Holiday Season Part 1

These Little Hams

It truly is the most wonderful time of year.  Each Christmas gets better and better.  This was our third Christmas with our Claire Bear and our very first Christmas with our Abby.  Claire is understanding Christmas more and more, she was so excited for presents, Santa and decorating.  Abby on the other hand loved the wrapping paper and Christmas music.  

It has been a busy holiday season for us, we moved into our house at the beginning of December.  I had not done any Christmas shopping before that because I cannot focus on more than one big project at a time.  I began my Christmas shopping the following week after we got settled in at home.  I did a lot of my shopping after the girls went to sleep at night.  Then did my wrapping during their afternoon naps.  I cut it very close with getting everything done, I was still shopping Christmas Eve Eve.  I need to start earlier next year. 

I'm a organized and clean person but when I wrap gifts I make a mess!

To kick off our holiday celebrations we had our good friends over with their little ones on December 19th for dinner and gift giving.  It was so fun watching all the kids together and we even managed to get an adorable group photos of the kids.  It doesn't happen often that we are able to get all six of them in a photo together.  Our friend Erica had a brilliant idea of doing a book gift exchange.  Each child received a book from each other under $10, it was a big hit.  I think it will become our tradition now.  We had a delicious dinner with Costco special marinated chicken breasts, creamy parmesan risotto, and tomato and zucchini sauté.  Angela made a delicious Beach Salad like the one from Joey's Restaurant.  I had seconds of that one, soooo good!  Erica brought my favourite cupcakes from Lilac Bakery.  I found a new favourite, salted caramel cupcake.  I had too many of those.  Abby took her first steps while Angela and Dustin were leaving.  She took three little steps in the front entrance it was exciting to see.  It was a fantastic night, I can't wait to get together again.

Abby and I both look out of it!

Books everywhere

Presents!!

More presents

These two being silly

Goodnight!

At least one of them is smiling

Yay we got a group photo!

Another one just in case

Everyone pile on Kyle

Awe, so sweet!

 

Kyle and I had both been talking about converting Claire's crib into a 'big girl' bed very soon.  On Saturday night December 20th he took the front panel off the crib and put up the little bed rail.  She was so excited to sleep in her new 'big girl' bed for the first time.  We were a little nervous because we thought we would have to deal with her leaving her bed and getting into stuff in her room but she did awesome.  Kyle had a talk with her about making sure she stayed in her bed all night.  She followed the rules but did accidentally roll out onto the floor a few hours after she fell asleep, poor girl started crying.  Luckily the bed is low to the ground so she didn't roll too far down.  She just startled herself.  We were so proud of her and it made me feel a lot better about how she will do once we move her to a full size bed later on.  

Claire waking up Sunday morning after sleeping in her 'big girl' bed

Abby wants to check out Claire's new bed

Abby is so proud of her big sister

Claire is so proud of herself YAY! 

On the Sunday December 21st we brought both girls to Kyle's work Christmas party.  There are quite a few little ones in his GT work family.  They had fun holiday crafts and snacks for the all the kids.  After lunch they each were given a gift to open, it was a really nice way to spend the afternoon.  Claire opened a cute Minnie Mouse doll house and Abby opened a Leap Frog My Pal Violet.  Perfect gifts for them, though Claire loved playing with Abby's Violet toy as well. 

Claire wasn't interested in photos

All the little kiddies in the GT family

Time to open presents

They can't wait to open presents

Claire's Minnie Mouse House

Abby loves the tissue paper more

On Monday December 22nd my sister and mom came over to visit with the girls in the morning.  My sister had been wanting to make ornaments with the girls.  She had two recipes, one for handprint ornaments and one for cinnamon ornaments that you cut out into shapes.  Claire loved rolling out the dough and cutting the shapes.  The handprint ornaments turned out amazing.  We just need to paint them now.  The cinnamon ornaments were tricky and didn't turn out the way my sister remembered when she made them last time.  But the house sure smelled fantastic!! My mom helped me wrap gifts and did some cleaning for me even though she had stitches on her foot she managed to do things around the house.  If anyone knows my mom she doesn't know the meaning of relaxing, she is always on the go, cleaning, organizing or cleaning. Lol!  We love her! 

It was so nice to have them over to hang out with the girls.  My dad had made pulled pork for dinner the night before with coleslaw and sent that with my mom for us to eat for lunch, oh bless his soul.  It was delicious, pulled pork on fresh buns with coleslaw piled on top, how could anyone go wrong?!? 

Claire helping Auntie Erica

Claire loved rolling the dough

Handprint time

Time for Abby to make her print

A lot harder than you think to get a baby to make her print

On Tuesday December 23rd I continued my preparations for Christmas.  Claire and I tackled the baking items on our to do list.  We made a batch of shortbread cookies and sugar cookies.  Oh man did the house smell good again.  I wanted to make sure Claire had fresh cookies to put out for Santa on Christmas Eve, plus Christmas isn't Christmas until you have baked some cookies.  Here are the two recipes I followed this year and they did not disappoint.  Holiday Cut-Out Sugar Cookies and M&M Shortbread Cookies. I love Sally's Baking Addiction (where I found the sugar cookie recipe), she knows her stuff.  I modified the shortbread recipe because I didn't have M&M's or chocolate I just made plain shortbread and had Claire cut out circles and add sprinkles.  Delicious!

