'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!