Baby World

Tis the season for early babies, apparently.  Just before Christmas, my friend at work had her baby.  He came about a week or so earlier than expected, but he's healthy and very cute.  Congratulations to Linda and Bai on their new son, Tyler.

Festivities

I hope everyone had a good Christmas.  Mine was great.  Celia's sisters and cousin all came to town to stay with us over Christmas and we had a really good time. The kids had a great time too.  Amelia is now a pro at opening gifts and Lucas, well, he still doesn't seem to know what to do with them.  Lucas got these toy cars from my parents and he hasn't let go of them since Christmas.  He just carries one or two of them around everywhere, it's so cute.  Every time Amelia opened a gift of clothing, she would try to take off her clothes so she could wear the new stuff.

December 24:
Pick everyone up at the airport, dinner at home, up till 2am.

December 25:
Waffle breakfast, relaxing, opening presents, dinner at my parent's

December 26:
Karaoke Revolution: American Idol Encore 2, Running errands, snowball fight, kids' Christmas party

December 27:
Snowboarding!

December 28:
Late dimsum, Guitar Hero World Tour

Ahh, good times, good times…

New Additions

Today my new niece, Isla, was born.  She was just a little thing, born 2 weeks earlier than expected.  I guess it just balances out because Ava was 2 weeks late.  Congratulations to my brother and his wife.

Snow Day

The snow is a beautiful thing.  It means I'll be able to go snowboarding next week.  I can't wait.  This year, we bought the twins some snowsuits so we could take them out to play in the snow.  Lucas loved it.  He would just walk around in the snow (not too deep) and laugh at me as I shovelled the driveway.  He had a grand old time watching me work.  I should have given him a little shovel.  Amelia, however, wanted nothing to do with the snow.  We got her all bundled up and then refused to be put down once we go outside.  I put some snow on her mitten and she just cried.  We were walking into an elevator and she saw some snow on the floor and slowly backed out of the elevator until I picked her up.  Maybe next year they'll have more fun in the snow.

Yay!

The mountains opened!  I can go snowboarding now!  Cypress opens for night riding on Dec 17th.  There isn't a tonne of snow yet but enough.  It's probably pretty freaking cold up there and I haven't gone snowboarding in a couple years so I guess I should bundle up.  I can't wait to go but I'm afraid I'm going to come home so stiff and sore that picking up the kids is going to be painful.

The Christmas Light Fiasco

So this year I was determined to put up Christmas lights.  Back when I first moved out, I bought Christmas lights on my first Christmas at my house but never put them up.  For 3 years I always took them out but never hung them so now in our first Christmas at our new home, I decided to put them up no matter what.  The funny thing is that I pulled out the old ones but didn't like them so I bought brand new ones. 

Since I work in the mall, I went to Zellers and picked up a couple strings of lights thinking that 30' would be enough.  As I hung them I realized that I was nowhere near being right about that and needed another string but by the time I went back to Zellers they were all out lights that matched the ones I bought.  I went to 2 different Zellers, the Bay, Rona, Sears, Canadian Tire, and WalMart but no one had lights that would match.  Finally, I just went to Rona and bought 3 new strings of blue lights.  I took down the white ones I had already hung, and put up the new blue ones.  I ended up using the white ones on one of the trees outside the house so it wasn't a waste or anything.  Actually, I need more…  Anyway, after I finished, I went inside, got Celia and we stood outside to see the beautiful new lights on our house.  Mieh.  I don't really like how they look so next year I'm going to buy new lights again.

Are You Ready?

Every year I say I'm going to get my Christmas shopping done early.  Every year I do the exact opposite of this.  Usually, on December 24th I'm at the mall looking for the last minute presents for, like, 12 people, but not this year!  This year Celia took care of all the shopping and we were 95% done before the end of November.  I even bought Celia her present (a new snowboard and bindings - don't tell her, it's a surprise).  All I have to do is hang my Christmas lights and wrap all the presents and clean the house and finish setting up my home theater and paint the hallway and install a handrail and clean the garage and wash the cars and get family pictures done and put away the patio furniture.  I am totally ready for the holidays.