Christmas...in February!

We hosted our families for the holidays this Christmas from December 15th-January 6th. We baked, ate delicious food, laughed, played games, dried many "he/she's not sharing" tears, shopped till we LITERALLY dropped, and generally had a great family holiday. 

It was a crazy, chaotic, would-not-have-it-any-other-way Christmas!

This picture is what 14 people, 8 adults and 6 children (aged 8 and under) looks like...minus my brother who is taking the picture...did I mention we were all living under one roof?!

It took me a few weeks to recover and put our house back together so you will have to forgive my Christmas post in February!

 A typical Bohay Christmas = presents spilling out from under the tree and taking over the room.
Santa (in similar fashion) also leaves overflowing stockings. We must have been very good this year!

 

A 20 ft ceiling means we always have a tall Christmas tree, but it also makes for an interesting challenge when the pot lights require changing. We took advantage of the extra male hands in the house and rented a 16 ft ladder to undertake this task! Thanks for the help Uncle Ross and Gido!
Better you than me!

This was also the first year we had no tears in our Santa photo...

Check out this pic from 2006...hilarious!

The family Christmas card...I really enjoy designing these each year.









I took 600+ pictures over the holidays and have tried hard not to overwhelm this post by experimenting with photovisi and smilebox to create less overwhelming photo collages.

Christmas morning the noise level in the house increases 10 decibels from the squeals of excitement. Our Christmas tradition is to open our stockings from Santa (at first light) followed by a delicious brunch (including Baba's famous wifesaver breakfast)...we then spend the better part of the afternoon opening gifts after Baba and Jordan have their annual disagreement about how long the turkey needs to cook! Good times!

Random shots from Christmas day...

 Christmas Dinner means Jordan's world class gravy (supervised by Baba) and Ross's expert carving skills. Jordan insists on a farm fresh over-sized turkey cooked just until the timer goes off. If Baba had her way it would cook another 3 hours hence the annual how long should the turkey cook discussion!

Our oldest nephew (seen here) looks forward to visiting partly due to Uncle Jordan's cereal cupboard. It is regularly stocked with Frosted Flakes, Lucky Charms, Captain Crunch and any other sugary cereal one might crave...yum!  We also celebrated his 8th birthday (he is a Christmas Eve baby) at Medieval Times. Our Yellow Knight threw Middle Child a flower and she was so excited she said, "Mommy, I'm going to remember this night forever!

The kids had fun playing in the snow (a novelty for our BC cousins). We discovered we have the perfect back yard for sledding...just watch out for the fence...

The first thing Biggest Boy did every morning was change the number on the Santa advent calendar.

couch potatoes...

three generations...

hangin' with Uncle Mike...

The kids were Shepherd's in our church Christmas concert. Biggest Boy was mortified to be on stage and stood there motionless, except for the occasional yawn. Middle Child on the other hand was in her glory and the second picture is of her being directed off stage when she would not leave!

The school Christmas Concert involved some singing (another occasion for Biggest Boy to be paralyzed by fear) and then an "around the world tour" via the classrooms. Middle Child's class was Scotland. She is seen pictured with her amazing teacher (in tartan pajamas of course), and playing her handmade bagpipes. Biggest Boy's class was Israel. He is pictured above as Joseph...I love that baby Jesus is black! I also included his hand crafted Nativity scene...that's my crafty boy!

The guys went to a World Juniors hockey game in Buffalo (along with 18,000 other Canadian fans). They waited in line at the border for several hours but still said it was worth it to watch Canada defeat the Czechs.

Our nephew is obsessed with cows...can you tell?

While having our cousins visit is fun...after the first week it leads to a lot of tears and pouty faces. I'm convinced Middle Child will one day rule the world with hers!

 Monopoly anyone? This happens to be Biggest Boy's favourite game...

 

I blame these for my holiday weight gain. Really, could you resist?

Merry belated Christmas from our family to yours.

All the best in 2011.

Age Six

The morning I went to the hospital I was going to post this. I love this picture, it really captures his silly side.

Notice the dark front teeth. Two years ago, Biggest Boy was being "silly" and had an accident in the playground that permanently damaged and displaced the teeth. I did not think they would survive but they did and are now loose...finally!

MIA

I have officially been MIA (missing in action) for a month....with good reason though...bilateral salpingectomies for bilateral pyosalpinges!

Really big words for infected fallopian tubes. Mine actually ruptured, spilled pus into my abdomen and caused a four day stay in hospital after they had to be removed via emergency surgery. It is hard to believe that FT's could cause so much pain but indeed they did!

After the surgeon operated he said he had never seen this before. Apparently it is quite rare, however I have a very long history of rare, weird and wonderful medical conditions, so nobody was too surprised when this happened to me.

Me before November 24th and after...

I am very lucky to have such a great support network. The night I had surgery, Chris came to the rescue and spent the night with the kids. This is Littlest Boy's bedroom with the "Mom's in hospital" sleeping arrangements. Chris and Biggest Boy in the big bed, Littlest Boy in his crib and Middle Child in the pink Princess bed...poor Auntie Chris!

Grandma arrived the next morning to relieve Chris and took over her spot in the big bed. Thank God for my Mother who is always willing to drop everything to help when needed. Good thing Winnipeg is only a two hour flight away! Grandma, you rock!

Here comes Santa Claus...

Last weekend we attended the local Santa Claus Parade with our cousins from Ottawa. It was fun to see the kids so excited. Jordan was bored and passed the time by pulling out my gray hairs (all caused by him I might add). The weather wasn't great but we stayed till the end to see the big guy himself!

We saw...

