Random Pictures from Christmas Eve Day...

Ever since we went sledding the other day, Elisabeth has been begging to go again. She really, really enjoyed it! With our busy pre Christmas schedule, we hadn't been able to go out side again, so she was improvising with a basket and a bear in the living room. (I love how she wrapped a blankie around herself to keep her legs warm. SMART kid!)

We've been borrowing dad's truck while he's in Mexico (THANK GOD we had the truck!) So we offered to pick Rob up in Vancouver if the weather was bad. On the 23rd we called to see if he wanted to come early, but it wasn't going to work. SO after looking out the window on Christmas Eve morning we told him to sky train as far as Surrey. Even so, it took Andrew 2 hours to shovel the driveway enough for us to get out. This picture is after he'd spent two hours shoveling. He came in, changed his clothes, and we went out to clean off the truck. And this is how much it had snowed in that time!

Kyles car. It just looks like a snow drift from most angles :P

You can see we're running out of places to pile the snow. Andrew was scooping snow from our driveway (this is mum's) down the side of our house where we have some retaining walls. The lowest part is higher than the highest part now.

The fence in between us and the Deckers. (and see what I mean about the driveway being covered in snow again?!)

This is our street. They don't clear it so it is miserable!

But 49th isn't much better.

This is the road in between 49th and 50th. Scary, eh?!

Davey decided he didn't want to come with us, so I left him with Grandma. Meanwhile, I was busy snapping pictures and listening to Elisabeth comment on the snow and everything she could see out the window. All of a sudden she exclaimed, "Mama? I'm HAPPY!" And this was her face...

Anyway, here we are in Surrey, almost at the Scott Road Station. You can see roads are better in Surrey, but the sidewalks weren't shovelled at all. Pedestrians were walking down the middle of King George (a little bit scary when the roads aren't very wide.)

Need a bus?

Well, long story short...we got a phone call from Rob, just as we should have been picking him up. He'd had to wait ages to actually get on a train and then his train only made it a few more stations down the line before it got stopped by a fallen tree. So while he waited in his train to see what would be happening, we tried to find a map and figure out how to get to him. This is on the other side of the Patullo Bridge. Just around here, in the other lane, was a car facing perpendicular to traffic and blocking the whole other side of the road.

Conditions were really deteriorating now, and while we weren't worried that we'd get stuck, we were a bit worried as more and more cars seemed to be getting stuck or blocking traffic. It was sometime around now though, that Rob called to say that his train was moving and he could meet us at Royal Oak.

Which was fine except landmarks were really unrecognizable with all the snow, it's been a good ten years since I've frequented this part of Burnaby and street signs were very hard to read!

We had to drive down a couple of side streets on our way. Not pretty.

Then, just as we were across from the sky train, we passed this house. For scale, look at the size of the windows, then look at the icicles again!!

We finally had Rob and could head back to the freeway and home again. We were SO thankful for the truck and the winter tires!

While I warmed up some soup, Rob and Tink shovelled the driveway again.



Meanwhile, I think davey made the right choice in staying home!


Elisabeth made a snow ball.


And Uncle Dave came out...just for a moment!

Kyle's car again. Yowsers.


Later on (after Andrew had again spent several hours shovelling), Santa came to visit. The kids were super, duper excited if a bit confused about why we weren't going to the MALL to see him!





I'm not sure what our kids think about Santa, but they're not fooled by the guy with the crooked beard in the red suit.

Or by this jolly fellow either!

Davey got a new bed

So in anticipation we started decorating his room. He's got some wallies and a picture on the closet wall...


More pictures on this wall...


And wouldn't you know it, the bed arrived in time for Christmas! Sweet dreams little racer ;)

Fun in the snow!

Two of these little birdies have been hanging out in the tree outside our staircase. We think they're some kind of woodpecker, but that's purely a guess.

