Christmas Eve in B & W

Things always seem a wee bit mellower when seen in black and white, don't you think?

Our Christmas Day sleigh ride

The rosy cheeks were a result of the sub-zero temperatures. It was worth it! Here we are down by the campgrounds...

We actually seen some deer down there

Here`s our driver: Daddy

Here`s the passenger - and there is NO BUMPIT in that big hairdo. That was not my intended style du jour either by the way

Um, yeah I`m not sure where we are in this picture. Or why my apostrophes are backwardsÉ Hmm..must have hit a code of some sort because that É was supposed to be a question mark.

Home sweet cottage

Mammasita and JT snuggled in the sleigh

Mom and Alex snuggled in the sleigh

There`s that BUMPIT hairdo again...then I got smart and cold and realized I had a hood for a reason. Pics are in reverse order obviously

Thing 1 and Thing 2

It took a lot of goofy around to get a picture I could live with. Thank you Fairy Godmother Cindy for these handmade shirts for our Thing 1 and Thing 2. The boys really loved the shirts - I thought they were really for me but they seriously love them! Win-win for everyone :o)

Thinking green

This post is dedicated to my earth loving friend Jenn :o)

I am a terrible wrapper. I can admit it. I can make some gorgeous cards but when it comes to wrapping gifts - I suck. People probably assume the boys wrapped their gifts when it was actually me. I'm just that bad. So, for a long time I resorted to these:

They're cute. Relatively cheap and way more easier. I always reuse gift bags that I've received (ha ha Foxy, yours is coming, just you wait) But even adding tissue paper decoratively is difficult for me sometimes.

Then after chatting with some people I realized that not everyone reuses their gift bags and it's a huge waste of money and resources if they're not being recycled. So, then I decided to buy good ole fashioned wrapping paper. My gifts don't look as nice as these with the crisp straight lines. Oh no they don't. BUT it's cheap and if everyone recycles the paper like I think and hope they do - I can live with that. And then as I was shopping for some gifts this year it hit me. The ultimate wrapping - reusable tote bags as gift bags. The price is right, they're as cheap as 99 cents although I went all out and spent a full $1.99 on fancy ones at Chapters in festive Christmas colours.

Unfortunately it came after the majority of my wrapping was done for the year so only my girlfrneds will received these environmentally friendly bags but I still feel good about this idea. Maybe next year I'll work on making reusable fabric bags for my family gifts...

Kids Christmas Party 2009

JT was SO EXCITED to see Santa. SO EXCITED in fact, that after Santa was finished spreading Christmas Joy to all of the boys and girls JT kept going back to talk to him. Again. And again. And again. Thanks Santa for having so much patience!

Alex was sitting as close to the front as possible and trying to read the name tags. It's a good motivation for him to practise his reading, ha ha.

Petland came to do a show and tell with the kids - it was awesome. Alex conveniently went with Aaron to get a drink when the kitty was doing the rounds but seemed to get a bit red eyed around the bunny as well.

Here are the boys with the cockatiel. I think it's a cockatiel. Not too sure, but birds do freak me out a bit. I'll change directions at the zoo if the peacock isn't showing any signs of moving far far away.

Here's a spotted gecko which brought back memories of one of the kids pinching the spotted gecko's head at JT's Petland birthday. The gecko was fine - but I was totally shocked when it happened - like speechless as in 'did that really just happen?'

Alex made friends with another one of the kids. The wee one just plopped himself down on Alex's lap and made himself at home. Alex was totally meant to be a big brother.

The party in a nutshell

It was good - we had a nice table group, everyone behaved themselves (Lou Lou and Aaron, ha ha) The food was meh, but the atmosphere more than made up for it.Aaron was presented with his 10 year award and of course smiled for some prime photo ops for me and once again, I was on the wrong settings.Once again, Taking Pictures 101. Maybe I'll just sign myself up for the class right now and be done with it before I miss more photo ops. Poor Deb, after we finally arrived home in the wee hours I made her take picture after picture until we got something that I could live with. Thank you!

Tobogganing with the boys

Friday night was a balmy plus 5 or 6 so the boys and I decided to head out to the small toboggan run in our neighbourhood.
It was great - most of my pictures turned out as black as black can be
:o(
It's too late for Christmas but maybe a wish for my birthday should be Taking Pictures 101?

Happy 3rd Birthday Jonathan!

The Cookie Swap/Bunco/Karaoke night was tres fun

I might actually be in trouble for that picture but OMG look at that tongue!!!

And this is why I LOVE my job

These ARE NOT face paints - these are crayola markers. CatGirl asked if she could bring face paints to colour the boys' faces on Friday...it wasn't until after the fact that I realized they were PipSqueaks. The good news is that they washed off quite easily. JT needed a bit of scrubbing in the shower but all was good and they had a fun time markering, ha ha.

And the tree is up and decorated

We actually put up the tree last week but I`ve had zero time for computing which is unfortunate because some funny things happened...