Christmas didn't come too early, Sprout was the first one up at about 8 o'clock with Little Dude right behind him.  They got Munchkin up and the fun began!  First the stockings...though Little Dude was trying to pull presents from under the tree, stacking the ones with his name on them near his stocking.  I tried to have them take turns picking presents to give out...but chaos errupted as they tried to get into presents before someone was finished opening theirs, they even opened one of mine!!...so I took over and made them sit near their angry birds blankets and wait until I called their name! 

 Little Dude picked out a couple of things from the top of his stocking and then tipped the stocking over and dumped everything out at once.  Munchkin on the other hand pulled things out one by one exclaiming surprise and excitement for each one.  Little Dude asked, "How come Munchkin has more things in his stocking?"  HA!...had to break it to him that he had the same amount, the difference was in the unwrapping!

 Sprout went to Big E for help with his orange.

 A recorder!!  Music lessons start in January!

 Excitement over Sprout's present...they all run to see.

 A rope bridge!  (For Thomas the Train trains.)

 A Wii controller Sprout-sized!!

We are excited about this!...already been playing with his electronic pet, and bathing it!

 And more games for Little Dude's leap pad.  Amazing things these Leap Frog items!

And last, but not least, 2 links to videos.  One for Munchkin and one for Sprout.  :)  Merry Christmas all!!  (I'm off to enjoy some of my goodies!)

Munchkin opening on of his trains

Sprout opening a present

Here's Munchkin's Christmas concert performance.  :)  Enjoy!

Concert Performance

 Here's Munchkin getting ready to sing...

 He looks totally into it, don't ya think?

 Chatting with his best friend.

 Looking to see if he can find Mom or Dad in the crowd.

 Brothers in a line, in new pj's.

 Merry Christmas!

 Individual shots.

 Big E figured out a way to hang our stockings.

 The end result...looks like it will be a fun morning!

Free digital ecard created with Smilebox If you click on the above card it will take you to the Smilebox webpage and our little card.  :)  Merry Christmas all!  (And to all a good night!)

Christmas Tradition

There is a church here in the city that has decided to do a HUGE production every year for Christmas.  We went last year and again this year.  However, this year Big E was able to come and so I was able to snap a few photos.
They changed it up a bit this year and we thoroughly enjoyed it.  It was PACKED.  But we kept a close eye on everyone and there were always Roman Soldiers on hand if needed.  :)

 We waited in line outside (they had a hot chocolate cart out there), and again inside.

 After a brief act by the three wise men, we went in to see the sheep and angels appeared and sang.

 The boys' highlight..the soldiers and the 'dungeon'.

 With a church this large I'm sure they always have a newborn baby...Sprout was fascinated.

 Guy complained as we walked past about how the Roman soldiers were forcing him to make these crosses and they had to be ready by such as such a time.  :)

 Ancient blacksmith.

Things to taste, touch, smell at the different booths.  Quite a night!!  Next year we'll have to invite some friends and family to come with us.

BEDBUGS.....no, not us.  Our Neighbour.  Which means we had to be treated for them as well.  I might as well have moved, just about.  All living spaces had to have everything removed unless it was wood or linen (that had to be in the middle of the floor), then the guy came in and he turned everything upside down, took off all the light switches and we couldn't come back for 12 hours (or more for the kids).  So, I thought I'd show you what it looks like if you ever have to prepare for bedbug treatment.  On a side note, they told us in their little letter that there will also be a second treatment later but that the preparations for it will be less.  ANYTHING would be less...other than moving.  The following pictures should give you an idea.  We could store things (that were glass, metal, plastic...not linen or wood) in the kitchen or bathroom.  So this is what our dining area looked like...

 Here is our livingroom.  I refused to move the tree.

 Yup, you guessed by the glimpse of the shower curtain....this is our full bathroom upstairs.

 Our 'spare' room.

This was not much fun.  If you have an enemy you want to get even with, call the landlord and tell them they have bed bugs!

 We had a real photographer take some family photos.

 It was -18 outside, but we were fortunate to have a heated enclosure to warm up in.

Photo shoot wasn't until 3pm, so I spent the morning on hair and make up, not dishes...and you can see behind me!

 But I mostly liked the result.

 Had to get everybody ready...

 Think it worked out pretty well.

I have been lax.  Munchkin was sick for nearly an entire week and then the rest of us (minus Sprout) were sick the following.  Sheesh.  So we have been dealing with fever and chills, congestion and headaches.  Doesn't leave much time for blogging or even taking pictures.  Frankly, I just wanted to stay in bed in the dark all day!  So, I'm back to play a little catch up.

Buuut...once again I'm running into storage issues.  Apparently I've used my 1G of storage already.  Hmm...may need to disconnect from beloved Picasa and make the move permanently to Photoshop.  :(  I'm just not very proficient in Photoshop, and don't find it nearly as user friendly.  Oh well...may be forced to learn!  

Didn't want to wait for youtube.  Here's a video of Little Dude's new way of getting down the stairs.  He prefers it to actually using the stairs.

This next video is all my fault (as Big E reminds me from time to time), I showed the boys how to gurgle.  Now I am dealing with it as the number one dinner time infraction!

It's been a while.  Not for lack of pictures, but for lack of time!  Life sometimes gets in the way of me chronicling it!

Homeschool has been going great.  Little Dude generally practices printing each day, with some reading, some math and something else.  :)  One day he asked to make cinnamon buns.  I didn't get pictures of the whole process, but he did spend a great deal of time rolling out the dough.

 I put up my re-purposed white board and the boys have had fun writing on it.  Here they were practicing their numbers.  Munchkin's are mostly on the left, Little Dude on the right.

 With October comes pumpkins and Halloween.  Here they are cleaning out their jack-o-lanterns.

 Sprout was a pumpkin.  (Something wrong with my flash...grrr.)  I didn't get many pictures of him because he was REALLY unhappy with the leaves hanging down over his face.

 Little Dude insisted on a 'scary costume' and so chose a vampire.  It was SUPER windy and very cold so we didn't stay out too long and the boys needed all of their winter gear to make it through the night.  Little Dude even had a scarf on which certainly cut down the 'scare' factor. 

Munchkin's ghost costume turned out so well...and I wish I had a better picture of it.  He started to take off his make up, hence the messy mouth...but he still looks pretty scary!














I have some videos to post and as soon as youtube cooperates, the links will be up.  TTFN!