Merry Christmas!!

Thanks to the weather (we are living like SNOWMEN here!) we had a completely new kind of Christmas for us.

In the 6 years that Graham & I have been married - I have never prepared our own Christmas dinner. We are either at my parents place, or head out to my in-laws in the afternoon. I decided early in the day Christmas Eve, as we were being BURIED by snow, that it might be wise to take the small turkey I had in our freezer out. Good thing! It snowed all through the night & by morning we looked like THIS:

So we weren't going ANYWHERE! The LAST place I needed to spend my Christmas Day was taking 3+ hours to do the usually 1 hour drive to my in-laws, or worse - in a ditch somewhere between here & there with my 3 kids in the car! uh, no thank you, I'll pass.

So, we stayed home.

It was nice! It was lazy...

that's right, we ate Christmas dinner in our pajamas. You betcha!

And I made our Christmas dinner (even managed to duplicate my mother-in-law's stuffing - which my husband loves me just a little more for now - lol)

My man doing some carving :)

It was especially nice to stay home this year as our big gift to the family was a Wii. We were able to hang out & play together, so it made for a really nice, relaxed Christmas.

Averie playing her new HSM Nintendo DS game & Brynlea checking everything out (those are Averie's barettes from her stocking in Brynlea's hand)

Averie wishing Nannie & Grandpa a Merry Christmas - and breaking the news that we're staying put (they completely understood).

Evan & Graham getting ready to "Wii it up!" :)

It continued to snow for most of the day & into Boxing Day, so it was really a good thing we stayed home.

Hope everyone else's Christmas was as enjoyable as ours!

Christmas Eve

We have started a little tradition in our house on Christmas Eve. We call it a "Family Party".

Growing up I have very fond memories of Christmas Eve. My dad is one of 5 & all of his siblings (and his parents) have at one time lived in the same town with us - a few of them were always nearby. I remember taking the gifts for each family & heading out to deliver them - often caroling at the door when we got there; and ultimately all of us ending up at one home. We would have some Christmas-induced over-excited playtime with our MANY cousins, some good eats & then head home in time for the Christmas story from the Bible & Twas the Night Before Christmas before heading off to bed. They are some of my warmest childhood memories...

I wish sometimes that I could offer the same type of memories to my children, but we don't have any immediate family in the city we live in (Graham's parents & sister, & my brother live about an hour away) & my parents (& 3 other siblings) live 3 hours away. We try to go to my parents to spend Christmas there every other year & the years in between, we stay home Christmas Eve, then head out to my in-laws on Christmas Day - after present opening of course.

I have learned to enjoy our smaller, calmer Christmas Eve - but it is still strange for me.

First, there is FOOD...
We do an "appy" spread and leave it out for a while - you know keep going back for more until we're going to burst!

Gotta love that holiday food!!

Uhhh, ya... that food is just for the 4 of us. Yowza!

Then the kids get to open their "Christmas Eve gift" - which is always new pajamas. Luckily, they haven't figured out the pattern yet, so it still holds some suspense from them - I forsee some conflict in this department in the future, but it certainly solves the "Christmas morning pictures in your ratty old pajamas" dilemma :)

This year is another extra special one because it's Brynlea's FIRST Christmas! Averie & Evan were both August babies so by their first Christmas were still sort of "baby lumps" - you know, cute & cuddly but not much excitment there. Brynlea is a March baby so she is 9 months old. BIG difference & MUCH more fun! :)


And not a creature was stirring...
*shhhh* Merry Christmas everyone!

Gingerbread

Averie's kindergarten teacher is a brave lady...

Every year she has a day where the kids each get to make their own mini gingerbread house to take home. Everybody brings a sandwich bag of candy to share & she provides everything else.

(including stopping by a local bakery for 22lbs of pre-made royal icing!!)

I have never seen so much candy crammed into every cranny of 6 graham crackers cemented together! Even the whole INSIDE of the house was full of candy!! Too funny!

