Crafty Christmas

In December, despite recovering from surgery and having 9 extra house guests, I did still manage to turn out a few Christmas craft projects.

Remember the doll quilt I submitted for the blogger's quilt festival? Well, I finished the bedding and painted the bed to match and also completed a second for Kristie's beautiful daughters. (Kristie is not only an amazing friend but a crafting Goddess). This was by far the largest gift project I have taken on to date but also the most rewarding! I must say quilting does not come easily to me and I hope nobody is looking to closely at my pitiful binding! Hopefully (fingers crossed), practise will make perfect.

The second doll quilt...

 The completed beds...these were made to match each girls room but also incorporate their favourite colours. My favourite are the pillows.

 

Before these were delivered via my mother's suitcase they were rigorously tested (and jumped on) by Littlest Boy!

I gifted two HAPPY BIRTHDAY JESUS felt banners to the kids classrooms. The kids loved these and it was actually their suggestion to make them after they had birthday parties for Jesus at school. I also made a few tartan tablecloths for Middle Child's teacher to cover the tables for the Scotland classroom transformation. This came about one day after school when the teacher asked me if I had any that I could lend her. I thought about it and then said no, but I would be happy to whip some up for her. Who are we kidding?? I am not capable of whipping anything up but I was happy to help, she is such a deserving woman!

Banners have become a bit of an obsession with me as of late and this is one I made for Paper Pal Al for Christmas.

  

For the teachers, Baba helped me make homemade peppermint bark which I placed inside a ceramic gingerbread house along with a SEND A CHILD TO SCHOOL Samaritan's Purse charitable gift note.

  

The children at school received giant suckers with handmade labels that represented my kids...I'm sure most parents were wondering why a dentist would be handing these out!

Last but not least, I designed pins for my OCD friend from shrink plastic to match her blog world identity...can't wait to see them in your awesome tutorials!

Dancing Queen

Middle Child and I attended Vania's sons baptism earlier this month. We had so much fun and Middle Child provided most of the evenings entertainment with her completely UNINHIBITED dancing. You have to watch the video below and I challenge you not to laugh out loud. I am tempted to put this video on YouTube...not sure those dance lessons are paying off!

Middle Child only took a break from dancing to pose with her favourite people

(Vania, Linda and Debbie).  

This baptism seemed more like a mini wedding. There was an incredible sit down dinner and then an hour later we were tempted with four seafood and dessert tables. I could not help but take a picture of the decadence! 

This little cutie is the baptismal boy and the framed picture was the party 

favour.

My contribution to the party...favour tags.

FYI - his name is blocked out for privacy.

*G*L*I*T*T*E*R*

Paper by paperdolls is venturing into the wonderful world of glitter and we are uber excited! The following pictures are from a corporate holiday party where we spelled out the words MERRY, BRIGHT, SILENT, NIGHT, HO HO HO and LET IT SNOW as party decor. These are 4 inch staked and hand glittered letters that were placed in 4 inch potted white poinsettia's.

For this party we also custom designed glittered stakes of the company name...

I love these so much I included them in my own Christmas decor...

Paperdolls will be producing glitter letters in a wide variety of sizes and colours, custom monograms, and free standing table numbers. What do you think??

Big Boy Bed

We decided it was time to move Littlest Boy into a big boy bed. He was very excited and assisted Daddy in putting it together.

After it was assembled, he gave it the Littlest Boy's Seal of Approval for it's jumping capabilities...

a happy boy...

Snug as a bug...but don't let this picture fool you. Nobody is actually sleeping. Big boy bed = new found freedom. We actually had to resort to putting a gate in his doorway. Now (at various times throughout the night) he stands at his gate and shouts "Mommy, I'm awake". It's a good thing this boy is easy to love because he is slowly killing me with sleep deprivation!

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!