finding a dress

Can you believe I am already done Christmas stuff?  No, me neither.  That usually takes me until the end of January to do.  Well - I set a goal and I made it.  Ya, baby!!

Now I just have months worth of other catching up to do!  Sheesh.

We'll keep working backwards…

Way back when, in early December sometime (I think), Glenda and I headed out with our two graduates to find dresses for the big event.  It was a lovely, chilly day with our first real hoar frost since we moved here.  It was rather beautiful.  I was secretly a little sad that I couldn't spend a bit of time taking pictures of the beautiful trees and such.  But only a little sad.  Because, after all, I was with Glenda, Alex and Maddy - a recipe for a good time (and in this case, possibly expensive!)

So off we went to a billion bridal/prom dress stores.  We found some doosies like these:

Alex's is so outlandish that Maddy's looks like nothing in comparison.  This photo was taken illegally, by the way.  No photographing the dresses until you pay for it!  By order of the Queen!  Or something like that.  Actually, I don't think Elizabeth is quite as uptight as these ladies.

We went to quite a few different places, fell in love with a few different dresses, and finally settled on one each.  The problem was cost.  Most of these dresses were in the $500-700 range!!!  Yes, I am serious!  No, they are not getting married!  This is for HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!!!

After a few days of debating, searching, researching and whatnot, we finally decided to take the risk and ordered it online.  We are hoping and praying that this was a good decision - a decision that is saving us almost $120 (and the one Maddy chose was significantly cheaper than most to begin with!)

The dress that she ended up picking is beautifully simple - I love it.  The sample they had in the store was white and it made me almost want to throw up as it almost felt like we were wedding dress shopping!  We are not going there yet!!  Come to think of it, perhaps we should have ordered it in white and we could have saved it for her wedding as well!  I'm sure she would have been delighted with that idea.  Or maybe she would have hated it and disowned me and thrown me to the wolves and boil me in oil….and then gotten mad.  

We did order it in navy and she most definitely will be able to shorten it and wear it to a wedding or something of that nature.  It is classy and beautiful and a little bit "boho" - which is just what she wanted.

Alex found a beautiful dress as well and looks like a princess in it.  It is so fun how two people can be so close but be so different in some things.  Their dresses are completely different and both suit them wonderfully.

After we did a bunch of the dress trying-on, we had lunch at what is now my favourite restaurant in Manitoba (not saying that I get out much):  Stella's (on Portage).  So tasty.  And they have smoked salmon on several dishes, so it really couldn't get much better.

It really was a rather fantastic day.  One that I wasn't super excited about but ended up thoroughly enjoying.  I'm pretty excited about all of the graduation festivities, although not too pumped about the end result: Maddy heading off into unknown lands (or whatever) and leaving us.

I can't even go there in my mind yet.

Christmas at g-pa and g-ma rose's

The 27th was Christmas at Grandpa and Grandma Rose's - always something to look forward to!  And it did not disappoint!

In years past, Christmas there has been a two day event - one day with everyone, for most of the day and one evening with just the adults.  This year it went to a vote.  Those without kids voted for one day only; those with kids didn't really care.  So we, in theory, went for one day only (although somehow those without kids still had an evening on the 26th without those of us with kids…. yes, I found it odd as well…. trying not to take it personally!)

Scott (brother) and his wife Cynthia made it up from Minneapolis with their so-cute-I-want-to-squish-her-to-bits-and-pieces, daughter Aianne.  She is so precious!

We started at brunch with everyone bringing some form of yumminess.  I brought cinnamon buns with maple or cream cheese frosting.  They were rather yummy, although the gooey stuff crystallized…. not sure what is up with that (I'll have to google).  There were muffins, fruit, yogurt and I'm sure something else, but I just don't remember what.

We hung out for a while after we gorged ourselves and mostly spent time laughing at poor Bently.  I love that dog.  Brooklyn gave him of mohawk - first just on the head - then eventually the whole body. He just tolerated it all and even bashfully posed.  We also played games and Glenda tried to get a dance party going - dad promptly shut her down (probably a good thing or we may have had to rush her to emergency for throwing out a hip).

