Well, it's been a busy few days and Christmas with my family is still to come! We delayed Christmas until my Dad, Andrew's girlfriend Ali and my grandfather would all be here so that's in a couple of days still.

In the meantime, Jack and Hannah had their class parties (Henry fit right in with Jack's class!) and Hannah bid farewell to her teacher who is retiring. She'll have a new teacher when she returns in the new year.

Christmas Eve and morning were spent in our own house with the kids wild and excited. I don't think Henry knew quite what he was in for but he sure caught on to opening presents quickly!

Christmas dinner was in Windsor with Jason's family. We drove down and back in the same day, but it was great to have everyone together and Mary made a wonderful meal! It was so nice for all the kids to play together too and since Hannah got a camera for Christmas, she had all the cousins lined up for a group shot with the camera set on timer...I'll have to wait for her film to post any photos from Windsor as Jason was taking video and Hannah film so I left my camera in the car.

Today was quieter with an amazing walk in the woods with my brother and sister and Hannah. It's hard to believe it's December! Hannah was so excited to be out without her brothers and to have adult attention all to herself and especially to get muddy! That girl loves the dirt! We walked for 2 hours and were all a little tired by the time we got home. It takes Andrew coming to visit for me to know that there's a path through the woods only 2 minutes from my house!!

Tonight Mom & Andrew, Eri, Mike & Bennett came over and we put all the kids to bed so that the adults could have a few drinks and play some games. We missed Dad but he is finally home and recovering well!

Merry Christmas everyone!
~ Dana

The Calm Before the Storm

It's Christmas Eve day, hard to believe it's already here. It is bright and sunny today, and supposed to reach 6 degrees! Dana has gone to the airport with the three kids to pick up her brother. The kids are bouncing off the walls so it's probably a good thing they are strapped down somewhere for an hour or so. The presents are all wrapped and ready to go, today will be spent occupying the kids with something, don't know what yet, visiting Dana's dad in the hospital, and Dana is doing some baking.

I hope everyone is enjoying the holidays!

Here's a great spot to track Santa tonight on satellite radar!
http://www.noradsanta.org/index.php

Hannah here

''For Christmas I would like a webkin and maybe some thing for my bild a bear.'' Hannah . la la llllllaaaaaaaaaaaaa. bye bye.

Happy Birthday Kristy!

What didn't we do this weekend?

There was lots of Christmassy stuff to fit in, wrapping & baking & last minute shopping, but between all that, Hannah had a skate with Santa party with her new skating club. She got skating lessons from my grandmother for Christmas and we started her just last week. She's quite excited about it and the end of year party was a huge success although Hannah had her doubts about him being the real Santa. He was about 17 years old and kept flirting with all the teenage figure skaters. There were also crafts to make & pizza & donuts. A good outing for the whole family! Her lessons will start up again in the new year and she's really looking forward to them.

I was assisting another photographer at a wedding later Saturday and it was quite nice being the assistant. I had to carry more stuff, but it was low stress and I could take my time getting interesting shots that I might not have time to slow down and notice if I were the primary photographer.

We've had the same contractor here this weekend who did our kitchen. He was working on some new closet doors for our entrance and both the kids' rooms. You might think replacing closet doors would be an easy job, but it seems they don't make closet doors that go right up to the ceiling like they used to in the 70's. And so, Bill had to build new bulkheads and drywall everything in and it ended up taking most of the weekend. We're so used to having him around though after the 6 week kitchen job that it's like having one of the family here!

Our amazing neighbours had Hannah over yesterday & Jack over today for their annual Christmas craft day. They are like another set of grandparents to our kids and we couldn't ask for better neighbours. Then today they brought the kids their Christmas presents...hockey sweatshirts for the boys and for Hannah, a purple sweatshirt that says, "Girls Rock" and on the back, "Boys are all talk". Boy, did she think she was cool in that sweatshirt!

Later, Hannah had a recital at my Mom & Dad's. Eri & Mike & Bennett came for the concert too! Mom's been teaching Hannah piano since September and I think they've both been really enjoying their time together each week. It was so nice! There was even a program that my Dad made listing all the Christmas pieces she would be playing and a cover photo of her and "Nan" and they even played a few duets. A really nice way to spend the afternoon! Thanks so much guys!

Somehow putting it down in writing it sounds a lot busier than it felt. We actually slept in this morning and had time for a nice walk with the kids. The temperature reached 14! It was really a fantastic weekend!

