Christmas Concert

So Elijah's School's concert was postponed on the 17th and re-scheduled for the morning of the 19th. Thankfully the snow stopped so there was school on the last day before Christmas Break! Here are the four classes of Kindergartens singing three songs led by the Music Teacher, Mrs. B.Elijah walked right past us on the way out of the gym; he knew he was to be quiet so he was doing this "shhh" poseThat afternoon I returned to the school to volunteer in Elijah's class. They had a little Birthday Party for Jesus: they each brought a wrapped book and exchanged with each other, and played some games like the following picture, I think his Teacher called it "musical shares" meaning they had to share the chairs when the music stopped and she kept taking a chair out like musical chairs - it was cute and fun for the kids!they decorated cookies and had a great ol' time.

first snowfall

Last week Wednesday (Dec 17) we got our first dump of snow for the Season. It really wasn't too much, but enough to cancel the School Christmas Concerts around town that night. We bundled up and went out to the play in it twice that day. Here are some pics from the morning set outside:Gabi did really well walking around in itthen Sammy so kindly pulled Gabi around and around on our neighbour's little sled which was the perfect size for Gabithen we went in for hot chocolate, mmmmour backyard

bouncing, bouncing, bouncing

I rarely take video clips on my camera but really should do it more often. So here's my first video upload - I realize that I took the video sideways, so just tilt your head - this time it's my fault and not Blogger's!
So this is Sammy on this jumping ball thing I bought in the summer from Ross in the USA for cheap... in the last week or so this has become a favourite little bouncy toy. This house is perfect for it too, which is why it is getting used so much, with hardwood floors throughout there is plenty of space and ease to use this toy! Bounce on Baby! * looks like it worked but it does seem a bit dark to me...sorry*

This past weekend, December 13-15, we had arctic winds that blew through our valley... boy, for us that wind is sooo cold. We were supposed to get a dump of snow but we didn't but all the mountains around are freshly covered in their blanket of white.
The wind died down on Tuesday the 16th and about 10:00pm it started to snow... so some snow pictures from this morning to come after I fold some laundry and clean up my cookies that I just baked.

Gingerbread Train

On Monday we decided to put our train together - this is the first time we have put anything like this together besides the gingerbread men we did last Christmas Day. it was fun...(see Gabi? LOL - she is a major mess from some pudding she had just eaten on her own)

Elijah was in our Church's Children's Christmas Concert (how's that for a lot of c's) on Sunday. Jodie, a Mom in our Church, offered her time and expertise in teaching these children songs and lines to perform a wonderful little musical. It was called The Unfriendly Beasts. Elijah even had to be at church the two previous Saturdays in December for 3 1/2 hour practice and a 2 1/2 hour practice! Wow! One Friend told me they even spent the first 30 minutes of these practices warming up! Too funny! Anyway, all her hard work, the kids hard work and it turned out great. Eljjah was a cow...unfortunately his Christmas Concert for school was to be tonight and it's cancelled...

Seuss Storytime

We did go to Storytime at the Mall on Monday- we each got a free Seuss boardbook and enjoy the hour long story, song, rhyme and visiting with friends who we saw there (Alexa, Luke and Erin and then Elijah's friend Aaron from his class was there with his Mom too)

Christmas Tree

We ventured out in the dry (hooray!) but very cold (for us) windy weather to get out tree! We found a farm that was selling "any tree any size $25", sounds good to us! We all got bundled up and off we went this morning:
Since it was bone dry, unlike past years when it's soaking wet due to rain or sleet, we didn't need to let it sit overnight to dry before bringing it in house... so we planned to decorate the tree after Elijah came home from his Church Christmas Concert practice this afternoon -- first on go our white lights. Did we check them first before wrapping 3 strands on the tree? Nope. Woops. We plug in the tree before we let the boys start placing ornaments on... and there we had a half-lit tree. No good. Jason is really keen on getting LED's for our tree...etc but I really am not keen on the way LED's look... but what do we have now on our tree? LED's. Whatever, it's fine. So to get the LED's we all packed up and headed to London Drugs and then since it was dinner time by now, we stopped at Wendy's for a bite to eat... finally back home to decorate together with a well-lit tree that I will get used to (and if not, oh well it is only up 3 weeks out of the year).
The bottom 1/3 of the tree was quite heavy with ornaments because that's where the boys could reach best... and take a look at this one branch:Sammy did his best and that was great! (I did move them to bare spots on the top 2/3rds of the tree)
After we decorated, Daddy made a big bowl of popcorn and we all sat by the tree for a bedtime snack.

