Tis the Season

Lengthy absence.  I know.

But, I'm finding myself with a little more free time sitting around on the couch lately with bed head and stretchy pants.

Darn ankle.

Looking for a new years resolution for 2014?  How about "Don't Exercise.  Ever.  Not worth it."

Who knows... maybe they'll be more blogging in my future?  We shall see.  I make no promises.

Anyways... thought I'd stop by to say Merry Christmas to everyone!  And while I'm at it... here's the tree of 2013.  I didn't think I'd ever be one for a colourful tree... but I think I'm going to have to say that this year's tree is probably my favourite ever.

(sorry it's a little blurry... but I'm on crutches... don't judge :)

What Just Happened??

Okay, so it's been a month... totally unintentional... and I'm totally not gonna apologize.  This pre-baby, crazy Christmas, been out-of-town season has totally kicked my blogging butt.  Don't worry-- I have no intentions of falling off the blogging bandwagon.  Sometimes a girl's just gotta take a little unexpected break.  Sooo.... what's been up around here lately?  Let's just do a little picture recap, shall we?

Over the past few weeks...

We got a wee bit of pre Christmas snow here in Abby... definitely snowman worthy.

Caleb begged me to let him continue with swimming lessons... even though I was so done with sitting on the side of the pool twice a week.  But, he finished yet another level a few days before Christmas and was a little sad to be done with lessons.  I'm going to wait until life settles down a bit before we decide to conquer the next level :)

Eme and I shopped and shopped.  Turns out she's as into shopping as her Mama is... no real surprise there.

I baked a zillion gingerbread cookies for the school bake sale-- torture for this gestational diabetic preggo.  And shocker-- I made it through the ENTIRE Christmas season without a SINGLE bite of Christmas candy/chocolate/baking goodness.  I decided I would make no exceptions... no compromises... otherwise I would likely slide down the slippery slope of sampling too many sweet treats and have trouble stopping.  Needless to say-- the ladies at the Diabetes Clinic LOVE me, and I will admit that it's nice to step on the scale and realize that I've only gained one pound in the last 7 weeks of being pregnant.  My non-exsistant waistline is gonna thank me later!!

The week before Christmas I finished moving the last of Eme's things out of her room and started prepping for baby #3.  Turns out gallery walls murder your drywall.  So I've got some patching and painting to do.  More on the baby room progress to come...

The "nesting" phase made a brief appearance.  It has since disappeared (darn it!).  I did manage to do a clean sweep of a few closets... all the kids crafty stuff found a new home as Eme has demonstrated the tendency to run with scissors and experiment with markers/paint on any and every surface of the house.

On the 25th we took the first flight out of town to head home to Saskatchewan for Christmas.  Doug sat with the kids giving me the most relaxing flight ever-- alone across the aisle free from kids-- glorious.  Best Christmas present ever.

The kids were so excited to be at Nana and Papa's-- and absolutely fell in love with their cousin.  Seriously... Eme tried to smother him.  Baby Toews #3... watch out.

Eme was a frequent helper in the kitchen.

My sisters and I did our annual boxing day shopping trip.  I bought... slippers.  So exciting, hey?  Seriously... it was the only thing that fit.

Guys... I turned 30.  And I have nothing to say about that.  Well, except that I should have actually combed my hair and washed my face before snapping an "I'm officially 30" self portrait.  Oh well... I guess it's all down hill from here anyways.

(side note-- I get a little weird-ed out taking self portraits and always end up looking like a crazy person-- sorry about that)

The kids had the most fantastic time bundling up and heading outside to play in some good old Sasky snow!!  Eme thought Caleb looked hilarious when he got all ready for a snowmobile ride... but soon she was bundled up just as good as he was...

And of course Daddy had a fantastic time playing in the snow and cruising around on the snowmobile too.  Just love this picture :)

And this one too!

And then this happened.

Like most households we were hit with the nastiest most violent flu.  It struck down EVERYONE except me and my Mom.  Honestly... I must have superhuman immunity or something.  After listening to the most awful and wretched sounds coming from every bathroom in my parent's house I thought I was a goner for sure.  I'm not taking any chances though... I booked myself in for a flu shot as soon we got home!

And now... back to normal life.  Doug's been back at work, Caleb heads back to school on Monday, and the baby is set to arrive in about 5 or 6 weeks.  My family doctor and the obstetrician I've been seeing are wanting to induce me sometime during the 39th week due to the gestational diabetes and  because I had an abruption during delivery with Emerson.  So... the countdown is on!  I have SO much to do in January... where to start!!?

Ladylike? Not so much...

Emerson's been rocking a few new looks around here since Christmas.  

Are they ladylike?  Not so much.  

First up, "farm girl chic".

