December 25th, 2010

A few shots of our Christmas Day, including many hours in our pj's, card games, hot baths, skiing, bed frame making, turkey cooking, phone calls and lots of quiet time. ABSOLUTELY perfect, we feet very blessed! Hope everyone else has a magical day as well. xoxo

December 24th, 2010

Christmas Eve was filled with much excited anticipation this year - the kids put out a FULL plate of cookies, oranges, candy canes and carrots for Santa and his reindeer, along with a cup of eggnog. This snack was arranged and rearranged numerous times before perfection was achieved, stories were read and the kids FINALLY fell asleep! It was hard to stay up late enough in order to finish up the tree, but we managed to create a beautiful sight for them to wake up to! The pigs from our friend Renate in Germany were a HUGE hit!

December 23rd, 2010

Ahhhhhh, nothing better than strapping on your cross-country skis and heading out our front door! The kids spend HOURS out there:-)

December 22nd, 2010

Our hallway was converted into a series of cubicles today - ironically, Jamie's first day home from the office for the holidays and all the kids want to play is 'busy day at the office'!!!!!!

December 21st, 2010

For the winter solstice we drove down to Sean and Chloe's house to eat pizza, exchange gifts and go caroling - it's turning out to be an annual thing, and we love being a part of their community, and celebrating the return of the sun with song, bonfire, mulled wine and candlelight. I realized that I haven't taken photos of their kids for quite a while, so was sure to bring the camera tonight - but as you can see, the conditions were not ideal for getting great shots! However, here's a glimpse of Maya (looking more and more like a teenager, and although she's only 10 months older than Kea she TOWERS over her and seems so much older!), Lucas (a full-fledged first grader who speaks to us all in half English and half French!) and Elsie, a walking, talking complete ham - she has us adults all wrapped around her fingers and knows it:-) There's just something about an adorable toddler that puts a smile on your face, and when she demands that you move over to the shelf and pick her up so she can reach untouchables, how can you deny her?!!!!!!

December 20th, 2010

I've taken to calling this little tree out our kitchen window "Old Man Winter", I love him and often find myself staring at him as I do dishes and create holiday gifts and sip hot tea in a moment of quiet during our chaotic days. We're told the tree should come down as it is one of the dead trees close to our house, and I imagine we're going to have to find a way to incorporate 'him' into our home!!!!

December 19th, 2010

I have so many happy childhood memories of Mom popping popcorn on the stove top with hot oil.....something that I'd kind of forgotten about with the convenience of a hot air popper! However, with all of our moves, we seem to have let go of our popper, and we don't own a microwave and so when I wanted to make popcorn to strand with cranberries, I decided to give this technique a go.....and was amazed at how simple it really was, how quick it was and how delicious the inevitable handfuls were! Ahhh, one less appliance to buy and store:-)

December 18th, 2010

On this day, we packed up our little car and headed to Carp Ridge for some winter camping with the girls' wilderness class! I've always wanted to try out winter camping, and figured this would be a great opportunity - in the woods that the girls have gotten to know so well, with experienced leaders to guide us on, and with warm cabins on standby 'just in case'!!! During their weekly camp, the girls had been building shelters in the woods, and one of these shelters we decided to build up even more for those brave enough to sleep in them. Since we already own a 4 season tent, we opted to sleep in that, and were really glad we did as for the most part we were really warm, whereas those in the shelter dealt with snow falling on their heads, and chilly toes! The worst part for us all was putting our wet, frozen boots on in the morning - but I'm excited to try more of this winter camping out again, now that I've figured out a few tricks along the way. Perhaps next winter, though, when life will hopefully seem less chaotic!!!!!

December 17th, 2010

We've started decorating our house for the holidays.....Jamie brought home our family holiday gift today, and we're all VERY excited to start planning all sorts of summer canoe/camping trips! It's a 17 foot Evergreen Prospector canoe, mango in colour with ash gunnels, and a thing of absolute beauty!

December 16th, 2010

Some more photos of our winter wonderland for today - first is the view from my kitchen window as the sun rises, I don't think I'll ever tire of the view!!! Secondly is a shot of Kea in her favourite new coat, playing in the snow.