~ Dana

Happy Birthday John!

Luke's House Found!

I found this article about the Star Wars set where Luke grew up. The scenes that took place on the planet Tatoonie were filmed in Tunisia, and the set is still there and the article says that the poor desert people of Tunisia now inhabit the futuristic house.

Pictures

Bennett looking an awful lot like Erika!

Crazy ornament faces

Hannah happily putting the topper on the tree

This Day...December 11th....1946 - UNICEF is established.

Monday already?

Yes, it's Monday, it feels as though the weekend zipped by in a flash. We sure packed a lot into the weekend, Friday night I put the lights on the Christmas tree, Hannah attended her friends birthday party. Saturday we had everyone over to help decorate the Christmas tree, which I am sure Dana will post some nice pics. Dana also cranked out cookies, and I sneaked too much cookie batter.

After dinner we went over to our friends house for some Christmas cheer with the kids - and chocolate fondue... I held their little four month old baby boy, and it's really hard to believe my own kids were once that size, and that quiet...I remember once writing about Jack and his volume, which he has no lever to turn it down, well if Jack is loud, Henry sounds as if he is using a blow-horn. He has been a little naughty lately, to his defence he hasn't been feeling well, but I think I am to blame a bit, as he being the youngest, you tend to let things slide a bit, and slide they did. We have to get that one back on track or I will loose my mind. Last night at dinner he was singing Jingle Bells as "you better be naughty and not nice"...

Sunday, I was up at 6:30 to get to my swim meet, it went really well. I had personal bests in all 5 events, and almost broke 30 seconds in the 50 freestyle - which was a goal for the year, but my time was 30.00....so close! I did get DQ'd in the 50 breastroke though, I dove in and used the dolphin kick at first which is cheating... All in all though it was a fun event, and our team had 16 competitors this year, a lot of first timers which is great, and to top it off Dana and the kids came along later in the morning to cheer me on.

After the meet, Dana was off to drop Jack at a birthday party, and Henry to Uncle Mike's, and she was off to Nan's Christmas concert with Hannah and Grampa...then for dinner we all went out for a nice dinner with the family.
I was in bed at 9 and I am still exhausted this morning, I must go now and warm up my coffee which is now cold....bye - J

December 8th, 1980 John Lennon is murdered in New York City

This Day...1941 - Attack On Pearl Harbor

Happy Merry Holiday-mas

Tonight I am going to pick out a Christmas tree! We are putting it up on this crazy weekend of a lot of stuff going on; birthday parties, choir concert, swim meet, tree decorating and life.

Or maybe I should call it a Holiday Tree...what is the big deal with saying Happy Holidays or Merry Christmas - does it really matter if WalMart decides to use either of these? I couldn't care less if someone greeted me saying either, as long as they down run me down when they try to put that little sticker on my shopping bags when I enter the store. If someone wants to say Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas, me thinks that I should be happy they are greeting me at all instead of being picky about which greeting they are using, there is no 'war on Christmas' as FoxNews continues to go on and on about, people are actually writing books on the subject, mind you I wouldn't put much stock into anything Bill O'Reilly says.

Merry Holidays Everyone!...

Growing

For the past few weeks Jack has been eating us out of house and home, and at night waking complaining of sore feet and legs. Well, Dana measured him to see if he has grown, and he grew an entire inch in a month...and we just bought some pants for the boy.

Happy Feet

Gramps is here for the weekend, and today we all went to see the movie Happy Feet. It was a good little movie, the kids really enjoyed it - there sure was a lot of singing penguins and the environmental message was loud and clear. Tonight we went out for dinner with Gramps and enjoyed a semi-quiet dinner with 3 kids... Everyone is well and enjoying our visit with Gramps.

Kamikaze Swim

It's wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, after a 800m warmup, we were told that we were going to swim as many 50m freestyles as we could - which we had 60 sec to complete (at first)- we would start at zero, then if you finished in 45 sec, you had a bit of rest, then you would start at the 1 second hand, but you had to be back by the 60 second mark, then start at 2 seconds and again back at the 60 second mark on the clock - each 50m you would have less time to complete as you got more tired and swam slower, and if you didn't get back in time you were called out. I only finished 10, because I stupidly took my time leisurely drifting in at one point - forgetting that my time to complete was getting shorter each 50m. At the end of it there were 3 people who completed over 28 50m swims - wow...