merry-making

Make a Smilebox greeting

We have had a busy couple of days....keeping the kids entertained while they are at home full time is interesting! Vic took Sophie to the pool, Fynn has been to Junglemania, Sophie and I had a mini-manicure yesterday and we had breakfast with some good friends this morning. Lots of time to play with their toys, to colour, to watch Christmas specials and likely some cookie baking tonight. Vic's mom will be here at around 9pm after she arrives on the bus.

I am going to sign off for the next few days to enjoy this special time with my family. Have a happy holiday!

Winter Solstice

We are having a warm and cozy solstice evening.
Looking forward to the coming light but enjoying what this season brings.

A good day...

Hot Chocolate out with Sophie at our new favourite place, The Shuswap Pie Company (no website that I could find).

We followed that to Nico's where we found a creme coloured pointsettia.

Later we watched this.

the snowblower

We got about 5 cm of snow today, the very wet kind. It didn't go below freezing all day. Vic brought out his "toy" this afternoon and Fynn quickly followed to see what all the noise was about.

a party, a movie, a cranky kid

Sophie went to a birthday party today for her friend Kierra. She is two years older than Sophie and is someone Sophie looks up to. Her mom Karen manages our daycare. We had a fun time at the bowling alley.

Later, we were invited to a movie with our friends' Doris and Ray's daughters Ella and Ada. Ella is in the afternoon class of French Immersion. The movie was the Princess and the Frog. High quality Disney animation fairytale that is set in New Orleans. African American heroine which is good to finally see in a Disney tale (although she was portrayed as coming from a poor background, so seemed to rely on stereotypes). I felt like this was a long movie. Okay, actually it is only 97 minutes, but for some reason it seemed longer than that. Maybe because I had just been to a birthday party before that.

By the time we got out it was 4pm and Sophie was antsy, which moved into cranky. When we got home she needed to decompress and just chill out for awhile. All the pre-Christmas excitment can be a bit much for these little (and big) people.

7 things...

1.Fynn is battling his itchy skin again. Trip to the doctor for more cortisone and fungal creme combo.

2. Sent out the last of the Christmas gifts today that had to be mailed. Thankful to have that off my list.

3. These cookies are the best thing since sliced bread. Sophie needed cookies for school tomorrow and from scratch was not going to happen at this late hour. They didn't have the snowmen kind, but ours are still festive.

4. I am following in the long line of "letter to the editor writing Schaffricks". My letter appeared yesterday in our local paper.

5. I am so looking forward to not making lunches and packing gear for Sophie and Fynn for 2 whole weeks after tomorrow.

6. My last Zumba class of the year was tonight. Honestly, it is the MOST fun I have ever had in a gym class.

7. 43 years ago today my mom and day were married. Happy Anniversary!

just say no

I might just buy myself this calendar for Christmas.

I've started to consider that if the time I put in "of service" to others this fall was paid, it would be worth a fair bit of money. I am not saying that volunteer work is not important -- it is, but women seem to do more of it than men in my experience. Unless the man is retired. Women do it when they are working and raising children. When I think about my time lately that was devoted for service it goes like this: volunteering at Sophie's school (making mittens), taking the minutes at Canadian Parents for French, baking party mix for daycare's fundraiser, baking cookies for this Friday's Kindergarten party, drafting up HR documents for the daycare, taking the minutes for the daycare, being a mom helper at ballet....

I found an interesting reference in an article recently: "Why have women signed on to do so many things at once? We don't, after all, expect men to multitask. A man lying on the sofa reading the newspaper is busy. A woman lying on the sofa reading the newspaper is underemployed and interruptible-a signal her family picks up because she herself sends it out. We seem to consider ourselves unworthy unless we make ourselves available to our family and others all of the time-and there's no way to do that without cramming every minute with two or three chores." (Alexis Jetter).

Interesting perspective.

nostalgia

I had a dinner meeting for work today so by the time I got home at 7:30pm, it was time to bath the kids. I was pleasantly surprised that A Charlie Brown Christmas was airing, so that was an easy choice before bed. It is nice to just watch something that has good values and requires little explanation. Hard to believe it was created in 1965 - 2 years before I was born!

