Red and White Day

Elijah's school had a Spirit Day on the 12th of February, the day of the Opening Ceremonies for the Olympics! Of course, it was Red and White dress-up day!! Yea, Canada!!! Here's my boy with lots of school spirit and Canadian Patriotism! (I altered this Burger King crown so he became the King of Canada; and his teddy bear accompanied him to school too because it had a Canada sweater on!)
He's with his good friend T from his class -and to their chapel that day they had two Dads of Student's come in for a quick hello with their torches which they carried - one of which I graduated with - that was neat!
While Elijah had this at school, Sam and Gabi had swim lessons and then we stayed at the Rec Center to watch the Russian Figure Skaters practice - they were here for 2 weeks prior to the Olympics praticing! Very cool -and here's Gabi taking photos too! If you remember years ago now, when we last visited Disneyland my little 12month old Samuel pulled my camera into the hot tub on our first day in Anaheim - well, this has since been a play camera and Gabi likes it as her own -

Go Canada Go!!!

And the Olympics are finally here! Vancouver has been talking about 2010 for forever it seems - well, I figured 2010 was SO far away, but man, it's here and the Olympics begin this week! Last night we had the privelige of partaking in some Vancoc festivities and seeing the Torch run through our City! It was very exciting!and here's Mr. C himself handing out Olympic pins to us!and the Torch - which we were right in front of, but they had all sorts of people walking with the runner, so I couldn't grab a decent shot til after he passedand even awesome-er news is the the publicity my Brother, Matt is getting from the Music Video he shot a couple weeks ago for the City of Richmond! It's awesome - you have to see it! hopefully it will be aired during the olympics, so stay tuned! CLICK his picture to view the video!

my apprentice

Gabi has been my apprentice for quite some time already; wish I would have kept track of that more precisely. Anyway - here she is this past week... enjoying the Tupperware Pitcher and cup for many tea parties and water spills with her brother(s).and taking the kitchen cloth to clean her own kitchenette in her room!what a doll!

Erin and Gabi

Two and a Half years old - look at these two!sweethearts!

sick, sick, sick

School was back in session too soon this month! It was sooo hard to get back into the groove quickly on the Fourth of January! But we managed.

One week later Elijah's class went skating for 50minutes. I had the privelege of joining him there to help tie skates...etc. I ended up getting some skates myself and getting out on the ice with him - since this is all new to him. He was able to use this bar thing the whole time, but even with it, he wasn't able to motor too quickly. I got behind him and then we got motoring. It was quite fun!

Since I am doing some posts here to more or less get the blog updated, I may as well mention that Elijah missed this whole past week of school. He started out with some spots on his cheek and around his mouth that I was unsure of and so was the Doctor at the Walk-in Clinic I took him too on Friday (Jan 22) - by Monday Elijah's ear hurt soooo bad, but the spots had mainly faded on his face - I took him to our Family Doctor. He called it a 'staff infection?" I think - and that was caused by his runny nose... never seen anything like it! His ear was actually discharging liquid - and by the next day at one point his ear was discharging green snot like mucous. It was unreal. He had to keep using a tissue to wipe his ear, not his nose! We got him some antibiotics (even though we are otherwise against them), a saline flusher thing for his nose and ear, and eardrops. After five days missing from Class, I sent him back on Friday (29th). Poor guy.

Samuel started all this sickness in a different form on Tuesday (19th) - which ended up being Strep Throat in combination with scarlet fever! Yikes! And not to mention myself - I ended up heading into the Clinic too for some meds for my painfully sore throat - which I'm calling strep throat even though we didn't do a swab for it. Sick, sick, sick. Everyone seems on the mend now!

5 4 3 2 1, Blast Off

My Sammy is 4 now - they just keep getting older and older!
On January 3rd we had my Family over for waffles and cake in honor of my Dad's birthday and Sammy's birthday - And then a week later we had Sammy's "Little Einstein" party here with friends.
Little Einsteins is a cartoon put out by Disney - one of Sammy's favourite shows. It's a great show incorporating classical music and musical terms while traveling the world. Sammy is quite familiar with "the great sphinx" and "the eiffel tower" and "the space needle" to mention three... so until I get myself to a Michael's cake-decorating class, I think I am done with shaped cakes for now - hence this creation using our printer, stickers and a toy!Sam was very happy with the cake, and you know, so was I!I got the kids to make sugar cube 'pyramids' or towers, to incorporate some of the theme Little Einsteins - and I made a Great Pyramid 2D "pin the rocket on the pyramid"and of course, the pinataIt was a success! Here's to four fantastic years, my boy!

nativity set

I was reading back to last year's posts from around this time of year, and just love reading the 'journal' of how things went! Something I haven't posted this year is about Alexa and my trip down South again for Black Friday weekend! She took some pictures, so I should get them from her!
We had a blast and shopped even longer this time around!

One thing I picked up from Toys R Us, was this PlayMobil Nativity Set for the kids. I have always wanted one that they can play with safely and usually had my eye on the Little People Set - but when we spotted this one for $20, I got it once and for all.
I gave it to the kids on Monday evening - I thought I would work it into a daily "advent" countdown thing, but I didn't get to it --- and the countdown begins (or continues I guess) - only 8 days until Christmas!

cookie decorating

On Monday I had Rachel and Sara and non-school kids over for a cookie decorating lunch-date! (Sorry to those who weren't able to make it!)

It turned out really well - we had a nice quiet lunch with just the small ones around (Isabella, Marty, Jaxon, Sammy and Gabi). My kids LOVED having them all here -I never have people over, so this was such a treat for them! They were soaking it all in!
Then we got out some gingerbread stars and let the kids ice, sprinkle and smartie them! Yum!

A King is Coming to Town

This year our volunteer Mom stepped up the plate again to lead our kids in a Christmas Musical - Jodie! Since doubling the production from last year's 20minutes to this year's 40minutes, practices already began before Halloween! Just on Sunday's before Church started for 45minutes. We actually really loved that because then for that 45minutes, we'd run down to Timmy's and have great fellowship with other Moms and Dads!
They did a great job - and had a lot of fun!
Here is Sammy's group, age 3 and 4's, singing one song first:and then this seems to be the only picture I got of Elijah and the actual Musical:

Family Reunion - of sorts!

On the weekend Toby Mac was in Town with Reliant K for a concert in their "Winter Wonderslam" Tour - Jason went (his 6th concert this year I think we counted) with Kurt. Anyway, that's not my point! Because of this concert, it brought into Town Laurel-Anne & Family and Colin & Family. Both Siblings of Rachel! So Rachel opened up her home for an Open House type thing to come and visit both of these Families... of course, we went! Jason pretty well lived at their house in his High School years, hey?
It was great to meet all the newest kids added to these Families and see how big the others have gotten - AND of course, visit with Colin, Kelly and Laurel-Anne! (and yes, you too Rachel!) Laurel-Anne has an Elijah too - so that was weird for my Elijah to hear his name said when not in reference to him - we actually don't know any other Elijah's!
Here are two pictures I got...
Rachel's boys and my boys: Marty, Elijah, Max and Sammyand here are two of Laurel's kids (out of 5 so far): Cara and Clay and of course, my two.It was so nice to visit! Thanks for opening up your home, Rach!

o tannenbaum

We went on the 7th to get our tree - put full snowsuits on kids due to the very cold wind we had been having...

annual "friends" Christmas Party

Year after year we have had a Christmas Party and Jason and I have hosted quite a few of them over the years. I never end up taking pictures, but this year I was sure to!
We always do a potluck dinner, usually appetizers galore, but this year I decided upon a Mexican Themed Dinner. I made two chicken enchilada dishes and rice... and others brought a Taco Salad, Bean-Avacado Dish, Mexican Spirals and Green Salad. It was a wonderful dinner! There was talk of having another theme next year and having 'best dressed couple' to go with the theme. I did have that in the invitation this year, that people could come dressed in their Mexico-best, and Aaron did! He was great with mustache painted on and heavy, authentic, large hat on his head! Thanks for your enthusiasm!
For dessert we pulled out a Chocolate Fondue Fountain that Jason's Cousins gave us (Georges and Micheline) - it worked out well with the assortment of dippers we had (cherries, pineapple, bananas, pretzels, cookies, cream puffs and more)
Here is Dana - and Jason, Steve and his new Bride, Jen (there were 3 Jen's here that night!) and then our tradition is to bring a 'white elephant' gift (something used, gag or re-gift) - we got some good stealing going on this year! Makes it more fun!
Here is Aaron with is painted on facial hair:and Sara picking a giftand Kurt opening a little teapot and teacup setand Jen opening this crazy fish that can actually swimNathan stole that as fast as he could!It was another wonderful evening of visiting!

I didn't get pictures of everyone! Sorry!
And we missed you out, Brian & Korinne, Paul & Rachel, Paul & Lisa! Next year!

Spirit of Christmas

On Friday December 4th, we dropped off Elijah at my Parent's so they could take him to basketball so that we could take Sam and Gabi to this event at TWU. We had a great time - facepaintingpetting zoomusical entertainmentoutside drama
And as crazy as we are, we picked up Elijah, stopped at home for snowpants (for warmth, not for snow) and headed to the Candlelight Parade in Mssn. It was a late night for the kids, but so fun!

The illustrations in this book are fantastic, using soft sculptures - not what you typically see that's for sure!

great story

I pulled out our Christmas decoration totes and inside were most of our books that are Christmas-themed. I thought I might share some of them on here -Merry Christmas!