Family Life – Page 23 – a hippie with a minivan

Our Xmas…

Things are dying down here and we are spending our family time relaxing…

We were supposed to have my mom, grandma and uncle over on Xmas eve but my Uncle ended up in the hospital so he and my grandma couldn’t make it, so we have a quiet Xmas eve with my mom…

The boys were so excited… but I was able to calm them enough to get some nice pics in front of the tree…

The boys were hungry before the adults were so we fed them and then Simon read “The Night before Christmas” and they fell asleep around their usual time… Simon, my mom and I then ate and talked a bit, put all the gifts out and then headed to bed at around midnight.. just before I fell asleep, Xavier woke up and headed upstairs for some water… of course he saw the gifts under the tree and then there was no more sleep for him.. he came and laid down next to me and I dozed while he tossed and turned and told me every 10-15 min that he couldn’t sleep because his brain couldn’t turn off.. he went upstairs again and woke my mom to talk to her for a while until she realized that it was 3:30am and then told him that if he couldn’t sleep to go on the computer… So he went and played a game while the household slept…

At about 6am he headed back downstairs and woke his brothers and us and then of course we all headed upstairs…

The boys opened their gifts, I made Pumpkin Cinnamon Buns and my mom left soon after and left us have our traditional Xmas day where we do nothing but enjoy having time together, play with our new gifts and have leftover fondue for supper…

The boys all loved their gifts and I am really happy with the things that they got… not too many and nothing that will go unplayed with…

Xavier got a few D&D books, two video games, a few D&D figurines, Heroscape (a board game) and PJs…

Colin got a book, some Dragons, a big Crayola kit in a wooden box with new markers, crayons, pastels etc… more markers and tons of paper, two Star Wars figurines and PJs…

and Khéna got a piggy bank, a book, a wooden Sushi kit, a bin of dinosaurs, playdough, a playmobil plane and PJs…

and collectively they got a really cool wooden castle…

They spend their day playing with the Castle, trying out their other new toys, looking at their new books and trying out the new board game…

Yesterday, the 26th, we were supposed to have Simon’s mom and Sister over but they cancelled last minute due to the forcasted freezing rain that makes driving dangerous… Simon’s dad and his dad’s girlfriend stopped by for a short visit in the day and I continued the supper that I was preparing while Simon took down the tree… (giving us some more place in the living room and making it simpler to live with our 6 month old kitten who loves to sleep at the top of the tree)

So now we are relaxing and spending some family time together while the weather and my SPD pain keeps us inside… Simon works two days this week and then is off for another few days, we will be going to a friends home on New years even and don’t plan to have anymore guests over for a while… I don’t mind usually but entertaining has been really rough this year because of my pelvic pain so the less we do, the better I feel and I really don’t mind it..

though I love the time around the holidays I have to admit that I am glad it is over… now to move on to really getting ready for the new addition to our family that will be here soon enough…

First snow storm of the year…

We got our first snow storm on Wednesday and the boys have been having a blast… They have been spending hours in the snow, yesterday going out in the morning, coming in for lunch and then heading out for a few more hours in the afternoon and coming in when it started to get dark…

having them outside gives me a little more energy to get a few things done in the house or just relax with some quiet time of my own.

Here are some pics from my little snowmen… (we got a little more than 30cm in my area, so a bit more than a foot)

Of course having this snow means that the tractor comes to clear our driveway which in turn is the return of “snowy mountain” in our front yard… which at its peak, is usually about twice the height of the accumulated snow fall…

In the past it has looked like this…

2 years ago…

last year…

The boys can spend hours sliding and falling and hiding in the big pine tree etc…they can’t wait for more snow now!

More Drawing…

Colin is truly the little artist in the family. He draws pretty much every day and when he starts he doesn’t stop…

He loves white paper and because I don’t print much we don’t have much scrap paper so I found some 100% recycled paper at the local “Bureau en Gros” (Staples)… It is a bit off white, but perfect for printing for me and drawing for him…

He doesn’t like crayons much, nor wood pencils… his favourite are markers and every few months I need to buy more because he uses them so much… I found out early on not to skimp with the markers. When he draws, he gets the hands of an artist. Crayola is the best washable marker 😉

Sometimes his drawing are inspired by things he has seen or watched but more often they are straight out of his imagination…

Like this Lava Monster…

Or Harry Potter next to a Tornado Monster…

This one here is a Clone Game, the clones have targets that the Droid needs to shoot…

Often his drawings are a bit hard to make out because once he draws something, he often then animates it with a marker. So the magic coming from Harry Potters wand will literally wipe out the Dementor…

At the end of most days our kitchen table looks like this… Drawings from the day scattered all over…

(the pile in the back was from the day before)

When Simon gets home, he often spends a few minutes explaining his favourite drawings of the day…

a little time to touch base for both of them…

Trimming the tree…

Though DH and I are both Atheists we do celebrate the holidays. For us, Xmas is 100% secular having roots in pagan traditions… though technically we could find another name for it, or not do it the same day etc… we like what we have made it for us…

For me, the magic is the holidays is the lights glittering in the long dark nights, the crisp white snow, getting cozy in our home, sharing time with each other, baking and making the house smell good, watching holiday cartoons and listening to music, sharing gifts and seeing the magic of the holidays reflect in our children’s faces.

On Xmas eve we have a long standing tradition of having people over for a Fondue supper… Often it is my mom, Simon’s mom, sometimes Simon’s Sister and sometimes various other people. What is great about a fondue supper is that there is little preparation and a long time at the table talking and sharing a meal.

The boys are getting so excited… in the last years we have had Playmobil calendars counting down the days to Xmas, everyday you get a little box to open which completes a scene…

(OK, OK, I added the mom with the sling 😉 )

last year one of them became part of our playmobil toys while the other got put away again for this year. Instead of buying another this year since each of the boys wants to do something, I found a tree that is perfect for the occasion. Though I could have made one easily, the price was good and I just don’t have the energy for such a project at the moment…

So we have been gearing up towards the holidays, counting down the days… The lights are up outside, and Sunday we trimmed the tree…

Holiday Cartoons in the background, and hot chocolate with homemade marshmallows…

All done up…

I love the ornaments in our tree… most have a story… all make me smile…

You can see a closeup of my some favourites on Flickr if you click on the pictures below…

Nov 30th…

Well, we are the 30th, and today was the day that my oven was supposed to be fixed…

However, I got a call last Friday saying that they just received the parts and they would only get to the repair service next week, so they changed the date to the 8th of December. That will be a full 4 weeks without an reliable oven. Yes, I say reliable because we tried it out a few times since it went out and it has worked and cycled off when it should. However, the problem reoccurred twice so I am quite nervous when I use it so I will be be waiting and will get it fixed before it gives out again.

The new toaster oven is also proving to be a good buy. At the moment I have a chicken on the rotisserie in it and I took a chance to use the oven for potatoes. (since one costs a lot more than the other, I didn’t mind ruining the potatoes as much as ruining a chicken)

So I am still waiting and I can’t wait to have it back to a reliable appliance and make a good batch of bread along with other treats especially with the holidays coming up…

The 30th of November of course also ends NaBloPoMo ’09 and my 30 days of posting are up… I didn’t find this year as hard as I found last year, mostly because I was around home more, but I am happy that I won’t “have” to post every day and instead post when I want to… it did do what I wanted it to do though and gave me back the routine of posting on a more regular basis…

So… Yay!!