I love reading about the trivia related to the show. For example,
it broke many of the rules prevalent for animated holiday specials during the 1960s: it didn't make use of a laugh track; real children were used for the character voices instead of adult actors imitating children's voices; and Biblical references were used to illustrate the true meaning of Christmas.(source)

the prettiest little snowman

Sophie's dance school's Christmas program was this afternoon.
We were up early for her dress rehearsal (slightly challenging considering last night was my staff party) and the actual performance was later this afternoon.

Her group did Frosty the Snowman. They had adorable costumes that her teacher rented. The girls did a good job with their number and really seemed to be having fun. I was a mom helper, which basically means you make sure everyone gets a costume and they all come back at the end of the performance. Our performance was #13 on the program this year, so the girls really had to wait for quite awhile which is tough when you are 5 (hard frankly for me too, since I was sitting on my butt on the floor of the concert hall for an hour with a bunch of antsy snowmen).

Now Sophie can really start to relax. Just 5 more days of school and no more school concerts or ballet until next year.

pre-Christmas party photo opp

A quick post: all dressed up for my work Christmas party. My aunt and uncle looked after Sophie and Fynn. We snapped a quick photo before we headed out the door.

Great party, too.

family dinner

We "discovered" Denny's recently. Yes, Denny's has been around forever, but for Vic and I we only knew it as the dumpy restaurant in Penticton that you would head to after an evening at the bar (not that we did that very often).

But a good Denny's is worth its weight in gold. Inexpensive food, decent service, kids eat free on Saturdays and Tuesday, most kids love their food (chocolate chip pancakes) and the booths are big. Can't beat it.

We went there tonight after we hit Walmart for a couple of final gifts. Yes, we are living large these days....Dennys + Walmart.

going back to school

For me, that is. Today was my first morning volunteering in Sophie's Kindergarten classroom. I was there from 8:15 - 10:15. It was a really rewarding experience. I had brought in the little mitten kits from Oriental Trading. As soon as I set them out in rows on the table, the kids were clamouring around to see what they were all about and they wanted to start making them. (these kits are now out of stock on their website).

Sophie's teacher needed to do some morning routine things with them first and she explained a little about the mitten in French (the colours, etc).

Then we got into creating. With 22 kids glueing little bits of buttons and foam bits on the little mitten, her teacher and I were busy hopping between the 3 tables. The kids did great, however. Lot's of "Sophie's mom, can you help me?" which was very nice to hear. After the mittens we went to the library. That was a bit like hearding sheep or cats because the children had to line up quietly and walk single file down the hallways to the library which is across the building. By the time we finished that and had snack, it was time for me to go.

Lots of fun and the teacher said she was really happy with the project I chose. I told her I would love to come back in February and do a Valentine's day craft.

my feet at 5:45am

I am under a lot of stress as of late. I think having a second child, combined with work and some of the extra stuff I put on myself create a great deal of stress in my life. I wish I could step away from it, but I can't. It is in my DNA. I am an overachiever. I don't mean that in a boastful way, but for me, it means each day is an effort to improve upon the previous day. This can be very hard, because I often don't know where to stop. I'm always thinking about the next sewing project, the next book to read, the next report to write at work, the next meeting.

One thing that I've been doing regularly for the past 20 years is exercise. I'm pretty religious about it. So is Vic. We fit it into our schedule and it has to be a darn good reason to not do it. I work out Monday, Tuesdays, sometimes on Wednesday, Thursdays and I walk on either Sat or Sunday. It takes me away from my family for 45 minutes or so, but I'm much calmer and more patient afterwards.

I've been going to early morning fitness classes that start at 6am so I'm not impacting family time so much in the evenings. I find that this has been a good solution (apart from getting up so early). Today it was minus 8 and I got up and did NOT want to. But I did and was so happy that I mustered through it.

I am pretty convinced that Woody Allen was right when he said "90% of life is just showing up."

