Bestest Christmas EVER!!!

The past few days have been a whirlwind of activity, it's gone by in the blink of an eye, I'm still trying to catch my breath.

On the 23rd, we went to Brampton in the afternoon to have dinner with the Bonneys and the Leungs at James' parent's house.  The cousins had a great time together, playing with their new toys and trying their best to trash the grandparent's condo.  The boys had fun too.  N gave us and James' parents the apple TV system, so they had fun setting it up, and discussing the benefits to it.  We've got it set up here, and while I can't figure out how to use the damn thing, James and Drew can do it...it is pretty cool!

The next day (Christmas eve) Drew and Hunter opened their last advent surprise in their Lego and "mommy and daddy's" advent calendars.  The Lego one was Santa Claus driving a train engine (just imagine how thrilled Drew was!) and ours was a Christmas book for each of them.  Drew got "David's Christmas" (he had been asking for it all month) and Hunter got "Mouse's first Christmas".  This was the day we had been counting down to all month, as we had plans to go to Nana's and sleepover.  It was all very exciting, and I thought Drew's head was going to pop off from all of the anticipation. 

We decided to allow the boys to open their gifts from us at this point.  We had two reasons for this; 1) we didn't want to lug the gifts to my parents, only to have to bring them back home again.  2)  We were hoping the new gifts would keep them from bugging us every 2 seconds with, "when are we going to Nana's?"...which they had already started in on after the excitement of their advent surprises ran out.

Notice the toilet in the background...Merry Christmas to us!!!  LOL

This cash register is awesome.  It is, however, broken already.  James is attempting to take it back tomorrow.

Thankfully, the gifts kept them entertained for a little while.  James had a little surprise for me on this day.  His parents showed up allowing James to take me out to a movie!  We saw "Little Fockers" and followed it up with some last minute shopping.  As soon as we got home, it was time to pack up the van and head to the Glen.

We spent the evening with my parents, brother, aunt, uncle and three cousins.  It was wonderful.  Drew was thrilled to have his cousins there, and was showing them around, and sharing his toys.  Hunter had a great time following them around.  We ordered Chinese food (WAY too much Chinese food....so much so, that we had it for dinner the next day instead of the turkey and STILL had tons of leftovers!  It was delicious though).

Michael, Drew and Jayden reading some books in the "sleepover" room...as Drew calls it

Hunter and Crystal playing "wii"

A Leapster!  Thanks guys!!!

Once the Archdekin's left, we gathered up all that we thought Santa would want when he payed us a visit.  We had made him peanut butter cookies earlier in the day, we left milk and a few carrots for his reindeer.  I then sat down with Drew and we wrote Santa a note.

"I have been very good...please leave lots of presents....my brother has been good too....he likes trains...."

They had matching jammies, but I did not put H in his until morning in case he barfed on them

Bedtime went fairly smoothly.  A lot better than expected anyways.  James and I read them stories, we put H in his crib and lied with Drew.  H cried for a few minutes, but then drifted off to sleep (it was pretty late by the time we got them into bed)....Drew kept asking for Nana, so once H was asleep (we were all in the same room), James went and got Nana and she lied with us while Drew went to sleep...which didn't take too long, considering his excitement!

Once the boys were asleep, Nana and I headed out to prepare for the morning.  Santa came while we were trying to get everything ready...man, that guy is quick!  ;)

The loot from Santa

James and my dad helped Santa set up the big "wheelie" car thingy that H got, while Nana and I finished wrapping the last of the gifts from her and papa....there were a lot.

H woke up at around 4:30, I'm surprised he lasted that long.  Drew picked up a really bad cough and was coughing all night.  It kept James and I up it was so bad.  Once I heard H, I picked him up and took him out to the living room, where we lied on the couch together and watched TV (and both drifted back to sleep).  Drew woke up at 7, and went straight to the fireplace to see if Santa had come.  He then found me and H on the couch and says, "mommy, mommy, Santa came and left some presents....but I didn't open any because I didn't know which were mine....can I go wake Nana up now??"

Off the little feet went to wake Nana up and then straight to the Santa gifts.  Our rule is that the Santa gifts can be opened with just me and Nana, if need be, but all of the other gifts have to wait until everyone else is up.

When Drew saw the car set, he was confused.  It was unwrapped, and was similar to the one we had given to Michael.  Drew asked if Michael was still at Nana's and when I told him he had gone home, he looked really concerned and told me that he had forgotten his car set.  "No, no, hunny, Santa left it for you"....."REALLY.....ALRIGHT!!!!!!"