17 months

Well, my little Gabriella is now 17 months; she's getting older but not bigger! LOL.
Gabriella has limited speech still - she still does her 'uh, uh' thing I described quite a few months back; she does use sign language for the basics like please, thank you, more. Let's see, for my sake, what does she say: Mama, Dadda, Elijah, Hippo, G'ma, G'pa, juice, 'where are you'. I can't think if she has any other words - I'll keep track now and see what she does say, though I don't think it's much more than this.
She is a little sweetheart. She loves her hippo to bits still. She sucks her thumb and had started a couple months ago to suck it much more often than she did previously which was in bed only really... now it's more, probably b/c we have hippo around all the time. She sleeps through the night about half the time; I think that's safe to say. She likes to get in a morning nap still many days, which is fine by me. She has all 4 molars (since close to 12months) and 4 teeth each on the bottom and top.
Last Saturday (6th) I finally tried to put in 2 ponies in her hair for fun... and it worked. She did look much older to me with 2 ponies in though; I haven't done it since.(there you have it again, a picture flipping on it's own, sorry)
For as long as Gabriella has been climbing up on chairs at the table (quite awhile already), if she would spill some water from one of the boys cups left on the table, she actually would go and get a dishtowel to wipe it up! Now, who's daughter is she? LOL - obviously Jason's daughter!! I didn't instruct her to do this, she has learnt this by watching her brothers who do the same... I finally thought to take a pic of her wiping the table this week!and now along those lines, I figured out why twice earlier this week I've found a sippy cup in the garbage...hmmm, this little cleaner-upper is putting things "away" by placing them in the garbage...I think I have another perfectionist on my hands?!for fun, dressing up in a little mask Elijah got from church last week -

trampoline part 2

We've had quite the dry weather earlier in our week and so I snapped some shots of the three kids on the trampoline together! Gabriella loves it just as much as the boys...

trampoline

Our trampoline arrived from Costco this week -- and so Daddy got it put up on Wednesday for us! Yea! It was a dry week so we were all able to enjoy it lots already.
Luke and Sammy jumped together too on Thursday:

Black Friday

For the past year (since we saw a post on Jen G's blog on a trip she took with girlfriends last year) we have been planning to take part in 2008's Black Friday shopping sales in the USA. Thankfully despite the move only 2 weeks before and with Andy being at home on medical leave finances haven't been quite normal for Alexa - we kept our plan and headed down South for a weekend of pure girl-time! We left here on Thursday evening - Thursday was Thanksgiving Day in USA. We checked into our hotel and visited for awhile. At 11:15pm we decided to have a 2 hour nap before heading to the Outlet that was open at midnight. So our alarm went off at 1:15am and up we got:We shopped until 8:00am when we headed back to the hotel for the free breakfast and to drop off our purchases from the Outlet and Walmart. We ate our waffles and then off we walked to the Mall which was next door to the hotel! We were out shopping until 1:00pm!!! That's 11 hours of shopping minus our breakfast break! We (or at least I was) were going on adrenalin - it was so much fun! We had a 1.5 hour nap in the afternoon that day and headed for dinner at Olive Garden. We sat there and chatted for a couple hours, it was wonderful! Funny thing was we didn't crash when we got back to the hotel at 9:00pm - we watched TLC "what not to wear" and both fell asleep around 11:30pm. Wow! That's after missing a whole night's sleep and being quite active spending money.
We wanted to be away for 48 hours and found out that meant we could bring back $400/each... we had no trouble meeting that cut-off after spending Saturday shopping too. Here we are just about to head for the border... don't know if you can appreciate how full the back of the van is... let's just say we are thankful Jason at the last minute suggested I take the van rather than the car as planned... we wouldn't have spent nearly this much with our little car to fill!Cheers to Shopping and to my Girlfriend, Alexa!! Can't wait to go again next year! (it's no wonder I crashed finally yesterday (Sunday one week later) after leading into my busy week with way less sleep than normal, even with children who have me up in the night!)

our 6th move in 10 years

On November 15th we made another move from a townhouse into a house... I am quite hopeful that this will be our home for the longest yet (and that just means more than 2.5 years). We had some wonderful helpers again - thank you to Darrell, John, Kurt, Geoff and Shawn for your help again! Jason, as you can see by the photos below, did a huge portion of the move out of the townhouse and already had 3/4 of the truck loaded by the time we asked our crew to show up!can anyone tell he is a perfectionist? By the way the boxes are all lined up in a perfect puzzle... that's my hubby for you! Bless his heart! :)

Hostess Gifts

Hello Friends and Family - I am so sorry I have not got on my computer to update this blog with pictures around our recent move! I have been keeping busy with not only the move and family, but also a Bake Exchange last week and we hosted an adults-only "friends" Christmas Party here on Saturday. Busy times but very enjoyable! (though I did crash yesterday and had myself a nap and early bedtime)
I just wanted to say THANK YOU to Jen T. and Dana for these lovely hostess gifts they brought to me on Saturday for hosting this years Christmas Party! (I see I forgot to grab the Bath & Body Works handsoap for the pic too, woops, thanks for that too Jen!) The Poinsettia is beautiful - I have wanted to get one for years and never have!! And this frame Dana is beautiful too! I can't wait to find a perfect spot for it and fill it with a picture!
Thank you so much Ladies!My week is much much less busy this week so I'll plan on getting on here to update you with some pictures of our move and new house...etc.

Merry Christmas!!