Holiday update

Whew! Its been a crazy bit of a month. We all had a wonderful Christmas here, lots of presents, food and family. Although for a couple of days I wasn't sure if we were going to be well enough to host our Christmas Eve celebrations. Abby, Ethan and I all got hit with a very violent form of the GI flu. It all started with Abby then worked its way through the rest of us. Thankfully Owen didn't get it. Gotta love those extra antibodies from nursing :) I seemed to have gotten an extra bit of a problem from that virus because the night that I got so sick I ended up fainting twice. The second time that I fainted I hit the bridge of my nose. The next morning my nose was so swollen it was hard to put my glasses on. I'm still concerned because today marks a week since this all happened and my nose isn't as swollen but its crooked and I still have this weird buzzing in my head. My sister thinks I need to go get X-rayed to see if I broke anything. I'm thinking that she's right. Other than that we've all mended and managed to have an awesome Christmas. Ron truly outdid himself and bought me a pair of 1/2 carat diamond earrings. Totally blew me away and made me feel so special. He said that this was a special Christmas (our tenth being married) and I was worth it. Awww...such a sweetie. Made me feel a bit guilty because I wasn't able to finish my shopping for him due to being sick so I made it up to him when we went boxing day shopping ;)

Hoping to get some pictures put on to the computer this pm so that I can post a few of our celebrations. I didn't take too many because I was too busy enjoying things :)

Cousins...

A week or so ago my cousin came over with her little guy who just happens to be 16 days older than Owen. We just killing ourselves laughing at these two as the struggled to get the same toy. Kinda sucks when you can't crawl yet.

Too funny, Owen pushing Cohen down. Its like he's saying "back off kid these are mine!"

Cohen just decided it was way easier to just lay on top of Owen.

Festival de Noel projects

I said that I'd post them so here they are. I won 3 prizes and had so much fun doing these crafts. I did forget to photograph my advent calendar and my winter mini album...I'll try to remember to do them later. My very favorite project...my Joy wreath. *LOVE* how this turned out. I won 1st with it. My little singing angels all gold and white and while I didn't place with these I loved them too. First place in this category was a cross-stitched santa picture which was gorgeous and probably took forever to do.

My Christmas card which placed 3rd.

And my scrapbook layout which placed 2nd.

Pictures of Abby, Owen and Santa. Could not get Ethan to come with us.

Abby won a first and a fifth place for her projects (scrapbook page and card). She was so excited!

Rhonda's trees that won second place. They were so awesome!

So of the other projects. There were so many great enteries! The judges must have had a hard time picking winners.

updates...

There has been quite a bit of excitement around here lately. As you can see my sweet girl has been moonlighting as a wreastler.My baby is growing up way too fast, he's now offically sitting up, without squishing his tummy.

I think I just might cry.

How cute are those dark little eyes?

We've also been busy making Christmas crafts to enter into the Festivel de Noel here in Plamondon. The kids have been working on their gingerbread houses and I've been creating some fun Christmas decor items along with an advent calendar for the kids. I'll be posting pictures of our entries from the festival.

Playing blog catch up

Ethan's birthday was way back in October and I'm just getting around to posting. How bad of a mom am I? We did a couple of "events" just because getting people's schedules to jive is hard. On his offical birthday we had some family over and went swimming and had some presents. When Grandma H. came back from work she mad a wonderful Captain Underpants birthday cake for him.

gotta love kids' expressions when they blow out candles :)
Owen *loved* the cake and so wanted to get at it. It'll be fun when he had his birthday in May.

Some of the fun presents...we picked him up a Nintendo DS because after all you only turn 10 once. He's offically in the double digits club now ;)

Muppet Show DVDs season 1 from Grandma and Grandpa Bourassa. My Ethan with his quirky sense of humor loves these shows! Munuma Na!

I can't get over how big he is already!!

Dad's Birthday Celebrations

The weekend of Nov. 15th we had a birthday party at my house for my dad who turned 60. It was so great, crowded but fun with all his siblings, except 1 that were able to be there. Even my uncle Charlie who came down from Yellowknife. I made the cake, decorations and all. This is only th 2nd time that I've ever iced a cake and I'm sure this will end up on the cake wrecks blog ;) However it tasted wonderful so it balances out.

A week later we (my immediate family) met at my sister's place to go out for lobster. Here's my sweet sister introducing my poor baby to lemons for the first time. Unfortunately she didn't get the reaction that she wanted. Owen didn't seem to mind the lemon. Must take after his Uncle Matthew.

I felt sorry for the waitress as we were such a big group. 13 of us including 5 grandkids, who by the way did awesome. My very adventurous eaters ordered mac n cheese and chicken fingers. At Red Lobster. Crazy kids. You can't see it in this picture but my very gorgeous sister in law is 5 months pg with their first baby, she looks so amazing! I'll post photos of her when I get permission ;) I'm also thrilled with the fact that the baby weight is finally starting to come off quicker for me. After gaining 60lbs with Owen I've got about 25 left to go...and no that's my arm down on my lap. Darn black shirt, lol!

wondering if

it is considered cheating if I'm drinking a yummy coffee and thinking about drinking a Chai Tea latte? ;)

Happy 60th Birthday Dad!

Believe it or not my dad turned 60 today! Here he is doing what he loves...getting ready to go quadding. This picture was taken just before they (Dad, Ron and Jonathan) went up to the Richardson Sanddunes for the first time. Dad and Owen the day he came home...

My dad and 2 of his brothers...he's the one in the red hat.

Have a great day Dad!!

scrapbooky stuff...

Just a little layout to share. I submitted this one for publication and its been a few months so I'm assuming it didn't get picked up. But I absolutely love it so I don't care :) Other news...

I'm so excited...I just prepaid for a 3 month scrapbook kit subscription to this place ttp://memoryworkshop.ca/store/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=30

I've been checking out their kits and they seem like a really great deal plus they are in Canada. Whoohoo! No exchange rate to deal with. Hopefully the shipping will be quick, its pretty reasonable for $8.25. And I've been wanting these Daisy Bucket papers for a while. I opted for the prepaid option because who doesn't have a hard time spending $99 on scrapbooking supplies at one shot? This way I've got new stuff coming for 3 months without having to pay every month. I'm going to check it out for 3 months then we'll see if I continue. I'll post a review later.

So instead of cleaning yesterday...

I was taking pictures of Owen :) way more fun if you ask me. How cute is this little monkey?

plus the little stinker is sitting up already, well kind of. He's only 5 months!! I'm not ready for him to grow up yet.

humm this color combination would be great for a scrapbook page...;)

Oh where oh where did October go?

Yeesh! It seems like just yesterday that it was the beginning of October! Where did the time go? I've been busy planning birthday parties and family get togethers, hardly had a time to take any pictures. That is a crime definately...

The kids are in full swing at school, already having enjoyed their first 4 day long weekend. Ethan starts swimming lessons again next week and Sunday is his birthday. Can't believe my "baby" is going to be 10!! Eek! I'm not too far off of having a teenager 8) Abby and Owen are doing great, my little one is going to be 5 months old tomorrow!!

Fall pictures

The annual fall family shoot. My boys love it, well not really. Poor Ethan either is doing something goofy or looks like he's infront of a firing squad. Then there is Abby who is posing like some model, oi! And Owen, well what do you expect from a 4 month old? Any comments as to the favorite family picture please let me know. I need to pick one for the family Christmas cards. As long as I don't look like Dolly. Gotta love nursing :P

I think this one is my favorite...

You tell me if Owen doesn't have that "Ranny" look down pat.