a flurry of activity

Hello everyone! I hope that Santa and the Christmas holidays have treated you well! Once again, Christmas has come and gone in the blink of an eye and we have had a very busy few days here. It always amazes me how long it takes to prep and get stuff organized for the big day, and how fast it all comes to an end. So much planning goes into the holidays and I always try to stretch these special times into lasting just a little bit longer. This year we were very fortunate to have family out here for the entire holiday. It is always so much nicer to spend this time of year with friends and family and that is exactly what happened this year. Grandma and Grandpa Werkman joined us on the 23rd (after a very delayed flight) and will be staying right through the new year. Kylie and Lindsay now live in Calgary so Christmas was all the more merrier. Here's a quick re-cap of what went on over the last few days:

Christmas Eve: prepping for the arrival of the bug guy himself, a great dinner, our tradition of the Christmas Eve light tour after dinner, laying out the cookies for Santa, and reading Twas the Night Before Christmas before sending the kids off to bed.

Christmas Day: very loud! great fun opening gifts, a nice brunch, cooking a great turkey dinner (this year done entirely by Grandma....thanks Grandma!), relaxing by the fire for the evening

Boxing Day: this is our traditional pj day, turkey sandwiches, mulled cider, baking, a warm fire, the extra large Boxing Day crossword that everyone pitches in on, and more baking!

Dec 27th: when family is here we always rent out a local gym for an hour or so and everyone plays badminton, basketball, floor hockey and whatever else we can fit in, and a trip to the Calgary Zoo for Zoo Lights.

Phew! See....I told you we were very busy!

Here are a few pics of our holiday celebrations!

Putting out the milk and cookies for Santa on Christmas Eve.

Christmas morning discovery! One of my favourite things!

The dollhouse built especially for Maelle by Grandpa Werkman. This dollhouse was absolutely stunning and will definitely become a family treasure. Thank you so much Grandpa! I should add that Aidan had his new firetruck parked in the lower level for most of the day.

Mmmmm.....Christmas dinner!

The "tree of life" at Zoo Lights.

Aidan and Maelle get involved in a little Igloo building at Zoo Lights.

We have a few more events planned for the remaining holiday such as New Year's Eve with good friends, a trip to Lake Louise to hopefully get in a brunch and a little sledding and skating, Grandma is going to teach me how to knit (don't laugh now, it has been a goal of mine for some time!), and some good relax time by the fire! I'll keep ya posted!

Merry Christmas!

Hey Everyone!

Just a quick Merry Christmas to you all from all of us! We hope that everyone will have a great Christmas and a very Happy Holidays! We have been very busy here preparing for the big arrival of Santa Claus tonight, and no doubt we will have loads of fun over the next few days. I'll get some pics posted in the next little while of some of our holiday celebrations!

Merry Christmas!

my little elves

So...I had a few little (ok and 1 big) kitchen elves today. They decided to take measures into their own hands and make a few chocolate macaroons as part of our holiday baking. It was all up to Aidan, Maelle and Brent, as I carefully retreated to the basement to finish up a bit of wrapping and some Christmas projects. As I puttered about, I could hear the "elves" working away on their creations. I just had to sneak up and grab a few pics!

The two "head elves" working away on the macaroons...

Sneaking in closer to get a better look I noticed that Brent was doing all of the work, and Aidan was working on getting that spoon clean!

The end result! A few trays full of some chocolaty goodness! They were really good too! Notice Aidan is still working on the spoon!

Thank you little elves! Nicely done!

the house the kids built

I have never seen someone so dedicated to making a gingerbread house just right. The kids worked on this house for a good part of Wednesday afternoon...each one adding his or her own personal touches. Maelle finished up after about an hour, while Aidan was very determined to use up every piece of candy from the tray. Another hour later, an empty bowl of icing, some sticky fingers and coloured lips (he says he didn't even eat a single piece of candy....hmmmmm) he was finished. Check out the results below!

Not too bad huh?

A little exhausted from the house building, I let the kidlets curl up on the couch under a well loved quilt (a house warming gift made by Grandma Werkman about 7 years ago!) and watch a little Mickey's Twice Upon A Christmas. I love Christmas movies! But....instead of curling up with Aidan and Maelle, I needed to go and clean up the red and green sprinkles that adorned my floor, and scrape some icing off my island. My kitchen looked like a full size gingerbread house! Maybe another day!

he shoots....he scores!

We have ice!!! Yay!

Brent has finally managed to get the rink up and going! And the best part....thanks to some milder weather (-15 degrees, balmy!) we were able to get Aidan outside to give it a go. He started out with his boots this morning, and then strapped on the skates later this afternoon. Even though Aidan still uses his trusty chair for support, I give him a few more days and he'll be comfortable enough to try it on his own. It's quite exciting to have a rink in our backyard and hopefully we'll get Maelle out there tomorrow to give it a go.

Speaking of Maelle....check out the "like mother, like daughter" pic below.