Once all of the Santa gifts were opened, Drew went and woke everyone else up, while I put some cinnamon buns in the oven.

We spent the rest of the morning opening gifts and playing with them.  It really was a wonderful experience.  The cinnamon buns were delicious, and once all the gifts were opened, James made us waffles for lunch.

James and Jamie took Happy and Drew out sledding (along with the rest of the neighbourhood.....an annoyance that I will get into in a later post) and once I got H changed, we joined them.  It was SOOOO fun.  Not much snow, but just enough to make you fly down their hills.  Happy was very cute, so very protective of my boys, especially around the other dogs (!?!?!?) that people had brought onto the property.

H had a 3 hour nap this day, which was very impressive for him.  We had left over Chinese food for dinner (which we had kept in the truck over night, there seriously was a truck load of the stuff).  It was delicious, but I don't think any of us want to have Chinese food again for a very, very long time.

Here are some shots from the day;

My brother's hilariously inappropriate gift tags.  James' said, "Merry Christmas, motherfucker"

So Jamie did a scavenger hunt for Drew's gifts.  Drew's first clue was a dog treat.  I WISH I got a photo of Drew's face when he opened it.  He was not impressed.  Totally thought the dog treat was his gift.  The clue was, "she would be HAPPY to receive this"....once Drew caught on, he LOVED following the clues....just had a very rough start.  Honestly thought he was going to punch my brother...or start crying.

So, that's it, another Christmas come and gone.  This was the best one yet.  Drew was SOOO into it.  He's very sad it's over, and is already counting the days until next Christmas.

I should talk about my brother a bit here.  On Christmas eve Drew had a bit of a breakdown.  It was right before the cousins arrived, and he was playing with Jamie.  Suddenly, I heard Drew yelling at my brother and storming into my parents room.  I head into the room and find Drew sitting on the bed.  I ask him what's up and he just starts bawling...."I don't want him to leave, why can't he stay here...etc, etc".  We had a long talk, I ended up in tears too, and I'm not sure I really helped the situation any.  I knew Drew was upset, just did not realize he was that upset.

My brother has accepted a job with the CP rail police, and is heading to Regina, SK on January 9 for training, when he is done the training in May, he will be moving to Golden, BC for who knows how long.  It is very exciting for him, and he will probably have a great time....it's just hard to see someone you love  move so far away.

That night after the boys had gone to bed, Jamie had me listen to the gift he had made for Drew.  It was one of the recordable books from Hallmark.  Of course, I ended up in tears after listening to it.  Drew LOVES it,  mostly because Jamie calls one of the characters dumb in it....we have to listen to that part over and over again.  It's a wonderful gift, my parents did one too, and they will be listened to alot this winter, I'm sure.

With all the excitement of Christmas, Drew seemed to have forgotten his anger towards Uncle Jamie, until it was time for us to leave.  I told him to go give Uncle Jamie a hug, and instead of hugging him, he starts yelling at him, telling him to never buy him gifts ever again.  I was appalled.  I was embarrassed, I had no idea where that was coming from. They had such a great day, he loved the gifts Jamie had got for him, WTF???

The next morning, Drew comes to me and says, "mommy, I don't want Uncle Jamie to buy me anymore gifts.  If he doesn't have to buy me anything, he doesn't need a job, and he won't have to go away anymore"

My heart broke in half at that moment.  The poor little man, it's so hard to understand.

Needless to say, there is a wee bit of stress around our houses, as we try and help Jamie get ready to go...and try to get our heads around him leaving. 

I will say though, it was the best Christmas day we've had as a family yet.  In Christmas' past, we've spent the day driving to various places, spending a few hours here and there at different relatives.  While it was nice to see everyone, Drew (H was just a baby last year) never really got a chance to play with any of his gifts and we never really got a chance to relax.  Spending the whole day at the Glen was perfect, I'm so glad we decided to do it that way this year.  Hopefully, it will become tradition.

Merry Christmas!

Mini Vacay

Sunday, we joined N, L and the girls at Blue Mountain for 2 days of snow fun.  I'd never been there before, and I was blown away.  It was gorgeous.  We stayed at the Westin Trillium House at the foot of the ski hills.  It was a wonderful resort situated right in the village.  Each family had a 1-bedroom suite, consisting of a separate bedroom, living area (with gas fireplace), kitchenette and a giant bathroom.  It was perfect. 

