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Now that I have shared my kids creations I feel it's only fair to share one of my own. This little lady is fondly referred to as The Screaming Angel. I made her many years ago at a Super Saturday. I believe her body is made out of part of a (new) mop and her hair is from a scrubbing pad. And I had to hand draw her face. She is supposed to be singing, regaling us with wondrous tales of heaven and earth. But unfortunately, she looks to be in some sort of agony. I wanted to get rid her of her long ago, but the kids won't let me, and now it has now become a tradition to put The Screaming Angel on the tree!

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I'm tired of decorations so I thought I'd share a video that makes me happy and reminds me why we celebrate Christmas.

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This little beauty is what Ethan made in junior kindergarten. It's certainly very creative. Just like my little guy.

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This is Hand-a-clause. We made these when the girls were really little, way back in 2000. So at the time this was made Hannah was 10 months old. Aww, so little and cute! Every year the girls love to compare their hands to the one they were when they were so small.

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This was from when Mary was in nursery. And it is such an indication of who she is. Sugar and a little dash of spice!

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My little angel Megan made while in kindergarten.

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This little beauty is an ornament Katey made while in grade 3. Oh how they grow so quickly. And oh how I'm probably not her friend right now for sharing this!

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Since we have no more children to post ornaments from, I thought I would share Peters decorations from when he was younger.

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These are the 3 ornaments that really started my snowman tree obsession. Peter gave them to me one of our first Christmases together. They actually sat unopened in their box for many Christmases because they needed hooks to be hung on the tree. And for some reason I never got around to buying any. The year I started my actual snowman tree, 2007, is the first year they were taken out of their packaging. These little guys, I have to say, are among my very favorite snowmen on my tree.

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And next is Ethan's decoration. There really isn't that much to say about it other than it belongs to our one and only son. Which after 4 girls was kinda neat to get to purchase a little boy decoration. I only hope he still enjoys hanging it on the tree when he is 13!

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Do you see a theme here? Today is Mary ornament and tomorrow must surely be the boys turn. Mary's poor ornament has had to undergo a few repairs over the years. The little extras on the sides always fall off and the 'Baby's first Christmas' banner has needed to be reattached several times. I'm not sure if this is due to Mary being extra loving with her ornament or if it's just due to a poor design. Either way there is enough glue holding that thing together that it should last through this season in one piece!

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The next ornament hails from out little Y2K baby. Does anyone even remember the hype that Y2K brought with it? Since Peter works with computers he spent many hours working overtime leaving me at home alone with Katey age 5, Megan age 1 and hugely pregnant with number 3. And nothing happened. Everything was fine. 2000 rolled in with nary a complication. One month and 6 days later Hannah joined our family. And we got a really cool ornament out of the whole deal.

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Next in our family comes Megan and her ornament. I'm pretty sure I had something to do with choosing it, can you tell? (I have a love of all things sheep and I used to collect Precious Moments.) So this was the perfect decoration for our little lamb.

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This is the angel on our tree. It has been there every year for the past 13 years. Katey made it (with help from Grandma) in nursery when she was 3 years old. It has been a tradition for as long as I can remember that after the tree is decorated Peter would lift Katey up and she would place the angel atop our tree. The past few years however, she has managed to get the angel up there without any assistance from her dad!

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This is the ornament that we (try to) hang on the tree first every year. It was a wedding gift from my friend Emilie when Peter and I were married - 13 years ago.

It's Been a While

The title says it all.

I decided for the month of December to share a picture a day of some of my favorite ornaments. And as it's already the 2nd you can see how stellar this is going so far! Have fun!

Family Day at the Tyrrell Museum

For Family Day this year we headed up to Drumheller to visit the Tyrrell Museum. Partly because it's been about 7 years since we were last there, but mostly because it was free admission. We whipped through in abot 45 minutes. But it was fun. We took lots of pictures and now I'm sharing them with you!

Catch Up

Well I've spent the better part of my day updating my blog with the happenings of the last few months, Mary turning 8, getting baptized, Christmas, Megan turning 11 and Hannah turning 10 [we have a lot of birthdays squished close together!].