Of course, she doesn't let them EAT the candy... until they get home! LOL

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Our family's gingerbread adventure this year was a Sleigh with reindeer. Not nearly as complicated as a house & the kids thought it was super fun!


we start by each decorating our own reindeer...


Daddy doing what Daddies do best... getting them high on sugar AND teaching bad manners - at the same time!! :)

Graham doing the "assembly"...

Yes, Brynlea & I ARE there! :)

The finished product!!

Christmas Party

Grandpa is Head of Maintenance for a local helicopter company. Therefore, every year we are invited to the kids' Christmas party (breakfast with Santa - style). Its a really fun idea - we get to eat & hang out in part of the hangar with the helicopters & planes! A little boys dream! lol The kids always have a blast & what's not to like about free food?? :)

This year it was FREEZING out at the airport!! - Luckily the hangar was bearable :)

Here's some pictures of all the fun :)

What Christmas party is complete without Santa?? Except at THIS party, he brings presents...


Averie enjoying a toy much too small for her - that is, you guessed it - a helicopter.


Evan enjoying his gift from Santa - a few of Thomas' friends...
this is how he plays with any vehicle... doesn't matter where we are or what is on the floor... thankfully this floor had been cleaned for this party ;)
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While at the party, Grandpa was giving science lessons in aero-dynamics to the kids via the "paper propeller"...

Let it Snow! Let it Snow! Let it Snow!

Our adventures into taking the kids sledding & letting Brynlea experience her first snow!

An open apology...

The Christmas posts are coming...

I swear...

It might take me a bit but there will be much to read very soon!

Stay tuned....

Retake!

I tried...

I really did...

But I already admitted I have a problem in this area... so none of you should be surprised :)

Here is the NEW Santa picture - I am MUCH happier with it!

The Santa is WAY better (though Mrs. Clause left MUCH to be desired! - When was the last time you saw a Mrs. Clause with BLACK bobbed hair & fingernails painted black?!?! Averie has actually started referring to her as the "creepy Mrs. Clause" - no lying!)

Brynlea looks a little "stressed" but she is looking at "Creepy Mrs. Clause" so I can't blame her! lol But nobody's crying & I can now relax.

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Every year I do a picture of my kids in their Christmas outfits. I often end up getting creative with the photoshop in order to get something usable (or that I'm satisfied with) but this year was a very pleasant surprise! All 3 kids smiling & looking normal at the same time! SO great!

Here is a montage of our Christmases so far...
(side note... upon preparing this slide show, I realized that we have had the same Santa in our kids' pictures every year! Even though they are at 2 different malls! Too funny!)

I am starting to feel like a hypochondriac!

*WARNING: Those with a weak stomache may wanna skip this one - ya big wimps! :)

It seems to come in waves...

We'll go months without a trip to the doctor OR the emergency room...

Then there is last week...

Saturday: Brynlea goes to ER with a persistent cough that is tweaking my memory of when Evan had RSV. We were in & out in an hour (LOVE our new hospital here!) after the doctor decided it was most likely a bad upper respiratory infection (translation: a cold), but if it hadn't improved in a couple days to have her seen again.

Tuesday: Brynlea goes to doctor after persistent cough hasn't improved & 2 nights in a row, coughed to vomiting in the night. Doctor diagnoses mild RSV & prescribed a puffer to get her over the worst of it.

Thursday: Day is very normal. Pick Evan up from preschool at 3:30pm. He is totally normal.
Around 4:30pm starts complaining his tummy hurts (he often does this when he needs to go to the bathroom) I tell him to go potty. At 5:30pm he suddenly vomits. We haven't had dinner yet. He then proceeds to throw up every 15-20 minutes for the next 6 hours - even when his stomache is empty! He had NO fever. I tried Gravol - it was thrown up about 2 minutes later.

By 11:30pm, he had fallen asleep on the couch & was waking up to vomit. He was then begging me for a drink of water which he would promptly throw back up, then beg for more. It was at this time we decided a trip to the ER was in order.

Gotta love that cell phone camera!

