merry christmas from all of us

Wishing you love and light and the most beautiful Christmas holiday with friends and family.

Love, Stew, Jess, Anna, Sam and Henry

on christmas eve

 

We hosted Kate, Craig and Andy for dinner tonight. It was so fun, we had a great meal, performed a few musical numbers, and opened just a few presents. Sam said tonight while I was up kissing him goodnight, "Mom, we can't forget to sing Happy Birthday to baby Jesus tomorrow". I said, "that's a great idea, let's do that at".

P.S - ugly sweater prize goes to Craig tonight, ask him to perform his musical number "I'm Getting Nuttin' for Christmas", it's fantastic!

weekly wrap

School concerts, swimming and basketball wrapped up last week. And we've kicked off this week at home in the kitchen. We've made cookies, lasagnas, muffins, snack mix, and tomorrow we are making a nice Christmas Eve meal. Anna, Henry and I went out for brunch today to our usual Cora's and it was very fun. They sat very well, and we all enjoyed a huge order of pancakes (that's the kids meal if you can believe it!). We are finished all our present wrapping; Anna's friend Coco came over on Tuesday afternoon to help us, and we had a good time. To cap off the week, I went up to read during quiet time on Monday and they joined me in my bed and actually went to sleep! Anna and Sam napped for almost an hour, at the same time, beside me - I'm filing that one in the memory bank forever.

our family gift

It's been a big week around here. We are officially down to one change table/diaper changing area, and in its spot arrived a piano! I've been looking on kijiji for close to a year now, and in researching costs, delivery, interest, thinking of our Christmas gifts and overall timing we got serious a few weeks ago. Our neighbour Jennifer came with me and we played a few different ones, got a sense of what was good (a few hundred dollars on kijiji can get you a good one) there are lots of free ones, but often they've not been taken care of very well and are massive in size. So, when I found a good one, I got serious and put in an offer. And piano's I've learned can be very hard for some people to part with - they hold lots of history and memories, and after a few days of thinking it over, the family accepted our offer. Whew! It was close, and we weren't sure if we'd actually be able to buy it. So, on a very wet night, three very strong guys named Craig, Stew and our neighbour Aaron brought her home. (If you are talking to Craig or Stew get them to tell the story of the drive back here, Stew even has a funny video to go with it ).

The kids so far have been very excited. There's been lots of playing, singing and theatre practicing. I've also managed to sit down and play a number of times, and not having played for so many years, and not even that well, it's amazing what can come back so quickly. It's been a dream of mine to have a house that can fit a piano, let alone the time or interest in playing and I'm so glad Stew supported me in this crazy idea. For anyone wondering... this is an apartment sized piano, about 30 years old, it's a Mozart, so it's a little smaller than most. It has a great bench with storage, they included lots of sheet music, piano books and a metronome. We are also on the hunt for a piano tuner and seeing if anyone around here is interested in taking lessons. Anna is showing the most interest so far, but we'll see, it might just be Stew and I!

it's starting to look like christmas

With the lack of snow and cold weather around these parts, it's hard to know the date on the calendar. Today we moved our family on our advent calendar and Anna pointed to how high we are and getting close to our old house (this is the second last stop) and she said, only 12 more sleeps! Holly cow, how did that happen so fast? So, today we got up our tree, and it's really nice. We went to Wintersingers with Kate, Craig and Andy and got to cut it down ourselves. It's a blue spruce and it smells so nice. We have lots of nice branches for all the ornaments, and it was fun reminiscing today. It's amazing how much difference a whole year makes, with both Anna and Sam helping to put decorations on. They decorated the mantel and then decided to decorate their room. It was so cute, Anna is just like Stew and gets really sentimental about all her special decorations. They are so special she has them in a box beside her bed, safe from her brothers.

Anna's friend Coco (also known as Coraline) also dropped off an early Christmas present - all her and her older sisters train track. It's an amazing set and the box was full to the brim with bridges, round abouts and splits. All three of them have played for hours with the new pieces, and we are so thankful - this is a beautiful, expensive set they gifted to us and we are honoured they thought of us.

Anna is also entertaining the boys with her new reading program from school while I make dinner. It's a lifesaver, they watch, then read the books and Henry, Sam (and I!) are loving it.

Sam is my official sous chef this year, he's so helpful in the kitchen, first up was a batch of chocolate candy cane cookies, next is Stew's Christmas mix, and a few other treats for school this week. Anna is finished this Friday until January 4th!

visiting santa's cabin

We got to visit Santa this year at this log cabin in the woods. We've never seen his cabin before and it was very magical. We took a horse drawn wagon out into the woods and he greeted us at the front door Mrs. Claus was there too, she'd baked some cookies for us and their elves were serving hot chocolate. We all got to sit on Santa's knee and have a long chat with him. Henry went first and was very interested in his compass. Sam went next and asked him to bring us a Christmas tree. He was very relaxed and they had a good chat. Anna was alittle nervous, but she managed to tell him she'd like a new pair of ballet shoes and they even measured her for some. We loved seeing Santa in such a relaxed peaceful setting. We even went out back after by his fire and saw his clothesline, Anna is still talking about how there was some coffee in that big Santa mug by the fire. Sam was impressed with all his feathers, and Anna reminded him that Santa can write in cursive! Apparently that's a totally hip, and cool thing now.