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Speaking of showing up, Sophie was getting really anxious about her Christmas concert at school today. Lots of nervousness was coming out. We persevered and she did just fine. She has a great music teacher, Mr. Hahn, and the 2 numbers they did were very cute. She felt so good afterwards and got a nice cookie from Tim Horton's for her efforts. Just keep showing up, Sophie.

colouring up a storm

Our Christmas evening activity tonight was colouring. It is such a nice, relaxing activity. Sophie really likes to chat when she is colouring. She knows a little girl at daycare who has 2 moms and 2 dads and she wanted to talk about that and why sometimes people get divorced. Funny all the things their brains pick up.

I downloaded some free colouring pages off the Internet and printed off a selection. She did them all and likely would be happy to do them every night.

Fynn wasn't up to colouring tonight but wanted one of his favourite stories and apple sauce.

pre-Christmas fun at Grandma's

Instead of heading down to Leavenworth this weekend, we decided to shorten the trip and stay for a long weekend at my mom and dad's place in Oliver.

The kids had fun on Saturday when their cousin Jackson spent the night. We watched this movie (which is a bit longer than I remembered) and had chocolate chip cookies.

watching Elf

I wanted to show the movie Elf to Sophie and Fynn. I picked it up for 9.99 at Zellers so I thought that was not bad considering it is one of those movies that is soon to be a classic and we can pull it out every year.

They loved it. Well, except Sophie didn't care for Ed Asner as Santa and covered her eyes when he came on the screen. I loved all the scenes of New York especially when Santa's sleigh flew over this beauty.

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Sophie's school had P.A.L.S. today. It was a really neat morning where I got to attend a bunch of literacy activities with her at her school. Just before that she got to meet her "secret buddy", the little girl that she is sharing her cubby with who goes to the afternoon class. Sophie was very anxious about meeting her and worried about it to the point she had a complete melt down this morning on our way to school. It was so disruptive I didn't have time to put shoes on Fynn. Ugh.

I was stressed out when I got to work and gave her principal a call. He is very knowledgeable and supportive and reassured me that I'm doing a good job with Sophie and that none of her little antics ever play out at school. She's progressing nicely and we just need to keep reminding her that Kindergarten is her "job" now.

The little nut ended up loving her secret buddy JulieAnne and now she wants to invite her over for a playdate. I tell you, I have more grey hairs since September than I know what to do with.

Fynn ever the trooper breezed through his booster follow up to H1N1.

And how was your week???

making party mix

Our daycare had a holiday baking fundraiser where people could place orders for goodies and the daycare would pay for the supplies, staff and parents would bake and any profit goes to the daycare.

I wasn't confident about baking something like shortbread so I volunteered to do my mom's party mix recipe. Lo and behold we had 34 orders for party mix! More than we thought. We doubled the recipe and still didn't have enough to fill all of the orders tonight. Chris and Shelly, two of the daycare teachers came over to help me put it together and bag it. Vic and I need to get some more supplies this weekend and finish off the 12 or so bags that are left.

I feel as exhausted as I look in the photo. I am trying to leave more time for the kids at night so I'm waking up at 5:45am to hit the gym. This morning I did a spin class. It feels great to have my working out over with and not have to worry about it later, but it makes for a very long day.

Christmas fun

December goes by so quickly, so I'm taking an idea from another blog I love to read and we are going to try to do 1 special Christmas thing everyday.

Tonight we watched this movie with the kids. Ugh. Terrible animation and a some liberties taken with the original story.

Here's the rest of our list:

Make a holiday craft
Watch Elf
Assemble/address holiday cards with music and cocoa (almost done)
Wrap gifts by the tree
Read 'Twas the Night Before Christmas
Visit Santa (done that)
Bake/decorate cookies
Take a drive and look at holiday lights
Donate toys to a family in need
Cut out paper snowflakes
Go ice skating
Watch a holiday special
Make breakfast for dinner and eat in our pajamas
Make party mix (tomorrow night - I have 31 orders to make for our daycare fundraiser!)
Go to Christmas Eve church service
Attend a holiday concert
Take a family photo
Watch the snow fall
Go sledding
Leave cookies/milk for Santa
Go to Leavenworth to see the lights (this weekend!)

On the sewing front, I finished up skirt #6 for Sophie. I think I'm officially done sewing for 2009. I've done WAY more than I thought I ever would and I'm pretty pleased with how this one turned out. It has a little bit of style and I like how the grosgain ribbon came out on the bottom hem.