Then on Christmas Eve day I iced the sugar cookies.  I ran out of icing because I wanted to fill in the cookies but opted to just outline most of them instead.  I will for sure use the same recipes next Christmas.  

Mixing shortbread cookies

It's easier with no shirt on

Iced sugar cookies

More sugar cookies

Moving Day

This is all ours now!! Yay!

We are less than a few hours away from moving into our new home.  Thursday night Kyle and I met with Dan, the President of Maric and Martin the Foreman at our house to do our final walk through.  I had not seen the house since last Saturday and there was a lot that had changed.  Everything came together quickly in the last few weeks, flooring, lights, tile, counter tops, sinks, toilets, and closets.  It was even better than I had pictured.  My favourite parts are our ensuite with the shower and tub and our lights on the main floor in the kitchen, powder room and front foyer.  Just amazing!  I'm so happy with everything!

Dan, Martin, Kyle and I went through the house looking over details that needed to be fixed or redone.  Thankfully there wasn't a lot to fix but some things were written down on a list.
The kitchen backsplash needed to be re done completely because the tile guy stacked the tiles instead of off setting the joints.  I really don't know what he was thinking there, oh well.  Yesterday Kyle said he was there re-doing the tiles when he went to the house.  He will be grouting it this morning before or while we are moving in.  As long as it gets done.  The stone on the fireplace is gorgeous, but there is a seam in between the stone with grout that is terrible and needs to be fixed.  Our garage door still has yet to arrive, so in it's place is a temporary door instead.  It should be here in two weeks.  The railings on the deck still needed to be finished.  Our shower doors are on order, they will be installed on Monday afternoon.  I guess we will be showering in the girls bathroom until then.  The big problem that isn't Maric's fault is our appliances have yet to arrive.  Stalwart couldn't find them (I know, what the h e double hockey sticks does that mean)  We are not impressed with the situation but it's out of our control.  They delivered a temporary fridge yesterday for us to use until our appliances arrive.  I guess we will be going to my parents for dinner.  The bathroom mirrors were not installed yet but Kyle said they put them up yesterday.  The painter had touch ups to do through out the whole house.  

Kyle said the cleaners were there yesterday getting the house ready.  He also said Garry the carperter was there finishing up our custom closets for all the bedrooms, WIC, mudroom and front hall.  From what I saw on Thursday they looked amazing, he sure knows his stuff.  I'm excited to see all of those done, with our drawers, pull out laundry hampers and shelves, it's going to look fantastic!  Other than not having appliances in the kitchen I'm still excited to see everything done with the backsplash and how it comes together with the counters, cabinets and lighting. I can't wait to spend time cooking and baking in there! 

This morning feels like Christmas came early for us.  I could barely sleep and Kyle and I have been up since 5:30 talking about what we need to pack. 

I'm sorry I don't have pictures of the house when we went for the walk through, I was so excited and forgot to take pictures.  I will take some today after we get settled and I'll make sure to post them soon.  

Here we go, time to get packing and move into our new house!!  

Christmas Craft Fun!

We moved out to Kyle's parents condo in Stonewall on Nov 23rd.  It was a crazy busy day packing up our stuff and getting the girls out here.  We are settled in now and are excited to move into our new house this Saturday.  

So much concentration

Right handed

Claire and I have been keeping busy with Christmas crafts during the day.  On Sunday Evan and Emily were over with Scott and Susie to watch the Grey Cup.  They brought with them a package of paints, wooden ornaments and brushes to paint and decorate with.  Claire loved painting with the kids while the game was on, Susie and I couldn't believe how quiet they were.  She was so proud of her ornaments.  Even Kyle and I painted one each.  It's very relaxing! 

Claire's Finished Ornaments

Last week I started to make a Christmas matching game for Claire to play.  I have made them for fall and Halloween.  I draw pictures that represent that holiday and write the matching word, cut them out and put them in an envelope or ziplock bag.  When she's ready to play we lay them out facing up and she needs to match the word with the picture.  She has gotten better at hearing the beginning sound of the word and matching it with the letter.  It's a great way to introduce vocabulary, work on letter sounds and letter recognition.  I just finished making the rest of the pictures and words today.  We played the matching game this morning while Abby was napping, Claire would get so excited when she matched the right word with the picture.  

Claire is trying to find the word candy cane

Claire matching the words with the pictures

I just love colouring

After we decided to make snowflake decorations for the window at the condo.  I had some leftover paper dolies from Valentine's Day that I thought would make perfect snowflakes.  I cut them out and let Claire decorate them with different coloured markers.  We tied them with string and hung them up on the front window.  They're so pretty!  

Good thing I put paper under it! 

Adding her personal touch to the snowflake

Paper dolie

All cut and ready to go up

All done and displayed on the window

So pretty!