*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!

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!