Charlie Brown...

an exotic car...this caught Daddy's attention....

the Grinch

and Santa!!

SUPER MEETS SIX

Biggest Boy celebrated his 6th birthday this past weekend with a video game/Super Mario party. If you are a regular reader you know our son detests anything sports related and is most happy when he is playing his DS, computer, or Xbox. We hired the Game Machine...a big trailer outfitted with a super sized bench, 4 big screen tvs'/gaming systems and more games than a 6 year old can imagine. The Game Machine allows 16 kids to play at the same time. This is Biggest Boy on the Game Machine as happy as we have ever seen him!

What you cannot appreciate from these pictures is the trailer is actually dark inside and there is a crazy light show that ups the already cool factor! The boys were super impressed and had a blast.

 After experiencing just a few hours with these little balls of energy, I have come to appreciate the kids Grade 1 teacher a thousand fold more.  I'm not sure how she does it...they just do not sit still...especially not for pictures...unfortunately, as a result, there are not many photos of the party!
These are what I did manage to capture...

I think this is an impromptu Princess Peach look-a-like contest...I'm sure the boy on the end is praying his parents never see this picture!

Grandma and our adopted Aunties...

One of many attempts at a group shot (minus a few runaway children)...

It is Bohay tradition to have a birthday pinata, however, as the kids get older I am realizing it is getting harder and harder to keep everyone at a safe distance and prevent any head injury related law suits...instead (in all of my wisdom!?!) I decided to have a SILLY STRING FIGHT in our basement. The boys went nuts and my entire basement was covered in silly string...literally...see for your self...

AND...what we did not discover until after the party is silly string vacuums up quite nicely from carpet but essentially becomes permanently glued to laminate flooring. NEVER TRY THIS AT HOME!! I have spent the last 48 hours on my hands and knees gently scraping the floor with my precious plastic quilting ruler (this removes about 50% of it) followed by a good scrub with a magic eraser and then a final wash to remove the magic eraser residue. Needless to say silly string WILL NOT become a Bohay tradition.

This is what 600 square feet of my floor still looks like after scraping with the ruler....yikes...I know what I will be doing this weekend!

One little boy was quite upset by the silly string fight and I found him sobbing on the floor. To make him feel better I asked him if he wanted to put the candles on the cake. He took great pleasure in stabbing Mario in the eyes with the candles and immediately cheered up...

PARTY CRAFTS!!
(my favourite part)

I would be kidding you if I told you the party was just for the kids...I think I enjoy planning the party and decor just as much
(if not more)!
I made VIP game passes for everyone. I had a laptop set up and pretended to scan the bar codes with a mini flashlight. I did manage to fool all of the six year olds and even a few adults too (you know who you are)!

 I was giddy when I found the pop shoppe pop at a local candy wholesaler which is also where I found most of the Mario candy. 

Red pail loots filled to the brim with candy, lego packs, silly bands and...a toothbrush...(as a dentist it slightly helps ease my guilty conscience about handing out a bucket full of candy)!

The party was a great success. Happy Birthday my Biggest Boy! Love you, love you...LOVE YOU!

quilt festival = fun

Hello fellow festals! This is my first time participating in Amy's Creative Side Blogger's Quilt Festival since this is my first ever quilt! Fortunately, it is a doll quilt and it was the perfect introduction into the wonderful world of quilting. Creating my first quilt was extremely FRUSTRATING (binding issues) and EXHILARATING (opening the dryer to find "puckery goodness") all at the same time!

I was introduced to quilting by my bosom buddy and crafting soulmate Kristie. She made me the most beautiful quilt for my birthday, seen here and here and told me if I can sew a straight line then I too can quilt. Turns out sewing a straight line is a lot harder than it looks but I must say, I am tickled with the outcome! See for yourself...

  

Kristie and I usually craft all gifts for birthdays, Christmas, and of course, just because gifts. My children and I have been the recipient of so much crafty coolness that that is a separate post in and of itself! This quilt happens to be for Kristie's youngest daughter, whose favourite colour is orange but also has a purple and green bedroom.
I came across this great tutorial on Sew Mama Sew and knew I absolutely had to make it....

Selecting the fabrics was the favourite part of the process for me. I love fabric...I am a terrible sewer but I LOVE, LOVE FABRIC! I played with my 3.5 square charms for some time until I had the perfect combo....and then I pieced them together. I stitched in the ditch and this is where I discovered sewing a straight line is not as easy as it looks! From this I learned I definitely need a 1/4" foot....and a walking foot for that matter...

To add my personal touch I embellished the quilt with a little hand embroidery, and then basted it all together. After doing a lot of reading I decided to use adhesive spray to baste. This worked great...even on the first try...yeah!

The binding just about did me in...you are looking at the back of the quilt with the binding attached (I am a lazy sewer and decided to machine bind the quilt). This part was OK...it was figuring out what to do with the two ends of binding that caused me to shed more than a few tears. I think I also watched 50 YouTube videos on this topic that did not help! I finally stumbled across this tutorial that FINALLY made it make sense.





I cut the binding too short three times and had to add more to one of the tail pieces. This is painfully obvious on the right side of this picture....where it boughs out is where the two end pieces joined.
Not pretty. . . but then probably not noticeable to the four year old this is going to!



Even though when I look at this quilt all I see are the flaws, overall I am pleased and I cannot wait to jump into my next for Kristie's middle child!

HAPPY QUILTING EVERYONE and I must say I am uber impressed and inspired by your quilts!!

BTY - This is the bed that will accompany the quilts. It has yet to be painted purple...check back for the completed project including matching sheets and pillow.