Last post of 2010

I feel as though this post should be deep and meaningful, reflective and poetic and all that other good stuff...

The reality is that when I look back on this year, more than any year before, I've documented it well. This blog has become a reflecting pool of memories and moments that I cannot adequately sum up here and now.

What I can say is that I have learned much this year. I have learned grace, forgiveness, patience, the gift of laughter and discovery from my girls. I have learned more deeply the meaning of Love from Hubby. I have learned about loyalty and fierceness from good friends. And from all of the above, I have learned about this way of faith.

Thank you and I love you. Looking forward to living and loving with you in the New Year.

Today's sickness report

6:30 am - The girls wake up. Hubby shoes them downstairs to watch TV as he gets ready for work.

7:15 am - Hubby leaves.

7: 37 am - Bear starts poking me to wake up.

8 am - I shower, I feel good. Thinking positive thoughts.

8:45am - I eat breakfast, read a bit of my book...still thinking positive.

8:50am - I start not feeling good.

9 am - Seriously, not good.

9:30 am - Ship the girls off to my parents for the day.

9:55 am - Back in bed.

Noon - Wake up, feeling groggy. Unpack my suitcase and clean the bedroom.

12:20 pm - Back to bed.

1:45 pm - Second shower, clean up the kitchen, take a walk to the grocery store for ginger ale and chicken noodle soup.

2:30 pm - Collapse on the couch till I need to pick up the girls.

4 pm - Pick up the girls, come home and cuddle with Pookie on the couch.

5:15 pm - Bear convinces Hubby to take her to McDonalds for dinner, leaving me and Pookie on the couch.

6:30 pm - Dinner finished, Bear now playing with our new XBox Kinect. She needs a bathroom break and gets me to step in for her. I play 3 rounds and fall down in exhaustion.

7pm - Current time, girls playing Polly Pockets, me counting down the minutes before I can put them to bed...therefore enabling myself to go to bed.

2 for 2.

It is official. We've managed to ruin both family Christmas gatherings due to sickness. Hubby ruined his family's, and today it was my turn to ruin my family's.

Sorry for the repetitiveness of these last posts, but I count it a victory that my brain has not leaked out of my eyeballs.

Taking a sick day.

I thought I was feeling better...even did some yard work. But now? All I want is my bed, at 7pm.

If you are the praying sort, feel free to send some heavenward for Pookie. The poor kid has been practically comatose with sickness these last few days. I think the time she was awake, coherent and not puking was a matter of minutes today.

Home.

We are home. And there is a whopper of blog post detailing the adventure that it was, but I'm too wiped to do it justice today. Stay tuned.

All I want for Christmas

Dear Lord,

All I want for Christmas is a uneventful flight home with my sick family.

And a hippopotamus.

Love,
Me

And then there were 5.

Today was the Christmas with our immediate family on Hubby's side, these crazy Middle Canadians. We currently have 15 of us with a boyfriend and father in law joining to make it 17.

This morning only 10 of us made it to church. We all gathered for coffee, cake and present opening in the afternoon, but only after Hubby, who has been raging sick for the last 3 days, had a nap. By the end of present opening, 3 more felt unwell. As we prepared dinner, another fell sick and we put up a ban around the kitchen and food prep, leaving it to my MIL, Lisa (my sil) and me.

By the end of dinner, 4 members left for home and bed, Hubby, his dad and sister all crashed, the 4 remaining kids watched a movie while 5 of us played cards. Before the movie was done, 2 kids, including Pookie came over with achy bodies begging to go to bed...at 8 pm.

So, as it stands now, Hubby and Pookie are very sick, Bear is recovering but still really stuffy and I am fighting to keep sickness at bay. Should be an excellent flight tomorrow, can't wait!

The good news was in that 2 hour window of opening presents, watching all the cousins play with each other, snacking and drinking...it was awesome.

The night before Christmas

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a person was healthy, not even a mouse;
boxes of Kleenex placed by the bed with care,
In hopes that good health soon would be there.

The girls were nestled all snug in their beds,
while armies of mucus danced in their heads;
and Dad with his 'kerchief, and I in my pjs from the Gap,
Had just settled down for a long winter's nap!


Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

2 nights, 2 movies

Last night: Prince Caspian. Not bad. A good curl up in bed with popcorn, but quickly fall asleep after kind of movie.

Tonight: Inception. A crazy, need to pause in the middle of the movie to ask questions kind of movie for sure. At first, we felt like we'd made a mistake renting it despite all the glowing reviews from friends, but it did redeem itself in the end. Some of the special effects were amazing!

