Christmas Shared with Family 2013

After a wonderful morning together Hannah and I packed up the car and headed to my mom and dad’s to spend time with the rest of the family.  As usual we were the last to arrive.  How can it be it takes me longer to get 2 people ready than it does either of them with their large families??

It was easy to see that Santa had made his stop at mom and dad’s too as my little nephew Kallen (showing his Auntie his new 14 month old walking skills!) checked out the stockings placed by the chimney with care.

My brother Dave donned his Santa hat son and began handing out the gifts.  I love that our family tradition even with so many people is to still have 1 person open a gift at a time so that we can all enjoy sharing the excitement!

Some candid shots of enjoying this time together.  Left to right:  niece Bec, nephew Kallen, amazing Hannah, niece Makenna and SIL Trish

Mom, niece Shelby and nephew Keenan

Niece Brook and SIL Alesha

Dad

We were sorry that my niece Laken, nephews Josh, Justin and Noah and my brother Ken couldn’t be with us but hopefully next year!

Makenna enjoyed the Rapunzel hat Grandma and Grandpa carefully brought home from FL and Dave is excited to try out his new fishing rod when the ice melts and spring arrives.

By far the gift of the day was the gift Dad gave to Mom.  Suffice to say all the women in the room were crying as she opened it!!

Mom and Dad enjoyed their most favourite holiday together when they went to Hawaii for their 25th anniversary.  They had always wanted to go back but it had just never happened.  They celebrated their 55th anniversary last year and had hoped to go back to Hawaii but once again it just hadn’t happened.  Dad took care of all this and they leave on Feb 18th for a 15 day Hawaiian cruise!!  We are all excited for them!

After the gifts were opened we shared a delicious turkey dinner together and then went our separate ways.  Hannah and I headed to Nana and Papa’s for our annual Christmas Night time together.  By this point my little love was waning in energy so napped a bit in the car.  She cuddled in with Nana and Papa as we shared about our days.

I love how these pictures happened to capture Hannah’s current comfort habit of rubbing our thumbs.  When she’s with me, mom, dad, Nana or Papa she loves to rub our thumbs as a comfort.  (She has declared Mommy has one nice ‘thumby’ and one cranky one and definitely prefers my right thumb.  Lol!)  This started a few months back and now happens numerous times each day and oh how we love it!

After a while she was ready for more gift opening.  This bag is almost as big as she is!

Hannah and I enjoyed all of the gifts we received and were blessed beyond measure!  Sharon and Larry gave me a Pandora bracelet for my birthday and this Christmas I received 3 new charms, each with special meaning, to add to it.  Mom and Dad added the heart with ‘Love’ written in Chinese.  Dave and Trish (who share our love for Disney) added the Mickey charm and Sharon, Larry and Hannah added the ‘Mom’ charm.  I love how each charm holds such precious meaning and the stories I think of each time I look at this beautiful gift!

We love our family and the special time Christmas allows us to share together as we celebrate the birth of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus!

A Couple of Christmas Morning Videos

I didn’t have these uploaded when I put up the original post but wanted to share them as they capture Hannah’s sweet personality so well.  I love her excitement and caring heart!

Helping Mommy open the sweet gift she made at school.

Christmas Morning 2013

Christmas was a wonderful day for Hannah and I filled with lots of love, time together and special moments with family!

Hannah first woke up at 5:30 but thankfully only took a little encouragement to fall back asleep until 6:50.  By then Mommy was ready to get up too.  I stopped to brush my teeth so missed her first view of the tree.  I think next year I’ll have to start the, ‘You wait here while mommy checks to see if Santa came’ routine so that I can turn on the tree lights and also capture her first moments. 

We both enjoyed opening our stockings first and seeing all the neat treats Santa had packed in there. 

Hannah was happy when she received a new Tinkerbell LeapPad game, map and Princess Cupcake game from Santa.  The game was what she’d asked for often so she was extra excited about that!

