MERRY CHRISTMAS

Merry Christmas from our house to yours. We are a little late getting anything out to anyone this year. I apologise. Hopefully they will get sent soon. Here is a list of 5 things we accomplished this year.
1. H was born August 13. A very welcome addition to our family.
2. We painted the out side of our house! It took 5 months, but we love it.
3. Nathan passed his Physics boards! Now he can start Moonlighting!
4. E and J both played fall soccer and loved it!
5. 3 of our 4 children are potty trained!
We wish everyone a very happy new year and hope it is a successful one for everyone!

Christmas Morning

Here is H with her stocking. She wasn't too interested in anything this year! E and her loot. She got an MP3 player, hoolahoop, 14 chapter books and more. She said it was her best Christmas ever!

K got lots of play food and dress ups. She was happy princess.

J got a lot of costumes like superman, knight, Ankian Skywalker. He also got some Curious George books that he loves.

Nathan finally got an acoustic guitar. Santa surprised him with it this year. He is taking free lessons on line and is already getting some songs down. He is very happy with his gift!

I got some fun things too, but I am happy that everyone loved what they received!

Twas the Night before Christmas!

We had a fun Christmas Eve. We braved freezing rain and went to our friends house for some yummy Holiday Hotcakes! Then we met up with some friends to go bowling. I think the top score was 109! We had a lot of fun! The greatest thing about this bowling alley was the bumpers were programmable. They would go up and down depending on who was bowling! For dinner I made a broccoli cheese soup and rolls. We then bathed the children and went downstairs for our Christmas Eve Traditions. Nathan's mom made us these really cute Nativity puppets that we used this year! The kids really enjoyed these. Nathan commented how we needed more children because we didn't have enough hands!
The children then opened up their new pj's. Then it was off to bed. They were out by 8:30!

Let it Snow!

The Friday before break we got 5 inches of snow (then it started in with freezing rain). They cancelled school and the kids were able to go enjoy the snow! Their make up day was the next Monday, but that gave me more time to make the teachers gifts!

E and K also built a snowman, but I didn't get any pictures of that!

More pics of the House

We are finally done! It is great to be done. I love how it turned out. I am glad that we took on this 5 month adventure!

(notice the scaffolding is no longer up :))

Brunch with Santa

Each year the Hospital puts on a Brunch with Santa for all the Residents and their families. Here are our pictures from this year.
E was excited to go sit on Santa's lap. She told him she wanted Boxcar Children books for Christmas. J would not sit on Santa's lap. He did shake his hand and stand next to him for a picture. He wants Knex for Christmas.

H didn't really know what was going on. She of course was not looking at the camera.

What was K doing the whole time? She was scared to go near Santa, so she just stayed and ate her yummy food!

Over all we had lots of fun and came home with many ornaments the kids had made.

Winning the war, but losing the battle.

The house painting project is finally finished (at least close enough to say it is finished). It was actually finsihed about a month ago, but it took this long to recover from the wounds of my defeat in the last battle.

I had a small portion of house to paint that is only accessible from a lower level a roof, and which required a ladder.

Using a ladder worked well, until the very last spot, which required me placing the ladder in a less than desirable position as seen here:

I know what you are thinking: That poor combination of small normal force and low coefficient of static friction is a recipe for disaster. Dawn happened to be talking to me as we made plans on how we would celebrate the victory, when something like this happened:

Next thing Dawn knew, I looked like this.

Dawn was a little unnerved. I couldn't stop laughing. My wrist hurt for the next several weeks. I finally recovered, and now the house is done.

Note: No animals or people were injured in the recreation of this accident.

Turkey Bowl

When I was on my mission we would play basketball every week. My companions decided that after my mission I should try out for the college football team. The following is an illustration of why they would say that.

We had our annual turkey bowl on Thanksgiving between the two wards that share our building. We played flag football and all honored the rules quite well. Toward the end my team was on the defense and I was lined up opposite one of the wide receivers (appropriate description for most turkey bowlers). He turned around for a short little pass and caught it, and I came up quickly to grab his flag. Just as I came up to him, he flipped around and his nose collided with my cheekbone. Ouch. It took me a second to clear my head, and then I noticed him on the ground, bleeding. Whoops.

Several cameras were present, but nobody quite caught the moment. I imagine it looked like this:



Our ENT resident who organized the game gave an impromptu consult on him (nobody cared about me) and decided he didn't break his nose. Hmmm, maybe next year.