Although tonight I'm a bit worried about dreaming...what does it all mean?!?!?!

Some things in life you can only do east of the Rockies

Skate on a front yard ice rink

Hubby and the girls

Hubby and the girls have a special relationship. It is filled with love and affection, wrestling and playing, laughing and teasing...I love watching Hubby with them and my daily prayer is that it will continue for years and years to come.

Having gushed about all that, they also have a more casual, jokey way together that I never had with my dad..as evidenced by what we overheard coming from the bathroom tonight:

Girls in bathtub: Hey Dad!

Hubby: No response

Girls: Hey Daddy!

Hubby: No response

Bear: Hey! J for Jehoshaphat!(a reference to Hubby's first letter of his name) Come get us out of the tub!

The rest of us sitting around the table nearly fell off our chairs laughing. Seriously?!!?? Who does that with their dad???? So great.

Things I learned today.

• That I can read 2 1/2 James Patterson's murder mystery novels in a day.
• That me reading 2 1/2 novels a day makes Hubby a tad grumpy.
• That the 6 hours a day that the girls are at school is really helpful in their relationship with each other. 24/7 time together degenerate into hours and hours of bickering. (especially if I'm reading)
• That I am drinking copious amounts of tea and coffee due to my MIL's routine of preparing these beverages on a 3 hour cycle. As well as the sheer amount of candy I am consuming.
  
• That putting down a book and bundling up to take my daughters, niece and nephew sledding with Hubby is priceless family time. As is taking down my niece and shoving snow down her back.
• That hot chocolate, popcorn and a movie cuddled on the couch with the above folk is a good way to warm back up.

Tomorrow? Braving the mall and a cousin's birthday party.

The Clan gathering

Today was Hubby's clan gathering dinner. 40 loud, loving, Dutch (for the most part) folks in one house to share a meal together. When we were first married, I found these dinners completely overwhelming...and that was before we all started adding kids to the mix. Hubby's family is loud and boisterous, affectionate and casual, everything my family wasn't. And I loved it.

It can be a bit difficult for us outlaws/married ins, to find our niche in this family...not because the family is not welcoming, but often more because most of us come from quieter, smaller families. Personally, I think it is part of the attraction for those of us who married in, this strong sense of clan, the family and the obvious love shared here. I love sitting back and watching everyone interact and often find myself in smaller conversations with different folk. And it is so fun to watch the girls run around with a dozen cousins and second cousins, only coming for food and the occasional hug to ground themselves.

And at the beginning of the meal, scripture is read, prayers offered for those not with us and an overarching sense of thankfulness for what we have. It was loud, crazy and beautiful.

An interesting conversation

We went with some of our cousins and their kids to a Christmas tree farm to chop down the perfect tree. When we arrived, the owner came out to direct us and asked us where we were from, when we answered BC, she smiled and waved us off on our adventure. As we came back from sliding on the frozen creek, making snow angels and finding the perfect tree, there was hot chocolate, apple cider and a bonfire for roasting marshmallows.

As I went in to get the drinks, the owner asked me why we came back to Ontario. I thought she phrased it strangely, but answered that we were here for Christmas. She gave this big sigh of relief and said that she thought we'd moved back here from BC and she couldn't understand why we would do that. Like it was the stupidest thing she'd ever heard...

A bit strange, no? But it got me thinking, especially since we just got news that one of our cousins and his family ARE moving back to this area from BC. The answer is quite simple. Family. Not such a shabby reason at all.

Middle Canada

This part of Middle Canada has some quirks that I always remember when I get here:

• Houses are made out of brick, not wood.
• Houses tend to be smaller, but with crazy huge underground basements.
• It is so cold here.
• So cold, that my brother in law has built a massive ice rink in his front yard. We are hoping we get to skate on it before we leave.
• Everything is cheaper here, gas (16 cents cheaper), food, housing.
• There isn't a lot of ethnic diversity. And when I say not a lot, I mean I didn't see an Asian person at all and maybe one other non white person. It's not bad, just so radically different than the West Coast.
• There is a Dutch store here that carries anything and everything you could ever want. I spent a lot of money there today! And when I say me, I mean my mil!

And the best part of Middle Canada? The family of course! So far I've seen most of our immediate family, siblings, nieces and nephews, and one uncle. And that is just in the 24 hours we've been here. Middle Canada, it's good here.

Made it.

4 am wake up, 5:15 am drop off at the airport, 7 am flight, 5 long hours, 1 1/2 drive and we are here.

Aside from a bit of delicate vomiting from Bear, the flight was uneventful.