Do I really look like this throughout the day?

I guess I do!

chilly days & frosty nights

Even though its too cold to be outside, their is always something very comforting about curling up inside the house in front of a warm fire and playing games and watching movies with Aidan and Maelle. After getting the kids moved into the same room (yep, they now share a room!) this is how we spent our afternoon on Sunday.


Ahhh.....warm and cozy.


Poor Dakota....it's been a few days of playing inside. Be patient girl!

a medieval feast

Well after a major snowstorm swept through Calgary dropping another 8" of snow on top of the 6" we received a few days ago, and some very chilly temps, we were able to go ahead with the kids' birthday party. Yay! This year I decided to combine both parties into one big Medieval themed feast. We had some good friends over, ate a tonne of food, had lots of cake and cookies, and of course the kids received some very thoughtful presents from their freinds. Good times were had by all despite the extremely cold weather. The kids put on their knight helmets and personalized crowns and got the party rolling! Here are just a few pics from the party.

A joint effort by everyone to blow out the candles.

Gift opening...everyone lends a helping hand.

Even Humphrey got in on the action!

the love of pj's

Ok...everyone must have a pair of Christmas pj's! I think I need a pair like Aidan and Maelle's! A special thanks to Grandma Werkman for sending the kidlets some Christmas pj's to wear on the big day! Well....they were a little too excited about them so we couldn't wait quite that long!


So....mom....do you have any fabric left? Say for a pair of these just bigger??

the day after...

A cute picture of Aidan and Maelle checking out the snowfall from yesterday's unpredicted kinda snow storm. I love it when even the tree branches have a tonne of snow on them. It feels so much like Christmas now!

look who's 2!!!

Today it was all about Maelle! I cannot believe that she is two years old today. I have no idea as to where the time has gone.

The day started out with a nice breakfast followed by Maelle opening her presents. Now, Maelle is completely different in her approach to presents than Aidan. Aidan will just tear into whatever it is and plough through until everything has been opened. Maelle on the other hand, had to carefully remove every piece of wrapping paper, and thoroughly examine the contents of the actual gift. I think she played with every single thing before moving onto the next one! Too funny. At any rate is was a great day. As an added an unexpected bonus we received about 20cm of fresh snow! How's that for a birthday gift!!

Maelle's new fairy house that I made for her. She loved this! Although I do expect to find some of Aidan's dinosaurs lurking inside any day now!

A special cupcake for the little lady topped with a raspberry of course!

What could be better than a yummy jello-cupcake, topped with whipped cream? Not much!

Happy Birthday sweetheart!

maelle & me

Today was a special day for both Aidan and Maelle. Days like this are also special for mom and dad too. Every once in a while, Brent and I split up and hang out with the kids one on one. We usually head out and do something special, something fun, or something just plain simple. Today was one of those simple days. Brent went with Aidan, and I had the day with Maelle. We did a little Christmas shopping, and paid a visit to IKEA which was busy but a blast as I laughed at Maelle bopping along to the Christmas music. We even enjoyed a cinnamon bun and a milk together after we were done our shopping. She is an absolute riot to shop with! It was so much fun to share in all the giggles and I hope that we will be able to do this for a long time to come. After naptime, we embarked on a little early Christmas baking...no, there is no way these cookies will last even past the weekend!

Check out the pics of my little kitchen helper:

Such a great little helper...if she would just stop eating the dough!

Brent is currently carrying on his day with Aidan and turning it into the night as well. They are currently camping in the basement in what we refer to as the "Harry Potter Suite" which is basically a futon covered in pillows, and backed with a bookshelf full of books, under our stairs to the basement, that the kids use as a fort. All I have heard for the past half an hour are tonnes of giggles, silly jokes, and Aidan saying "don't worry dad I won't toot!" That's boys for ya!

hot chocolate

You would think that after a morning full of playing with friends and having a nice lunch, and battling the sniffles and a cough, that one young man would at least have a few hours sleep. Uhhh...no. Apparently this young man claimed that he wasn't tired and he was too excited about an earlier mention of hot chocolate and marshmallows that he couldn't sleep. So.....what did I do? Gave in to the little young man, and promised that he could have his hot chocolate after he helped me with a few more decorations. The results....a very happy Aidan!

Yes, he learned this from me! Oh come on...how else are you supposed to get the gooey, chocolaty soaked marshmallows out of the bottom of the cup? Isn't that the best part anyway?

starting a band

I've got it! If we have a big family...we'll need to start a band! Of course!
Check out this video as we already have 2 stars in the making!

In case you are wondering what Aidan and Maelle are singing, it seems to be a compilation of Christmas carols, pre-school songs, Bob The Builder and In the Night Garden characters, in no particular order. At least that's all I could pick out.

You may need to turn down my lovely Christmas carols that start automatically when viewing the blog. To do this scroll all the way to the bottom of the page and you can adjust the volume on the black music screen.