Happy New Year!

Well, Christmas 2006 is now history, written down in the pages of our memories. And good memories they are! I'm not up-to-date enough to have uploaded all my pictures (no laptop you know) yet, so those will have to wait for a future post.

It's been such a fun holiday, being "home" with most of the family. We're missing M and R, but it's been fun to chat with them a lot online and we even got to see them with the webcam for a bit.

We are having a great time in Red Lake. Daryl had to go home yesterday :-( but the girls and I get to stay until Saturday. Yesterday A had her first ski-doo ride! We went back a short way into the bush to go sledding on a great hill back there. She didn't move a muscle or make a sound on the way. We had a great time sledding, seeing who could win for distance. It's so much fun to be in "The Bush" again, enjoying the cold and snow. We also had a hot dog roast and the girls played in the snow fort that Papa and Daddy helped them make.

Today we are relaxing indoors, hopefully going to bomb around on ski-doos again later. Adie was sick with a fever all night so I think it will be a low key day for her and I.

Hope you all had the merriest of Christmases.

Bethlehem, Live!

Reminder to self: Never take kids on an outing alone where there will be soldiers yelling at you to hurry along and randomly grabbing people out of the crowd, King Herod going on in a very loud voice about being the ONLY KING, a busy marketplace, and countless others running wildly about, talking very loudly.
Need I say more???

Thank God, we ran into friends there, and they were able to help me with my terrified, screaming children (only the 2 littlest, thank goodness - the oldest didn't cry until she spilled her hot chocolate)! Next year will be better, when our kids are older, as it was an EXCELLENT production. It was as close to being in Bethlehem as we can get this Christmas! Baby Jesus was a real newborn, laying on the hay kicking his feet contendedly. The angels were truly angelic and brought tears to my eyes. The rabbi was old and sweet and sang a lovely Jewish song. The shepherds were indeed terrified and ran to see the Babe in the manger. The donkey, chickens, rabbits and lama gave off a sweet barnyard aroma. The leper made me cry as he rejoiced in the Savior who was promised. It really made Christmas more meaningful for me this year!

Not a clear picture because I was being bumped around, but I had to post one of the star of the show! (at least in our eyes!)

The girls looked so nice at the concert I wanted to take a picture when AC got off the stage. I told them to smile nicely... The people behind us were almost falling off the bench laughing! Of course in a setting like that (nice children singing pretty songs in the backgroung), this was way unexpected and I laughed until I cried.

Me and Jenn, my long lost friend. :-)

...on the sleigh ride

Adrienne is 10 months

Peek-a-Boo! Now when I say "Where's Adrienne?" this is what she does. Isn't she cute? :-) She can also sign "please" and "thank-you" and tries to say "uh-oh" and "thank-you". She finally learned to clap properly, but she still gets mixed up sometimes. Okay, enough bragging...

Quote

AC (in a whiny voice): Oooooh, I'm starving. I'm so hungry. I'm an orphan.
O (happily): I'm a dolphin.

Hello!

I'm still alive, believe it or not! I guess I've just been preoccupied with other things and blogging gets put on the back burner.

We had a nice "vacation" with Daryl being off for 2 weeks. He spent a bit more time moose hunting, but didn't get anything. So sad. I was really excited about having moose meat again. At least he had a good time in the bush!

We had a great sleigh ride the other night with another home group from church. It was a beautiful night - nice and cold but not unbearable. It sounded beautiful to hear the bells jingling on the horses.

We got to go visit Cory and Jenn and kids in Swan River last weekend! It was so good to see them again and they were wonderful hosts. What a relaxing weekend, and good quality time with friends. Also nice to get out of the city.

AC had her school Christmas concert the other night. She was so cute. She got to ring the little bells and hold up her "R" in Christmas. She was very serious about the whole thing and made sure to watch her teacher and hold up her sign at exactly the right time! :-) It was so refreshing to see an entire school so focused on the birth of Jesus. The whole program was about finding out why we use the symbols we do for Christmas (bells, angels, starts, etc.). It was really back to the basics.

Today we are busy with C0mmunity Kitchen and swimming lessons. It is a gorgeous day outside - the sun is shining and the new snow is all sparkly. It's been right around freezing all week so that's a nice change. We hope to go see a live Nativity this weekend, and possibly a drama too. We'll see how much energy we have! It's bound to be a packed weekend no matter what, so I don't want to stress too much about fitting extra stuff in. I plan to sit and drink coffee and maybe eat a few more cookies...

Our Tree

Here is our tree! I don't know why the lights look the weird colours - they're really red and green. The close up pics are of the girls' pipe cleaner angels that Grandma Nisly helped them make. They looked so nice on my camera and now they're too dark.

We had a nice weekend...got a babysitter last night, and Daryl and I attended 2 different parties (both of good friends)! So it was a fun evening. Today Daryl actually got to come to church with us, and we had a quiet afternoon of napping and reading, and company here for snacks and a good game of Settlers!

Until next time...