I am exhausted.

Travelling mercies

Tomorrow the girls and I head back east sans Hubby. Just me and 2 kids. And just me. with 2 kids. On my own.

Anyways...

Early in our marriage, Hubby and I decided that if at all possible, we would not spend nights apart. We had several friends who, because of work, often spent lots of time apart with one partner travelling; and we didn't want that for us. But then about 3 years ago both Hubby and I took jobs that called for travel. Hubby lived on an island and I jetted off around the West. At one point, I only saw my family 3 out of 7 days for 2 1/2 months. Needless to say it was incredibly hard on the girls and on our marriage. (A situation that we have remedied thankfully)

But there was one another side effect to the separation and travelling, a near constant nightmare...a super vivid image of something happening to Hubby and the girls that would leave me alone in this world without them. Often I would/will wake up from this dream so certain that something had happened to them that I would need to call or text Hubby to reassure myself.

So every time we part, I ask for travelling mercies. Not for me (the usual travelling partner), but on the family I leave behind. This time, I am asking for multi-layered mercies:

• For me to be a patient, kind mother to my 2 very excited girls
• For my in-laws who are driving in to get us from the airport
• For Hubby who is staying behind to work

Charlie Brown had it right

We watched Charlie Brown's Christmas with the girls tonight before their Christmas pageant. It was cracking us up that the characters go between calling each other stupid and knucklehead, to talking about Santa to quoting 2 Kings from the bible.

But I think this clip says it all...

Double Advent Activity

Somehow yesterday flew by without us doing our Advent activity so we doubled up today. Steamed milks in hand, we toured our village and checked out the local lights displays on houses. Some folks or in some cases, streets, go all out!

The second activity is easily one of the girls' top 5 in the box, painting everyone's toenails. Hubby is such a good sport that each girl picked a colour and painted his toes, as well as getting their painted by me and Jackie.

It's the little things that make life big.

Sunday School Christmas Pageant...

The most beautiful Mary EVER!



Pookie chose not to participate in the pageant, but there were 2 lovely women who knew my daughter's heart and asked her to "help" with the little kids. She ended up being an angel, pictured here with Mary and Joseph.


Welcome to Peace Sunday, the 3rd Sunday of Advent

A few things that made me smile today...

A morning wake up cuddle and tickle war with the girls and Hubby.

A dinner of french toast and bacon. Hmmm....bacon.

Driving around in the pouring rain checking out Christmas lights and train displays.

Coming home to Hot Chocolate.

Listening to these 2 Chrismas mash-ups by Straight No Chaser:

A night in the village.

Tonight in the village was the annual Christmas parade, tree lighting and carol ships. We also visited the museum and made 'pioneer' christmas ornaments; dipped candles, paper chains and stamped cards. Good times in the village.

Advent song

One of the unintentional side effects of doing our Advent box is that it actually slows us down. It takes the rush of Christmas and breaks it down into manageable pieces, as opposed to adding to the burden. It creates space to be with each other, to do the 'tasks' of the season all the while being framed by the mystery and waiting of Advent.

I will admit to a love of Amy Grant's Christmas music and this song is a perfect capture of the longing to slow down and enjoy the season.

The skinny jean debate

I am not one to be really current with fashion trends. My style is "dress for the elements" with a bit of thrift store free. I could never be accused of being trendy or hip. Between living with a young adult whose fashion sense is very good, daughters who have a very strong sense of their own style and new friends who would never be caught in mom jeans, I find myself contemplating fashion more than I ever have before.

It is all about the skinny jeans and boot trend that seems to be everywhere. Every age, every body shape, every gender seems to be wearing various styles of the skinny jean and boot look. (Let me just take a minute and voice my opinion that skinny jeans + guys = a horrible look...but that's just me.) I just don't know if I can rock this look. Jackie insists that I can do it and has been my most vocal supporter, making me try on various combinations.

I'm sure that this is just another body issue thing for me. I've always been more comfortable in looser fitting clothes, even when I was dead skinny. I've been making some movement towards closer fitting clothes, much to the delight of Hubby, but I'm just not sure I can make the leap.

But if I'm gonna do it, I gotta do it soon. Jackie is leaving us to pursue higher education. (Apparently that is more important than hanging out with us...the nerve!)

The BBC reading List

Just to keep myself on my toes and to ensure I don't rot my brain with too much fiction fluff, or overload my brain with overly theological tomes; I am going to take on the BBC 100 must read book list. According to the BBC, most people have only read 6 on this list. I think I've done 28. I'd be a lot further ahead if I was a Jane Austen fan! I've 'bolded' the ones I've already read. If you have any of the books that I haven't read and are willing to share, I'd be thankful!

