Christmas!

I love Christmas! I love being with family. I love the crazy chaos that is Christmas Eve. I love Christmas morning with the kids. I love the look on their faces when the see all the surprises that await them. I love all the good food and treats and candies. I love Christmas!

We hosted the Court Christmas Eve festivities in our humble little house. We had a total of 29 people in our house for a good old KFC dinner. I am told that KFC was a tradition at Grandma Reese's house for Christmas Eve dinner. Since we were hosting Christmas Eve at our place in Milk River(where Grandma lived), Daniel wanted to bring back the KFC. It was so good. We had so much food. We had to borrow tables and chairs from the church so that we would have seating for everyone. We just barely fit. It was great.

After dinner, we had the kids make gingerbread houses. They had so much fun. We had icing and candy everywhere. After that we had the kids gather for the cousin's gift exchange and then sent them down stairs to play while the adults exchanged white elephant gifts, which on the whole was rather uneventful. After that was all cleaned up, Grandma Kaye had the traditional PJ's to hand out to everyone, young and old alike. I love PJ's from Kaye, they are always so wonderful.

To finish the evening off, Kathryn had prepared a puppet show for everyone. A friend of ours send us some nativity hand puppets(a big shout out to Krista! You rock!). Kathryn wrote the script, and narrated while some of the other cousins manned the puppets. It was totally spur of the moment and really quite cute and somewhat chaotic.(sorry no pics)
Once all was said and done, it was late, and kids were tired. Slowly people started heading out and we were left with actually a fairly small mess to clean up (a big thanks to my favorite new dishwasher). And then began the fun of getting things ready and set up for Christmas. I was so organized this year and didn't have any last minute projects to do (except stitching a face on the stuffed cat I made Kymberly). I was in bed by 1am, but had trouble going to sleep because I was so excited for Christmas morning.
Surprisingly the girls didn't get up until a little after 8am (which Daddy really loved, he could have slept longer). Christmas morning was all I expected it to be. The girls were thrilled with all of their gifts. Kymberly was adorable, and took her time tearing the paper off the presents with a big "ooh, ahh" with each little rip. And then she would be completely enthralled with that toy until someone handed her another wrapped gift to slowly open. I think that she enjoyed the tearing off the paper as much as she did playing with the toys.

We spent the day at home, just relaxing and playing with all the fun stuff that we got. The girls even let me have a nap for a while. It wasn't too cold today so we played for awhile in the yard with the new sled from Grandma and Grandpa Forsyth while Kymberly was napping. And of course for supper we had left over KFC.
What a great two days!

                                  

He's not real

"He's not real mom." is all Tansley had to say after sitting on Santa's lap at our ward Christmas party. This was the third time that she had a visit with Santa this year. The previous two times she didn't have anything to say about Santa afterward. But she is convinced that Santa is going to bring her a [My Little] pony to play with on Christmas. So she must believe that one of the Santas that she has talked to was the real deal. So what was it about this Santa that said "I am a fake"? Here, I'll post the various pictures and you decide.

This is the Santa that visited Milk River Town Hall. Tansley wasn't to sure about getting up on this Santa's knee. However, a big step up from last year when she wouldn't even get close to Santa and cried the whole time.

Maybe this Santa(who visited the Lethbridge Lodge staff party) was the real deal because he had presents to give out.

My camera batteries died right when I was going to take a picture of Tansley with Santa at our Ward Christmas Party. So the one with Kathryn will have to do for this little demonstration. (I believe that Kathryn is pulling away because Santa had a bit of a funny smell to him...I think that our guest Santa enjoyed a little happy hour before arriving).
So what's your verdict? Why is Santa #3 so obviously not real to a three and a half year old? (besides the funny smell...or was that the dead giveaway to my child...shouldn't Santa always smell like cookies or something?)

*****UPDATE******
This morning over breakfast, Tansley revealed to me what it was about this Santa that made him so obviously not the real deal. It was his shoes. They were his own shoes, not boots.

Ahhhhh....that was relaxing! Lets do it again.

Yesterday evening a friend of mine calls me up and asks if I would like to take her place at her massage appointment today. She'll find someone to watch my kids and then I can go in her place because she doesn't feel like coming into town, her treat. I agree....who wouldn't? So all morning I look forward with anticipation. The arranged babysitter arrives, and I leave, without so much as a peep from the youngest, very impressive. I arrive at my appointment and was treated to a very relaxing massage treatment. That was the quickest hour of my life. I really need to do that more often. Especially toting around a not so little 16 month old(if only she'd take to this walking thing), I really find that my neck and shoulders are quite tense. I could live with adding this into my regular health maintenance. I think I should talk my husband into it. Not just for me, but I think that he could really benefit from some massage therapy as well. My new quest. I then arrive home to find that all my dishes had been done, the babysitter said it was a little treat for me. WOW! Two treats in one day! I've been spoiled. I like it. Lets do it again soon :)

Garbage

So I am taking the garbage out and suddenly the bottom comes out of the bag and I have stinky disgusting garbage all over the threshold of our back door. GROSS. So I get some latex gloves from under the sink(thank goodness for Daniels clean up project way back when in Saskatoon). I gag as I pick up the rotten garbage. I split it between two garbage bags to be sure that it doesn't happen again. This time I get both bags out side, just off the step. I decide to go get the little bit of garbage that is down stairs and under the sink, after all there is plenty of room in both garbage bags. As I pick up the garbage bags, the bottom comes out of one of them once again spilling the same rotten, stinky disgusting garbage all over.  Double GROSS. I think it was worse the second time. Double bagged it this time. I don't want to have to pick it up again. I do finally get it successfully to the other side of the road. and I didn't ever actually throw up. That alone I am thankful for.