The DVD player she watches in the car had broken so Mommy bought her a new one plus a fuzzy blanket to replace her favourite baby ones that are too short to cover my tall little girl now! 

What a treat it was this year when I found some wonderful little surprises from Hannah under the tree too!  Many were handmade and quickly became treasures!  She was so excited to give each one to me!

She made me this beautiful bracelet and then kissed Mommy’s hand when she put it on me.  Oh how she melts me!!

Encased in this beautiful handmade wrapping was a sweet Christmas tree made when her teacher painted her feet green and then she stamped on a star and painted a stem.  Must take a pic of that!

After the gifts were opened and before the cleaning crew of Mommy and Hannah arrived. 

We played her Princess cupcake game which is an adorable game for a 4 yo who enjoys playing with little, tiny things.

After breakfast we enjoyed our annual tradition of watching the Disney Christmas parade together.

Hannah and I enjoyed a wonderful Christmas morning at home together before heading to Mom and Dad’s for more excitement.  We hope you had a great day too!

Merry Christmas!

From our family to yours…

Merry Christmas!!!

Some Things Are Too Cute Not To Repeat!

A visit back to Hannah’s preschool Christmas concert last year…’How on Earth Did God’s Baby Sleep?’

School Christmas Concert

Last night was Hannah’s first Primary School Christmas Concert and she was beyond excited!  Add to that the 6 late night’s we’ve had in a row and this was what I saw much of the time we were waiting for her to go to her classroom.

Yes, she was a dancing, twirling ball of energy but I wasn’t taking her to the classroom 1 minute early because I knew her teachers were going to have to tame 22 of these cuties while they awaited their time on stage!

My little miss did eventually pause for 1 pic to humour mommy and thankfully it turned out beautifully!

I am thankful that even though the concert is officially called a ‘Holiday Concert’ that the evening was filled with all sorts of Christmas pieces (Silent Night, Good King Wenceslas), fun Christmas songs like We Wish You a Merry Christmas and more as well as neat songs like Dradel, Dradel and Hannah’s classes song called ‘I’m a Little Latke!’  Cute!

This is their first song and  it made me giggle when Hannah’s buddy E lost his costume.  She was all about checking it out and I could see the wheels turning.  She was problem solving just like they talk about in school!  Heh!  Thankfully all was well in the end.  (I accidentally thought the song was finished so you get this one in 2 videos.)

Their 3rd song was a Santa Rap. 

Hannah has a great teacher and is loving school!  Thank you Mrs. C and Miss H. for all you are teaching Hannah and the other children in her class!!  She is excited to go to school each day and I’m excited to find out all she is learning!  The other night we were talking about something and she suddenly came out with, ‘It’s okay mommy.  Don’t be frightened.  The story is only fiction.  It’s not real.  Fiction means it’s made up.’  Wow!!  I know for sure that ‘fiction’ wasn’t in my vocabulary at 4!

A Tradition Continues–Gingerbread House Decorating

For the past couple of years we’ve shared an evening with family and friends decorating gingerbread houses.  (2012 and 2011)  We started talking about going again this year way back in October but with our busy schedules we just couldn’t find an evening that worked for all of us.  Too bad!

I still wanted to enjoy this evening with Hannah so I booked it for us alone.  The store we normally go to was not offering the class on a night we were available so we went to different location of the same store.  Sadly it just wasn’t the same and we’ll be headed back to our home store next year.  We found out the hard way that all cooking classes are not created equal.

That being said, Hannah enjoyed herself and truly that’s all that matters!

That’s my girl!  Check out her Hidden Mickey!

This was her finished product before she buried it with a small blizzard. 

Post blizzard

You do so well Hannah!  Another year of gingerbread memories created together!

Hannah’s First Piano Recital!!

Tonight was a big night for my little girl!  She has worked really hard this fall learning the initial basics of playing the piano and tonight she shared her music at Nana’s piano recital for the very first time!

