Christmas 2008 and Photos

I'm a few days late in this post, but it seems that I caught the "bug" the girls had at the beginning of the week and have spent the past couple of days writhing around in bed right on the cusp of throwing up... nice eh? Well, I didn't, but it wasn't fun, and I certainly wasn't in the mood to be posting the happy fun Christmas post - so I waited.

The few days leading up to Christmas were good (except for the kids having the flu), we had the Daycare Christmas party on Monday the 22nd, which is always fun, I took the kids to work on the 24th, which they thought was pretty cool, wrapped presents for two days in a row (I promise less gifts next year!!), and getting ready for the big day.

Here are my photos of the past few days: And some of my favourite shots for the challenge of capturing favourite Christmas memories.

The kids patiently waiting for Santa

Abby is glued to her "boy" Max

Santa arrives with Candy Canes
(Abby got 4, you know, when you're not shy to ask...)

She actually sat on his knee, Gillian wasn't so willing...

Dec 24th reading of The Night Before Christmas

The girls see Santa was her and ate the cookies,

and dropped off some gifts.

Gillian got the hang of this this year.

My parents came over to help open.
The girls were burnt out by this time.

Christmas Dinner was at Eric's parents place
Very yummy!
Here Holly pretends to blow out the battery candle - Gillian loved this!

Partington Family

We spent the remainder of the weekend quietly playing at home, the girls were pretty wound up after all the excitement (which translates to NO SLEEP!) so we figured quiet time was needed around here.

Here are a few of my favourite quiet time shots:

Today was so warm everything was melting - even the river

Abby enjoying some hot chocolate

Cute ornament my parents gave the girls - they each got a shoe.

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas also! Off to take the tree down...

Tree Trimming...

We decorated our very dead tree this weekend. I say dead, because I think it was cut a couple of months ago, and isn't drinking any water. It was the first time we've actually bought a tree. In the past Eric and his dad would "acquire" a tree in the depths of darkness from an undisclosed location near here, but this year they didn't do it. That is the last time we buy a tree on a lot, we'll cut them from now on! It sheds like crazy! But it doesn't matter, its a beautiful tree and it will be down by boxing day's end! Here are some pics of the girls decorating it this year:

Much of our time was spent
taking Gillian off the furniture.

And the final product:

I have to take a better shot - without the stool!

It's so fun to see Abby get so into Christmas this year. She is singing Christmas songs, knows all about Frosty the Snowman and Rudolf, and even sings "Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Batman smells and Robin laid an egg...." nice.

Mommy, I want a Gingerbread House...

Uh, oh! Abby uttered those terrifying words to me yesterday. My heart stopped, I started to panic, breaking out into a cold sweat. "Maddie (her friend at daycare) has one... I want one like her..". I had flashes of my "gingerbread house" a la Martha last year - burnt, overdone rock like figures that sort of resembled gingerbread men; Gingerbread house parts, three walls and only one roof piece (of course I didn't make the right parts to actually put the house together); Lots of sticky royal icing, which hardened into granite before I even got it on the house. I could go on and on.... And I wasn't even working at the time, so presumably I had more time to do this! Now I'm officially on a mission to find a Gingerbread House Kit. Please if any of you out there, living in Ottawa, see a Gingerbread House Kit, let me know. I need it! Or, Mom, if you want to make one and bring it over, I'll pay you!! :) We could all decorate it together, just imagine the fun we would have.... please!! (can you tell I'm begging now?)

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Pioneer Woman had a short tutorial on how to quickly fame a photo, and I liked it! this will probably be my new frame for photos now: