Christmas Takes Over!

So now it is Christmas that has taken over the blogging! That is definately a good excuse. We have been up to lots. From Christmas gift shopping, cookie baking, gingerbread house making to lots of fun in the snow there has been not much time for blogging.

The weather has had us cooped much of the time the last couple of weeks but we have been loaded down with things to do. We have been out for a few play dates here and there and quite a few trips to the mall so that we don't go stir crazy but it takes a lot of time to bundle up two toddlers so they don't get cold (and our van heater wasn't working for a while there too so that was no good).

We have been working madly to try and get out the Christmas cards and packages on time. We also got one of our best Christmas tree's yet. The kids enjoyed putting the none breakable decorations at their height level and we also did our traditional Christmas card photo in front of it again this year.

Skyla and I have been baking up a storm. We made Linzer cookies, sugar cookies, and gingerbread cookies. Skyla got bored of the normal cookie cutters and thought it was better just to roll them in a ball and squish them. She made several just for Daddy.

The Christmas photo was a blast. Trying to get two toddlers to sit still and smile before the camera timer goes off is a huge task. So we ditched the effort and just had fun with it. In some of them Skyla is wearing her princess crown and Duncan is trying to pull the Santa hat off his head!

Don't ask me why this photo turned out the way it did. I am definitely not good with the camera even though I wish I was. I just like how Duncan went and snuggled up to Skyla. They just love each other. (Well, most of the time!)

What fun we have playing in the snow! Well, that is when it is not 30 below! (I wish I had teeth as white as my children. Now only to convince Skip to let me get them whitened!)

I just think that they look exactly alike! Such hansom fellows I think. The girls are really going to be chasing after Duncan!

Just plain ole' fun. These two can really get each other going and acting crazy. One of the nice things of having them so close together.

We attempted our first gingerbread house ever. We plan to make it a tradition. We had a lot of fun doing it. Skip glued the house together with chocolate and we decorated it with chocolate, candies, and icing! It turned out great. I think it looks very whimsical and cute!

This is the finished product, however, in the last couple of days Zoose has snatched a couple cookies of the platform. What a stinker! We call him our shark in the water.

And we had a visit from Uncle Riley before he headed off to Squamish for Christmas. Grandpa drove him from Saskatoon to Regina so we got to see him too.

Today we went to one of Grandma Dianne's favorite spots, Hotel Sask. We went to see the gigantic gingerbread houses and have a little bite to eat. It was a lot of fun too! Grandma Dianne would have loved to go here with her grand kids if she were still with us. We miss her so much.

Another totally fun thing that we did today was go and get our picture taken with Prancer the real live reindeer! Dancer was there as well. The kids loved petting Prancer and talking to him to. Sorry for the poor photo but you weren't aloud to take your own camera so this is just a picture of a picture. If you live in Regina, go to the golden mile shopping centre and you can see him too.

Bye for now and Merry Christmas to you all!

Christmas Festivities have started!

And another large gap in posts! I am kind of sorry but kind of not. Lots has been happening around here. After the kids got sick I indeed did get sick. Woke up this last weekend with a bad sore throat, scratchy watery eyes, and a stuffy nose. Skip ended up staying home from work Monday and Tuesday to look after the kids. To top off the bad cold I had a case of insomnia for a few days. I absolutely could not fall asleep. Took cold medication and everything. Still could not sleep. And to top that off our dog Zoose had a case of restlessness as well. He just would not stop wandering around the house and barging into the bedrooms while we were trying to get some sleep. The kids slept. Mommy and Daddy did not sleep! So my extreme exhaustion is my excuse for not blogging this time. And isn't there always an excuse?

We have also been doing a lot of decluttering and organizing around the house lately. Especially the basement. Being unfinished it has pretty much become a junk collector these days. Everything that we don't know what to do with goes down stairs with no particular place to put it! But it is coming along now and maybe one day if we get some money we will finish the basement! Oh and Skip put a lower hand railing on the stairs for the kids, so that when it is tidy they can go down there and play.

We have spent lots of days just lying around due to sickness and tiredness. But it has been good family time. Lots of laughs and snuggles!

Popcorn! Our favorite snack these days. And I know some of you would scoff at the fact that our not even one and half year old is eating popcorn. Heck, some of you would scoff at our two year old eating popcorn. I know, "They can choke.". Don't worry "popcorn melts" as my husband would say.

More lazy days in front of the TV (scorn)!

Duncan has developed a love for Dinosaurs. Skip had these ones when he was a little boy. Duncan is definitely a boy. He has all the sound effects and everything! Too cute!

And he has also developed a love for climbing up on the table much to Mommy's chagrin!

Here's a funny story for you. We got a children's nativity scene. It is a 'play mobile' one. So we got it out the other day. It is for age 4 and up. It has small parts. We put it up on the table. Duncan climbed up and was playing with it. He lost some parts. We found some parts. All except for this chain that is pictured below. It is supposed to hold the pot over the fire as pictured below. We made a comment about how it would probably turn up in Duncan's poop one day. Sure enough the next day Skip was changing Duncan's diaper and there was the chain entangled in Duncan's poop. Lovely. We used a tooth pick to fish it out but we both got a gold finger. Yuck. That is our oral obsessed boy for you!

Today we went to the "Festival of Trees". It was good family fun. The kids really enjoyed looking at all the brightly lit trees and they also got to see Santa! Skyla loved sitting on Santa's lap this year and telling him what she wanted for Christmas! She even went and saw him again. However, Duncan wasn't as impressed and I was only able to snap one not so good picture before he started to cry and squirm for Daddy. Oh well, next year. Skyla didn't like him last year either.

Duncan loved this puppet show that they did! He was pointing and smiling the whole time.

When life takes over.

So sorry for the huge gap in posts. Life just seems to have taken over lately. With the pile of dishes, mountains of laundry, Halloween preparations, two sick children, and not to mention the fact of being just down right tired, things have just kind of gotten the best of me these days.

The Tuesday before Halloween Skyla woke up at midnight with a very high fever. She spent the rest of the night in bed with us and I spent nearly the rest of the night awake! The next day we nursed the fever the whole day and I went to bed exhausted. Then the next day Skyla seemed to be feeling pretty much better so we went to Dutch Growers to run around in the hay maze, look at Halloween and Christmas decorations, and pretty much just kill some time. But then Skyla developed a bad stuffy, sneezy, and runny nose and was feeling pretty lousy again so we spent the rest of the afternoon taking it easy.

Duncan then developed the same high fever that night and again it was another night of poor sleep had by all.

It was pretty much like that the whole week and even Halloween night after walking one house away with the kids, Skyla fell down and lost her shoe and that just set things off from the beginning. So Skip came back and gave both kids some Tylenol and tried again. Success! Both Skyla and Duncan had a great time trick-or-treating. Skyla liked the "scary houses" and even decided that she was going to scare the people at one scary house by going "roar". She said she scared them away! The kids ended up with a good amount of treats which we are using as rewards for going on the potty (and "yes" we are still going through the process with Skyla and I don't even want to talk about it because it frustrates me so much). Duncan gets to have a treat every time she does.

So still this week we are dealing with sick kids. This cold is sure dragging on and on. I am fighting it to and it has yet got the best of me. Thank God. Hence the mound of house work that is just piling up because by the end of the night I am just exhausted. (Well before the end of the night.)

Here are a few pictures to get you through till the next post.


Skip took Skyla to the 'Annie' play at his old high school. She seemed to enjoy herself but it was the day before she got sick and I think she was already feeling the affects of it. Before the second session started she said to Skip, "I want to go 'ome." Sweet little girl.

Duncan copies every thing she does! Here they are eating Reese's Pieces.

Our little butterfly and little blue bunny! So cute!!!

Kindermusik class. Duncan ran away before I could snap the picture! He doesn't stay still for long.

Duncan drinking a smoothie through a straw. Our big boy!

Thanksgiving Weekend

We had a terrific Thanksgiving weekend and hope that everyone else did too! We started it out by making a trip to the pumpkin patch and hay maze on Saturday morning. What an awesome fun time we had! The kids enjoyed picking out pumpkins and running through the hay maze. We thought a corn maze was just a little bit much for our little ones so we opted for the hay maze. We found the perfect pumpkins of the bunch. And wow, were there ever a lot of pumpkins! Sunday was spent pretty much all day preparing our huge feast. We prepared it on Sunday but had Skip's brothers family over on Monday. We wanted to be able to visit without having to worry about slaving away in the Kitchen the whole time. It was a wonderful meal. We made a pumpkin pie for Sunday's dessert and for supper we had turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberries, and maple syrup vegetables. It was delicous! On Monday we had the same except for I made an apple-cranberry crisp with homemade vanilla bean ice cream. What a treat. We had a spectacular weekend enjoying the 6 inches of snow that we got. (It felt like Christmas!) The kids, daddy, and Uncle Riley went outside and made a snowman on Monday. What fun they had! (Except Duncan pulled off his mitts and got super cold so all he did was whine the whole time.) Anyway, here are a few pictures for your enjoyment.