Christmas 2006

As always, we celebrated Christmas Eve with my family. Normally, we head to one of my stores and have a potluck lunch with my employer and co-workers. This year, however, we decided to join my brothers-in-law and nephews. Every year, my BIL, Gino, rents the Leamington arena and they all, along with several friends, have a annual Christmas hockey game. This year, since Connor has been doing so well at his PowerSkate classes, he wanted to join in. One of my nephew's friends had goalie equipment for Gary (I had visions of getting a call from one of my BIL's from the hospital!) so they both headed out for the 10 am game. They had a great time! Connor played nearly the whole game!! One of the dads took a great group shot just before they headed off the ice. I'll post it when I get a copy of it.

We headed back to Leamington for Christmas Eve dinner at my dad's. We also exchanged our Christmas gifts. Each year, we buy our children (among the other gifts!!) matching or co-ordinating pyjamas (which they received early for our Christmas card shoot), a book and a toy that will keep them busy for the remainder of the gift exchange! We found a great book from Costco, all about Knights, for Connor. It is written as a letter from a Knight, who has been captured, to his son. It gives the son directions on becoming a great Knight so that he may rescue his father. Lots of interactive items, such as fold-out letters and such. He loved it!



Aili received a book on Curious George from us, but her favourite, it seemed, was the little stuffed Curious George that my sister and her family gave her!


Well, it was a close race between that and the Princess shoes and bag from my other sister, or the Build-a-Bear, Angel, that my niece and her godmother gave her (complete with baby carrier)!


Try as we might, Aili would NOT co-operate in taking a photo! With no nap under her belt, she was beyond hope! Surprisingly, she was fairly good natured all evening, albeit very fiesty and defiant!!

Christmas Day came bright and early at our house! Connor was up at 6:15am, despite the late night before. He crawled into bed with us for an hour or so, until the constant reciting of the time ("It's 7:15, Dad, are you getting up yet?") prompted us to kick him out! He was disappointed that he could not open presents until Aili had awakened. To his dismay, she slept until 9:00am!! She probably would have slept longer, but...

I got up around 8:00am to start a new family tradition. A friend of mine from Scotland, Bonnie, shared a recipe for Monkey Bread. Connor was helping me, standing on a chair at the counter. He slipped and fell off the chair, tipping it over and making a horrible racket. He was okay, thankfully, but in the process of cleaning the mess up, I hear a very LOUD voice... "MOMMY! Aili get UP!!!"

And so the opening of presents began...

As you can see, above, Santa brought Aili a HUGE Curious George! She has not let go of that thing yet! He goes everywhere with her, with much difficulty, as he is almost as tall as she!

Santa brought Connor a much desired laptop this year. We've been talking about getting him his own computer for a while now so it seemed fitting that we tie it in to Christmas (and save ourselves a bit of money on other gifts in the process! :)) Yes, we know he's only SEVEN... Yes, we know we're setting the bar high... Yes, we KNOW he's going to expect alot every year...

But he AIN'T gettin' it!! :)

Every year, I take a photo of each child with all of their Christmas gifts. It's good for me to have a visual reminder of what they received when... I do the same thing with birthday gifts (or I try to!)

Don't you love Connor's hat?! I picked it up for $8.00 at Zellers! He looks like a little gnome! :)

And of course, here's Aili, in all of her Curious George/Little People glory... :)

Gary did manage to snap a few photos in the morning, while I finished making the monkey bread. A new favourite of Connor... Look at those eyelashes!

And just why is it that one can NEVER catch these expressions on one's children's faces when they are all dressed up and ready for a photo??

Well, if you've stuck with me so far, thanks for reading! I hope your Christmas was very merry!!