The holidays are here again

With all the stress that goes along with it!

I have to confess that I'm a little Scrooge when it comes to Christmas. I find the holidays stressful, too materialistic, too rushed, the list goes on and on. I hate that it takes sometimes MONTHS to get ready for Christmas for it all to be over in a matter of hours. It's just not fair I tell you! Never mind all the family stress that goes along with Christmas.

This year is a little different. I'm dying to see Emilie on Christmas morning open her presents and play with the wrapping paper. I think it will be so exciting. We have one present in particular that I know she will just love, and I think she is just at the perfect stage developmentally for it as well, so I think she will really get a lot of use out of it. At the same time I dread Christmas dinner at my parents small home. There will possibly be about 17 people in my parents townhouse. The entire main floor is going to be transformed into a huge dining room, and their basement is a giant storage area, so is absolutely unusable. Being that Emilie is now a lean, mean, crawling machine, I am super stressed about this.

To make matters even more stressful my mother-in-law has decided that she is allergic to our cat this year and will be unable to make it for Christmas dinner. Normally I would just say it's her loss and rejoice that I don't have to put up with her eccentricities overnight, we now have Emilie, and I feel it's important for her to see both sets of grandparents for the holidays. Sigh, so I'm being the bigger person, and I suggested to Andre that we pack up everything but the kitchen sink and drive to their place for dinner on Christmas Eve. It should be a gigantic pain in the ass, and I will no doubt spend the entire visit trying to make sure Emilie doesn't get into something she shouldn't, but that's what the holidays are for right?

We did do some fun things though, starting with a little photo shoot with a local photographer. Considering the price (only $40) I am happy with the images. They looked great on our photo Christmas card, so that is a plus. Emilie would not smile at.all the entire time we were with the photographer, and I felt really disappointed when we left, but I think they turned out well regardless. Here are some of the shots that we had taken:

Pictures two, three, and five were used on our Christmas cards this year, which are currently sitting on my dining room table waiting to be written out and mailed sometime this weekend. I am sooooo behind this year.

Last weekend we went to my church's annual Breakfast with Santa. I had helped as a server in the past, and it was something I always thought would be fun to do once I had a family of my own. It was, and we ended up getting some great shots with Santa with Emilie, and Emilie and Joshua. Here are a few:

Emilie bored with breakfast, wanting to see Santa.

Checking him out.

Apparently very happy with her new story book.

Emilie and Santa.

Emilie, Santa, and Josh

Making sure Josh realizes how cool this is.

Josh with Santa

Happy Easter!

Time is passing by at lightening speed lately it seems. Everyone always said it would once our LO was born, and they are very right. Easter Sunday will mark 7 weeks since our little Emilie was born. It's been a roller coaster of a ride that's for sure!

I couldn't resist these bunny ears when I was out picking up some ingredients for some Easter cookies (which I will hopefully blog about at a later date). My little Emilie was a good sport when I had to snap some pictures to share with you all.

So Happy Easter from our home to yours!

A little late I know...

I had promised earlier to post a little picture of some DIY holiday decor and I totally slacked off. So better late than never here it is!




The one in the middle is actually a square vase filled with seasonal potpourri that we had received as a gift. I had no idea what to do, so I went with the red and silver scheme in it and decided to make use of two other square vases that I had kicking around.

I went to Zellers and picked up some plastic red faceted Christmas balls and some small shiny and sparkly silver balls. I played around with them until they were where I wanted them, and Ta Da! Cheap Holiday Decor.

I have seen Christmas balls used as decor quite a bit this holiday season, but I didn't want to use glass balls as I didn't want them to break. I think that this looks just as good, and it's a little more guest and pet friendly. This way if my cat decided to play I wouldn't be cleaning up shards of glass everywhere! So keep it in mind for next year or this year when you're out shopping and see some decorations on clearance!

Christmas Rundown

Christmas Eve already! Thankfully I booked yesterday and today off work to get the last minute things done.