I did not take this photo

Our drive up was perfect too, until we were about 20 minutes away from the resort and Hunter puked all over everything.  We seriously should cover that child of mine in plastic for long road-trips...it's getting to be quite the habit!

As soon as we got there, we unpacked and James, Drew, N and K went for a swim in the heated outdoor pool.  Yup, OUTDOOR pool. Crazy.  They had a blast though, the kids were going nuts.  They came in and warmed up in the sauna and then straight up to the rooms they went. 

L and I went for dinner at Oliver and Bonachini....we both had salads, enjoyed a quiet dinner without flying forks and food, and felt quite relaxed when we returned to our men/children.

After dinner, we spent some time at the arcade (with the kids) and then bundled them all up and went and checked out the village.  I LOVE the village.  We had Starbucks hot chocolate, played in the snow, ate beavertails, browsed the cute, overpriced shops and enjoyed the snow falling as we walked around.

Hunter LOVING the beaver tails....so yummy!

Bedtime was easy, as both boys were exhausted and fell asleep while I read them stories. 
James and I stayed up, drank wine, ate bread and hummus and watched the survivor finale beside the fireplace.  It was seriously the perfect ending to a wonderful day.

The next morning, we got ready for ski-school.  L and N had signed Drew and K up for it (K did a full day, Drew a half-day).  I wasn't sure how it would go, as Drew has never been on skis before...but he had seen an episode of Emily Young where she went snowboarding, and really wanted to try it.  Alas, you have to be 6 to try snowboarding, so skiing it had to be for my little 4 year old.

Drop-off went well.  He was excited, and seemed pretty anxious/nervous about the whole thing.  We weren't allowed into the area where they outfitted him with skis, so we went outside to wait for him to come out.  Once out there, he was standing by himself for quite sometime while they figured out the classes.  I don't think this helped the situation, as he had time to think about what was about to happen. 

The first thing they did was take him up the hill on the magic carpet.  He really liked this.  Once he was up there, we couldn't see him anymore, so we left to go and pack up the room (we had to be out by 11).  It should be noted here that we gave them both of our cell numbers AND our room number.  They told us that if there were any troubles, they would give us a call.  We did not get a call.

At noon, I went to pick Drew up at ski school, and James/Hunter went to get us a table and order us lunch at Wild Wing.  I waited for what seemed like forever, watching all of the other kids come down the hill and go into the chalet (the full-day kids eat lunch together in the chalet).  Did not see Drew.  I was all ready with my camera to get a shot of him coming down the hill.  No Drew. 

After a few minutes of silent panicking on my part, I finally see him come out of the chalet.  The teenage boy who brought him out to me seemed to be in a hurry to be "rid" of him.  "How did he do?", I ask....."Oh, he did fine"......long pause......"but we had to bring him in early because he was quite upset and really wanted you".....

"Perhaps you should of called me", I say.

Drew was still quite upset at this point, so I just start walking with him, taking him to wild wing.  Along the way, he tells me it was him and 2 other girls who were sitting in "the room", waiting for class to be over.

So, while I'm sure they probably tried hard to help him like the sport, I am quite disappointed that they did not call me.  I would have rather picked him up early and done something fun with him, instead of having him sit in a room waiting for the time to end.

All in all though, we had a great time and really want to go back.  It was a beautiful resort, we had beautiful weather, and aside from the ski school, Drew and Hunter both loved it there.  Thanks L and N for a great mini-getaway!

December Fun

Sooooo, where was I, let's see....
December 10 found us at the Milton Momstown holiday party.  Drew and Hunter both had a blast.  There was food, crafts, tunnels, a parachute, and Surprise!  Santa was there too, handing out presents!  Hunter wouldn't have anything to do with him, but Drew went right up and told Santa what he would like for Christmas ("you'd think he'd know by now, mommy, I've told him SOOO many times!").  It should be mentioned here, that Drew has asked for Diesel 10, some troublesome trucks and Diesel from Santa.  These are all "Thomas" trains and you'd think they'd be simple enough to find.  I went to our local Thomas "dealer" searching for "Diesel" in order to help Santa out this year.  Turns out, "Diesel" has been discontinued.  Lovely.  Told my wonderful husband and he immediately found one on e-bay.  We've ordered it, but it is coming from China, so might not be here in time for Christmas. 