I was just sorting through a bunch of old photos on my computer lastnight (the tasks I must resort to working on when I don't have access to the internet!) and came across these sweet ones of Keane, taken shortly after his arrival. It's amazing just how much he has changed since then, in just over a year. Time is FLYING by!!!!

December 15th, 2010

There is something so magical about this winter wonderland we're living in these days - well, the part about gearing up three kids in winter gear is NOT so magical, but the views definitely are! Here's a shot of Harding Road (our road) from the main 'highway'. I tried to get a photo of all the ice glinting off the trees closer to our house, but as of yet have been unsuccessful at it.

December 14th, 2010

This is a popular way to burn off steam on cold, wintry days - LOVE these bouncy balls, and loving this huge hallway!!!!!!

December 13th, 2010

The kids are having all sorts of fun, discovering various sledding hills on the property:-)

Just looking at that photo of Ryland makes me cringe, it is such a battle to get that kid to keep his hat and gloves on, even when he's sledding like this - such a crazy nut! He's fairly hot blooded, but STILL, it's -20 some days with the wind chill! Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

December 12th, 2010

Today was a day of sleeting rain and slush and freezing snow and all those other wonderful wintry weather happenings we've been enjoying here in the Ottawa Valley. So it seemed like a good day to finally tackle changing to winter tires, which I watched Jamie do from the comfort of the study:-)

December 11th, 2010

We have a big hole beside our house, full of pipes carrying electricity and phone lines and other important features. We were supposed to fill it in after we got all the wires in, but then you know how it goes when there's a million and one other things that seem like so much more of a priority!!!! Until the day it started to rain really hard, and all of the water seemed to pool into that one hole.
I was feeling pretty stressed about it, and spent hours wading in the freezing cold puddle wrapping the pipes in mud and burying as much as I could - but I quickly realized that it was a losing battle and the rain came faster than I could shovel. It also was obviously not as dire a situation as I originally thought either, as nothing seemed to be damaged, but I still voted that we deal with it stat. So we called the dump truck, who couldn't come until early the next week. But then their truck broke down. And then the roads were icy. And then FINALLY, a week after we called, they arrived with a dump of sand. And proceeded to pour it BESIDE the hole.
And this, my friends, is a very small example of the uphill battle that our lives seem to be taking these days!!!!

There's a message from the universe out there for me, but instead of meditating on what it might be, I've just decided to get out there and dig. For three days straight, I would tackle that hill one hour at a time, and finally the hole is fairly filled, and I'm not so worried about those pipes anymore. And I look a bit like Popeye!!!!

Ryland was my faithful helper through this 'fun' adventure, and definitely made the work load seem much lighter:-)

December 10th, 2010

Here's some shots of our breakfast this morning......it cracks me up that Jamie and I now have his and hers coffee mugs, and matching bowls for our oatmeal. Can you just see us in our 70's, for sure wearing our matching leisure suits!!!

Ryland is fighting a cold right now, so is needing a lot more TLC. He crawled onto Jamie's lap to eat breakfast, and they continually ate in unison, so funny!!!!

December 9th, 2010

This scene was a happy sight when Ryland and I got home from our playgroup in Clayton - A team arrived at our house to install an HRV system, essentially taking air out of areas of our house (primarily bathrooms and laundry room) and fresh air into our house (primarily in bedrooms and our living room). It's heated before it's distributed, and essentially we're just thrilled to have some fresh air moving around our house. After so much construction, the air was pretty stale, and with radiant heat and no windows open, there was just no air movement. But no more!!! It also tends to take out the moisture in the air, so hopefully the condensation won't be so bad. Slowly but surely we're figuring this house out!!!!!!

December 8th, 2010

Today was a mellow morning at home, before heading out for library book club and skating. The kids have discovered much of their dress up box that has been packed away for a while, and today were on a big pioneer adventure together. Ryland was fully discovering the joys of a silky, swirly pink skirt - how awesome to have big sisters! Watching him makes me wish I had something similar to dress up in:-)