Busy Christmas weekend - Sunday

Our busy Christmas weekend continues! Sunday morning we went to our community centre to have breakfast with Santa. It was a lot of fun! We got pancakes and sausages, did some colouring and there was a children's singer named Tony Prophet. He has lots of wooden guitars so that the kids can come up and jam with him.

Tony Prophet actually interrupted one of his songs to point Sarah out in the audience, announcing that she was definitely the most beautiful Christmas baby in the room. She was awfully cute in her Christmas outfit.

Then it was time to meet up with Santa and Mrs. Claus. Last year's picture was a bit of a disaster, with Adam screaming and Daniel hiding in my shoulder. This year, however, was better - only Sarah cried and that was to be expected since she had just woken up.

After breakfast, we came home and I ran out to participate in the neighbourhood cookie exchange while James and the kids napped. Then we were off to meet Auntie Lauren and Uncle Duncan downtown to go skating in the outdoor Robson Square skating rink. It had just recently reopened and was really busy.

There were no more skates in James' size so he had to stay on the sidelines with Sarah.

The boys had a lot of fun skating around with Auntie Lauren and Uncle Duncan.

As you can see, they were quite upset when we had to go home - at least Adam was!

Busy Christmas weekend - Saturday

Christmas parties! Today we went to the kids' Christmas party hosted by James' work. It's always a great party with lots of activities for the kids - crafts, remote control cars, golf, and all sorts of kid-friendly foods (pizza, chicken strips, fries and lots of yummy desserts).

For entertainment, there was the second annual kids' talent show. Ooooh! Aaaah! Adam decided he wanted to perform but froze when he got on stage. Maybe next year. :)

Then there was the very punny entertainment from Al Simmons (www.alsimmons.com). Never have we heard so many punny jokes about fish, with fishy props to match! He also had a number of crazy hats that did many cool things.

Disney on Ice

To celebrate Daniel's 4th birthday, James and I took him and Adam to Disney on Ice. They loved it...and so did we! We try to do an "experience" with the kids for their birthdays since they get so many wonderful presents from family and friends.

First, we saw Mickey, Minnie, Donald and Goofy:

Then, Lightning McQueen and the others from Cars:

The Little Mermaid was there:

And the Lion King:

The entire second half was devoted to Tinkerbell and her new movie. We knew nothing about it but the boys were still mesmerized.

It was a fun evening with just the boys. (Sarah stayed with Gramma and Grampa.) It got the boys excited about their upcoming trip to Disneyland.

Christmas season has begun!

Our first Christmas event of the season. Every year, the last Friday in November, our neighbourhood firehall hosts a Christmas party.

There was free pizza from Boston Pizza and Timbits and hot chocolate from Tim Horton's.

And the Christmas lights were turned on at the firehall for the first time. Some places have a decorated tree in the town square or something like that - we have the firehall!

And, of course, the evening wouldn't be complete without a visit from Santa! He was all set up in front of the fire truck, making a great photo opp. But a call came in and all the firefighters needed to leave and took the truck with them! But the celebrations continued without them. :)

It was a fun beginning to what will surely be a fun holiday season!

Daniel's birthday party

Daniel's 4 years old! It's hard to believe! He chose to have a superhero party this year so we reused the Spiderman decorations from last year, added some new Batman ones and there was the superhero party! He loved it and had a great time with his friends.

Here's the Batman cake I made. I have to say, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. And it was really easy. I just traced the bat shape with chocolate icing and just filled it in with lots and lots of sprinkles. It was great until Daniel blew the candles out - the sprinkles weren't stuck into the icing very well so they kind of went flying!


Daniel with his buddies, Carson, Luke and Tyler.
Adam with his little girlfriend, Fina, and Luke again.

The birthday boy!

Sarah slept through most of the party. That was pretty impressive considering there were 10 kids racing around and having fun.

After lunch and cake, Daniel opened his presents. It was funny to watch since some of the other boys wanted to open Daniel's presents just as much as he did. Carson decided he needed to come over and play very soon because Daniel got so many cool things.

There were a few adults who braved the chaos of a 4 year old's birthday party. Auntie Joanne and Auntie Elaine are having fun with Sarah but it seems Uncle Clive managed to catch a nap! :)

The dads seemed to love the new foosball table Daniel got! All the kids were busy elsewhere while James and Eric challenged each other to a game.

What a lucky guy Daniel is, to have so many friends celebrate with him! He loves all his gifts and has been busily playing with them all. (Adam really likes them, too!)

Cousins!

Well, second cousins to be exact. We got to spend the afternoon with Nicholas (and his mom, Jennette, who is married to James' cousin, Ryan - got that straight?). The boys had a lot of fun making Nicholas smile and finding toys for him to play with. He's so cute and chubby and looked like such a little man next to teeny Sarah. Aren't they cute together?

Remembrance Day and a Firehall Visit

Today, the weather was surprisingly nice - no pouring rain for this year's Remembrance Day. So we all bundled up nice and warm and headed out to the cenotaph for the Remembrance Day service. Grampa was walking in the procession with other firefighters and the boys got to walk with him! They didn't understand anything about the significance of Remembrance Day but they thought it was pretty neat to be with all the firefighters, police officers and cadets.

After the service, we headed over to Grampa's old firehall so the boys could see where Grampa worked and see all the fire trucks. They had a great time sitting in the trucks.

Sarah wasn't too interested in the firehall. Maybe next year...

You get to do cool things when your Grampa is a retired fireman - they even got to climb up on the ladder truck!

A couple of the firemen showed the boys how they slide down the firepole. Then they took the outside and let them hold the firehose. Very cool!

The boys have been talking for weeks, maybe months, about going to Grampa's firehall and they had a great time today. I think we'll be reliving the day for quite a while! Thanks Grampa!

New pictures!

Here are some new pictures of our three cuties.

We have smiles!

Smiles are tiring work.

She's such a sweetie.

Sarah lounging in her brothers' Spiderman chair.

Here's the picture Daniel made of Adam. I had no idea he knew how to draw people that well.

Adam thought it looked just like him. He kept calling it Me Anam.

Cute and clean Adam!

Enjoy the new pictures!

Back to real life

It's hard to believe that Sarah was born 6 weeks ago and James has been home since then. Today was his first day back to the real world - he went back to work and the kids and I were on our own. It sounds like they missed James at work - no easing into things there! And the kids and I had a great day. Everything went surprisingly smoothly.

We headed out to the school to go to StrongStart. The boys had a lot of fun there today. They were so happy to see their friend and neighbour, Fina, there today. Adam and Fina played in the bin of flour for about half an hour.


Daniel spent a lot of time playing with the Lego. He made himself and Adam out of Lego!
Sarah loved StrongStart - she slept the whole time! (Yes, she's wearing her brothers' old jacket. Her pink ones were all in the laundry!)

After StrongStart, we headed to the mall to have some lunch and find some poppies for the boys. I had made sandwiches, which we ate in the food court. Daniel told me that my lunches were much better than mall food! Then, a woman came up to tell me that I had very well-behaved children and that I was raising them very well. What a nice compliment!

The afternoon went well, too. Adam napped (Daniel and Sarah didn't). The boys played Lego quite nicely together.

They helped me out while I was making dinner. Sarah was really hungry, so they each took turns giving her her bottle.

It was a really nice day and a good beginning to our week. Let's hope the rest of the week goes just as smoothly!