Well Well Well… December… Christmas, New Years, hilariously enough writing this at the end of Karyn’s visit when she ALSO visited here in December last year. TIMELY…. And then I got even further behind when summer kicked my bum… so NOW I will get December up and hang my head in shame.

Of course there are the basic first to think of memories… Christmas, including Christmas pageant at the church…

Trinity as Mary

Gavin the shepherd

Echo the sheep

My 2 Kings

New Years (at home and quiet with Karyn)… Visiting Santa… fun in the snow… homeschooling, of course… but beyond that I really did have to go to the images. Funny how some months you are like YAH I remember that, and others I really do need visual cues to trigger memories.

At Santa

Skype calls with family…

We did not have nearly as much snow as the year previous to the kids’ great disgust. But every time there was any sort of snowfall they were out there mucking around in it. Thank goodness Echo is finally able to maneuver ALONE and UNASSISTED out there.

Now let’s see… we had a SECOND Santa visit at our local YMCA. We love it there (even more so after this summer where we basically spent most of our weekday mornings there). It was great fun to take a pictures as a family this time.

We also went with the Schwartz family down the road to a neigbourhood that enters (and it seems WINS) the Christmas decoration competition every year. This year there was one house where you could walk around back in the their yard and get close up to the display you could only see from the road otherwise. 

We had Christmas with the Schwartz family of course (yearly tradition!).

Not the best picture but it was great fun.

Trinity and I made a Trinity doll for Aunty Karyn to take home, she matched from the top of her head to the tip of her shoes. Not bad? My pattern was an amalgamation of Princess patterns by Kristen’s Kords.

We made pirogi with Nana and Baba. 

Went out for Indian food while Karyn was here.

Shopped at Mall of America (because we girls are gluttons for punishment).

Open presents…

Ate giant Reese peanut butter cups.

We snuck in some learning too… a few workbook completions and reading and the larger unit I linked to the resources for above.

And of course take a surplus of pictures! Enjoy my flash WAAAAAYY back!

Here I go jumping ahead again… but last year we were not settled in a church and missed out on this most fundamental Sunday School experience so we were doubly excited to be involved this year. Anyway… The program was in place of the sermon this Sunday (15th) and was a play about the stars deciding who would light the way in the front for Baby Jesus’ birth.

All these close ups are from practice before service

The twins each had a speaking part and all 4 learned the music… in the end, Emanuel had behaved so well during practice that he got to be Joseph!!! I totally wish I had known how to zoom in on the cell phone to take better pictures but Ken got a whole bunch of video and I took some pictures with the camera when he was done with it as well.

We had to have them dressed in the same colour top and bottom so it was black all the way. With Echo in her pretty white dress thanks to Grandma when she and Grandpa Mike came through over Easter I figured a nice group picture in front of our amazing tree was in order.

I am seriously overwhelmed by how wonderful people are to SEND our kids so many presents this year. It has made our lack of extra funds for presents a non issue for the Canadian Christmas (which is what we call our morning present opening with anything mailed to us and from Ken and myself directly as the rest is done in the afternoon once Joe and Faithe and their kids are here… so basically what we would do at our own home before heading to the grandparents’ for Christmas day).

I finally got to wear my LBD. I absolutely love it. My mother in law has some eye for pretty outfits because she was the one that spotted this one!

Baba had a friend ask him to go to the football game so we had Nana as our visitor. She brought Echo at service time so we didn’t have to chase her around while we ran through practice.

There is nothing more Christmas-y to me than a church pageant and this one was cute! I was glad I was able to help out a bit… I was in charge of changing Mary and Joseph out of their star costumes and into their manger outfits and send them up the aisle at the end. Fun!

Of course we wore our Echo out in the end. But she majorly loved the dress! 

In the fine tradition of Regency Romances A Lady’s Point of View by Jacqueline Diamond begins with a simple misunderstanding blown out of proportion due to the unrealistic expectations of the Ton and goes from there. The main focus of the story is the two Linley sisters, Meg (who has lamentably weak eyes) and Angela (the pretty younger sister without a massive dowry). Their widowed mother Mary has brought them to London for the Season in a continued attempt to marry off first Meg and then Angela.

 The first misunderstanding occurs at a ball where poor Meg who is not to wear spectacles in public in fear of further destroying her chances of an advantageous match (for they are NOT wealthy) does not see Beau Brummel and misses his acknowledgement thus slighting a highly influential personage. In order to give Angela a chance to find a match and hopefully save the family for debtor’s prison Meg pens an apology to Brummel and leaves London and there our real story starts.

I do not want to give away too much of the plot but there are some terrific elements, a reclusive Lord with two children… a governess position… the malicious countess… and of course balls, romantic moments, proposals! If you enjoy a good Regency romance SLIGHTLY more current in its romantic moments but by no means garish or explicit (these are true misses after all) then this book is a terrific read for you. 

A Lady’s Point of View