Christmas 2011

Happy New Year everyone! We had a really great Christmas this year - the kids were super excited about everything and there were no meltdowns over presents! Best Christmas ever. ;) There are a million photos, as usual, many of which could have used some editing and more extensive commentary, but to be honest, it seems like a lot of effort and I would just like to get these all up here before Easter, haha! The whole family has been pretty sick for the last while and work is a bit nuts for me at the moment, so this is what you get! Really it's probably not all that different from most of my other posts. Sorry about that. Heh heh.

Christmas concerts! Here is Graye's:






And Tegan's:





Christmas morning - Graye got EXACTLY what he asked for from Santa... pretty lucky!

Tegan in her princess finery:




Once again, Dollarama provides the best Christmas gift of the season:

We went to my parents' place on Christmas afternoon, and got to see Great Grandma.



We took a picture of us at my parents' place outside, to illustrate what an odd winter it has been so far - no snow at Christmas!!

We went to Ryan's parents' on boxing day, to celebrate with his side of the family. Here are the Andersen cousins, so far. (Next year there will be one more - congrats Kristen and Chris!)

Gifts from Aunty Kristen and Uncle Chris - thank you, everyone loved them!!



Tegan demonstrating how well her twirly skirt twirls:

Some photos of my daily activities - doing Tegan's hair:

And colouring - usually I start with a kid and end up on my own. Usually.

Thanks to Maizie and Ella for the lovely aprons they made. They've already been put to good use.

This is what our family does on Ukrainian Christmas - sword fights!!


Tegan isn't that excited about Ukrainian Christmas activities... maybe we should have got her a sword too.



Hope everyone's 2012 is an amazing year - lots of love from all of us! xo

And we've hit Christmas!

We just decorated the tree last weekend, and it's starting to feel very Christmas-y around here, despite the lack of snow. Don't worry all you Vancouverites, it is still Ridiculous Cold. But with no snow, so not even worth it. But still - I am feeling very joyous and festive. True story.

Onwards... The Tree!!

Complete with single branches laden with 3 birds, a Tim's coffeepot and a pig. Our kids have an amazing way of taking "eclectic" to "extraordinary".

We also decorated a gingerbread house, which I honestly love far more than if we'd made it exactly like it showed on the box. (Yes, this is from a boxed kit. So much better, trust me.)

Each kid beside their side of the house - different personalities do you think??



Merry Christmas!!! See you in the New Year!

Birthday Bowling

Graye and Tegan's cousins had a birthday in November, so we all went glow bowling. We had a great time, especially the kids who had never been bowling before.


Graye even managed to beat Ryan's score! This could have been why...

Actually, we had a list of Top 10 Awkward Ways to Bowl (this may or may not have been the name I gave it.) ;) Bowling through the legs of your teammates was on the list. It is actually quite terrifying being the one standing there while someone else hurls a very heavy ball right beside your ankles. However, I don't think the face Jeanette was making while I took my turn was quite necessary.

Strike??!!


The boys and kids also made a snowman family that weekend. We actually had more snow then than we do now!

Wow. It's been ages...

It seems it's been almost a couple of months since I updated this blog! Sorry, all! We've been busy with school and work - Ryan is still teaching, they haven't kicked him out for unprofessional behaviour just yet (though taking a school day to play multi-hookup X-Box on the projection screen with the students seemed risky!) ;) I have started a new job, though still in the same department with the University. Instead of working with Undergraduate students, I'll now be working with the Postgraduate residents in Family Medicine. It's a big change, you can just trust me. :D

The kids are both doing great in school, coming home saying new things in French all the time. It's not going to be too long before we can't understand them at all. They have amazing teachers and birthday invites coming home every week, it seems.

I guess I'd better start the update with Halloween photos. I missed getting my kids costume pics onto Facebook with the hundreds of others I saw, hehe!

I should make it all the way to Christmas by the time I'm done these updates! Though you've probably already seen those since they will be posted above this one.... ah well.

Halloween:

Tegan had decided she wanted to be a cat (which was no easy task - keeping her on track and away from the princess costumes once this had been decided was hard work! Though the sparkly ears helped.) I was very excited about the princess-less Halloween this year!


Graye's face shows exactly how he feels about scooping out pumpkin guts.


My excitement about the princesslessness (I'm sure that's a word) didn't last long though, as I let the kids pick which pumpkin they liked from the image gallery on Google...

At least I convinced Tegan not to go with Sleeping Beauty - "Sorry honey, that's a little too much hair for mommy to carve into a pumpkin!!"

Aaaaand after we forgot to dress Tegan in her costume for daycare (yes, we were THOSE parents....) there was no convincing her to leave the princess fairy costume that the daycare lent her there, and change back into her cat costume for trick or treating.


I made Graye a "Scary Spider" costume, upon request. I was pretty proud of myself! Even added some extra eyes for extra creepiness. :)


Every parents nightma.... I mean dream - seeing their children's eyes light up (glaze over) as they stare at the mountain of candy that they worked so hard to collect:


Hope you had a happy Halloween! We are still working our way through that candy. (Though the good stuff's all long gone...)