November 2010

November, well it was a busy month of getting ready for Christmas, cleaning out the basement to start on our renovation project and lots of fun activities. In the beginning of the month, Picou the Grade One class pet came home for a visit. Picou is a hedgehog and a very pleasant house guest.

On Remembrance Day, after we had finished watching the parades and ceremonies it was time to break out he EasyBake oven for the first time! SparkJ baked a wonderful chocolate cake. Remarkably, using the EasyBake oven is just as much fun now as it was when I was little. Not to mention that it still amazes me that a light bulb can bake something.

I confess, we were all so excited to see the completed cake that it was devoured before I thought to take a picture! LOL

Our next exciting thing was to use our first November PD day to do our first and tastiest Christmas preparation work, decorating our gingerbread trees. This has become one of my favourite traditions over the past three years. It really signals that Christmas is around the corner. We can play the carols non-stop, break out all of the decorations and our cousins will be visiting soon! Let the fun begin.I think that this has also become one of the kids new favourite traditions as they very much so enjoy decorating the trees while eating preforming quality control checks on the candy.

This year, since we were not going to be in Cayman for Christmas, we broke out a little bit of the islands to snack on while we laboured on our creations. There is nothing like hot chocolate and the original rum cake to transform an afternoon into a party. While I will miss not being on the beach this year, I know that the renovation will be well worth it and that all of us will enjoy our next trip even more after having had a break.

Two weeks later, it was time for our second PD day of the month and our next tasty project. Given that everyone has greater fine motor skills, we decorated Gingerbread houses to go with our trees and snowmen. I would like to clarify, in the end, these were candy houses with a hint of gingerbread!

November was a wonderful month. We accomplished a great deal, made some wonderful memories by embracing our family traditions and tried out some new things!