We got in pretty fast, but they wanted him to have blood work & then a Gravol suppository. Both filled me with dread. He had never had either "enjoyable" experience & my little guy is TOUGH! I had visions of 5 nurses holding down a thrashing boy & then nightmares for weeks...

What truly happened was actually worse... he did NOTHING! So weak & exhausted that he literally just whimpered & frowned. It was SO sad! I have never seen him like that! It was awful!

They kept us there until they figured the Gravol had taken effect & the test results were back - normal, thank goodness.

We headed home around 4am...

I wish this oh-so-pleasant week ended there.

Last night I was awoken at 4am by my daughters almost simultaneously puking. Averie first, then shortly after her, Brynlea. The weird part is, it seemed to be for completely different reasons. Averie's symptoms were similar to Evan's but not as violent.

Brynlea is lactose intolerant. Has been so since birth. Our doctor has advised us to occassionally try to gradually transition her to regular formula as most babies can tolerate lactose by a year old. I would really like her to be able to drink milk when she turns one - and would like to be able to give things like yogurt & cheese now.

This weekend was our second attempt to switch her. The first did NOT go well.

This time we only got as far as half regular/ half lactose free before the "effects" started showing up. (effects= projectile vomiting & diarrhea that could peel paint - sorry to be graphic, but it is what it is!). Last night was the effects making themselves known... with a vengence.

Averie continued to be sick much of the day today - stayed home from school, but was totally herself between bouts of vomiting (hers never got closer than an hour or so apart) & no fever - by dinner time she seemed to have recovered.

Brynlea recovered quickly once we switched her back to her lactose free formula only.

Now I am doing a lot of laundry & trying to recover myself.

I tell people all the time that there were things before becoming a mother that would have made me physically ill - now I scoff at those same things.

Motherhood: Grow a cast iron stomache or pay the consequences!

Oy!

"CHEESE!"

As a photographer, doing portraits of my own children can pose some unique challenges.

Heck, it is BEYOND frustrating!

I can get anyone else's children to smile, laugh, look at me, be cute, etc... but my own?? Let's just say... We do eventually manage to get the cute pictures, but "Scary Mommy" has been known to rear her ugly head from time to time (ok. pretty much every time.)

I have come up with solutions to many of our picture taking dilemmas & have honed my photoshop skills enough to even do our own family portrait (see the family picture on this page). Believe it or not, I did it with the timer & a few hours of photo shopping :)

There are somethings you don't have a choice but to pay other people to do.

Like the Santa picture...

Being a creative person has an element of a controlling nature to it. I know this. I can admit it. I want our pictures done MY way.

THIS does not help alleviate my concerns about letting other people do my pictures:

Click on picture for closer look...

Are you KIDDING me?! I paid $9 for THIS?!

I have cute kids, it doesn't take much for them to look decent. Surprisingly, Brynlea wasn't even crying... and this is what I get.

Oh well, it is a memory, I suppose *letting go, letting go* sigh...

I AM the SHOPPING Master!!

I have often been accused of having a, shall we say, "off-beat" talent...

I am a shopper. Not in the "Jimmy Choo Shoes" & "Valentino Bag" way but more of a "get the best deal at all costs" kind of shopper. I'm cheap. I do occasionally pay full price for items, but they are usually very hard to find items & the challenge then comes in just finding one (not so much the price).

Enter Christmas.

I LOVE Christmas shopping! In fact, I am almost always Christmas shopping. My family does a "name exchange" but after the first year of drawing names, decided to just switch to the the next younger sibling for the next year - & so it goes round & round, from oldest to youngest. The real beauty of this system is that I know in January who I have for Christmas next year. In fact, if I really wanted to, I could figure out who I will have for Christmas for the next 5 years or longer - if I had a real problem... I'm not there yet :)

So, I have a hope chest & an area of my closet where things are "stashed" throughout the year & often come Christmas, there is really very little shopping to do at all. This year there is more than usual...

I digress... back to my "talent"...

I have had a few situations that were pretty huge coincidences, or very "lucky" while seeking these particular items. I have a few friends who are dumbfounded when they hear of deals I have gotten & insist they must come shopping with ME, as if deals are magnetically
drawn to me :)
I have even been told by a friend... and I quote, "You have horse shoes up your butt!"