As we were opening up Christmas presents with my family there was one for Emerson-- I was told that my little brother picked it out.  And let me tell you-- I was a little bit shocked over the fact that my brother had shopped for my kids.  What on earth would my 21 year old tractor driving, cowboy boot wearing, hunting, and truck driving farm boy brother (and if he was leaning over my shoulder right now he'd be saying:  "tell them I'm single... tell them I'm single!!") possibly think to buy for my 1 year old daughter? 

This.  Pink camouflage John Deere pajamas.

Can't stop giggling over how cute they are.

Nothing runs like a deere.  Not sure how I know that but I do...

Nice work Joel.

And Eme's second not so ladylike look?  I'm calling this one "little lady lumberjack".

I found the faux fur hat at Superstore on clearance during the boxing week sales and could not pass it up.  It is so ridiculously cute... especially with the red plaid shirt.

Emerson, however, hates it.  Hence the picture.  The look says it all-- "oh why oh why do I have to be a lumberjack!!?"  We're going to keep wearing it though... hopefully it will grow on her :)

And that's really all I have to say on the dark, blustery, rainy morning.  My one new year's resolution was to get me and my still recovering knee to the gym in the mornings... but man.  As I look out the window at the nasty weather I can't help but think that staying in bed and breaking my resolution on January 4th was a pretty fantastic decision.  

Cute Kids + Monkeys = a whole lot of fun

They all got monkeys for Christmas...

And we all had a good time monkey-ing around.

(that's the last of my cheesy monkey jokes-- promise.)

We celebrated Christmas early with the Toews family this year.  And the kids had a FANTASTIC time.  Here are a few pictures from the evening-- for all the grandmas and grandpas and aunties and uncles out there...

Keziah cuteness.

I asked Micah to show me his "I want presents" face.  This is what I got.

Before presents Uncle Erik read the Christmas story.  Emerson was a fan.

And so were the boys.

And then it was time for presents.

Caleb was SO VERY EXCITED about his new toys.

Trains...

And lego.  Of course.

And the days have been quiet since then-- new toys = happy kids and one very happy momma :)

Scenes of Christmas

The last week has been a busy one-- full of shopping, crafting, wrapping, partying, baking-- all that good stuff.  Here are few scenes from the week...

I've been doing a little gift wrapping-- often with two "helpers".  Let's just say that rolls of paper, scissors, tape, a one year old, and a four year old are not a good combination.  But, we managed to get a few gifts wrapped and under the tree.  This year the boys get brown kraft paper, the girls get pretty red and white bird wrapping paper, and everyone gets ribbon.  Now I've just gotta find a few more boxes so that I can wrap the rest of the gifts!!

We did some card making this week.  Caleb made Christmas cards for all of his preschool buddies.  We started with a basic Christmas tree design-- but as soon as Doug and I got involved the designs started to become more elaborate and complex.  We kind of hijacked Caleb's card making party-- but he was pretty pumped about our designs.

My favorite was the moose.

I baked and decorated more gingerbread and sugar cookies.  I think I've set the bar too high with the decorating-- now Caleb only wants to eat "beautiful cookies"-- as he likes to call them.  But now that I think about it-- that might be a good problem to have..."Oops, I guess we don't have any beautiful cookies left... well, no more cookies for you!"

Poor Doug.  I'm pretty sure he's the only guy on the job site with "beautiful" cookies in his lunch.

Yesterday I attended Caleb's preschool Christmas party.  His class sang a few Christmas songs for the crowd.  For most of the songs Caleb had the "deer in the headlights" look on his face... until it was time to ring those bells.  Wow, those bells were certainly a-ringing...

Is it wrong of me to be thankful that those bells didn't come home with us?  Cause I sure am...

After dinner last night Doug and I decided to dart out to Ikea for a quick shopping trip with the kids.  Within minutes of leaving the house Caleb fell asleep in the car-- as I saw him sleeping in the backseat I thought to myself-- it's gonna be a looong night shopping with two sleepy kids.  We pulled into Ikea only to discover that their Midnight Madness event was on that evening-- and wow... was the place ever hopping.  Great.  Once we managed to find a parking spot, we braved the crowds and got our shopping done.  In the end the sleepy kids were happy-- probably because I brought them cookies to enjoy in the shopping cart.  And Doug and I managed to make it out of the store without experiencing too much distress.  And we are definitely the masters when it comes to the self checkout lane.  Just saying :)

And what were we shopping for... you might be wondering.  Well-- more plates and cutlery!!  Our old set is getting quite beat up-- and-- we need more place settings because we're going to have a whole lot of Christmas company.  My whole family is coming to our place for Christmas-- that means there will be 7 extra people at our house for a week!

