Friday, December 23, 2011

It's all about timing...

Christmas is almost here...I can't believe how fast it has come this year. We had a warm fall and late snow which I think tricked me into thinking it was farther away. The girls had a My Little Pony advent calendar (as well as a chocolate one and one with pictures) that they love, and every morning, as the numbers got higher, my disbelief just increased. Crazy.

We did eventually get some snow, and the girls actually love shoveling it! They got these cute shovels from my parents neighbour who moved this fall.

We've been having quite a few nice playdates with our friend W and his new baby sister N (now our Goddaughter!). Colouring at southgate is lots of fun. And the moms get coffee. Yay!

We had a fun snow evening with one of our first real snows. The girls had a blast riding the sled and making snow angels and playing in the snow. The sled (which I was using to pull the girls across the field from where we park at school) has since gone missing. I don't know how that could happen but we really cannot find it.

I tried making caramel apple for the girls. They loved it, but I have decided that it's actually a lot of caramel for them to eat in one sitting and probably won't do it again for a few years.

We went sledding once right after Ben got home from work and it was just getting dark and chilly so we didn't stay long. The girls had fun and got nice and tired!

We have managed to do quite a few Christmas activities this year, so I really don't know how I didn't see it coming! We painted ornaments (a great little kit from Costco) with W. I have to tell you, when the box says "washable but may stain some clothing". That really means "if you scub for an hour the paint might wash off hands and probably won't ever come out of clothes or the dishes you use to wash the paintbrushes in between colours even though it wasn't really used to wash brushes but to make paint soup".

We went to the Festival of Trees which was so much fun...the girls were really excited and loved the trees, the fake presents, the hot chocolate, writing letters to Santa (we got the cutest replies last week! Personalized letters! Thank you Canada Post).

We went to grandpa Ken's staff family Christmas party. Super fun...there were Christmas crafts, a petting zoo, santa and a bouncy castle. This is the first year in a long time that we managed to get a Santa photo...the girls have been too scared previously. It was amazing how un-scared they were this year! I love it!

Katie had some fun with math. It says 1+1 2+2 etc...from a song by They Might Be Giants, the girls know, one plus one is two, two plus two is four etc... Cute. Excuse the terrible red eye.

We went to the museum with friends C and G (who's not quite a baby any more!) and the girls went fishing in a canoe. I got in earlier too and C said she was taking me to South Carolina. Interesting. :). We will be going back more since I bought a year pass. So cheap! 35$ for a whole year!

We decorated our Christmas tree and the girls were SOOOO excited.

One day I was trying to get some things done, probably baking or cleaning or dinner or something like that, so I built the girls a reading fort. The fitted sheet sure did the trick! And a lamp to light it up so they could read.

I'm going to try and finish up quickly since Sam and I have to pick Katie up from school in a few minutes.

About timing...Sam decided to start peeing in the potty and toilet recently. I'm not ally pleased about the timing but I'll admit I encouraged her by bringing out the little potty...I'd heard our younger friend D is trained and I got envious. Jealousy has brought it's karma on me though ( if that makes any sense) because we are now dealing with Christmas prep as well as tripling our laundry and cleaning pee off the floor. She's has some awesome success but still some not and I had somehow completely forgotten what a pain it is. I'm happy that we are getting the though and our new year will be great I think.

Hope this has gotten us mostly caught up. Look forward to seeing you more in the near future. Merry Christmas is I don't talk to you before then!