Cookies, Trees and Winter

It is finally starting to feel like Christmas. The tree is up, and we have snow! Not to mention a little un-official tradition of having my friends Lisa and Kelly come over so the kids can make cookies.

The tree was a bit of an adventure... as nothing is straight forward for us. Mike came home, threw the tree in the stand and raced of to a function of some sort. I didn't feel like heading out and was more than willing to stay home and get the tree lights on and all the ornaments ready for the kids to decorate in the morning. To sum up my adventure the tree fell over somewhere between 3 and 6 times (it really depends on your definition of fall... sometimes I caught it). And on the final attempt for me to get this beautiful, but massive tree up on my own, with this round ol' belly that won't actually allow me to get underneath. I called Mike, had him leave his party to find a 24 hour store that sold tree stands. He was not impressed... but niether was I considering I was holding the tree with one hand and the phone with the other during the entire conversation. He found what he claims to be the last stand in the city, after all it was less than a week before Christmas. With the knowledge that Mike would have a new stand I dragged the tree outside and went to bed. Whew. The next morning, we managed to finally get the tree up and stable, and the kids got to decorate the tree. Robbie was uninterested after 5 minutes, but Charlotte was in for the long haul, and loved every minute of it. The tree looks wonderful and despite the abuse it took, we have one of the best looking tree's I've ever had. On a side note... I did make up a song throughout my adventure. It went something like;

Oh Christmas Tree,

Oh Christmas Tree,

How beautiful your branches.

Oh Christmas Tree,
Oh Christmas Tree,

I can't wait to make you into matches.

No great pictures of the tree decorating, because sometimes I just feel like putting down the camera and enjoying the moment with the kids. But I did take a couple at the start.

Here are some photo's of our cookie decorating morning.

So far my vacation has been great. The pond is finally frozen and we've spent time skating, and last night we got fresh snow and the temperature was mild which meant Snowmen, and Tobagganing. Charlotte LOVES to be outside and Robbie is starting to find the joy of Winter. Robbie's max is about an hour, where we have to coax and bribe Charlotte with hot chocolate to come inside. This is where my mom comes in handy, one of us goes in with Robbie and one stays out with Charlotte. It is also handy having the hill in our back yard and the pond across the street.

It was Robbies first time ever on skates. He did so GOOD!

Christmas is coming FAST

My blogging has sure slowed down recently, not from lack of intent, just short on time and energy. I’ve been dealing with my iron level, as my doctor was very concerned a few weeks ago and inquired how with my low blood pressure, and low iron I’ve managed to NOT faint. Count my lucky stars I guess. I am feeling better and see the doctor again tomorrow when I’m sure my iron will still be low, but at least at an acceptable level.

We have started some home renovations. Mike and his friend Matt have been doing nearly all the work. I try to pick up a paint brush every now and then, but find that between the cleaning (since they’ve had to do the sawing in the house the dust was shocking), and just keeping the kids away from exposed outlets, drills, etc I have my hands full. We are nearly done and just have a few doors to paint. YEAH!! We painted all the walls in the hall, kitchen, dining, and living room, added crown moulding, tiled the back splash in the kitchen, added all new lights, painted and tiled the fireplace, and put new doors throughout the house. Perhaps December wasn’t the best time to choose to do this much work BUT I’m so happy it is done and we can enjoy it for the holidays.

The holidays are sneaking up on me. Due to the renovations I barely have any decorations up. I’ve pulled out the stockings for the fire place and my Santa Photo which sits above the dining room table. Santa may stay up all year long, as all I have to say is Santa is watching and the kids start eating!. We have lights on the outside of the house but I’ve been dying to put up a tree, and the rest of our decorations. I don’t know if I’ll get them all out this year, seeing as Christmas is NEXT WEEK!!

We did go visit Santa last week. I wasn’t sure what to expect. I remembered the photo from last year, with Charlotte in mid-sprint away from the man with the white beard. But this year she understands who Santa is, and she was so excited to go see him. She even asked if she could have her hair braided and wear some of mommy’s make-up (make-up!! already!!). Still I wasn’t convinced she was going to get a photo with Santa, as for Robbie, we have the opposite problem… he has no fear of strangers. Which was obvious when he gave Santa a hug before Santa ever got to sit down in his chair. I was unable to get a photo of the hug, because I had 36lbs of a terrified Charlotte wrapped around my legs. Call me cruel, but we still went ahead with the photo and needless to say we had a repeat event from last year. I told the photographer to just SNAP the photo because Charlotte was going to bolt. And bolt she did! The photo has her swinging her arms, kicking her legs and using all her might to get away. Robbie is looking over at her as if to say “What’s wrong with you”. Ahhh another successful Christmas photo. Personally I love them, and can’t wait to make the Santa Photo Scrapbook that I plan one day.

Friday is my last day of work for 2 weeks. We plan to get our tree (yeah), and then we have cookie decorating with the kids and a couple friends. As well as a few parties and gatherings, so Christmas is going to come at us 100 miles an hour. Good thing Santa got his little elves working in November and I have no worries on that end.

I’ll post some Christmas Tree decorating photos next week. But here are a couple recent photos, in random order.


Playing at the mall... post Santa... pre black eye. Robbie fell/jumped off one of the other toys only moments after this and now has a black eye.

Santa had not arrived yet... she was so excited. Robbie was running around somewhere like a crazy man.
Skating (her last lesson) she is getting pretty darn fast. They would have moved her to the next class but she needs to be 5. Hugging the snowman we made. It got a little chilly (they look a little like snowmen themselves) as the wind picked up right when we finished making Frosty. We then enjoyed some yummy hot choclate with marshmallows AND candy canes!

Daddy fixing the roof. I felt bad for him, he was almost done and then the paint and plaster started to peel off.
Snuggling in Charlotte's bed.


Reading in Charlottes bed

Here I am 28 wks. Sorry about the back ground we were done the painting, but I hadn't gotten around to decorating the fire place.