:: December 24th ~ Christmas Eve ::

:: December 24th ::

We spent all day on Christmas Eve with Paul's family and we had a great time. We went over to his parents place for brunch (around 10:30 am) we brought "Christmas Wife-Saver" and "Baked French Toast" and his Dad added his famous ham to complete the brunch.

We then exchanged gifts with the family & Michael (Paul's sister's Beau) and enjoyed a lazy afternoon of napping and munching on spinach and artichoke dip prior to heading off to the Christmas eve service at Victory Christian Center where Paul's parents attend.

We then headed over to Paul's Nanny & Papa's where we presented the gift I had been working on for months...I didn't mention it on here just in case someone read about it and let the cat out of the bag. What we did is call our local MP office and get the email address' of all of the significant people in parliament and the government and ask them to send an official congratulations to Nanny & Papa on their 60th Wedding Anniversary. The gift was a success! I mounted most of the certificates in a leather 12x12 scrapbook except for one that we framed from Stephen Harper ~ They loved the gift and called us just the other day to say that it was the best gift that they have ever received! And today when I was going through a pile'o junk in the office I came across a certificate that was in a folder that I missed putting in the book...so we will have to pop over tnd present them with yet another certificate :)

Once we finished up at Nanny & Papa's we headed to my parents place to pick up our PJ's that we get every year on Christmas Eve - And that was about it...we headed home around midnight and we were grateful that we didn't have to go anywhere in the morning!

:: December 22nd ~ First Annual Friends Christmas Bash ::

:: December 22nd ::

We attended the "Annual Friends Christmas Bash" hosted by C & T at their new place and we had a great time. There have been many new additions to our little group of friends this year.

All of which are under the age of 7 months; From left to right on the couch: Jaelyn @ 4 months, Benjamin @ 4 months, Jacob @ almost 7 months and Kate @ 3 months (thanks Lisa for the correction)It was super fun to see the great group of friends that God has brought together and to see that we are being obedient and "being fruitful and multiplying" :)

:: Can't wait till next year ::

:: Jacobs Dedication ::

We had a fabulous time with Friends on December 17th to celebrate

Jacobs dedication to the Lord.

He was dedicated in the first service at CLA by Pastor Brent (the same pastor that maried us) and then we hosted a brunch afterwards for 40 people at my parents place.

It was a busy day - but a wonderful one to remember when we look back on it now!

Jacob received some really nice gifts of remembrance from the day, but I think my most favorite gift was my Grandpa's harmonica from my Grandma Rosie (My Dad's Mom). I was holding it together really well until I opened her gift. Now you have to know that my Grandpa used to always get us little kids up onto his knee and play the harmonica for us...we all loved it and it is definitely one of my fondest memories of my Grandpa.

:: A few more pics of the Adventure with Santa ::

:: Jacob loves Santa ::

So we gave it another try last night - this time we arrived at 6:45 pm in hopes that we would get a chance to sit on Santa's lap...

There was a lovely young girl (kay, that made me feel old) but she was 17 or 18 (see she was young) standing at the end of the line telling the excited children and parents that they may not get to see Santa tonight. Very good, thank you -- we appreciate that. So we set ourselves up to be turned around yet again. However Paul "wooed" the cute young girl and so she was our friend...along we wait patiently being update by the sweet young girl every few minutes.

So it comes to 7:45 and we are not yet on the infamous "red carpet" - But the lovely young lady told us that even though we were not on the carpet that she was only aloud to to let in three families at a time.

Finally, we get to step on the CARPET - yay!!! But not with out more drama - so this lovely family of four, another lady and her kids, and us were aloud in the carpeted area. The lady in front of us told the young girl that the people behind us were with her. We couldd not tell that the people behind us were not with her - they could have been family for all we know!?!?! Then the head of the whole show "Trinity" came over and said that there were only three families aloud in so the Indian lady was quite upset for obvious reasons. So Trinity asked the Indian lady in front of us to let us go so that we could get our picture taken and then they would try and fit in the 5 children after us.

Well, all in all everything worked out - Jacob had his picture with Santa and the Indian family had theirs.

