Thursday, December 22, 2011

Winding down for the Holidays

This is my last work day before Christmas and will also be my last blog before then.

I love this time of year. I am happy to take my kids and dogs and help my grandparents prepare the house for the family arriving on the 24th and then spend the rest of the day hard at work preparing my house. It needs a good thorough cleaning before company comes on the 26th.

I love seeing all the family!! Its the best part of the year!!

So here is me, wishing all of you, a very Merry Christmas!

May it bring you all the blessings of love, family, and magic that Chrstimas has to offer.


I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round, as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. ~Charles Dickens

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

My favorite...

I am wondering what everyone's favorite Christmas foods are? Is it 1 thing that you think of right away, or is it a combination of things?

My favorite depends on who's house I am at.

At my Mom-in-laws house it is these little egg cup things that she makes for breakfast, at my grandma's it is the chicken wings and cabbage rolls, at Aunt Liz's house it is the green bean cassarole, at step-mom-in-law it would be just about everything, and at my Auntie Janette's house it is all the homemade goodies for after dinner.

What's your favorite?

Sunday, December 18, 2011

Enjoying Christmas for the important parts...

We had the great pleasure of being able to enjoy a side of our family that we don't often see. Sure, its a mish-mashed group, but we love them.

My hubby's sister was good enough to host everyone at her house and everyone that came pitched in what we could to help out. I was more than happy to do the veggies, stuffing, a few home made goodies and a bunch of drinks.

We were all pretty squished in there, but we listened to Christmas music, chatted, skyped with my in-laws in Ontario, almost spilled all the turkey juice on the floor, spilled orange pop on the carpet, and I got to know 2 of my nieces a lot better. I loved hearing Devry say "auntie Steph, again?" to me over and over after singing Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.

Dinner was fabulous, all the appies were amazing and all went well.

This is one of my favorite parts of Christmas, spending time with loved ones. It just makes me happy :)

Friday, December 16, 2011

Trying something new

So, after seeing all the yummy flavored vodka's while we were in the states for our anniversary I decided to give it a shot making my own seeing as we don't have all those yummy flavors here.

At home right now I have 2 jars of vodka that is infusing with marshmallow and coffee. I am quite excited to see what they turn out like.

Its a pretty basic process. Simply find a air-tight container (not plastic) and pick the flavor you would like. As I mentioned, I am doing one marshmallow and one coffee. Simply put some of whatever flavor you would like into the jar and fill with the vodka, close and give it a vigorous shake for 30 seconds.

Store in a cool place such as a cupboard or fridge. A few times a day, give it another shake. The amount of time you leave the flavoring in depends on how much flavor you would like. Simply open after 24hrs and take a small amount as a sample.

Once it is at the desired infusion, you have to strain the mixture. You can use a tea strainer with cheese cloth or a coffee filter. This may need to be done a few times depending on how much granules are left in the liquid, but the more you strain, the more flavor you run the risk of losing.

Once strained, store in a clean air-tight container such as a mason jar or flask and make sure to label it.

I plan on trying a caramel, and possibly a vanilla one next.

~Have fun trying it yourself!~


Merry Christmas Everyone!

PS- 8 days till Christmas :)

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

The mad rush....

Tuesday was the primary Christmas production for Vedder Elementary. My son was a very proud Reindeer and made a point of mentioning that we just HAD to see him perform.

The children were supposed to be at GW Graham at 6:10 to get ready for their part and it was supposed to start at 6:30. I dropped the kids off first so Syd could get Reece where he needed to go and grab us some seats and ran home to grab hubby.

When we got to the school there was a line of 30-40 people waiting to get into the tiny auditorium to see the kids. There were about a quarter of the amount of seats needed to fit everyone who was there to see it.

The teachers had to actually ask people who had seen the 1:00 performance if they would mind stepping out so that people who hadn't seen it yet could watch. They had to ask people who had their other children sitting on chairs to sit them on their laps to make room for others.

Here is where I had a problem. For every 1 kid performing, there seemed to be 10 adults, it was ridiculous. There were some parents that didn't get too see their kid because an Aunt, or brother-in-law, or other relative or friend was sitting down. I didn't think that was right.

Luckily after the 4th time that the audience was asked to vacate unnecessarily used seats, some more people did and hubby and I got a seat. Sydney had to wait outside the auditorium because she had already seen the earlier show.

Right after Reece was done performing, hubby and I left to give up our seats to other parents who did not have any and headed home for dinner.

Luckily, even though we were on the opposite side of the stage from Reece, I had brought my zoom lens and got some good photos.

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

I have amazing kids

I think sometimes we as parents forget about how fabulous our kids really can be.

    Take my daughter for instance. She recieved some money from my mom and her hubby for Christmas and has since been spending it trying to remember everyone that we see for christmas and buy them something, no matter how small. The only thing is that she has spent quite a bit of her money on it now and I just put a stop to it. See, she wants a few really expensive things for Christmas and I had to remind her that she needs to save her money for those things. Her response was "I just don't want to hurt anyones feelings by not getting them anything." Could she BE any sweeter?



   My son yesterday asked me what a demon was. Considering I went to private school I explained it by telling him the difference between Angels and Demons. He then told me that he has to work very hard to make sure no demons get into his brain. I told him that he has too good of a heart to have demons in his brain. He walked up to me, gave me his adorable grin that he does, placed both his hands on my cheeks and said "mom, your my angel" and walked away. Could he BE any sweeter?




