Ahoy there Mate!

Last Saturday Katie and Maya transformed a Fisher Price garden/workshop table into a Pirate ship. Add all the other toys and chairs around it and voila. You get hours of fun!
Katie with her spotting scope, Maya has her pirate hat and I got to use my eye patch.

Lots of fun was had by all. I was thrilled by their imaginative play, but even more so by their co-operative play!!!

Check out the fish and duck in the "water". Katie played with the pirate ship all day!! Maya jumped ship after about an hour or so and went about her own business...

...until she found my eye patch and wanted back into the game.

Meanwhile I was trying to fold some laundry. As usual I got interrupted and ended up leaving some of my folded laundry on the table in my work room (used to be dining room just off the kitchen).





After supper, I could hear Katie exclaim about how beautiful she looked. Maya totally agreed. When I checked what they got into I had to laugh out loud and run for the camera.

Yup, she was wearing Daddy's boxers as a skirt, a necklace and a shawl.

Anyway, I hope you are having a wonderful week. Till next time.

Christmas Eve - New Year

I guess if I don't post more often, I'll always end up with long posts. So grab a cup of coffee as I share some pics about our holidays.
Our church had a nice Christmas Eve service for families at 4:30 p.m. We came home and fed the girls supper. Then they got to open their Christmas Eve present.

They got matching new PJs and an ornament (tradition Jeff grew up with and we adopted for our kids) When they are all grown up and leave home they'll have a box full of christmas ornaments for their own tree.

After the girls were settled Jeff and I had a romantic cheese fondue in front of our Christmas tree.

CHRISTMAS DAY

Our girls don't know about getting up early and opening presents at an ungodly hour!! They came and snuggled with us until about 7:30 and then we slowly made our way to the waiting tree with all the gifts. But even so, they posed for a picture before we got to opening the gifts.

"Snow Princess" PJs

Katie picked Max and Ruby dolls at a consignment shop for Maya. Maya loved them!! Katie's favorite present was a tiny tea set in a picnic basket.

Both girls got puzzles and we enjoyed playing with them together

Katie took the picture of Daddy, Rabbit and Strawberry shortcake having another tea party.

BOXING DAY

From the 26 -28th Jeff's parents joined us for some family fun.

We had rabbit, potatoes, cerery root salad and beans from our garden for our Christmas dinner.

On the 27th we went to our annual shopping trip to Vaugh Mills Mall. As usual Jeff and Dad only left Bass Pro to come and join us for lunch at the food court. Katie stayed with the guys and Maya came with Mom and I. Both girls did AWESOME even in the crowded mall!

On Wed morning we actually had some snow and decided we better take advantage of it. The wind was pretty cold, but we were bundled up and had lots of fun

Our very little "hill" behind the washroom building. Not much of a run, but that also means not much of a hike back up the hill and it was out of the wind.

We love our light weight, family size toboggan.

Everyone had fun! The small and the big kids.

AT THE FARM

From the 30th to the 1st we went to my parents.

Christmas #3. Both girls got wonderfully cute farm pillows. Grosvati picked the fabric and Grosi did the sewing.

Maya was also very interested in opening gifts. We were all blessed again by the generosity of our families.

Maya loved the gifts, but the paper and ribbons still hold a lot of fun, especially when you can wrap up Grosvati.

Katie loves her beautiful dress up jewelley, purse and shoes from cousin Nate.

Grosi and Maya were studying the Wilson "yearbook". I create a digital photo album of our family every year since Katie was born. It makes a great present to myself and both sets of grandparents.

We had our traditional Christmas dinner for New Year's Eve this year. The girls were in bed and the adults indulged in way too much fondue Chinoise and homegrown french fries.

Katie sporting her new PJs while watching the new Strawberry Shortcake show.

Maya's PJs are very cute, especially when paired with Katies' slippers:)

We had a wonderful Christmas holiday and we are so blessed to have such a wonderful family, even though we are spread all over the world. We missed seeing Uncle Ian, Aunt Brenda, Alex and Steven, Uncle Chris and Auntie Mel with Nate, and Uncle Rudy and Tante Sarah with Danae and Andre. Maybe some day we'll celebrate Christmas together again, at least some of us.

We wish you all a wonderful 2012 and may God bless you in all you endeavour.

Katie

It's been over a month since I last updated. There were so many things that happened that would have been "blog worthy", but there's no way I can backtrack a whole month.
But there are a couple of things that I just have to share, both to do with my wonderful Katie.

