Happy Christmas 2022

After our unsettled Christmases of packing and moving in both December 2020 and 2021, we were very happy in 2022 to have a quiet Christmas in the home where we've been living all year!

Janae, Alaina and Eric provided lots of entertainment, including a Christmas singalong that included a very active version of "Up on the Housetop" (where lots of Superheroes fell off the roof) and an opera that Janae had written and then taught to her younger siblings (featuring a "very odd porcupine quill" and a plot adapted beyond recognition from Kate Morton’s novel The House at Riverton).

Our church's Primary had a "Breakfast with Santa," which was cancelled due to a heavy snowfall and then rescheduled for Dec. 22. Since we hadn't visited Santa at the mall this year, Eric used the opportunity to put in his request for a lightsaber.

All of the snow and ice gave us a nice set of icicles along our deck on Christmas Eve,

and lots of shoveling to do at Grandma's.

Ben and Janae did a good job!

On Christmas Eve we also kept our traditions of making Finnish pulla and hot chocolate and having Jason cook breakfast for dinner. Unfortunately, we didn't go look at Christmas lights because the roads were too slippery.

After dinner, the kids opened their gifts from each other and then we watched A Muppet Christmas Carol.

Christmas morning, the kids got up at 6:00, even though they knew they had to wait until 7 to open their presents. But the big moment finally came, and everyone got some pretty nice gifts.....

including that lightsaber Eric had mentioned to Santa :)

We went to church and then came home to make a turkey dinner. Ben read his new manga, Janae taught herself macramé, Alaina started on The Count of Monte Cristo, and Eric worked on his lightsaber skills.

Grandma came over and spent the afternoon and evening with us, finishing off with "Merry Christmas, Mr. Bean."

We were pretty tired by the end of the day, but only Ben fell asleep on the couch--he got covered with bows for the second year in a row :)

I was so grateful for this time together and hope everyone had a happy and memorable Christmas.

Christmas Is Coming

When my kids were little, I always tried to read them poems from a Christmas Classics book--one of which started with "Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat/Please put a penny in the old man's hat." I was always a little disappointed with their lack of interest (they liked stories better), but this year, I've heard Alaina and Eric singing these lines as a song. Excited that they'd actually liked the poem after all, I asked them about the song, but it turns out they learned it from a Muppet Christmas album :)

Anyway, Christmas is definitely coming, and here is some of our lead-up so far:

We picked out our tree on November 26, in the pouring rain, right after Alaina's cello concert (where she played "The First Noel"--more on that later).

  

The next day was beautiful and sunny, so we took some pictures for our Christmas card.

Soon after that, our elf arrived for the season.

The past few weeks, we've had some very festive musical performances, including Janae's vocal jazz group at our local library.

Janae and Eric played a duet of "We Three Kings" at their piano teacher's concert (video link below photo):

"We Three Kings" by Janae and Eric

And Alaina played "The First Noel" at the music school concert.

Janae wrote a violin accompaniment to this piece, and they played together in church this past Sunday. I had them play the duet for me at home afterwards so I could record it (video link below photo):

"The First Noel" by Janae and Alaina

Eric has created some Christmas art at home and also got to do some crafts at Janae and Alaina's school Christmas showcase.

 

Janae's dance class performed a piece from "The Nutcracker" in the hallway.

Last weekend we went to our church Christmas party, where Eric once again played a sheep in the Primary nativity :)

Later in the evenings, we've been watching our favorite Christmas movies (the kids have them lined up for the days leading up to the 25th) and working on the "Shakespeare's London" puzzle my sister Sheri gave me for my birthday. This was pretty challenging, but Alaina helped me finish it off yesterday! Now she wants to get the Dickens one....

And today, we woke up to this! Several inches of white, powdery snow. Exams at the university were cancelled, so I don't even have to go to work tonight :)

 

Jason and Ben spent the day shoveling people's driveways (I helped a bit with ours!), and the younger kids have been playing together and helping me make treats.

It really feels like Christmas is coming now ... only four more days to go!

We Really Did Celebrate Halloween This October!

Life was pretty busy in October--my new job involves supervising exams at our local university, and I got to help with quite a few midterms.

But that doesn't mean we didn't give Halloween our full attention on the 31st! 

We had missed trick or treating during Covid, and then last year Halloween was on a Sunday (and still kind of during Covid), so we knew we had to make this year count.

This was also our first Halloween in our new neighborhood, and I had a feeling we'd have lots of trick or treaters--so we bought lots of candy.

Janae and Alaina had a costume idea that they'd been planning since last Halloween: they wanted to go as Danny and Sandy from Grease. 

Janae talked me into letting her get her hair cut in late October so she'd be able to style it like a greaser--with real pomade.  

Alaina found some leather pants, and Janae altered them to fit perfectly for the costume--and they found red heels to match.

The two of them ended up winning a contest at their school for most accurate costume!

Eric wanted to join in the fun and be a greaser, himself. So, we found him a little leather jacket and some Converse high tops ... as well as a black comb for his back pocket.

 

We carved our pumpkins the day before Halloween.

Then got everyone ready for a few pictures before school the next morning.

  

We made our traditional mummy hot dogs and ghost pie, and tried a veggie snake instead of a skeleton this year :)

  

By the end of the night we'd given out and received enough candy to last for at least a few weeks (I know this because they still have some left!), and Alaina was ready to admit that she should have taken my advice and changed out of her heels for trick or treating :)

I think everyone was happy to have Halloween back to normal this year, and they'll remember their greaser costumes for many years to come!

Lots of Orange this Fall

Looking through my recent photos, you would see a lot of orange....

At the end of September, we had our National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, which our family spent at Manning Park.

My kids all wore their orange shirts, a symbol that Every Child Matters. 

Jason took us to a spot where we could see lots of birds and ground squirrels, some even tame enough to eat off of Janae's hand or crawl onto Alaina's lap.

We also hiked part of the Paintbrush trail, which was beautiful with the fall colors.

Then, this past week, we went to get some pumpkins at our local pumpkin patch!

We had a rare afternoon where everyone was free, so I took the kids to the farm where we used to go when they were little. I hadn't been since 2019, so I loved seeing all the old familiar (but cheesy) photo spots. 

Janae and Eric were "caught having a good time,"

Janae and Alaina got into character as Little Miss Muffet and a spider,

I found these four sweet little pumpkins on a wagon,

and the three youngest posed as a goat, pig and sheep on a tractor ride :)

The pumpkins were amazing this year--and with our dry fall, there wasn't even any mud!

We know the rainy weather is coming, but we've definitely enjoyed our beautiful, sunny fall.