Holly Jolly Christmas



Christmas was just lovely. Mom & George came over early in the morning to share the wonderful day with all of us. The kids both woke up happy and ready to attack all the shinny presents. It started off fairly early with Alistair getting a bag of these colorful balls. I took the whole bag and dumped it on him and he just loved smiled from ear to ear. It was the best present ever. The reaction was gorgeous.

This is a great pic of Alistair sitting up in his new toy we got him. I have to admit it is extremely uncommon to have him sitting like this and when he does its for seconds but we still love it! I'm hoping this will just provide a new level of stimulation for him. He loves to just lay in the balls and feel them around him.

One of Francis's favorite toys was her little Christmas light. It actually surprised me how much she got out of Christmas this year. For some reason I had this idea she would be quite oblivious to it all but actually it was quite the opposite.

A lot of times she just sat there and took in the whole experience looking at everyone opening presents, grabbing at the wrapping paper, and exploring her new gifts.

She was 7 months to the day on Christmas. Wow time flies!!!

The whole day was nice and mellow. We opened presents throughout the day between eating, letting the kids sleep, playing games, and just hanging out. It was nice. This was our best family shot of the day. Ones gotta take what they can get!!! In this picture Francis definitely looks like she has a CURLHAWK as my friends call it. I'm not sure why her hair is so curly on top and straight and short on the sides but it looks like I cut it this way and I sure didn't!!

Francis loves getting her picture taken and then to see her expression when she sees herself in the camera is priceless.

When we were visiting my Uncle Holger my brother made a point of getting some letter train sets that he made for my kidlets. It was a lovely gift to find under the tree.

It was just the best present ever for me to see Alistair get enjoyment of various kinds out of Christmas Day.

He gave us lots of smiles.

............and so did Francis.

Jason also truly enjoyed being with the kids and absorbing their excitement throughout the day.

I went all out and made a traditional Danish meal. However, we were so darn full on Christmas day from all the candy, chocolate, and goodies that we all agreed it would be better to postpone the meal till boxing day so that's exactly what we did and it was so nice for me to enjoy Christmas day for what it was and then have fun cooking the following day. So I cooked a raisin and apples stuffed pork roast, caramelized new potatoes, brussel sprouts, salad and a sweet and sour purple cabbage dish.

As for dessert of course there was the scrummy rice pudding!



Francis got dressed up for the day in a beautiful dress Grandma Hedges bought her.....Mom thought it was going to be way to big. Was she ever surprised to see her filling it out so well.

Afterwards we went out and had a big bonfire and pulled the kidlets out in the stroller. The fun part for me was I got a ski attachment for it which works brilliantly.

 Not to see if I can get the kids to really enjoy an outing. Francis started to kick up her heals about here.

Anyhow it was all a truly gorgeous Christmas for us all and I hope you all had the same wonderful experiences in your households.

 

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

 

VIDEO

• This is a great little video of Francis in her new crib she got from Grandma Hedges. I think one can say she likes it! CLICK HERE
• This is a super cute video of Francis playing with bells in her cute pink dress CLICK HERE
•  Here is Alistair enjoying his colored balls he got for Christmas CLICK HERE
• Francis loving her Jolly Jumper CLICK HERE
   

Mellow Times

The lead up to Christmas was so mellow and fabulous. Francis had a touch of cradle cap so one day I slathered her head with olive oil and put a touque on her head to let things settle.

 It worked perfectly and I figured she looked pretty darn cute so I snapped some shots.

 The kids and I attended a Santa Brunch put on by CDC. Alistair's support worker Heather was there who basically took him under her wing and got him over singing with the kids. I didn't think he'd be hungry but after feeding him a spoonful of my whip cream that was atop my pancake breakfast he basically ate the majority of the meal.

 It was pretty cute, after the event Santa and Mrs Claus got to take a ride to their next event in a nice white limo. I think they were giving the reindeer some down time prior to Christmas.

 Here is Misses Smiley Francis after her typically short naps.

These grins come pretty naturally to her.

 We got all dressed up on Christmas Eve as we headed out to Auntie Bonita's and Uncle Lances for a brunch and game day.

 Francis sported her beautiful pink dress.

 I got in some cuddles with the nieces.

 Alistair enjoyed hanging out with his pa and uncles and we just all had a lazy lovely time.

