Some more on Christmas Day

Self portraits

Electric Snowflake...

The sunshine actually came out and it was beautiful! I called Cliff over to look at this sight! It was breathtaking!

Real and Fake

The snow on Christmas Day!

I would have to say out of all of the kids, Caroline was the happiest out in the cold. She would plunk herself in the snow and just delight in the white stuff all around her. She embraced the snow, the other kids not as happy in the snow. But the enjoyed it! 

Caroline and Carly sitting on the back of Cliff's work truck. He had to take it home because our street was so bad that he couldn't rely on his Dad's old car. He got picked up by a work buddy with 4 wheel thank goodness!

Here is Claire and Cameron able to touch the top of our tree... in the yard! Crazy  snow piles!

Sisters Claire and Carly hanging out (they the best of friends, and then the worst of friends!) But they are great sisters together. I love to see their friendship develop like that! 

OK, there is a story behind my get up. Yes, that is my leg...wearing my fake uggs from Payless.  AND what is with those green pool hall pants?! Well it was a joke actually. They are Cliff's old pj bottoms. In our town, everybody and their dog wears PJ's outside, and out in public. What an UGLY trend!! So, just in fun (and because I didn't feel like getting dressed I took his from the clean laundry and doubled up over my PJ pants) so we took a few photos of me. Cliff got some new PJ's that are MUCH nicer. Those were a bargain, can you tell why LOL.

The funny thing about these pants is that the neighbours were staring...maybe because we were all outside in full force 'wrecking' the beautiful peaceful Christmas snow?! Or because I was wearing hideous pants. So, when they drove by to wish us Merry Christmas (they were in a 4wd and could get out!!) I told them it was a joke LOL. They must have thought I went loopy!!

Cliff's shot of his sexy wife in the snow wearing his PJ pants LOL. Hey, atleast we got a good laugh right!!

OK, here is a rare shot of 5/6 kids outside. Coco was inside with her Nonna watching out the front window! She wished she could be out there too. But, the snow was WAY taller than her! Maybe next year kiddo!

Wowsers!! This is in our backyard! That snow was already removed at an earlier point by the kids! So beautiful!

Christmas Day

Christmas morning, in my office in my PJ's looking at the Garmin website as Santa brought me a Garmin.

All of the kids in our bed waiting to go downstairs...they were so patient! I typically go dowstairs and yell up to say yes Santa was there, turn on the Christmas music, plug in the lights etc. Cliff gets the video camera ready etc.

Just a hint of what the day looked like, but you can see some of the kids in their new Christmas PJ's. We buy a new pair of jammas for each child every Christmas Eve. A tradition my Mom did with us, and now we do that for them. They LOVE getting them!

Who knew that the North Pole was next door to our house?! We woke up to a beautiful winter wonderland!

And, of course a sneak peek of the garage with some of the gear. The rest hangs up on a large rack, and we have drawers etc. for the off season stuff. Note the snow from Christmas inside the garage. Claire even saved some snow in our deep freeze! 

Christmas Eve

Here are the 'gifts' to the kids. They wrapped up stuff from their rooms to give to each other. There are books, toys, stuffies. They wrapped them in their blankets, their robes, their scrap fabric samples. I love how they did this without being asked.

Popcorn string, homemade ornaments and paper chains. The tree was all about the kids this year.

A gift for a sister or brother made by Carly.

Our kissing ball. Boy did we have fun with that!

I FINALLY found a Santa Plate at Winners for under 5 dollars. I was happy. Santa had some egg nog, gingerbread house and some carrots for the reindeer.

Those are all of the Christmas gifts lined up from from left to right in birth order. We left them this way for easy handing out in the morning. A lot of the gifts were wrapped in home made fabric bags made by my Mom in Law, and of course the ones made by my Mom when I was a kid. There is even an old "Eatons" Santa Sac there. Catie got that one. We will re-use those next year too.

And the stocking were hung by the chimney with care...and you can see the Santa gifts lined up in front of the Fireplace. From left to right in birth order: Nintendo DS, Video Camera, Digital Camera, drawing board, Wonder Pets, and a pull Doggy.
OK, so we will not be going out for Christmas dinner tomorrow!! We were snowed in! This is the most snow coastally since I believe in the early 7o's even the 60's!! So beautiful tho!! We are so used to a rainy Christmas. 