Remembering

I'm not sure exactly what it is that has changed in me. Maybe it is because I have kids now. Maybe it is because I am older and understand it better. Maybe it is because my perspective it different. Maybe it is simply that my hormones have been all messed up because I've had kids. But what ever it is, I find myself so much more emotional when it comes to thoughts of the incredible freedoms that we enjoy in this our fair country. Even simply singing our glorious national anthem brings tears to my eyes. Last Friday, Kathryn's school hosted the Remembrance Day Ceremony. Watching our handful of Veterans march in made me tear up, and then we sang Oh Canada and I was a mess. I thought to myself, how that in not to many more years we wont even have these brave Veterans to remind us of all that we have because of those, like them, who fought to preserve it. And then I thought that it is possible that in not to many more years, we may have far to many modern day Soldiers, that we will cry over and give thanks to for their daily bravery to keep us free and safe. I know that there are many of our brave men and women serving over seas to help create and keep peace. And I honour them for their efforts. But it is not the same, maybe because it isn't close to home, and it is not our own freedom that is directly being threatened. But how quickly can that change? In only days the world economy was suddenly in big trouble. It doesn't take long for things to change. Now I don't mean to sound so pessimistic, but we know that there are troubling times ahead. And because of that, we must remember what we have and how we got it.As the Last Post was played followed by a moment of silence, I closed my eyes, let the tears run down my cheeks and thanked my Heavenly Father for the country I live in, for freedom and peace. I thanked Him for the gosple that also brings peace and safety. And the for the knowledge that even in troubling times that may lie ahead, we will beable to find safety and peace through our Saviour, Jesus Christ.
My cousin posted this on her blog. It is a letter that was sent to my Great Grandparents when their son(my dad's father's brother) could not be located after he did not return from his last bombing mission over Germany.

(Click here to read it)

I couldn't even imagine what it would be like to wait for almost a year, not knowing what had happened to your child, only then to recieve a letter confirming your worst nightmares. To all those who have experienced this, in years past or in days not to distant, all I can say is, may our All Loving Creator, our Saviour bless you and your family for your formidable sacrifice, and comfort you in your pain and suffering. Thank you for giving all that you had to give, so that all of us now enjoy freedom, peace and imense comfort.

Halloween

Here are my totally cute Halloween kids. They had so much fun carving pumpkins and dressing up. Kathryn put together her costume all on her own from stuff that we had in our tickle trunk and she insisted that her face needed to be painted green. She did a great job. Tansley went through a total of 4 costumes before it was time to go trick or treating. I took her picture in this lady bug, but soon after she had to go to the bathroom and didn't quite make it, so she ended up going trick or treating as a hairy monkey. I don't have a picture uploaded yet, but I will get it soon. Kymberly was just so darn tooting cute in her cow costume. I just wanted to hug and kiss her over and over.

A Beautiful Sight

Remember this?

The grass all dug out by me

Daniel's part of the digging

Well it eventually turned into this...

Beautiful Tomatoes

And today it looks like this...

And from that we got all of this...

We brought in so many beautiful carrots. This is by far our best carrot year ever...which wasn't really a hard record to beat. Our first year we didn't get any...that might have had something to do with somebody digging up every last carrot in the middle of the night before they were even big enough to call baby carrots. The other years an elderly sister in our ward let us use her garden spot. She lived only a block away, but still it was hard to really care for a garden, so the carrots were never thinned when the should have been thinned. This year, I was really able to baby my garden to my hearts content. Our tomatoes, tho slow, also produced beautiful tomatoes, so perfectly round and a really good size. So far I have had enough ripe tomatoes to make one delicious batch of salsa, and soon, I'll have plenty more to do more salsa and stewed tomatoes. My only disappointment were my cucumbers and my cherry tomatoes. Neither of them produced much of anything. I got barely enough cucumbers to make two 2 quart jars of pickles, and a few nice big ones to enjoy eating.  All in all it was a good harvest year. I today as I dug up the rest of the carrots, I felt satisfied with the results and extremely blessed. I look forward to next year, mainly because I won't have to dig out my garden spot first, I can just go directly to planting. YEAH!

In addition to my gardening, I have also been having tonnes of fun and making huge messes canning various fruits. Take a look and my beautiful storage shelves.

Top shelf and half of the second shelf are pears
Third shelf and other half of second shelf are peaches
Forth shelf is red apple sauce made from my crab apples, apples from my sisters tree and Gala apples I bought for wicked cheap at my favorite local grocery store. My crab apples turned the apple sauce red.
Fifth shelf is apple pear sauce...so yummy!
Sixth shelf is whole crab apples(stems an all) canned in a thick syrup...it's like apple sauce on a stick.

Top shelf is jams from last year. I never did get around to making any jam this year.
Second shelf has some tomato sauce(last years), canned beets and apple pie in a jar.
Third shelf has the beginnings of my salsa and my small selection of pickles.

I love opening the door to my storage room and seeing my shelves all full of bright coloured jars filled with stuff I created. I feel like a genius. I feel amazingly grateful for my many blessing. For the blessing of a great harvest and for the blessing of my gifts and talents that allow me to fill these shelves with beautiful delicious food. Life indeed is great!