Yup, more plates and cutlery will be needed.  And best of all-- it gave me an excuse to get new stuff :)

Christmas-y

Things have been getting a little more Christmas-y around here.  I hadn't gotten around to taking a picture of our tree yet this year... so tonight was the night!  I'm still learning how to use my camera-- I was trying to take a picture that would give the lights a little extra twinkle...

With a one year old in the house this year, I decided to put away my glass ornaments.  Instead of my pretty glass ones, I picked up a big box of glittery pinecones and some felt snowflakes and moose from Canadian Tire.  Caleb was a fan.

Today was baking day.  I have a whole lot of butter and chocolate in this house-- it's time to do some baking.  Since Eme can't have any buttery chocolate-y goodness, I made her a batch of Raspberry Banana muffins.

But these chocolate almond toffee squares were for me :)

Today was also gingerbread house building day.  I took the easy approach and used graham crackers.  Super easy-- super fun.  All I had to do was make icing...

And buy a whole lot of candy.  I tried to find the prettiest ones.

And here is my master gingerbread house builder.  He did an exceptional job of candy placement.

Although I had to laugh when he insisted on using the candy canes as downspouts on one of the houses.  He was so concerned about where the water would go when it started to rain.  I guess practicality won over aesthetics today...

The Advent Countdown is On...

Okay, so please tell me that I'm not the only one who woke up shocked to discover that it was December 1st.  Wow... the Christmas countdown is on... time for an Advent Calendar!

  

A few days ago I was sitting around trying to figure out what to do... what to make... what would be cheap and easy... and I suddenly it came to me-- picture frame... twine... clothes pins.  All things I had around the house.  I jumped off the couch and started racing around to gather my supplies.  I'm pretty sure Doug had thought I'd lost my mind, but soon he got the vision and stepped in to help out.  In the end I think it ended up looking pretty great.  This frame used to be a chalkboard-- so I popped out the chalkboard portion and tacked five lengths of twine along the back.

I really wanted to use vintage looking tags-- but I didn't have any.  So instead I cut some cream colored cardstock into the shape of tags.

Then I used a dollar store number stencil out of Caleb's crafting supplies to number the tags.  I traced them out with pencil and filled them in with a black sharpie.

In the end the clothes pins I had lying around the house were too big-- so I picked up some mini ones at Michael's.  They were the perfect size.

Each day Caleb (& Eme) get to take the appropriate number off of the frame.  On the back of each number is a Christmas-y activity that our family will do together.  Some activities will be big and awesome-- some will be small and easy to accomplish with minimal effort on my part.

I decided that I reserve the right to only commit the daily activity to the card on the night before... I have a list of things we want to do-- but I'm not committing until I know what each day is going to look like.  But Caleb doesn't need to know that... of course :)

I've got a list of activities started... some of these items will be done more than once, some we may not do at all, and I will probably add other things to list as the days go on.  Here's what I've got so far...

Eat some candy canes

Drink hot chocolate with marshmallows—of course J

Go for a drive and find the best Christmas lights in town

Go visit the nativity

Watch a Christmas movie with popcorn and pajamas

Read a portion of the Christmas story from the Bible

Go see Santa in the Mall and admire him from afar (my kids would be way too terrified to sit on his lap-- that I know for sure!!)

Decorate Christmas cookies

Have a Christmas orange

Make a gingerbread house

Make Christmas cards

Decorate the Christmas tree

Do a little Christmas shopping

Make a Christmas Craft

Make snowflakes

Sing some Christmas carols
Read the Grinch that Stole Christmas-- and then watch the movie

Go Skating (I will watch from the sidelines with my bad knee)

Have a Christmas Music Dance Party

And that is our Advent Calendar.  Our activity for tonight is-- eat candy canes... I figured we should start out small and work our way on to the bigger items.  I don't want to set the bar too high right off the bat :) 

Are you doing an Advent Calendar this year?  Any other suggestions of fun activities I could add to my list?

Tis the season

It's time to let the Christmas festivities start in our house.  This week?  Baking.  Caleb and I have been baking up a storm.  Sugar cookies, muffins, and yesterday-- gingerbread.  My favorite.  I used this recipe.  It is hands down the BEST gingerbread recipe I've ever tried.  And the instructional videos help too :)

So last night I somehow got it into my head that I should pipe and flood these cookies instead of just smearing on the icing-- my more typical approach to icing cookies.  So I got to work... and somewhere along the way I managed to convince Doug to help me.  At one point he looks at me and says, "who really has time to do this anyways?"  I start laughing.  "Obviously me."

As time consuming as it was-- they sure look pretty-- if I do say so myself!

So... now that we've got the cookies... I think it's time to pull out the decorations...  tis the season!!