December-pre Christmas!

Yes, with the advent of Facebook, I'm much more apt to post short updates there more frequently and save the longer updates for here, but posting less frequently.

Since the release at Paul's work, he's been able to take time off for the holidays, which has been awesome.  Completely makes up for the two trips he was gone last month!  I'm going to be sad when we gear back up for January.  Since the kids have been off school, we've literally done nothing but play video and board games in our pajamas (since I got most everything done for the holidays before they got off school). As guilty as I feel about "doing nothing" I do feel more relaxed and have been resting which is probably why the little bit of a cold V and I seemed to be getting disappaited pretty quickly.

Anyways, we were busy the 3 weeks of December before that.

The kids had school concerts:

 

 

Valerie found her red shoes which of course we ladies love.  Incidently, the name of her shoe  style is Valerie from Stride Rite :)

(if you'd like a link to the actual concert footage, let me know... there are other kids in them so I'm not going to put them here....)


It snowed.

 

Then it snowed more.

Bunnies came.

We set up the Christmas tree

 

Valerie continues to like dresses, much to Mom's delight.

Then the snow melted, but an ice storm came in the middle of the night.  As this was our first ice storm, we went out and explored.

Henri wanted to save all the icicles

The track next door looked like the Arctic Ocean

The grass

our poor tree...

The vines that grow over our fence...

Then it snowed again today. This  Christmas Eve morning Henri came downstairs and declared, "it's gonna be a white Christmas! So we went sledding...

Look ma, no hands!

Paul and Henri try

 

Then we went over to the playground-it was slick

 

 

Valerie decided we were too slow in bringing the sled back up and took matters into her own hands

 

Henri takes a break

 

 

Mom got crafty:

 

 

 

 

 

November

Carter's begun curling, while he's enjoying it, we're trying to take lots of extra time with him on the ice when we can and you can definitely tell when he's gotten an extra practice (someone at my league today even commented "you must have brought him out Saturday" (it was Sports Day in Canada)). 2 of my nieces have also joined the junior curling program and another niece has been out to try it as well as my sister-in-law.

 (he's in the white helmet)

Henri is counting the days until next season when he'll be old enough (they start at 6 here-Seattle was 8) to curl and even talks in an educated manner about things like the house, the hog line and the boys are starting to get strategy enough that we're watching some on TV and they properly figure out the call and can score games.

Personally I'm doing well enough that I've been asked to play in some bonspeils :)  which is a nice way to get to know people a little better and get some extra games in.  It means I get to curl 2 times a week guaranteed, but with a bonspiel I can get an extra 1-2 games in.

We got to have lunch with my High School Spanish teacher who was touring the Toronto area before a cross-Canada tour by train.  Then my parents came shortly thereafter and we visited the local canal and lock system...

 

 

And the falls...

 

 

We started off a day of shopping while Paul was gone with a Fairy Princess. We almost also had a blue bird as well, but ended up with just the fairy of the 3 kids....

 

People were so sweet to us when they'd see her all dressed up.  We started off at the mall welcoming Santa with a presentation with some Disney princesses.  We don't have cable or Disney and Disney's not plentiful on Netflix, so V is a little late to the Princess obsession (we're currently entrenched in Dora who does make it into our house with our internet subscription). 

 

Valerie saw the princesses and shouted, "Princesses!"  and watched their song presentation with rapt attention...

After a quick pop into Sears, we came out to find most of the crowd gone and walked right up to  the princesses...

Henri actually also thought it was awesome to meet these "beautiful princesses"

Henri had his actual birthday on a Monday night when Papa and Dad were driving our 2nd car cross country, so we had Nana over for dinner and cupcakes after dinner. Auntie & Cousins stopped by

Then Momma got dressed up and headed out for a girl's night with a curling teammate while Nana held down the fort.  Yes, it was Henri's birthday, but it was also a week into a 10 day long business trip...

Henri was excited about the clothes he got.  Such a sweet boy... Angry birds sweatsuit from grandma and a TMNT (yes, they're back!) long-sleeve shirt from his aunt on his birthday dinner night...

Then we got 5 inches or so of snow.  The kids were ecstatic and it was so weird to send them to school in snow pants!  Esp on American Thanksgiving.  Then we got another 2 inches.

 

Luckily not only is our backyard a great sled hill, but we live next to the school, which is supposed to be "the bed tobogganing hill in town" 

Valerie who discovered dresses and tights has now discovered dresses swirl out as you dance and she dances throughout the house singing, "Sing! I! N! G! O!"  and yelling, "Dance Party!"  She's excited about Christmas and yells, "Christmas!" whenever she spots snow or Christmas lights.

P and my FIL got home just in time for our 10th wedding anniversary :)  That Sunday we had family over for Henri's birthday where he finally got the blueberry bluebird cake he'd been asking for (Funfetti mix cake with blueberry jam inside, it was a hit! and decorated like a Bluebird from Angry Birds)

And random picture time...Carter's telling on his brother.... via note...
Good news is his spelling is getting better.

We're starting to get in the holiday spirit. We're doing our advent devotion time every evening and got lights on the tree.. since we don't have the high ceilings anymore, it's fat and got no top ( a few years ago the bottom 2/3 got stuck together, so setting up the top two sections which would have resulted in a smaller, more conical tree is no longer an option).. we plan to put ornaments on tomorrow evening...

And Paul and I decorated the outside, since the snow is mostly melted and it was nice and sunny out today...

Gotta say I'm not missing the super tall roof this year :).

So that's a little of what we've been up to.  Paul made 2 trips to WA last month for the release of their current product so he gets to be at home on a lighter schedule for December, for which I'm quite happy. :)