There are a few things that have been missed, but I think I hit the major events! I hope to get the remainder up sometime this week. Wish me luck!

Valentine Treats

This year Megan wanted to make treats to share with her class for Valentines Day. So we decided to go with chocolate dipped marshmallows. Super easy to make and really cute to boot! We dipped and sprinkled 28 marshmallows for her teachers and classmates. And then she stamped little tags to go along with them, pink for girls and red for boys. I think it turned out really great and I had fun spending time with Meg!

Character Day

The kids school really puts an emphasis on reading. This past week was 'Story Week' at school. They start the week off with an assembly and all week long the focus is on reading and books. The principal reads to all he classes in turn. There is a story corner set up outside the library and guest readers come in and read to the kids. This year they were read to from Chicken Soup for the Soul and they were given a small mug of soup to eat.

During the week the grade 4's [Hannah] have a used book sale to raise money for the Airdrie Food Bank.

And the final day of the week is Character Day. The kids are encouraged to dress up as their favorite character from a book. It's so much fun!

Ethan was Little Critter, with his stripey shirt and spiky hair.

Mary was Junie B. Jones. Her book was A Little Monkey Business.

And Hannah was Amber Brown, a series she enjoys reading.

I am so glad my kids have the opportunity to learn how to LOVE reading.

Hannah Turns 10

Hannah requested a chocolate cake with strawberry frosting. I wasn't sure how that would taste so I made a chocolate cake, filled it with homemade strawberry mouse frosted with chocolate frosting and topped it with chocolate dipped strawberries. It was absolutely DIVINE!

Happy Birthday Hannah!

Megan Turns 11

Happy Birthday Megan!

Christmas 2009

Christmas was so much fun this year with all of our family gathered together for the first time in 5 years. Christmas Eve the Workman's came over and we watched Night at the Museum 2 and ate way too many yummy treats and goodies. The kids wound up the evening by opening their New Jammies. We posed them in front of the tree and took no less than 30 pictures. But we had 2 cameras going and the kids weren't sure where to look! This is my favorite of the bunch.

After the kids went to bed Santa stopped by and filled stockings and left a gift for each of the kids. We got up earlier than usual on Christmas morning and the kids dove in and opened their gifts. We open one at a time so it takes a little bit of time!

After all the gifts were opened I barely had time to blink before I had to start making breakfast. Peter had invited the sister missionaries from our ward over for breakfast. We made homemade waffles with strawberries and whipped cream, bacon and scrambled eggs.

After breakfast we said goodbye to the Sisters and then opened the gifts we had bought for each other in our family gift exchange. Then off to Grandma and Grandpas house for fun, food and more gifts!

We had an awesome Christmas this year. I think everyone was happy with their gifts, but most of all we had the best time being together with family!!!!

Katey had originally asked Santa for an IPod touch, but then started being a smart alec and every time a Snuggie commercial came on she would say that she was going to ask Santa for a Snuggie. Well Santa doesn't like to disappoint little girls and boys so that is indeed what she got. A pink Snuggie. You can tell by her expression she is less than thrilled. In fact I believe she was thinking murderous thoughts at this point.

That is until we asked her to take it out of the box and model it. That is when she discovered and IPod Touch hidden in the bottom of the box!

Think she likes it?

And the Snuggie? Well she loves that too.

Megan also got an IPod, but she asked for and orange Nano.

And I think she was surprised and happy.

Hannah and Mary both got DSI's. Hannah in pink and Mary in Blue

Ethan refused to tell us what he was going to ask Santa for. He waited until were at the kids Christmas party for Peters work and then he told Santa he wanted a remote control helicopter. And on Christmas morning that is exactly what he got!

This is the whole gang at grandma and grandpa's house ready to open their gifts.

This is truly one of the sweetest moments of the day, when Nalani opened her Disney princess dolls. She was so excited and hugged them and kissed them over and over.

Ahhh....memories!