'Tis the year 2013

Our New Year started off in a great way.  We spent it with family and all had an awesome time.  I find I almost enjoy New Year's Eve more than Christmas because there's less pressure, less stuff to lug around and everybody can find time to relax.

 Claire had gone to bed early, but woke up for the midnight celebration. 

We all loved the hats and the horns and the necklaces.

This will be a great year.  I can feel it!

I wanted to illustrate my OCD tendencies with the photo below.  Madeline got a craft kit where you put the beads together in a pattern and then partially melt them together with an iron.  Looking at that bin full of so many mixed up bead colours was driving me crazy.  So this was my solution and it felt SO much better when it was done, but it was a gigantic time suck...ha ha.

Madeline got these "Librarian" glasses for Christmas.  What a little hipster.  :)

Ryan and I had a fun night out at the Starlite Room to see Hannah Georgas and The Belle Game.  It was a cool concert and for the very first time, we got seats!  We sat with the old people!  It was great!

We have a pretty decent hill across the street from our house and Madeline's been enjoying sledding there.  However, with her kamikaze ways, she's popped both the saucers that we have, so we're in repair mode at the moment.

When we don't want to venture far from home, we have a mini snow hill on our deck that we like to play on.

We got a ton of craft projects as Christmas gifts this year and have been slowly spacing them out.  One super fun one was the Rice Krispie treats train.  Easy and delicious.  

Chilly winter day cuddles are the best.

Inspired by the librarian supplies she got for Christmas, Madeline decided to set up her own library in the living room.  She made bar codes for each book and had a scanner and computer all ready.  It's fun to watch her imagination at work.

We got our very first pets this month!  Ryan brought home a tank from school and that night he and Madeline went fish shopping.  

We have these little guys acclimatizing the tank for a month and then we can add some more friends.  It's kind of calming to have this in our home.  Hopefully we can help our fish thrive!

A little belated, but here are the girls school pictures for this year.

Kindergarten

Grade 2

Other points of interest this month include:

A fun swimming birthday party for Noah and Uncle Greg.

A delicious Swiss Chalet birthday party for Broc.

Claire saw the dentist and the opthamologist.

The girls started swimming lessons and dance lessons.

I continue volunteering at both schools doing library work, running the hot lunch program and doing a popcorn fundraiser.

Ryan and I helped with an Oil Kings 50/50 ticket fundraiser for the park project.  We raised over $3000 for one afternoon's work.  Not too bad!

Ryan also went to the dentist, took his school team to a track meet, had a video game night with some friends, attended an ETCATA meeting and became an official member at large, had a games/B movie night with some friends and continues to work so hard on the basement reno, school and work!

The Real Deal

If you were from Utah, you might say the title of this post like " The Rill Dill."  (Jenny and Sherrie, I'm just teasing!)

Anyway, this post is all about the nitty gritty of the Christmas rush from December 24-December 30.

We cheated a bit by opening some presents on the morning of the 24th so we wouldn't have as much to pack on our journey to Grandma and Grandpa's house.  The girls got spoiled!

On Christmas Eve afternoon we had our traditional Layton bowling fest.  

I had to post this picture because it's proof that I actually won a game.  

I don't believe this has ever occurred.  

The kids had fun helping grandma with the bread dough.  

They each got a little bit to sculpt as they saw fit.

Lots of Christmas cuddles were had.  

We got to have our New Zealand version of Christmas a day early.  We opened their presents and they opened ours, all on Skype.  It was lots of fun.

We got tons of fun New Zealand treats and souvenirs.

Madeline discovered an old Peanuts art set that I used to play with and she enjoyed it quite a bit.

Here are the brave few who ventured out to the hot tub in the freezing cold!

Our traditional PJ picture.

Luckily the girls slept well on Christmas Eve.  Grandma and Grandpa have always had a rule that you can't go upstairs until 7am, which seemed really late when I was a kid, and really early now that I'm all grown up.  Here's a picture of us moments after getting up.  

Claire was happy and awake at the beginning of it all...

...but quickly started to fade...

...until she fell asleep on the cushy rug.

It's always fun to have lots of kids around at Christmas.  Look at how big Drew is getting!

When we unwrapped this with Claire, mom looked at me and said, "Don't kill me."  Claire loves it and it seems to find its way all over our house, especially often to Madeline's room.

We then headed over to the Laytons for yet another Christmas celebration.  We really are spoiled.

Madeline and Broc and Claire had fun opening their presents.

We got to spend some time with Great Grandma Hull.

Madeline got a spa treatment from Auntie Angela.

We had lots of fun playing with all our gifts once we got home.

We had our traditional Boxing Day feast at Auntie Sheila's farm.  Madeline and Luke were intent on providing entertainment for us all.  We mostly stayed inside and chatted and ate rather than our usual outdoor activities because it was so chilly.

For Ryan's 32nd birthday, I planned a surprise party for him.  He thought we were just going to go out, but while he was at work, the family gathered and was awaiting him when he returned.

I think he might have been a bit disappointed, only because he had been dreaming of his favourite meal at The Keg all day and had to settle for taco salad.  Don't worry, we eventually got there and I made it up to him!  But it was a fun night for everybody.

Surprise!

Part of the super duper fun surprise (okay, so not really that fun...) was that I had ordered the drywall for the basement and it was delivered earlier that day.  Everybody helped us take it downstairs and the work has been progressing well so far!

Happy Birthday Ryan!