The month of December began with the opening of the Lego Advent Calender. What a fun way to celebrate each day with a little Lego toy to build a festive holiday scene. It was a nice addition to our old faithful candy calendar.
Then there was a playdate with a friend for SparkJ before he left for Peru for a month. What a good time everyone had eating pizza, playing outside in the snow and just hanging out. CubJ was a tobogganing superstar making a train so all three of them could go super quickly down the little hill beside the house.
This year for my birthday, we went for Afternoon Tea at the Banff Springs hotel. This is such an indulgence. I love everything about afternoon tea from the tiny sandwiches to warm scones. We had a wonderful server who was a tea sommelier, meaning he is actually educated about tea. He was a riot, having joined the world of high end hotels after blowing out his knee playing football on a scholarship to the University of Hawaii! That is correct, the ex-football playing, tea knowledgeable formal dinning server. He was utterly professional, engaging and entertaining all at once. It was a wonderful way to spend my birthday, thank you family.
Next was the beginning of the really fun activities:
The Christmas concert for grades one through four. The grade four's including CubJ played Ode to Joy from memory on their recorders in a round! It was impressive to say the least. Every year I am so amazed by all of the work that the two music teachers put into teaching the children such a variety of music. They really do shine a light on the very best of what teachers can achieve.
Then we celebrated our community Christmas party with some craft making and tasty little snacks at the club house.
SparkJ's class play, where she was a talking Christmas tree:
The Bowling League Christmas Party and Bowling twosome:
Then it was the last morning of school before Winter Break and time to visit with the cousins! Oh what a happy day, you get to go to school in your pj's, have lunch with your Auntie, Uncle and Cousins at Denny's, show them the framing progress on the basement and then have your own mini bowling tournament to be capped off with a trip to Starbucks. Happy days indeed.
Next it was Christmas Eve! In a nod to French Canadians, many of whom we know and love from the school, we had Tourtier Pie for our Christmas Eve meal. We decorated mini sugar cookies for Santa and his reindeer and left everything ready for his visit. After opening our traditional one present, we were all off to bed.
Christmas morning began at a pleasant 8am! There were presents to be opened, snow to play in and a turkey dinner to be made. Once again, CubJ was very helpful by preparing the Green Bean Casserole. It is funny, but even for the kids now, it is not a festive meal without that special side dish. SparkJ, had seen the brussel sprouts while we were picking up the Tourtier pie and pronounced that they were the cutest vegetable ever, which we must have at Christmas dinner. Who could say no to that, so it was onto the Internet to find out how to cook them and presto magico they arrived at the table dressed in maple syrup with bacon bits. I must say, they have greatly improved since my childhood. In fact, they taste a lot like broccoli. Who knew....
The turkey, it was moist, tasty and HUGE. Both DaddyJ and I burst out laughing at one point when it became obvious that my "smallest turkey in the bin" was enough turkey for 10 adults who have finished fasting. Oh well, it was wonderful on sandwiches the next day.
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| Don't you just love DaddyJ's coworker's Christmas present to him, a Canuk's stocking! |
The day after Christmas (Boxing Day) was SparkJ's 6th birthday. Where or where does the time go? Here is a look back at her Birth day to now:
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| Starting at the top working left to right: birth, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th (large bottom right in yellow), 5th with balloons and now 6th with button! |
We decided that SparkJ could pick all of our activities for her special day. This included the application of her new Barbie makeup set and fancy curled and sprayed hair. (Visions of 16 year old SparkJ had Daddy hyperventilating) We began with lunch at Earl's, then we went to Yogi Bear at the theater, had McDonald's and ate cake! By that point we had all eaten enough in the past 24hrs to last a week and had an earlier evening after playing with some of the new birthday toys.
After a busy several days, it was New Year's Eve. This year we had a nice quite evening at home, watching the ball drop from 10pm onto 12pm eating a variety of little bites. The little bites were a great representation of the year we were ringing out, little bits of our favourite things spread out over the course of time. 2010 has been a great year to all of us. We have come a long way, all done our parts to make it a wonderful year and spent it together. All four of us are very lucky to have been blessed with this life and each other. To our friends and family, best wishes for 2011, may it bring you and your loved ones an amazing year!
With our cracker crowns and our very best wishes for you and yours to have a year of good health, happiness and more laughter than you can imagine,
The 4J's
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