Katie was aparently tired of having long hair and decided to cut it.
Katie's hair WAS all the same length. As I figured she grabbed as much hair as she could from the side of her head and cut to about her chin (about 4 inches)

She did very well at the hairdresser!! No fussing or wiggling as the lady cut about 4 inches off the back and blended in the front as good as possible

Before the cut her hair would have coverd most of the "C" on the cape.

After the hairdresser we went to Tim Hortons for a "picnic" lunch. She looks like such a cute little girl with her new haircut.

4th Birthday

We went to visit Jeff's cousin the weekend of Katie's birthday, so we had a little party there. We'll have an encore this weekend when both sets of grandparents are here too.

We were going to buy a birthday cake, but Katie wanted to have Christmas cupcakes instead. Works for me

Excited about her birthday gift. She had picked the hat herself when we went shopping. At the same time she also picked some Hello Kitty jewelery that I told her was for Christmas. She must have forgotten because when she opened all her little gifts she almost started crying "Where is my Hello Kitty jewelery???" She was ok though when I told her she'll get it later for Christmas.

Enjoying her birthday cupcake

Or at least the icing!!

We have our LMC Christmas party this weekend and after that things slow right down until after Christmas. We're looking forward to some downtime.

Merry Christmas to everyone!

Another one bites the dust

This post is for my wonderful husband. Every Sept he gets the hunting itch and I think no matter how many times he could go out into the bush, either scouting or hunting, he would like to do more;)
After a successful hunt during our holidays he was going for antlers, not just meat for the freezer. When he caught the above picture on the motion and infrared sensitive trail camera he was even more excited to go out hunting.

During the shotgun season he was able to go out only once, but it was enough!!! He got a nice mature buck with a clean shot right into the heart (sorry to you sensitive people:).

Jeff's first buck! We were all very excited for him.

The girls were not at all squimish about the dead deer that Jeff brought home in the back of his truck. They wanted to climb in as well and did a thorough inspection of the body. For some reason they were fascinated by the fact that the eyes were still there and we had to keep telling them to not poke them, or touch the tongue, or other unmentionable body parts.

Katie was at school when we took Jeff's proud posing pics, but Maya had fun to be included in the photo shoot.

If you look at the tip of the left antler you can notice a small dip. Go back to the trail camera pic and you'll notice the same. This is a rare occasion that you get a picture of a nice buck and a couple of days later you actually get it. Way to go Jeff!!

It's NOT chocolate!!!

All you moms out there probably have an idea of what's coming, but I thought I'll share the "soo cute" moment first.
Our volunteer Otto was looking after Maya while Jeff and I were in a meeting this morning. Apparently she didn't like being left and was crying quite a bit, but then Otto put on a show and Maya was out cold after just a few minutes. I guess she was out of sorts because she was tired:) Katie was behaving nicely and was allowed to sit in on the meeting with her colouring book - she did great and didn't interrupt hardly at all.
After lunch it was nap time. I put Maya down and then snuggled with Katie on the couch and was reading to her. After about 1/2 hour Maya was crying and I went to check what's up....

The smell gave the crime away right off the bat, but I didn't anticipate the extent of the crime scene. Needless to say I was not happy. Maya was coverd also so off to the shower first. All the bedding and clothes into the wash and then the fun part. Scrubbing the %$@! off the walls. But it's all clean, the windows wide open to air out the room, and I must say that the girls played very nicely while I was cleaning.

So this was my day so far, how was yours??

Fall Clean Up

We took advantage of the beautiful sunny days we've been having and got pretty much all our outdoor work done over the last couple of days.
The girls were both big helpers, either by helping loading up the trailer, or by at least being happy and getting along most of the time.

All our summer play things, bikes, and patio furniture got loaded up and stored in one of the trailers on site. And no, Maya did not drive the lawn tractor, but she had fun pretending while I loaded everything up.

And off we go. The girls just loved being able to ride on the wagon.

After we loaded up the wagon a second time, this time with yard waste, we picked up Daddy who was busy splitting some firewood and we took the LOOOONG way to the place we dumped all the green waste.

Daddy and the girls had a lot of fun and enjoyed the sun while I got to play taxi driver. It was getting cold out though and I was glad to get inside and have a nice hot shower after a busy day.

How was your week? What are your plans for the weekend? I'd love to hear from you.

Halloween

We had a lot of fun on Halloween. I don't have a lot of time for this post but I thought I'll just share some pics.
Maya and Daddy did a Jack-o-Lantern while I was volunteering in Katie's classroom

Maya as a puppy (same as last year, but this year it fits)

Katie as a Mommy Jaguar

We shared dinner with our friends and then we had 10 kids head out for trick or treating

Doing a good job saying thank you!