Christmas 2007 - A Photo Montage...

Sinterklaas at home:

Christmas Day Dinner at my parents:

Christmas

"...Then the angel said to them, 'Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you
good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people. For there is born to you
this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be
the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a
manger.'
And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the
heavenly host praising God and saying:
'Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men!' ..."
(Luke 2:10-14)

From my house to yours, a very blessed Christmas Day!

An Assembly, A Birthday, and Callum

What a busy day! Most importantly, today we celebrated Natalie's 3rd birthday! Hard to believe she is not our baby anymore. All day long when people asked her how old she was, she would proudly say "Number Three!"

She doesn't look any older than she did yesterday...

This was also the last day of school for the kids at Covenant Christian School, thus a Christmas Assembly! As they did last year, the school went skating at a nearby arena this morning, then headed to the church for a soup lunch provided by the Ladies Auxiliary before the assembly this afternoon.

Mmmm... soup after a morning of skating! Natalie enjoyed it too.

Grade 1/2

Grade 3/4

Grade 5/6

The whole school!

Then, to top off the day, Stu and Sherri and Callum came over for dinner. He is such a cutie!

And, to end the day right, birthday cake, of course!

Crazy Frog!

Natalie showing off her moves in my Grade 8 Graduation dress. Dress up is her favorite thing to do lately. As you can see we finally got the tree up. It's showing it's age, but the kids have lots of fun decorating it.

TA-DA!

It's done! Well, other than some trim paint and little odds and ends. Today the tile got grout and the microwave got installed:

Recognize that ugly old kitchen on the right?

The new stove looks great with actual glass in the door!

close-up of the tile. It looks amazing! I'm really happy with it. Since it is a porous tile, we do want to put a coat or two of sealer on it, in case we have any major spaghetti sauce accidents. Or people cutting their fingers with sharp knives...

Here's a before and after:

So, even though I didn't gain any square footage or counter space, the end result is a more efficient, workable kitchen. Maybe that's just because I cleared my cupboards and purged all the stuff I never use, but oh well... I still love it!

But, Mom, I don't want to have a nap...

SNOW DAY!

Today we got our first major snowfall of the year. Early this morning I got the call that school was delayed by 2 hours due to weather. Not 30 minutes later, the phone rang again... no school! I let the kids sleep in, they were all tired after a busy weekend. They got up about 8:15 panicking that we would be late for school! Until they looked out the window...



OK, those pictures are from later this afternoon, but you get the idea! After breakfast, Deanna and Amanda went outside to check it out.

"Mom, I can't see!"

I had to get a few things from Loblaws, and picked up these to keep the kids busy:





I thought the train kit was neat for a change! That kept them busy for a couple of hours! What fun! Tim spent most of the day baking (!) he even made fudge!

And Natalie just wandered around being cute. See?


(I had to take a picture of her pony too!)

These snowsqualls are supposed to keep up all day tomorrow too! We'll see what happens in the morning.
Tim has a job this winter shovelling snow for the retired couple across the street. Today he earned his first $5.00 shovelling; he was proud! He may earn more tomorrow... it's fun now, wait til February!