and read!!! She loved to read! On library day we would get massive piles of books from the library and bring them home and sit and read all day - read them in the car on the way home....but once in school she would maybe choose one or two :(

It's nice to see her already becoming more like her old self.

We've signed Sam up for Pre-K again after Christmas, and on those afternoons, Abigail and I will go ice skating and swimming together and maybe walking/ running on the indoor track. Abby will have dance class still on Tuesday nights. She wants to go back to drama if we can get her in (maybe not until September) and we can start going to the homeschool group at the library on Fridays.

I'd like to do some voluntary work somewhere somehow.....I'm not sure how we can do that or where with Sam but hopefully we can....

Sams tree!

After skating, Sam went back to his Pre-K classroom and we left him there with his class for the rest of the party. Lloyd and I went for lunch and then to Costco and while we were gone, Sam had fun decorating a Rice Krispy Christmas tree - each parent was asked to make a tree following a template we were given. Then the teachers supplied the icing and candies for each child to decorate the trees during the class. I love this idea so much that I kept the template and am going to do this again with my other children during the Christmas holidays! Its a great alternative to gingerbread houses too! Great idea for dayhomes too!

We made a point of finding each teacher and saying goodbye and thank you and wishing them Merry Christmas - even though it was chaos at the end of class - I noticed many people just left without even saying goodbye. I know they had each given gifts at the beginning of class, but still......I also wanted to ask if they would be the same teachers in the New Year and to let them know we'd look forward to seeing them again then. They have been GREAT teachers and with Parks and Rec you are not always guaranteed great teachers. I wanted them to know they were appreciated! I am really happy that Sam has a place for the new year!

Sam came out of class with lots of treats and had had a lot of fun - he fell asleep very quickly in the car. Tired but happy :) He shared his tree with his siblings after dinner while Lloyd and I went on a date night :)

Sam's Pre-K Christmas party!

Sam finished Pre-K today ready for Christmas. For the last day, they had a bit of a Christmas party. They all went ice skating on the nursery rink. Each child had to have an adult on the ice with him or her, so I went on with Sam. Lloyd came with us for the afternoon and took pictures of us. It's a good job he c ame with us, because as I got out of the truck and bent to pick up a bag, my back went 'clunk' and I couldn't move!!!! Oh my Gawd, it hurt so much!!!!!! So I'm glad Lloyd was there. I DID manage to get on the ice with Sam but I used one of the skate frae thingies to lean on for support and didn't really 'skate'. Lloyd helped me with my skates and of course was on hand to make plenty of jokes about old age and walking frames...what with Tess and her back problems and now me - I said to her that we will both be walking round the scrapbook stores with our walking frames before we are 40!!! Both geriatrics lol.

I will have to get my Mom to send me some Jelliatrics!!! :)

Anyway, Sam LOVED his skating - after two minutes he got off the ice and said he hated it (he always says this) and said he never wants to skate again! So I told him that maybe he shouldn't skate towards Daddy as he does great going the other way - I could see him thinking about that and so he got back on the ice and went the other way and then he was OFF and stayed on the full 40 minutes going faster and faster!!! I was with him most of the time until he told me to go away!!!! Hahahahaha! So I stayed with Lloyd for a few minutes and then asked Sam if I could skate with him again and he said 'Sure' so we skated together again until the end......sometimes he's just soooo independent lol!

He had a fun time!

Shadow puppets - very cute :)

This was on tonight's Graham Norton show :)

Teacher thank you cards for Pre-K

Last night I made these cards to say thank you to Sams Pre-K teachers. His Pre-K class finishes on Thursday and I didn't just want to give them Christmas cards when he leaves, but wanted to give them thank you cards too along with their gifts. The cards are very different styles because the teachers are very different in personality ;)