Woo! New year, new start, keeping up… not bad not bad. I don’t do resolutions, just gradually change my patterns. So here’s hoping.

Anyway… December, last month… well… Christmas, of course. Winter, some snow (sort of), busy busy. But now for the actual details of the month…

We had our traditional paper chain countdown, perler bead Advent chart AND of course, went to Activity Village for their Advent fun. Just a warning – they have gone to membership now, it is a reasonable cost and I have already signed up.

Early on in the month Shandai and I gave it a go at a Vendor sale and set up a table of my crochet and her knitting pieces. It wasn’t a huge success but it was fun! And hopefully something we can do again!

A pretty view out the back of the building

We did all sorts of fun crafts at home and at Daycare.

You really can make any picture Christmas-y

Practiced our recorders.

Christmas with the Schwartz family is a yearly much looked forward to tradition. Of course we decorated our small gingerbread houses.

This is mine, you can see the rest on the overflow post HERE.

Opened presents and had so much fun.

Look what the boys got!

Ken and I took the girls to Jeffrey’s Christmas concert. We had Christmas with the Novaks on Christmas Eve. It was so much fun and we were there way past bedtime.

We found Anthony a stuffed appendix and made him up the certificate! He loved it!

Of course we had our Sunday School Christmas pageant. The Schwartz family came to watch.

We had a whole family of angels.

We also had dinner out at McDonald’s to celebrate.

We saw Santa a SECOND time (the first was at Macy’s with Nana and Baba HERE) at the YMCA. There was all sorts of fun to be had there. 

We had our monthly Bookit reading program pizza.

And made cookies. This year we tried out a new gingerbread recipe from the Activity Village site HERE.

Monster Cookies

We had some lovely mail come. 

Seriously WHO SENT THESE?

And spent plenty of time at the YMCA.

Gavin

Little Lotus Yoga pose

It was a jolly Christmas. Full of fun and friends and gifts and giving.

From Ken to me

I got these lovely puzzle pieces for Ken.

We took full advantage of our new fryer and made FRESH poutine!

We even made it to one of Anthony’s indoor soccer games.

Skyping family!

For New Years we spent the night at home with a lovely drop by last minute by the Schwartz family for an hour or two.

Yup quite the month!!! I hope you enjoyed the wander through images!

Hmm let’s see… November… AMERICAN Thanksgiving, a visit from Nana and Baba, full on fall weather, school, the beginning of the Christmas countdown. Because Nana and Baba were there in the right time frame we also saw Santa which you can read about in a previous post.

Beach towels from their travels

Thanksgiving was a lot of fun. Not only did Nana and Baba take over the cooking and make a full on turkey dinner BUT the Novaks also joined us! The kids were beyond excited to have the 4 boys over and we adults had a great visit.

Echo chose our seasonally coloured cake. I baked it.

And the twins decorated it.

Ken and I snuck off after Thanksgiving for basically a second honeymoon. For the first time in over 12 years we went out overnight WITHOUT kids. We went to a B and B that Karyn and I had visited previously in Wisconsin (different room). We hung out in our awesome room.

Went out for a delicious dinner at an old mill.

Dressed up for a dinner out.

Shopped at an amazing yarn place.

AND drove out of our way to an even more amazing wool place.

Oh yah I spent a little

We even stopped in at a brewery for a tasting for Ken.

And visited the capital building.

It was AMAZING.

ALMOST like back home.

It really was as good as people say!

Breakfast

Wisconsin = cheese of course

NAP

The weather went from sundresses and sunshine to snow and snowboots.

We spent plenty of quality time at the YMCA.

And Ken and I went to an open house at Shandai and Ravyn’s new digs.

We found time for Home Depot.

Crocheted in spare moments.

Cat butt coasters!

Fingerless dragonscale gloves.

Hats for cats!

The girls had their nails done by Nana.

And the twins pitched in with some baking.

We decorated our tree. 

And watched our local black squirrel run our yard like a boss.

Can you believe we even found time for schooling. 

Prepping the Christmas countdown paper chain.

And a visit with the Schwartz family!

A trip to IKEA had us well lit and the girls in new beds. 

November went by in a blink of an eye. But it was a fun blink!

Christmas decorations at the YMCA

Surprise Surprise… I am almost current! Woo! Well, October is Halloween (of course), and Ken’s birthday (39 this year!) AND Canadian Thanksgiving (yup this Canadian girl still celebrates).

We started off the month with a trip to Home Depot.

Visited a pumpkin patch with a lovely group of friends.

We all got a little sunburned after so much time in the sun.

We visited the Schwartz family for a bonfire and shooting off of rockets.

Spent time at the Novak’s.

Anthony

And had them over to our place as well.

We met Chloe, Anthony’s girlfriend.

Enjoyed all the colours of fall.

We learned about bats and made our very own cave in the cabinet.

We found plenty of time to do crafts and worksheets and learn as best we could.

We celebrated Nathan’s birthday at a super fun trampoline place.

Sang in the choir at church.

We spent time at the YMCA – swimming, working out and club.

I crocheted whenever I could.

Early Christmas present for my sister in law – a cupcake blanket

Cowls

And we snuck out on the warm days.

Cleaning the van.

October was a lovely refocus of our time. Lots of friends and family and quiet celebrations (we had take out for Thanksgiving, nothing fancy).

Snoopy

Lovely hair by one of the girls who run cluby

So enjoy the photos and the memories as I work my way to current and we currently wrap up 2016.

Playing Magic

Doing her own hair.

Fishing for letters

Sneaking out for coffee at Caribou.

Sunset

Ready for dinner out