I truly am blessed to have such great kids

Monday, December 12, 2011

Okay, so I forgot

I know I was supposed to be doing a blog daily, but hey, its the Christmas Season and we all get busy. So here is the breakdown on my fabulous Christmassy weekend.

Friday: after dropping the kids off at school, I ran to my office and helped to bag and count all the Blanket, Coat, etc donations that the Realtors gathered for the annual Blanket drive. When that was all done, I ran home, and got ready for my tattoo appointment.
Thats' right, I am now a branded woman. I am officially a badger.
Well, it got finished just in time to go pick up the kids from school. We grabbed a Booster Juice to keep our energy up and did a little running around.

After a little relaxing time at home, I took the kids to my mom-in-laws for the night as it was the evening of my work Christmas Party. I got home and hubby and I got ready and walked to the restaurant. It was a cold night, but a nice walk.

Dinner was fabulous! Go check out this place. Garrison Bistro.

Saturday: In the morning, hubby and I went out for a nice quiet breakfast alone. We met up with the rest of the in-laws afterwards to head to Stewarts Tree Farm to pick our Christmas Tree. We stomped around up there for the better part of 2 hours and came home with a fabulous tree. After a simple lunch of grilled cheese and veggies with dip we proceeded to decorate the house. It now looks like Christmas threw up all over it. I just love Christmas!!!

Seeing as we didn't have a chance to celebrate Reece's birthday with his Grandma Jo we all met at the Chillibowl and had a blast there before going for dinner at Mr.Mikes. Again, yummy food.

We took the kids home and hubby helped them use Reece's new gift, Dr.Dreadful Zombie Lab. See below:

Soon after this was taken, they also drank Zombie barf. Now, I know what you're thinking. "What does this have anything to do with Christmas?" Nothing at all except maybe the hat Syd is wearing.

We move on to Sunday: I got up and ran to the store to get all the stuff for eggs benny for the family and ended up getting a Turkey as well (free with points! Yay!)  Got home, fed the family, had a yummy Golden French Toast coffee from the Keurig and got ready to go out.

We all went to the Colossus in Langley to catch a showing of "White Christmas". Its definitely in my top 5 Christmas movies, so it was a real treat. Sitting next to my son hearing his running commentary made it even better.

It was a pleasure to have the inlaws join us for stew for dinner and a few Christmas specials on TV.

Once we got the kids into bed and hubby and I were just sitting on the couch, we decided to go out and take advantage of the extended hours that some stores are offering and get our Christmas shopping done. We did. It is so cool to be done already. 2 weeks to go and now anything else we get is just bonus.

Unfortunately, a great weekend has to end with work. So here I am, sitting at my desk, writing a super long blog because of my lack of any extra time to do so this weekend.

Thursday, December 8, 2011

My special little guy

Today is my son's 6th Birthday.


He is super excited to finally be 6 and asked me to measure him against the wall. I went to get a measuring tape and he corrected me with "Just with your finger mom".

He stood as tall as he could against the wall and grabbed my hand and put it on his head. I told him to step away and he looked at it, smiled and said "I'm 6 years tall".

I love this kid. He is so funny and can make me laugh every day. Its hard for me to believe that 6 years ago, I had been sent away from the hospital to go get some breakfast while they waited for a room to clear so they could induce me. Who would have known all the things we would go through over the next 6 years with him.

He was born with a cleft palate. Not the lip like most people think when they hear that. He basically just didn't have the roof of his mouth. At 9 months he went through surgery to correct that and put the first set of tubes in his ears. Over the following 4 years we would travel back and forth to BC Children's Hospital in Vancouver for different tests and new tubes when the other ones came out.

About 1.5-2 years ago I was done with that treck and had our GP refer us to an ENT (aer, nose & throat doctor) here in Chilliwack.

Within the last week he just got his eigth set of tubes and is doing wonderfully in school. He is picking up on reading and aside from his IMMENSE love of video games, I couldn't be more proud of him.

He really is my special little guy

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

My day today

Today started as per usual, after the 3rd alarm I finally crawled my butt outta bed, woke both the kids and let the dogs out of the kennel.

 After the normal routine we left to get the kids to school and then off to work I went. We had a course held at work today so we had 50+ people through the office. The day went basically the same as every other day except for the time after work.

Today I got to visit an old friend in Agassiz to get my hair done. She brought up a good point after I said it takes barely 20 min to get to her house.
"It only takes that time and we see each other MAYBE twice a year".

  Isn't it funny how when we are teenagers, friends are the MOST important thing in our lives? As we get older our priorities change. For some it's school, for others it's work and for others its family. Whatever those things, we become busy and seldom see those people that were the most important part of our lives.

  I think it's a pretty easy way to tell if you have actually grown up or not.

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

A Blog a Day will Keep the Boredom Away

Here is my challenge to myself. From now till Christmas I will post a blog every day. Considering this is my third today, I will start a series tomorrow.

Taking Suggestions

So, I find that sometimes I am at a lack for things to Blog about.

So I am putting this out there. If anyone has a suggestion of something or just wants to hear my blab about anything specific, let  me know.

Post it in the comments.