So here is the photograph of the blessed event:

:: Shoes :: Shoes :: Shoes ::

Yesterday in the midst of shopping for last minute items for Christmas I thought I would run by the shoe department in Wal-Mart. And when to my surprise these little beauties were sitting on the "clearance" cart!

And before I knew it they had jumped from the clearance cart into my hands and they kept me company all the way to the check out. Where to my delight they were on sale for $9.00!

Merry Christmas to me, Merry Christmas to me, Merry Christmas to meeeee, Merry Christmas to me!

Thank you Lord for great deals!

Check out Kristin's blog for her great shoe deal - I hope she's posted it :)

:: Santa came to Guildford and his helper was a dork ::

Okay, so last night we trek out to Guildford, not that it is a super long way to go - but Paul had been at work all day and I had been out gallivanting through the mall, costco & various other stores to accomplish my to-do list and was quite frankly DONE! But we had said that Friday night we were going to take Jacob to Guildford and have his picture with Santa.

So off we go, I was in The Gap having them check my prices on some items that we had purchased a few weeks ago and so I sent Paul down to line up for Santa because on the website for the mall it said to get there a half hour prior to Santa closing to ensure you get your picture with Santa.

So Paul arrives at Santa around 7:25 - give or take a few minutes. I meet him there about 7:40 - when Santa's helper comes around to our side of the line and states (at 7:47) that Santa will not get to see us tonight. Now she doesn't say anything sweet to say and doesn't even encourage us to come back she says this "You may as well leave as you won't see Santa tonight, the cut of is right there behind that man" okay fair enough - you have to have a cut off but have you not seen us standing here for 25 minutes? So to that she says "well it takes a half hour for the people that are on the red carpet to get to Santa so you won't see him tonight" - Okay Mrs. Claus we get it, but why the heck didn't' you tell us that at 7:30 when the last people got onto the red carpet! She was not Santa's helper at all!

I was trying to reason with her, because she let 2 sets of kids go in to see Santa after 8:00 - Lady if you are going to stand your ground with us and say that Santa needs to leave at 8:00 on the dot than at least don't let anyone else sit with Santa after 8:00!!!

I guess we will try to go back to visit the dreaded Mrs. Claus sometime next week but not because we want to but because I love the way this Santa looks, he's sweet and tender not the fake smile but a real genuine sweet spirit.

I was so choked, but I didn't let it ruin our evening - we continued on and did some other running around that we needed to do...So wait with baited breath for Jacob's picture with Santa...It will happen before Christmas!

:: White Christmas, What are you hoping for? ::

:: Jacob truly enjoyed a better portion of the production - it was past his bedtime but he was entranced with the music and the dancers - here he is sitting on my lap enjoying the show ::

:: On Sunday night we took Paul's Grandparents, Mum & Dad, Brother & Mum's friend Rita, to the production at our church - It was written and directed by Ben Wylie and I thought he did a good job. There were a few things that could have gone smoother or been more refined but I think for his first production he did really well. My favorite part of the production was the ballerina's lead by Natalie Heard....that girl has amazing poise and never ending arms

and legs ~ She is just stunning! ::

:: Our Little Jacob-Deer ::

:: My Mom & Dad bought Jacob this little outfit, now if you know anything about me it's that I don't like patterns or figures on kids clothes...I just think it's dorky! But for some reason I think this outfit is so cute...maybe it's because the riendeer isn't a cartoon character!?!?! At any rate, I had to take pictures of my little "Jacob-Deer" ::

:: The Holiday ::

:: Last night Lisa & I went to see the movie "The Holiday" ~ the commercials for the movie looked really cute and indeed it was really cute :: Cameron Diaz is stunning and whoever did the wardrobe for the movie did a wonderful job on her outfits :: Jude Law was super in his shy-english boy way, however the make-up gal must have lost the original foundation she was using on him, because about 3/4 of the way through the movie his tan started to fade :) :: Kate Winslett performed beautifully and she was also stunning, but she definitely wasn't the star of the show :: Jack Black played a really sweet, sincere role -

which I thought suited him perfectly! ::

I will give the movie 3 1/2 stars!!!