The things we do for our children.

We loaded up the car the following day and headed to Pioneer village to have lunch with Santa.  We had a great time here.  Met up with L, N and the girls.  Lunch with Santa also includes admission to the grounds and a horse-drawn carriage ride through the village.  I'd never been to pioneer village.  We will definitely be back.  I really enjoyed myself, and so did the boys.  I didn't think they'd be as enthusiastic about the whole thing as they were. 

Once Hunter started freaking out, we decided it was nap time and headed for the door....stopped at the penny crushing machine for our souvenir and hit the road.  Our next stop was St. Catharines for the Hodgson's annual open house.  Both boys slept the entire way, with Hunter puking half-way along the journey.  We didn't really think anything of this though, as Hunter usually pukes at some point during a long car ride. 

We arrived in St. Catharines a little early, so we decided to head to McD's for an early dinner.  Drew looked a little pale and would not eat a thing.  Hmmmm, little bug must not be feeling well.  No biggie, we figured we'd head to Luc and Erin's, stay for a bit and then head home early. 

We were at their place for maybe 30 minutes.  The boys had enough time to open their gifts and play a little bit, when Drew tells me he's going to throw up.  I grab him, and run towards the bathroom....out steps a little girl in front of me, at the same exact moment Drew throws up.  So, not only is my little man barfing all over Erin's house right before all of her guests are about to arrive, he's throwing up on one of the guests.  Awesome.  I felt like such a heal.

I frantically start cleaning up, telling Drew it's OK, we'll get cleaned up and then head for home.  After 5 minutes, he was totally fine.  I mean, totally fine.  He was running around, had some 7-up, begging to stay.  I'm pretty sure it was food poisoning, because he never looked back.......so we stayed for a bit.  I didn't really get to visit with many people.  Spent most of the time running after Hunter.  Drew met some of the neighbour kids and played with them throughout the evening.  It was a great party, as usual, and it's always nice to see everyone....even if I don't get to visit much.

Sunday, the 12th, we took the kids to my mom's work x-mas party for kids.  There were hot dogs, cookies, ice cream, drinks, and chocolate.  What more could we ask for??  Santa was there, giving out gifts.  The boys seemed to have a good time....although, it did seem to drag on just a bit.  They had colouring/stickers for the kids to do at each table, but beyond that (and the eating) there wasn't anything else for them to do.

Wednesday morning I volunteered at Drew's school.  We made gingerbread cookies, and I was in charge of baking them.  Surprisingly enough, they turned out!  I had to leave right after they were baked, but apparently, they ran away!  Those sneaky gingerbread men.....

James dropped Hunter off with me at the school and then had to head straight back home to work in the barn all day.  We were shipping a few cattle out this day, and James had to sort them and get them ready.  Hunter and I headed for the mall to try and finish our shopping (which we were unable to do, I'm terribly indecisive when it comes to Christmas gifts).  James had everything ready and waiting for my dad when H and I got home.  A good thing too, because there was a message from my mom that the trucker would be arriving at 2:30 (we arrived home at 2:20) and we weren't expecting him until 5!!! 

I ran down to the barn to tell James, who promptly walked black mama and her newborn (well 1 month old) twins (Biff and Bash) out of the stall we had them in and into the barnyard.  My dad showed up, and they ran the bulls through, into the stall.  The trucker showed up, so they ran them out into the pen and then straight onto the truck.  It all went very smoothly.  In fact, it went so quickly, that when I saw my dad walking up from the barn and the trucker leaving, I thought something had gone wrong and they had given up.  My brother was planning on coming by after school to help and then everyone was going to stay for dinner at our house.  It was all done so early, that we texted Jamie to meet us at the Glen, dad left with a round bale, and James, Hunter and I took the dinner we were going to serve at our house, up to the Glen and had it there (Drew was already at the Glen, as my mom brings him home on the bus with her from school).

It's embarrassing, but I always shed a few tears when our cows/bulls are sent out.  I know it's the nature of the job, and it's the circle of life and blah, blah, blah, but I seem to grow attached to certain ones, and then have a hard time saying goodbye.

And there you have it.....the main events from this month so far.  We've got a few more things lined up for the next couple of days, and I will post about them soon...hopefully with a bit more detail.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

 This month has been a whirlwind of Christmas fun, work and the everyday normal chaos that is our life so far.  I'll try to some it up in less than 500 pages.

