Freezing and Thawing and Partying
Posted on January 5th, 2014
It’s been a memorable holiday season. Christmas that was both black(out) and crazily white… So much awesome family… Yummy food and festive music… Gratuitous cuteness….
The true meaning of Christmas: Cousin R and Baby AB chillin’ with random things in their mouths.
E with brand-new cousin M.
My Aunt’s legendary Figgy Pudding on Christmas Eve.
Artsy Christmas tree pic taken by E.
Baby AB snuggling.
Self-selected holiday fashion.
Self-selected (except for the sleeper) holiday fashion.
I’m sure y’all heard about (/participated in) that crazy ice storm. My poor parents were without power for 4 days, so Christmas morning ended up at our house! But the TREES. The SPARKLINESS. On Christmas Eve, E looked out the window and started exclaiming about all the new “pretty lights” on ALL the trees; it was the sunset hitting the ice. Amazing.
I just know there are majorly profound lessons to be taken from the cedars and birches that just bend like this, then (mostly) recover when the ice melts.
Presents! Here was a fave: mini paleontological dig in plaster for a triceratops tooth.
So, Mrs. Claus was in Chapters a few weeks before Christmas and found this: a BOY FAIRY. She thought of E, who had recently been watching Tinkerbell and who still wants to wear his fairy wings even though the elastic is stretched all to heck. She took the plunge.
Then she also got this lovely-and-not-too-frou-frou girl fairy.
Then she got a daemon for each fairy (baby wolf, baby tiger) and got a bit crafty with a pretty gift box and tag she’d received from a fellow blogger, and made a fairy house. (The door’s in the top because FAIRIES. They fly in.) (And yes. Mrs. Claus has a blog. Pretty sure she’s on Pinterest too.) In case you’re wondering, E did not flip out over the fairies as Mini-Di would have at his age, but he has been enjoying his fairy folk, on-and-off. He was stoked when he realized that his popsicle-stick craft from school makes a perfect deck for them.
But this present was the real winner. Automoblox Minis. He had one already from his Great-Aunt Suze, so Mommy and Daddy added these – and you can mix and match all their parts, once you have more than one. Seriously, they’re so fun.
Pillow forts. Baby AB is a fort-wrecker, and also hilarious.
Treats!
New Year’s Eve fireworks in the park! E’s first “up-close” fireworks. Damn cold but awesome all the same.
New Year’s Day open house at Grammie and Papa’s. All partied out.
Now here we are. Gearing up to go back to school and normal life tomorrow, while also battening down for another storm. Bracing for back-to-school germs, now that both kids are finally almost done coughing and E is getting over his second bilateral ear infection since JK started. Feeling a bit of the blues, but also glad to be getting back to a routine.
And today, my Hubbibi spent the day cleaning house (while I got the kids out of there) so we could all feel fresh and ready for NEW YEARNESS. (Thanks, honey. What a difference.)
Here we go!
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Thanks for the trip down memory lane! (‘Course, these memories are recent enough that I can actually still remember them myself!) But this was great fun!
Thanks for hosting many of the good times! xoxo
Always love your posts…looks like you had a wonderful holiday! Love E’s self-selected holiday fashion!! Happy New Year and I hope to see you soon!
Happy New Year to all of you too, Heather! <3
Love the pictures of your beautiful family. It looks like you had a wonderful holiday. It certainly was a Christmas season that had many twists and turns for people with weather challenges, etc…..my family included. December is always filled with surprises….my husband had pneumonia, one of my grandsons who’s 3 had a trip to the emerg with a cold virus (he was OK but gave it to me!) so then I developed bronchitis the week of Christmas. And then there was the ice storm….although we never lost power but my son and family in Toronto did. In spite of it all……we went to Ottawa for Christmas festivities with my son there and his family and then I went to Florida for New Year’s with my other son and family……..many wonderful moments to treasure. Oh……and we landed at Pearson on Monday the 6th at 11:30 pm in the middle of the chaos there…..4 hours on the tarmac and home by 6:00 am!! Too crazy….but I would do it all over again. So…..Happy New Year to you and yours. Life is always an adventure!!!
Wow, Beverley! That’s even busier than ours – at least our multiple family groups are all in the same region of the province! But I’m glad you’ll obviously be remembering the good parts most. Happy New Year! May you all be healthy in 2014.