Jolly Old Saint Nicholas

I have been so happy with Hannah and her desire to learn to play.  She’s only had 5 or 6 lessons but tonight confidently got up and played her piece for all who were there.  She is learning from the best piano teacher there is – her Nana!  Sharon was my teacher too and she is an amazing pianist and teacher! 

Each day she is happy to practice and it’s often Hannah that says, ‘Mommy, lets go practice piano!’  We’ve had to play around with the best time that works for us and it’s a toss-up between early morning and as soon as we get home from daycare.  Depending on the day we switch between those 2 times and she does well. 

We’ve had our moments of practice challenge  but most days it goes well.  

Hannah you played so well and Mommy is so proud of you!!  May you have many years of beautiful music ahead of you!

PS – I went down to change the laundry tonight and this is what I found.  It looks like Bobble Chippey was encouraged to play after listening to Hannah tonight!

Imperfection is Perfection! Our Christmas Tree!

For years my Christmas tree looked like this one.  The beads were strung carefully from branch to branch, bows and balls nicely spaced and all within the colour scheme.

Fast forward to 2013 and this is our tree this year.  And, it’s absolutely perfect and the one above pales in comparison for me!  I love it right down up to the crooked angel at the top!

We started with Hannah carefully draping weaving the beads while singing, ‘Jolly Old Saint Nicholas’

Once the beads were on Hannah donned her sparkle shoes in case of breakage.  We only lost 1 which was a much better record that in previous years!  I think it also helps that over the past 4 years I’ve also transitioned to many plastic ornaments.

The traditional final touch to our tree is the angel on top.  It took us about 10 mins with many stops for giggles but she finally got there!

Our primary decorator and her beautiful tree!  Great job Hannah XiaoFen!!

WestJet Christmas Miracle

I think almost everyone has seen this but just in case you missed it I wanted to post it here.

This is a Canadian airline and a surprise they offered to 2 flights recently.  I’ve seen it a number of times but still get goose bumps each time I view it!  Love stuff like this!!

Enjoy!!  Merry Christmas!

Frozen

Hannah has been talking about going to see ‘Frozen’ since we saw the first previews last winter.

Last weekend she and I went with her cousin Makenna and my SIL Trish for a girls afternoon out.  What fun we had!

I wasn’t sure if this movie might be a little too scary for her but she really enjoyed it and when things got too intense she just buried her head in my shoulder until that portion passed.  I found it funny to see what parts she found ‘scary’.  She watched the trolls just fine but was upset when the sisters were separated.

If you’re looking for a great family movie to attend this holiday season, Hannah and I give Frozen 2 thumbs up!

Mommy! Bobble Chippey Came Back!!

Monday morning Hannah woke up to a special surprise provided by none other than ‘Bobble Chippey!’  She first woke up o find a path of Hershey kisses leading from her bed to the main floor.

Once down there it was clear to see that good ole Bobble Chippey was back!  Wheee! 

A tradition Bobble Chippey started last year was decorating our kitchen table and setting out breakfast for us so he did that again this year.  Thanks BC!

Bobble Chippey is a fun little guy who spends the day in our home watching all the wonderful things that Hannah does!  Each night he flies back to the North Pole and tells Santa what a good little girl she is and then flies back and finds a new place to hide.  Here are his hiding places so far this year.

In the bookcase

Hanging from a picture in the hallway

In the spare toilet paper roll

Watching Hannah sleep

and finally wearing Hannah’s gymnastics outfit.  This one concerned her a little bit as she can’t touch him so wasn’t sure what she would wear to gymnastics this morning but I was allowed to gently lift him out of the outfit and set him on the floor again.  (Hannah isn’t supposed to touch him.  This is the first year that she’s picked up on this and now takes it quite seriously.)

This sweet little guy is a treat to have in our home this Christmas season as I watch her face light up each morning as she searches for him and them grins when she finds him!