November 26 found James and I getting all dressed up in our best sparkly (well, I was sparkly, James was not) holiday wear and headed to Woodbridge for James' work Christmas party.  We left the boys with James' parents made a quick getaway.  The evening was fun, meal was good, but James was sick so we left "early".  By early, I mean 10:30, which was when dinner was finished.  We got home and the boys were asleep.  We heard later, that there were some troubles getting them to sleep.....oh well, such is life.

Of course, the one thing I wanted to get from this night was a decent picture of James and I all dressed up.  The only way this was going to happen was if I hog-tied James and took the picture myself.  God-forbid he take a picture with just him and his wife.  Not that I'm bitter or anything.

December came around and we found ourselves at the Mountsberg Christmas town.  This year, we went with a momstown group.  Were it not for this momstown group, we would have missed out on Christmas town all together.  It was sold out to the general public within 5 minutes, and believe me, we TRIED!!!  Christmas town is where Santa keeps his cottage, and we were able to visit Santa and Mrs. Claus in their cottage, decorate cookies in Mrs. Claus' kitchen and have a horse and carriage ride to and from the activities.

We had a great time there.  Really hope we can get tickets next year.  Really, really hope they change their reservation system and it's not such a nightmare to get tickets.  Thank you to momstown.ca for allowing us to go with them.

I should mention here that Drew did not want to go see Santa on this day.  He was almost in tears the night before, saying he did not want to go see him.  I wasn't sure why at first, up until that point he seemed in love with the man.  Then I remembered the phone call.  The Optimist club of Georgetown had arranged for Santa to call all of the kindergarten students in the area.  We were told 3 dates and times that he may try calling on, and we were to be near the phone at these times.  All 3 of the times were times when we were going to be at the Glen, so I made sure to remind Santa of this. 

Sure enough, Santa called Drew at my parents house, asked how he was, asked how Hunter was.  The look on Drew's face was one of pure wonder, and sheer terror.  I'm sure he was thinking, "how the f@#$% did he know I was here????"  The day before, I had pulled the Santa card.  "Drew, Santa is watching, you need to try and be a better listener".  In fact, about an hour before, I had reminded him of this fact.  And then Santa calls him???!?!?!?  The poor guy.  Anyways, I'm pretty sure this is why Drew didn't want to go visit him at Christmas town.

James left Christmas town for work, and I took the boys to Burlington to pick up our photos from Natural Attraction Photography (with a side-trip to Ikea, of course).

My fav family photo from the shoot

The next major event on our calendar was picking out our Christmas tree.  We went to a tree farm on Derry road in Milton.  It was the first time we had been to this farm and it was awesome.  We picked out our tree from the barn (they didn't have many trees left to cut down in the field) and they sent it down this conveyor belt.....a HUGE hit with Drew.

Santa and Mrs. Claus were, of course, there.

And the highlight was Drew being allowed to sit on top of the van while James tied the tree to it.

"Mommy, I'm sitting on top of Hunter!!"

Once we got the tree home, Drew and James cut the bottom off of it and we placed it in it's stand.  The boys were quite disappointed that I would not let them decorate it right away.  I told them we had to wait until the next day so that it could settle.  Sure enough, at 6am the next morning, Drew was up all ready with his decorations.  We blasted the x-mas tunes and decorated that tree at 6am...then finished off with a dance party, cause it ain't an event if my kids aren't dancing.

The Santa train was next on our list of Christmas things to do.  We met my parents, James' parents, Lisa, Norm and the girls at the Inglewood train station for a magical train ride with Christmas carols, cookies, hot chocolate and a visit from Santa.

Why does this bearded man keep showing up everywhere I go???

Drew's Christmas concert was later on that week.  It was all of 15 minutes long, they sang 3 songs, but I cried through the entire thing.  It was pretty special for me.  As you may or may not know, I went to school there, so watching my child preform in his first concert in the same gym as I did many years ago was pretty special.  What made it even more meaningful was that my kindergarten teacher was in the audience as well.  She has a grandchild in kindergarten at Pineview and was there to watch the performance.  Life is funny sometimes, eh?

Hunter was great through the entire show.  I was nervous about taking him, figured he would end up on stage or something like that.  He sat with me the entire time, and clapped after each song.  My mom came to watch, as did James' parents.  My dad and James were at work and missed the whole thing.

This post brings us up to December 8.  I will continue on with my re-cap tomorrow night as it's getting late....stay tuned!  :)