This was all that we had to do, and what we still need to do in order to be ready to host dinner tomorrow:

• clean out upstairs hallway of all paint and reno supplies
• clean up main floor of all the misc crap that we've been collecting this week
• clean up the master bedroom to store coats tomorrow
• make belgian cookies for dessert Christmas day
• make dough for cinnamon rolls for breakfast Christmas morning
• clean out fridge to make room for yummy leftovers
• quickly wash kitchen and diningroom floor
• place all the wrapped Christmas presents under the tree

Saved for tomorrow before company arrives:

• vacuum carpet in the upstairs hallway and master bedroom
• clean bathrooms, and clear personal items off of counter
• make up guest bedroom for in-laws arrival
• close office door so our company can't see the mess that is this room
• sometime in there save a couple minutes to just enjoy the day with Andre before the craziness of company begins.

It doesn't seem so daunting now that I have it all written down!

I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas, and enjoys this precious time with their families and friends!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas......

At least in our livingroom that is! Since we went from a small one bedroom apartment to a house, our decorations are limited. We really only have enough for some decorations on the table in the diningroom and in the livingroom. I was so happy this Christmas because I was finally able to have a 'grown up' tree! We had a pre-lit 4 foot tree that we had put out in the apartment, but I wanted a full sized tree.

Andre and I scowered through flyers, looked at the beautiful (but expensive!) trees at Costco, and were at a loss. I wanted pre-lit. After being spoiled by our little one, I was not willing to go back. I also wanted a nice looking tree. All this meant lots of $$. Something I wasn't really wanting to spend! I had almost given up hope when I was at a Card making Workshop and the host of the workshop mentioned that she was selling a 7 foot pre-lit tree. It was two years old, but it was too big for her space. They had bought it for $200, but she was willing to sell it for $60. Needless to say it didn't take me long to accept her offer! The only catch was that it was multi coloured lights, and I'm partial to white, but for $60 I was willing to live with it for a couple years.

So here is our bargain basement tree all decorated and lit up in our living room!

I'm from the school that your tree should be a collection of all the things that remind you of the season, or mean something to you rather than something that is out of the pages of a magazine (not that there is anything wrong with that!). You will notice that in the picture. Every year I also pick out a Hallmark Collectable ornament. I'm hoping to find one that I like when I go Christmas shopping this coming Monday.

One other thing in our living room is my little Christmas Village. My grandmother decided to start buying me pieces for a village a couple years ago. I think she did this mainly because she loves them, and has always wanted one for herself. To be completely honest I was less than thrilled when I started receiving them. I think my exact words to my mother (when my grandmother was out of earshot of course) was "what the hell does she want me to do with these?". This because we had NO space for things like this in the apartment. Now that we do have the space, I am more than happy to put stuff like this on display.

So there is a little bit of the decorating that we have done for the holidays. I have a little DIY that I had done, but I haven't taken a picture, so that will just have to wait!

Halloween

It's hard to believe that as I am writing this it is already a week after Halloween! Soon we will have been in the house for a year. This year has gone by so quickly, it's hard to believe I'm already thinking about Christmas decorations.

So, our first Halloween in the house. Andre booked the day off work. Silly to have to book the day off, on a day that you're suppose to have off anyways, but whatever. He took it off. We were going to give out candy to the little neighbourhood kiddos, and then head off later on that night for a Haunted walk at the Hermitage Ruins/Dundas Valley Conservation Area courtesy of Haunted Hamilton. We did another tour with them a couple years ago, and thought that a moonlit ghost walk on Halloween would be fun.

Andre loves the holidays. Any holiday really. That's the hardest part about his job, being that he's had to work every holiday for over the last two years. Halloween is no different. He always makes sure that we have a pumpkin to carve and candy to hand out to the kids. This year we decided to go with a spider design for the pumpkin.
I wish that this design showcased our artistic abilities, but we bought a pumpkin carving kit a few years back that had a book of templates. We photocopy the templates and then copy and carve. Very easy, and very cool looking if I do say so myself.