NANA

It was just fantastic that Nana, Jason's Mom, came to visit us for a week prior to Christmas. Her visit definitely got us into the Spirit of Christmas a tad earlier than we normally would have.

Both Alistair and Francis enjoyed all of the extra attention.

 The were all the more smiles in the house as Francis had another person to grin at!

 Several times Nana sat down to the piano and jammed out some Christmas tunes that just got right into the foundation of the house. I always love how this makes a house come alive. Perhaps I'll get motivated enough one day to get back plunkin away on the good ol' piano. Definitely motivating.

 Just in the short time Nana was here Francis proved that she can scoot backwards by pushing herself along the wood floor. Before we know it she'll be crawling. Unbelievable!

 While Nana was here we attended a fund raiser for the Child Development Center where Alistair gets a lot of his therapy and goes to preschool. We got to get a shot with Kris Kringle himself.

 When we were leaving I noticed they were popping all the balloons at the event. Since Alistair loves balloons I figured we may be able to snazzooo a couple. Well we got a huge bouquet of them.

He loved it!

 He spent all sorts of time making them move and watching them float through the air.

 Since it was a fundraiser I took some money to play the silent auction and came home with this lovely playhouse for Francis.

 I think Nana and Francis could have snuggled forever.

 They even got in some reading together as well!

 

VIDEOS 

Here is a fun video of Francis enjoying Nana's piano playing

CLICK HERE

This is a great video of Alistair playing with the balloons while he's seated in his chair

 CLICK HERE 

This video is of Nana and Francis playing with a balloon

CLICK HERE 

Alistair is having fun switching on and off Xmas lights in this video

 CLICK HERE 

 

Merry Christmas Everyone!

 

Well its that time of year again to torment our children and throw them on the lap of an odd lookin fella whose face you can barely see. Don't talk to strangers kids but hey sit on this funny fellas lap! LOL. Fortunately my kidlets didn't seem to be to perturbed by the whole scenario.

 I know that Francis doesn't look all that impressed but to be honest she could have cared less about Santa. She was utterly exhausted and well hadn't pooped for a good 24 hours. So minutes after this picture she was zonked in the stroller and well later that day she accomplished the other bothersome factor.

This year I decided I had better hold Alistair as last year could have been potentially traumatic for many a child in the Santa line up as Alistair decided he'd attempt to rip Santa's beard off. Which he fortunately didn't accomplish. Anyhow, with a few tickles under the ribs we got some happy shots.

Nana has made her way out this way for a week from Manitoba so she was able to get some fun shots with the kids and Santa too. More on Nana in the follow blogs!

On another note you may know that we already have our Christmas tree up. Well luckily in the process of decorating I didn't end up chucking it outside. Why you ask? Well I like spending a little extra time each Christmas putting on the lights to my liking. This takes some time, patience and a few glasses of wine one evening but then I'm a happy camper with the end result. After attempting to wind the first set of lights onto the tree for the third time and plugging them in to find out they didn't work I nearly lost it and yes each time prior to threading them on they did work! ACK!

 I got so irritable it was ridiculous. Finally I stopped myself and was like "what the heck and I doing? This is suppose to be an enjoyable part of the season!" So I stopped myself. Dropped the lights on the floor and plunked Francis in the middle of them and just sat for an hour watching her with great pleasure as she took total delight in handling the lights. It was lovely.

 I look forward to endless moments like these where my children remind me of whats really important in life and bring me back to the basics of it all!

Merry Christmas Everyone!

♥ GEORGIA ♥

Our niece Georgia was born on December 8th. What a great day to be born as she shares a birthday with my mom who is the most inspirational woman I know.

I hope that I can be as content, wise and settled about life as my mother as some stage in my life time. So if Georgia has the privilege of acquiring these assets just from sharing the same birthday as my mother she will be one very lucky lady! I have to say she seemed to be one mellow little munchkin the follow night we went to visit so she's on the right track.

 Francis just loved visiting with her cousins. I can't say she was too interested in Little Miss Georgia but Hayley & Rebecca on the other hand were definitely on her favorites list. I can foresee a great deal of fun play dates with the girls.

 It was pretty amazing to sit there and hold Georgia and realize only 6 months ago Francis was of similar size. WOW how time flies and kidlets morph right before our very eyes.

Francis definitely has a special spot for her Daddy. The closer she can be to him the happier she appears......and so does he!