My Mom in Law took this photo through the window of me cleaning the driveway (I think I shovelled about 3 times that day!!) Our snow piles at the side of the drive were over my shoulders!!!

Here is me on the left, and my lovely neighbour giving me a hand. I had a bad moment because the kids buried the snow shovel. But thankfully it was found on the neighbours lawn under a foot of snow...ggghhhrrr. Cliff worked on Christmas Eve.

I took a lot of photos...

Snow beautiful snow! Rediculously high snow! I think over 2 feet. This was Christmas Eve.

 And it continues to snow today!

Our tree with white lights, and all of the kids' decorations...sorry the photo is sideways. Cameron made that paper chain and seriously there were many feet of length. Some went to Nonna's place for her to enjoy!

Pretty much a homemade Christmas. This is what our mantel looked like this year! It makes me happy to see how much effort the kids put into Christmas this year. 

While I was doing a shoot, Cliff took the kids to his Mom's so that they could build a gingerbread house.

Broken jar of salsa

Yes, as we were about to leave I was grabbing stuff out of the fridge for the kids and I was moving a jar of salsa from the top shelf into the door. Well, in my big rush I dropped it. Red salsa, and glass combo all over the white tile floors and cabinets. This is the day we were to be at school a bit 'earlier' for a field trip that Claire is going on today with her classmates. 

So, we got the mess cleaned up. Thanks to the help of the kids. One to keep Coco away, one to grab the vacuum, one to plug it in. Thanks to my kids we had the mess cleaned up in about 5 minutes. 

It is unusually cold around here. We have record lows. Minus 6, maybe more for this time of year. So we all bundled up. Maybe not in the most efficient way. I think I am going to have to give some more lessons on how to dress appropriately for the weather. Cameron went to school in a his hoodie. The girls took off their gloves. I didn't have time to put on my own gloves or even eat breakfast this morning.  So, I will have to make sure we take care of winter dressing 101. Why they cannot remember this info for the last five years makes me crazy LOL. 

Anyways. Lots on the go. We had 4 hours of Christmas shopping last night which was great. Only one more trip and we will be done with the shopping. Then the wrapping etc. begins. This year we are going to use some home made fabric draw string bags that we can re-use. My Mom did this for us years before it was even a 'green' thing to do. My MIL sewed a whole bunch more. So, that will be good.  I think it is so great that the kids are using the same bags I used way back when I was a kid. And now adding to the collection. Hopefully the kids will still be using them for their kids. :D (you know my future grandchildren!!)

Christmas' Past

I believe this to be Christmas 2002 - That would be Cameron, Claire and Carly (her first Christmas) when we first moved to Cloverdale. 

This was the very last photo we had taken with Santa in 2003. Carly was about 16 months here (too bad that scanner image didn't work, but I don't have the time to try to dig up the original...who knows where I placed it?!)

This is Christmas 2004. It will be one I never forget. You see, the water colour I am holding in my hand was a surprise gift from my lovely Father-In-Law Earl who passed away June 27th of this year. He went and bought this from me from a local Langley art gallery after my water colour lesson with Marilyn Timms in the Stanley Park Rose Garden during our family's stint on Crash Test Mommy (Season 1, Episode 4 that was filmed in July 2004 when we only had 3 kids, and I was pregnant with Catie who was born in September of 2004) on Life Network aka Slice today. This gift had to be one of the best gifts I have ever received. Catie was about 3 months old during this Christmas. Earl is missed so much at this time especially.

Oh, and of course I have to add in a pregnancy photo because seriously, I have been preggers for so many months of the past 10 years! This was Christmas 2005. About half way pregnant with Caroline. We had a very hard pregnancy this go around. With kidney issues for her. I would repeat this part of my life in a heartbeat. I would for all of them. I have to say I still miss being pregnant. If I could have a secret wish it would be to be pregnant until I could not be pregnant anymore. I loved my pregnancies over all. I really miss this phase of my life already. 

And that is all I could find on this computer. 

I hope I will take some good ones this year :D