It was so great watching Andre give out the candy to the kids. I have talked to quite a few friends about their husbands and Halloween and they would talk about how their beloved would lock themselves down in their basement until all the little ones were gone. Not Andre. I would go up for one group of kids, and then if I was going to go up for the next group, he would grab the bowl out of my hands and tell me it was his turn. He would ask all the kids what they had dressed up as and hand them the correct Jenna approved ration of candy then wish them all a Happy Halloween. It was so adorable to watch. It was one of those moments that reminded me why I love him as much as I do.

Then after all the kiddos were home safely in their parents homes hyped up on sugar we left for our Halloween adventure. The evening was a little cool, so I made sure to bring my hat and mitts. Andre on the other hand didn't think he would get cold so only wore his fall jacket. He froze his ass off. Men, god forbid they listen to us when we tell them they are going to get cold!

Here are some pictures of us as we waited for the walk to start:

Oh Andre, trying to look menacing and scary....my sister couldn't stop laughing when she saw this picture.

The walk lasted about 90 minutes as we wound our way down hiking trails in the middle of the night. It was a beautiful night for a walk. As the guide was finishing the last story of the evening on our way back everyone stopped as the clouds parted so the full moon could guide us back. It was beautiful.

We didn't really experience anything spooky while we were on the walk. There was no howling in the forest or anything like that. I did notice that for the most part the evening was very still, but as the guide was telling the stories every stop there would be a big gust of wind that would stir all the leaves in the trees. I thought it was just coincidence, but it happened on every single stop, during every story. We also noticed a little something extra when we were checking out the pictures later on that night. In this picture you will see the lights on the right shining on ruins from our flashlights, but there on the left through the open window, we can't explain the lights. There was nothing in the back except for branches and beams holding the side walls up. Kind of spooky don't you think?
*I'm writing this on my netbook, so I copied the pictures from facebook, hopefully later I will replace at least this picture with a higher resolution original*
Then at the end of the night as we were hearing some more stories and touring the back of the building (or what is left anyway), a couple offered to take our picture. She was very nice.
See what I mean about nothing behind the building? Very spooky.

I hope everyone else out there had a great Halloween!

Father's Day BBQ

It was kind of a last minute celebration around here. Andre was at work (as usual) and I invited my parents, and sister Carrie and her boyfriend Darren over for a BBQ. It was a great chance for all of us to spend some family time together, and I got to host our very first BBQ outside.

Andre joined us later on when he was done work, and Carrie and Darren stayed later and the four of us just gabbed and enjoyed the great weather. It was a lot of work, but worth it.

Easter at our house

Let me start out by mentioning that I do not give my mother enough credit. She has been the only one to host every Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas for as long as I can remember. She's one of four children, but for some reason my Uncles and Aunt are well....ummm......lazy, so she does it all. Andre decided that since we have the house now that we should host Easter this year. The only problem being that he works every Sunday (regardless of Stat holiday) so he wasn't home to help. So with the help of my mom I hosted my very first holiday.

My mom was a trooper, so she decided that she would cook and carve the turkey at her house and then just bring the casserole dishes over when everything was cooked. She said it was because she has more counter space, but I secretly think that she didn't want to give up complete control over the dinner. (At least I come by my control issues honestly!) My uncle, aunt and her three children bailed on dinner so we had a smaller group, so instead of paper plates I used my good china. I was so happy to have an excuse to use everything. I loved being able to set the table for everyone. Here's a picture of how everything looked before the madness started:

Since Andre couldn't be there for dinner I snapped this shot of everyone gathered around the table before we said grace:

There were many times over the last couple months that I didn't think we'd actually have the main floor ready to host a gathering like this, but we were. Before and after dinner they guys had the tv on so they could watch the Masters, and Hailey had a great time going around and getting everyone's "order" after dinner for their coffee and tea. I gave her a pad of paper and a pencil and she'd come running into the kitchen yelling "another order up!". A totally exhausting day, but worth it.