Today Dave and I headed to Delta where we met Alexis and headed to Kamal's Video Palace to check out movies. I was desperate for Main Hoon Na and anything with Amitabh Bachchan. I did manage to find 3 movies :) On the way home we passed these kids out skating in a field.

This was 50th Avenue.

Andrew trying to sled on the sandbox lid.

Tinky lies in the snow to get better access to eating it ;)

Then we found this magic carpet.



AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!




Then the kids brought some chairs out to watch the spectacle...



Kathi trying out for the Canadian Luge team.

Andrew decided to give her hand...

Check out the snow spray!

Then tonight Uncle Dave took all the kids out again.

He got out the wooden sled and showed them how sledding is done :)


There's three of them on there...can you find them all?

Face plant!


Peek a boo!
Jade on the sled!





I LOVE MY LAUNDRY ROOM!

I've been trying to teach my kids about the real meaning of Christmas. This morning I let them watch this presentation of Luke 2: 1-20. They watched it with great interest.




When it was over, Davey went and got Andrew's doll (from when he was a kid, he doesn't still play with it!) and gave it to tinker saying, "We already have a baby. That's what we'll tell the angels when they come here.

I think the kids are feeling better.

After lying on the couch all day and watching non-stop movies (thank God we stopped at Rogers on Monday night! No cable + sick kids would have made for a very grumpy mummy!) they both perked up considerably this evening. I just put the kids to bed. Read them three point five stories (the point five was a Noddy book which is far too long to read as a fourth story, so I made one up) and tucked them in. And tucked them in again. And again.

...and just now (after they both came down to tell us the TV is too loud), they were hollering from their bedroom, "We need kisses!"

yup, I'd say they're feeling better...

sooooo tired....

Sunday night Davey came down with the stomach flu. After a really rough night, he seemed fine on Monday. And also yesterday. So I worked my tail off in our house, unpacking gazillions of boxes and only sitting down twice between 7 am and 11 pm. So I was exhausted last night.

Unfortunately the barfing began again at just before midnight, with both kids being up about once an hour, but staggered so that it was really every half hour that I was changing bedding and jammies and washing babies or scrubbing floors. This went on until 530 and then thankfully Dave got better and only tinker was sick. Till lunch time.

so we're having a mostly quiet day (I did slip out to shovel our driveway and a path from the road to our house to mum's).


The kids seem better. I'm beat. Not even the strength to write Christmas cards...

Let the Christmassing begin!

We were so over the unpacking, so today we decided to mix things up a little: we decorated!

My sister started this thing with Elisabeth, where she let her wear the Christmas Tree Skirt around their house as a cape. Today she made off with both the cape and Santa's hat and tore around the house singing Christmas songs. Isn't she just precious? yeah.

The kids also decorated the fake tree. It was kind of like that Canadian Tire commercial where the tree only gets half decorated. Only Tink took it one step further...she hung all her Christmas balls on two branches.

And here's the merry Christmas picture.


We decorated the other room too, but since I'm in the throes of laundry (due to a sick 4 year old) so you don't get to see those pictures yet.

Elisabeth reads to her baby:

She even did all the sound effects. She's such a good little mother.

This was one of those moments where I really wished I’d had the camcorder with me and on!

Yesterday we were at my mum’s house eating lunch. She has one of those L shaped benches and me, David and Elisabeth were sitting at it. Both of the kids were happily eating their food when all of a sudden Elisabeth grabbed a napkin and started trying to wipe David’s mouth.

Of course he began squirming and trying to get away from her. Out popped her other arm, grabbing him firmly by the chin and holding him in place. He struggled harder. She set her mouth into a firm line; eyes determined and gripped him harder.

As he continued struggling, she adjusted her hold on him and also her position. She pulled his head down on to her lap (at this point me, mum and even Davey were having hysterics) and finished wiping his face to her satisfaction. She released him with a “that’s better,” and calmly continued eating her lunch as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.

She’s a little tyrant that one!