Voila!

Voila: "Lo! There it is", ta-da, presto

That title really has nothing to do with my post. I just like that word.

It's taken us a while to get back into the swing of things after the holidays. It was too easy to slip into the sleeping in and lounging around schedule of the Christmas break.

Ryan's back at school, having a great time with the kids. He's been out with the missionaries a few times and got to help baptize a new family in our ward. They are great! He's had some fun activities with his young men, going to basketball games and skating.

Ryan, the missionaries and the Germann's


We had two fun "firsts" when we went tobogganing at Millwoods Hill and went swimming at Millennium Place. I recommend both places for great family fun.

Ryan and the girls before descending the hill. It was a beautiful day!


We met some friends on the hill who took our family picture. Yes Rob, that is your toque I'm wearing. You left it at our house.


We had a family get-together to celebrate Greg's birthday. It was fun to see everyone again. We certainly have a lot of family conclaves over the holidays.

Greg getting a lot of help blowing out his candles.


We saw Rob play basketball at a school around the corner from our house and he did great!

I am now teaching the CTR 7A class in Primary and the kids are great. The lessons are well planned but there is often a lot of preparation work for activities and projects. I've been to a couple of Relief Society activities which have helped me to feel more a part of our ward, but also made me realize that there are a lot of food storage gurus in my new circle! I DEFINITELY pale in comparison. I've also been more diligent in my workouts with Jillian and the Wii and occasionally, Spa Lady. :)

We had a fun date night (courtesy of Natalie!) to the Keg and to see Sherlock Holmes, which was fun.

I started a new job to go along with the interview transcription I've been doing. I'm now managing the literature database for the research project and searching for and annotating journal articles. It's a perfect match for me because I like the work and can do it from home in my "spare" time.

We had the Jensens over for lunch this weekend. We'll have to say goodbye to them soon as they move down to Medicine Hat in a couple of months. :( Good thing we all like Skype! That's become Madeline's new favourite thing. "Daddy, can we call Beatrix? Daddy can we call Ben and Brigham?"

Ryan's friend at school who teaches the other grade 5 class has been giving us a bunch of "new" toys lately. Here's Maddie modeling with her new car!


Ryan says this is his new favourite picture of Claire.


The vice principal at Ryan's school got a bunch of new electronics for Christmas and so she gave us her old DS. It's Madeline's new favourite game.


Other than these highlights, we've just been plugging along.

For fun, here are some of the songs I've been listening to a lot lately:

Fools Like Me - Lisa Loeb
Fireflies - Owl City
I Want You To - Weezer
Lisztomania, 1901 - Phoenix
Second Best - Barenaked Ladies


If anyone wants to share, I love to get song recommendations!

Belated as usual

So Christmas and New Year's have passed us by. I see other bloggers keeping up faithfully, chronicling everything in a timely fashion. But not me. I try to spice it up by always being...belated. Well that's my excuse anyway.

Since I have too many pictures to put on a post (and that's saying a lot, considering the size of some of my previous posts) I will simply put a link to a Facebook album that you can peruse at your leisure...for the 3 people that read our blog. :)

In other news, not attached to pictures:

I was lucky enough to be asked by my friend Lyndsey to accompany her cute Junior Kindergarten class's Christmas concert and play for some of her vocal students. I'm not sure if she regretted the choice afterward, but it was lots of fun and I wish I could do things like that more often.

Christmas was a whirlwind as usual. December starts out slow and then speeds by and you're back at school and work wondering what happened. This year proved true to form.

We had the traditional gingerbread houses, advent calendars, goodie making and delivering, shopping for presents and decorations. We also had the traditional Christmas Eve bowling match, Chinese food dinner, AMAZING scavenger hunt activity for our PJ presents and fun movies. We got totally spoiled, as usual, and had lots of fun with our families.

Ryan's class got to go to an Oiler's hockey game and be right down by the ice when the team came in. He's been very busy with school, Young Men's activities and helping the missionaries.

We had some fun activities with friends this month including having the Chutes over and Claire attending Dallin's birthday party at the bowling alley.

We attended Grandpa and Janet's wedding and it was very fun to see all our family and celebrate the day.

I can't believe it's already 2010. Guess who has her 10 year high school reunion this year. YIKES. (It's me, by the way)

I hope everyone had wonderful, safe and memorable holidays with their friends and family this year.

'Tis the season

We're definitely getting into the Christmas spirit around here. Our cards are sent, our presents are bought, our advent calendars are helping us count down, the house is decorated, it's freaking cold and snowy and we've cracked open all the Christmas music and videos. We've had our ward Christmas party and watched the First Presidency Devotional - both things we look forward to each year. We also attended Ryan's school Christmas Concert where we saw his class sing a number and do a dance (a combination of French-Canadian, African and Hip-hop moves to an Ashley MacIsaac song!) It was awesome! The girls also had their Christmas dance recital and we've decorated gingerbread houses.

In other news we've been to William's 1st birthday party, lots of Gymboree classes, had a playdate with Sadie, seen New Moon (I really liked it! Much better than the first movie), bought a Wii with some early Christmas money (Thanks Nelda & Jim!), celebrated my Dad's 50th birthday and started looking ahead for Claire's kindergarten year (already!).

Our little tree in our new house!


Madeline loves our little nutcracker decoration. She cuddles with him on the couch, she gives him food to eat, sits him up at the table with us, etc. It's pretty funny.


Claire's helpers Lisa & Amanda helped the girls make gingerbread cookies and decorate them.


Our ward Christmas party was so fun! The dinner was great and they had great activities for the kids. I didn't bring my camera for the party so we took a picture of Madeline's face painting once we got home. They had face painting, a Christmas hymn singalong, a giant bubble maker that the kids could stand inside, cookie decorating, a treat exchange (holiday baking - done!) and a visit from Santa.


We surprised Dad on his 50th birthday. He thought he was coming over to babysit the girls but we were all hiding in wait! Here's Grandpa and Grandma with Claire on the couch.


The 50th party


Madeline is always willing to help people blow out their candles.


It's kind of a family joke that Dad is a fan of shoe horns. He has encouraged all of us for a long time to keep one at each of our houses. So for his birthday Mom got him enough to share!


The girls did so well at their dance recital. They were even on Global News!

(If you want to see the blurb follow this link, click on Dec. 12 News Hour and click to about 18:55. I tried to find a more direct link, but can't figure out how to do it!)



Me and my girls


After the recital we had everyone over to do gingerbread houses at our house. Mom made all the houses in honour of Grandma. She always put such detail in her houses so Mom constructed the houses with lots of windows to put cellophane in and lightbulbs to light up each house. We also had cake to celebrate Grandma's birthday. It was a nice way to remember her.


Everyone hard at work


All the completed, lit houses


After this week, we can breathe easy. I'm accompanying a Christmas concert and a vocal recital, Ryan gets to go to an Oilers game with his class, Madeline has Gymboree class, Claire has school and her Christmas concert, we have an occupational therapy visit, Ryan has a young men's meeting, we have friends coming over to decorate cookies, Claire has a birthday party to go to and Ryan has meetings on Sunday. Not to mention all the daily activities and running around. Hopefully the weather warms up a bit and our vehicles run smoothly!