a little more Christmas

Today I started packing up Christmas stuff.  More and more I get very excited about packing away Christmas stuff earlier.  There are still several things up as we are hosting our Life Group's Christmas party tomorrow - we need a little festivity - but when that is over, it is all coming down.  I love the decorating and all the lights and glitter but shortly after Christmas is over, I'm ready to move on with a house that is a little less full.

The rest of this holiday has been filled with a lot of reading - mostly done by Cade, playing Wii, playing with new toys and a lot of just relaxing and hanging out together.  It has been quite wonderful.  And right now, pause for a squeal of excitement……, it is snowing like crazy!!!!  I am still praying for a blizzard, but I really really really hope it happens during the regular school week instead of now during break or on a weekend.

Cade channeled his inner archeologist the other day and bust into one of his Smithsonian kits.  While many boys I know (thinking of two Californian nephews, in particular!) would basically take a sledgehammer to to the thing, Cade very patiently chiselled away, bit by bit, to unearth the treasures that awaited him.  He used the little brush to brush away dust and rubble.  He donned the provided safety goggles.  He put the block in a pan to keep the debris contained.  He carefully identified each gem that he found.  And he enjoyed it.

He has also blazed through books like nobody's business.  Sort of like how he went through farmer sausage today (that means he ate an awful lot of it - like a ridiculous amount!)  Kind of turning into a voracious reader type guy.  That was part of my goal for this holiday - to work on my probably 50+ want to read book list - but I haven't done much at all!  I think a librarian should get a paid month to stay home and read books, don't you?
I had Mia and Lucy organize my recipe binders today.  Pictures should have been taken as it was rather entertaining.  I put little signs up along the base boards with the different categories "fish", "sides", "cookies" - you get the picture.  And then they sorted them all into those categories.  After all the sorting was done, they put them in clear plastic sleeves and into the binders.  Cade wanted absolutely nothing to do with this job, so he cleaned two bathrooms instead.  Maddy was busy with an ocular migraine that was freaking us out, so she did nothing.

Today Mia started painting in her room and I did a bunch of spackling and touching up.  After the Christmas party I'm going to take on painting the dark grey wall in the living room.  Going white.  Or light grey. Or light blue.  Obviously I haven't decided.  But first it is going primer.

I finally took the photos of this year's ornaments.  I figured I better take them since I wanted to take the tree down!  So here they are:

Maddy ended up with two.  The first is a tricycle.  Now, Maddy already has a tricycle ornament from when she was two or something, but she needed a current one.  Her motto this year has been "third wheeling is a lifestyle".  This is because she constantly finds herself the third wheel with her friends and their boyfriends or want-to-be-boyfriends.  It is kind of hilarious how often it happens.  

The second one I just saw and thought I really should get as well.  It is a sushi roll.  Maddy works at the restaurant "Irori" and a large section of their menu is sushi, so it just fit.

Mia's ornament is the wild patterned elephant ornament that I bought at the Allume conference.  Mia now loves elephants (penguins are passé), purple - which the elephant has, and it is a cozy, cute and crazy animal all which is Mia completely.

Cade's ornament is a moose antler.  Just to be clear - not a real moose antler.  That might just be a little heavy and large for a tree ornament.  Just saying.  It would be awfully cool though.  Wouldn't mind at all getting my hands on one.  Anyway, this goes back to Cade's flock of moosen/meese thing.  And he seems to really like moose.  And he has pyjamas with moose on them.  And we read the book Hatchet where the moose rams the guy Brian into the lake and just about kills him (or maybe it is Brian's Winter, the sequel to Hatchet…).

Lucy's ornament is a "gymnastics girl", as Lucy would say.  No, she does not take gymnastics.  She hasn't even asked to take gymnastics, although she would probably like it.  But she is forever doing cartwheels, handstands, back bendy things and a few other things that look really fancy and gymnasticsy.  It doesn't stop.  Or at least not for long.  And its pretty cute.  And she seems pretty good (although what do I know?).  She is my gymnastics girl.

I'm still wanting to get a snowboarder one for Cade but I haven't found anything yet.  And I still have a list of ones to get for Mia from years past but can never seem to find the right things.  For some reason my ideas for ornaments for her are strangely uncommon.

And that's that.  I think we may be done here.

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….