An unpleasant picture, yes... but I am kind of starting to believe there may be something to this theory! LOL

This year, we have decided to get with the program & joins the ranks of our friends (and even my in-laws!) and get one of these:

"It" was purchased a few weeks ago during my Black Friday excursion. But Graham & I were really hoping to get ourselves one of these:

to go with it. Don't ask why... see the pictures from THIS post... 'nuff said.

I have learned that this is THE "hot" gift thing this year. They are BRUTAL to find! In the last few weeks, I have just gotten into the habit of asking anywhere that might carry them, if they have any in stock. This is quickly followed by a "No & we don't know when we're getting any in." I had just gotten used to it. I thought maybe we wouldn't get one till after Christmas - at least it's not a gift for the kids (though they do enjoy some of the games for it - thanks, Auntie Shannon!)

Tonight after we went & did some Christmas shopping as a family (this adventure will have it's own post later), I headed over to our local Great Canadian Superstore (no really, that's what it's called) as they had the best prices for a few of the gifts we wanted to get for the kids & were having a "we pay the tax" sale tonight - BONUS!

I wandered into electronics to pick up a couple movies from our list, an ink cartridge (gotta print those Christmas letters) & out of habit, looked over into the "locked items" area behind the counter just to see... and to what did my wondering eyes appear???? TWO Wii Fits... just sitting on the floor behind the counter! ON TAX FREE SALE NIGHT!!

Let's just say, this was me:

She's on the Move!

Well, it played out pretty much how I thought it would.

The tree has been up for 5 days...

Brynlea has started crawling.

It is a very primitive army crawl, but she is moving herself along at a pretty good speed. She is my earliest crawler - she will be 9 months old on the 2oth. Averie crawled around 91/2 months (after she had already started pulling herself up to standing - we wondered if maybe she wouldn't crawl) & Evan was a lazy 10 1/2 months old before he was on the move. Though I have a feeling he was on the move before that, just never when there was a "person capable of carrying me" within eye-shot.

Both of them only crawled for about 6 weeks before they were taking their first steps. Let's hope Brynlea stays in the crawling stage a little longer than THAT!

So without further delay, here she is in all her glory:

O Christmas Tree

Amongst a crazy day that included yet another trip to the ER (with Brynlea - persistent cough nothing too serious), we managed to get up into our attic for the hauling down of the Christmas decorations.

I had promised the kids a week or so ago that yesterday would be "Tree Day" & they had been counting down the "sleeps" ever since. There was no way to back out gracefully (I also really have a phobia about breaking promises to my kids - not that it doesn't happen, but the guilt is BRUTAL), so up the ladder & into the dark abyss I... sent my hubby :)

It ended up going really smoothly & we all had so much fun. I love how many opportunities the holidays give us to do fun things as a family. Of course, Brynlea was a little too young to participate, but now that the tree is up it's looking like it just might give her the motivation to start crawling :)

There is something so comfortable about a home when it is decked out for Christmas. It just seems to kick the "homey" factor up a notch, you know?

I'm glad it is done now & have been enjoying basking in it.

The result

Now if I can get my kids over these colds, we should be in the clear for Christmas!

Auntie again!

So, while I was down at my parents last week, I did some maternity portraits for my sister who was due December 15th... good thing we squeaked them in because the little one decided to make his appearance early & arrived just in time for lunch today!

Introducing Rowan Spencer - weighing in at 7lbs, 12oz & 21 in. long

I won't go into details, but suffice it to say, that the arrival of this little one to our family is nothing short of a miracle. A true blessing from God.

My amazing little sister delivered him today without ANY drugs (even laughing gas) - more than I will ever accomplish in this lifetime.

I just sent the portraits I did last week off to my sister this morning, but thought I would post some here (hope you don't mind, Steph)- it is such an incredible miracle every time a baby arrives...

Motherhood... wow.

Welcome baby, Rowan!