Christmas!

Here is a little snapshot summary of our Christmas:
Just after leaving out their stockings, cookies & milk and letters to Santa.The haul after Santa arrived.Buzzing with excitement that Santa came (the proof being the cookies and milk were gone).Checking out the new fishing rod from Santa, Santa is a very considerate fellow; he also brought one for daddy.Can you believe he is only 7 months old!!?? He looks more like a 1 year old to me in the picture.Posing with his new adventure set from Grandma.Tasting his new blocks from Auntie Amanda (and crew).While he was at it, he thought it would also be a good idea to taste the wrapping paper.Breakfast of champions (at least on Christmas morning anyway). This is courtesy of daddy, I would have been fine with bacon and eggs.After all that sugar, he was ready to do some cleaning for mommy, "I'm going to make the house all shiny and clean for you!" And he sang "srub-a-dub" the whole time he was cleaning. And why not some candy to top off the breakfast chocolate? Hard at work on his new computer from Auntie Chris, Uncle Rod, Shannon, Ryan and Sean.

7 months & Christmas Concert

Too funny, they both have a funny jaw thing going on in these pics but on opposite sides of their faces.Connor practiced and practiced his "Hello Winter" song until I also knew all the words and actions. However, he did not sing one word during the entire concert. He kept rolling up his shirts and showing his tummy to all of the parents. But on the positive side, I have never seen him be so still or quiet for such a long period of time. He had a lot of fun though and when the concert was over he sang the song to his teacher.

A Christmas Present For You

Well, since things are a little tight on our end with me being on maternity leave and not having the extra cash for presents we thought we would send along the below little something:
Not enough?! Well, how about two little somethings:
Don't worry though, the boys have been more than spoiled by all of the family and it is going to be a great Christmas. I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas and we will be thinking of you all. Hopefully one year soon we can all be together for Christmas.

Christmas is coming!!

This is a just because picture well because it is getting harder and harder to capture Connor with one of his natural smiles. He loves to ham it up for the camera. But handsome and sweet regardless. See what I'm talking about? But like I said, still pretty damn handsome. Connor has a Santa outfit for his build a bear and guess who fits into the hat with attached beard!!??
A regular little Santa with the bowl full of jelly and everything. Excuse the shot of Connor in his undies.
Having fun in the snow rolling giant snowballs. Connor and I made a snow fort and daddy made his own and we had a snow war. Connor and I aren't great shots so used the lids from the garbage cans as shields so we could invade daddy's wall unharmed.
Gee, I wonder where Connor learned to be such a ham? Really, I wouldn't be calmly taking a picture of this if Jeremy was really dropping Darien off the couch.

We went to our 2nd annual Christmas play today, Aladdin. It is a pantomine so audience participation is required. When they first came on stage and we were practicing our boos/hisses and cheers Darien started crying. He was scared, I got him calmed down and the bad guy came on stage - everyone booed - Darien cried. I got him calmed down again, the good fairy came on stage - everyone yelled YEAH - Darien cried - we left. That is Darien and I left, Connor and Jeremy stayed for the show (with intermission it was 3 hours long). I brought snacks back for the boys during the break and spent the rest of the time in the local Maple Ridge "mall" and the library (best place to nurse on a Saturday afternoon it was empty).

Christmas fun

Here is a recent pic of Brent & the Boys. Brent was dressed up as Santa for a benefit concert held a week or so ago by our local radio station. I'll post one of the clips of him singing too...it's pretty cute.

Christmas Party

Tonight we went to a Christmas party at our Yacht Club. It was a pot luck event, so the food was fabulous. The kids had a great time, they ate a lot of food, danced and sang Christmas songs. As well the kids each got a small gift from Santa and Mrs. Claus. We weren't to sure how Hannah would react, but she didn't mind at all. She even gave a big smile for a picture while sitting on Santa's knee.

Hannah being cute!

Here is a couple of pictures of Hannah. Sorry I haven't posted any sooner. It has been pretty busy around here. Hannah is now standing on her own. It won't be to long before she is walking. She is also clapping her hands and waving bye. Time flies by. She also has quite the temper. She screams at me when I take something away from her, she also has taken to hitting, biting and pulling my hair. She only seem to take it out on me, I'm not sure why, but with that face it is very hard not to laugh.

It's Snowing

Here are two pictures of our Winter Wonderland aka our backyard. Connor has been so excited to have the snow here and wants to know when Santa is coming (25 more sleeps in case you were wondering). The first thing Connor wanted to do was help out and shovel the snow off the front steps. It lasted about three shovelfuls and then went to...
this!!! We have had this sled for a couple years now and this is the maiden trip. Unfortunately, the snow was too grippy and it wasn't ideal for sledding. We might try again tomorrow now that we have had a few cold nights.
Trying to catch some snowflakes on his tongue.

Darien's first snowfall.
We brought the dog in from the cold and who knew a dog gate has more than one purpose!? A little bit of sunshine:

Papa & the Christmas Train

Papa bought Connor a gingerbread Christmas train and here they are putting it together. Connor showed pretty good restraint considering the amount of candy, cookies, and other sugar related goodies all within his reach. It went, two for the train and one for him. I'm not 100% sure, but I do believe Connor is attaching this gumball and not removing it.
Ta - Daaa!! Another candy just disappeared.
Daddy and Papa decided it was great fun to let Darien suck on the icing bag when they were done with it. Neither of them are sure how much he actually got, you can see on his face though he is pretty happy about it.

6 months

Here's a good one where you can see Darien's teeth. Still no sign of the top two yet. He's topping 20lbs now.
It was shortly after this picture of Connor that I tried to trim his hair and ended up taking him to the barber where they asked me, "Did you mean to give him a mohawk?"

Rain Break

We finally had a break in the deluge of rain. The yard is a swamp land with your feet sinking in up to your ankles. The boil water order was lifted earlier for us than the folks in Vancouver. We only went through half a case of bottled water. It was a good thing we have a good supply of water from our earthquake kit, we heard it got quite nasty at the stores with the unprepared citizens of the GVRD fighting over water and stealing it out of people's shopping carts.

Gotta Dance

No pictures for awhile, the old camera isn't doing too well, we have to take it in for repairs. It's held up quite well though for being almost 5 years old and dropped at least that many times (I can't put all the blame on Connor - I will fess up to 2 times).

I had my IPOD set-up to my speakers and Connor said, "I gotta dance mommy". Very cute, but then he said, "Can you put on some rock and roll? This is girl music." Ah yeah - he's four!

So I put on Live and oh my, I've never seen such cool moves. I have found a new way to work off some of his abundant energy during the rainy days ahead of us. He had his dad's air guitar moves down and everything. When Jeremy saw this he stepped in and put on some "real" rock and roll and that is when Darien and I went upstairs.

I heard a pretty good drum solo and came down to see Connor play, but it was Jeremy. I had to remind him that Connor's drum stool is only meant for 150lbs - ahem.

Connor had picture day at school on Friday, we should have the package back before I send out Christmas cards. And I am frantically trying to finish Connor's sweater to wear for the holiday pics and the plan is to get those done in time for the cards as well.

Hope everyone is doing well!

Halloween in NB

James and Michael loved all the costumes and pumpkin carving photos of their cousins and they wanted me to post the pics of their costumes. James was Dracula and Michael was Obi-wan (not Fruito (her version of Frodo, btw) as his grandmother keeps saying...sometimes I wonder where her head is at.)