And then gift time!
Oh, I should stop to mention what a complete moron I was (you could go so far to say "am", but I don't want to drag myself around in the dirt too long).  Way back when, in Fargo, when we went as a whole big family, Rose had given us money to buy the kids' gifts from them.  Well, while we were shopping at Target with the Loewens, both Lucy and Riley fell in love with these onesie pyjamas that had a cow pattern with bright pink trim.  Unfortunately they only had one one pair in their size.  So we decided that Kim would buy that pair and I would order another pair and have them sent to Scott and Cynthia to bring up for us.
Scott and Cynthia arrived a little bit before Christmas with no pyjamas!  At first I was a little upset because I hadn't received an email saying that they were out of stock or anything - at least not that I remembered.  So I went online (on the line) to double check - nothing.  Then I went to the Target website, signed into my account and checked my past orders - nothing.  Then I went to my "shopping cart" - and there they were.  Still sitting there.  Waiting for me to order them.  Sheesh.
I told Lucy it was my fault - not her Grandparents! - and she was fine with it at first.  Later, when fatigue and jealousy kicked in, it wasn't quite as fine.  But we'll still get her those pyjamas!
Okay, back to gifts!
Lucy received a denim jacket and a huge giraffe pillow-pet (so clearly she did not go with-out!)  Cade got a series of Smithsonian science type kits - one for digging for gems, one for growing crystals and one for some kind of prehistoric animal type thing.  And a "perplexus ball".  Mia had some clothes and Maddy a pair of Vans (Vans don't come cheap….).  All were rather pleased with their gifts.

Aianne got a lot of cute gifts.  We were pretty thrilled when the rainbow stripity pants we got for her appeared to be her favourite.  We rather relished watching her throw down her other gifts and grab for her "happy pants" instead.  Who needs toys (or other clothes for that matter) when you can have brightly coloured stripy pants?!

A baby is always fun to have around at Christmas.  They are automatically show-stealers.  And I realized that I still have some baby-hankerings deep within me.  Don't worry - I can wait for grand babies.  And I'm not in a hurry for them!!

More games after gift time.  Glenda, Kim and Scott started to play Bananagrams so Cade joined in!  I was pretty surprised.  He did great though!  His spelling was a little off (it is not his forte - he clearly takes after his mother father in that*) but he came up with some great words.  He also happened to use a "w" for and "m" and laughed when we "caught" him.  One round he got 9 "e"s and didn't complain or anything - just went with it.  He also didn't seem to care what direction the letters were - as long as they were (mostly) the right letters.  I found that rather hilarious.

Dinner was a meal fit for kings (or our family, in this case) ham, roast, the best broccoli dish I've even eaten, veggie lasagna, great salad, mashed potatoes (I think…. but didn't really take notice) and gravy (with wine in it - the kids did not fail to point that out!).  Dessert was a fantastic piece of edible art that Chris and Jann brought - some pistachio thing.  Okay, it really was just a torte type thing but it looked incredible - with the largest white chocolate shavings known to man.  And my humble pumpkin pies.  And a bunch of chocolates and such - because, of course, it isn't a Christmas celebration without hedgehog chocolates and Toffifee.  Wait a minute!!  There wasn't Toffifee - I just realized that now as I wrote that.  It wasn't really a Giesbrecht Christmas celebration!!!!  Ack!

While the kids played and hung out downstairs, the adults did their gift exchange and "small" gift baskets from dad and Rose (each year she swears she is going to cut back in the future and each year the baskets are just as packed full - and while she does give too much, we aren't really complaining as she picks out a lot of fabulous things!  It is very fun to open/go through.  lots of yummy specialty foods and treats, kitchen gadgets, lotions, soaps and wonderful things like that).

Eric got some much needed slippers from Brent or Glenda - don't remember which and I got a kick-butt dust-buster from Scott or Cynthia - don't remember which again!  We had Jared and gave him a Green Bay puzzle (above) - for the man who has everything (or refuses to give a gift list to make gift giving much more challenging…. but kinda more fun too!) and Brent, to whom we gave a Jets jersey and a Coke t-shirt, just 'cause he's a nice guy.  I suppose it was rather a sports team gift extravaganza.

We gave Rose a necklace from Noonday - a company I love that has jewelry made by people in third world countries to give them employment, etc.  Great stuff - a little pricey, but great stuff (the other picture is a picture she got that Shandy made for her - so sweet!)  And for dad, a few of us chipped in to buy this gorgeous bird feeder that I found online.  It is so pretty - I may even want a bird feeder if it looks like that!

I had to throw in this picture of Chris with the dogs because it is so darn cute!)

We had a great day with lots of great food (not an excessive amount - thank you Rose!), great gifts and wonderful people.  I'm thankful for my family - even without Toffifee**.

*Okay, it really is me who stinks at spelling.  Bet you never would have guess that reading this blog…..
**Really - I'm joking about the Toffifee!  I mean I like it and it always makes me think of Christmas at Dad and Rose's, but sheesh - I got a whole thing of Almond Roca and Laura Secord mint chocolates.  What more could a girl want??
Actually, now that I think about it, we don't usually have Christmas without Russian mints either (with mom's get-together, that is) and we didn't have those this year either.
Imagine that - we still managed to celebrate Christ's birth without traditional chocolates….