Emma Smiling and Talking

Christmas Recap

Here's our Christmas Recap in pictures...

This is how excited Emma was about her first Christmas.

Oma making Cookie ornaments with the boys.

The boys' Church Christmas concert. They sang 4 verses of Twinkle, Twinkle, and 3 of Away in a Manger. They both did really well.

Our kids on the night before Christmas eve. Getting ready for our Christmas the next morning.
They didn't wake up til 7:30, Noah was up first and when he looked down the hall he thought he saw Santa, so he came straight to our room. I said he should go to the living room to see if it really was him, but instead he woke up his brother and sent him down the hall to see. Luke came back and reported it was only the stockings by the Christmas tree, not Santa's legs that Noah had seen. So it was safe for Noah to then go check out what Santa had brought.

The boys patiently waiting for the okay to open.

They both got a lego set, which occupied most of the rest of the day.

After a supper of verenki and farmer sausage, of which the boys ate atleast 6 each,
we got the van packed up and headed to Winkler.

Our first night was at Oma and Opa's, where we had lots of fun opening gifts, webcamming with Eric and Rach and enjoyinf lots of good food and yummy treats. This is also where mommy and daddy got a new camera!!

Then we headed to Grandma and Grandpa's house.
Emma was so content, happily being passed from one set of willing arms to another.
This is also where Mommy and Daddy got a remote starter for the van!! Can't wait to get that installed!

The boys played with their big ship for many hours.

Noah and his shark

Emma showing off her smile while sporting her new baby legs

Surprisingly few meltdowns with the little sleep the boys got.

Christmas dinner with my family.

Emma getting cuddles from Gramma Marie

My mom made the boys all McQueen blankets, here they are just moments from peacefully falling asleep. (yeah right!)

My mom dug out some old photos of me.
This is my mom and I on my first Christmas.

Me getting cuddles from Gramma Marie,
now I can see Emma does look a little like me too.

Now back at home Daddy relaxing with his little girl before bedtime

And Emma just her usual smiley self.

The pile of gifts the boys got from everyone. We really need to scale back next year.
It took all day to unpack and clean up. We also loaded up the back of the van with stuff to bring away. The boys have been loving all their new toys and playing quite nicely and using their imaginations.

Noah's Preschool Concert

Last night was Noah's preschool concert, which was really cute. Not a lot of structure and not a lot of Christmas content, (ie they sang The Vacuum song, and All God's Creatures have a place in the choir, and a few others ending with Jingle Bells) But they were cute. They had treats the kids had baked and one of the best Santa's ever.

He was truly Jolly and made the boys laugh. He asked what they wanted for Christmas and said that Santa might bring them that or he may bring them some surprises. Thanks Santa! Notice Noah is actually sitting on his lap, Luke wasn't quite that brave but was willing to stand beside him.

This is the start of the program. We got there late and were sitting at the back. So this was our view. Can you see Noah? He is there. For some reason these people thought that the only thing that mattered was them seeing their own child. Some people are so clueless. It did settle down as the concert went on but there will still some people that stood in the way of others throughout the entire program.

I was surprised that our timid Noah was singing along and doing the actions to the songs. And as we were leaving the teachers were handing out gifts for the kids, Noah had to give his teacher a kiss on the cheek to get his gift, which he did too! Maybe he's not so timid.

Wiebe Elves At It Again

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Gingerbread

So here's the finished gingerbread house.
The boys really enjoyed putting the candies on.

Then on Friday we went to my sister's place to take some family photos and so gramma and grampa could decorate a house with the boys.

here's Miss Em in her Christmas dress

Grampa and Em

Em and Auntie Jen

The boys and the candy

The whole fam

Papa and Em taking a Suday afternoon snooze.

Em has been making a lot of eye contact and smiling lately. She's practicing moving her mouth for all the talking she'll be doing very soon too. It's so much fun talking to her and seeing her grins. I'll post a video soon.

The Vintage Sweater

Can I just say, why does blogger think that I want my pictures uploaded in the opposite order that I listed them in? Does that make sense? Or do my fellow bloggers prefer it this way? Maybe I'm the one doing it backwards? Argh! I'm not in the mood to move them all so here are the pictures in reverse order...

N took a picture of daddy with em and L

Em was helping put L to bed last night. He's been having trouble getting settled at bedtime and actually seem to do a bit better sometimes if we tuck Em in with him (she only stays for the singing)

Nath's mom found a sweater of his from when he was a boy, it fits our boys perfectly.
Nath's grandma knit it for him.

We currently have a gingerbread house on the go, I put it together yesterday (which was quite frustrating, I had to repair 2 broken walls and one side of the roof) and it will hopefully be decorated today. Hopefully that will be the fun part! It's all about making memories right!? Pictures will be posted soon. But thankfully none were taken of me swearing during the construction process!

Santa and the Circle of Hearts

We went to the Circle of Hearts Christmas Party on Saturday. It's the group that organizes events for patients of the Variety Children's Heart Centre. It was a really nice event held at the Children's Museum, complete with a pizza supper and a visit with Santa, who had gifts for all the kids! I'm really impressed with them for organizing the event for the heart kids and their famlies. There were a couple hundred people there and no cost at all to us.

Here's our only picture from the evening, the boys didn't want to sit on his knee, can't really blame them though, I didn't want to either, even though he asked me too! I have to give him some credit though, that room was boiling hot and he had been sitting there for probably an hour by the time we got in to see him. He must have been sweating buckets in that suit!

Oh Christmas Tree

Decorating Christmas Cookies

Em all ready for her first Christmas tree expedition
No she's not smiling.

On the hunt for the perfect tree

Found some little ones...

and some bigger ones...

and the perfect one.
Daddy and Emma chopping it down.

The happy family in front of the trophy tree

how we got the tree back to the van

And now for a little Emma- She's 5 weeks old!

A little video of Em