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee **may read again
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell**may read again
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare - read some, but not others...
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy.
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth.
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt.
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Puppets + Imagination = Family Bedtime Stories

There are a few things out of my comfort zone as a parent. Eating food that has already been in my child's mouth, explosive diarrhea and making up stories on the fly.

Tonight's advent activity was puppet making and story telling...proof that I love my kids more than my own comfort.

First off we needed to make some puppets, brown lunch bags, pencil crayons and stickers. Hubby and I each made one, Bear made 4, Pookie made 7. Then up to their bedroom to hear the stories. Hubby went first using whatever was in the room. Then Bear giggled her way through her little story. Then it was my turn. Suffice it to say that my story ended fairly quickly after my puppet planted magic sunflowers seeds with her mouth cause she had no arms. Everyone started laughing so hard, I lost my train of thought. And Bear laughed so hard she farted, which basically meant we all started laughing again.

Then the superstar of the family stepped up to the plate and delivered the winning story. Pookie's story had multiple characters, drama, horror, dragons, dogs and ultimately a love story between Amy and Ralph. It was a 3 chapter story. I think she could have kept going if we hadn't said, "The End". The imagination on that kid is just brilliant.

Family Advent memories in making...

3rd Annual Advent Open House

Today was our Open House. The girls were a little excited. And by me saying a little, I mean A LOT. As in awake at 6:30am, dressed by 7 and room cleaned by 7:15am. Too bad for them, it didn't start till 2, but it started off slow. Then at 4 pm we got slammed! I think at one point there were 20 kids running around upstairs and 20 adults downstairs.

I really do love having a houseful of people, chatting, drinking and getting to know each other. The best part is how different parts of our lives seems to converge in gatherings like these. I love seeing people would wouldn't normally cross paths sit down and share a plate of food and a drink together.

It is like a little glimpse of heaven to me, all chaotic and beautiful.

A future conversation

Tonight as Hubby and I were indulging in dvd marathon, we watched 2 characters have a "conversation" about sex. The 2 actresses are comic geniuses and the subtext/code words in the dialogue, hilarious. All talking about the 'motherland' and local dialect....

It made me think of the type of conversation I'm going to have with the girls in the not so distant future around sex/sexuality. Gotta say, not holding my breath for that one..BUT, I do want to be the one telling/talking about it with them. To be able to get over myself and talk and listen to the girls. To hear their questions and not to be dumb about my answers.

Hopefully I still have time, but I know it is coming.

Movie Night

There are certain pop culture books that get Christian folk's knickers in a knot...Catcher in the Rye, The Narnia series, The Da Vinci Code and this series, Harry Potter.

I have friends who think the Harry Potter series is one of the best fiction series around. The BBC 100 books you must read would agree. Other friends believe that the series is evil incarnate, the idea of magic totally repulsive. I've heard the phrase 'demon possessed' tossed around once or twice in conversation around this topic.

As you may have noticed over this year, I love to read. Harry Potter is a series I owned and re-read quite frequently. I think it is one of the best series that has come out in a good long while and I love how it has crossed age boundaries. You could talk to a 7 year and a 87 year old and you would find kindred spirits around the characters.

I don't believe that it is appropriate for my 7 year to read or watch the movies simply because:

a). She is not at the reading level needed to comprehend the book.

b). She is 7 and the movies are scary.

That said, if at age 9+ either girl shows an interest, I would let them read it.(I would probably hold off on the movies as long as possible) Thankfully by the time either girl reaches that age, we should be well past the marketing blitz other parents have had to endure.

I will admit that I'm always a bit judgemental when I see parents bring in kids that look younger than 10 to these movies. Tonight there was one scene in the movie that scared both Hubby and I so badly that I think I stopped breathing and I'm pretty sure that Hubby will have left fingermarks on my leg where he was resting his hand. Then we got the nervous giggles because of all that adrenaline racing through us that it took a good 5 minutes for us to calm down. I'm sure the 7 year old a few rows ahead of us won't have nightmares at all!

Can't wait till the next one comes out!

A week of Advent activities in pictures...

Sunday - Decorating for Advent/Christmas (not a great picture)

Monday - Dinner in a fort


Tuesday - Playing Board games


Wednesday & Thursday combined due to busy days - Buying food for the food bank and making bird feeders for the garden.





Some pictures with my girls
Bear's picture of me and Pookie


Pookie's picture of me and Bear

I can never resist "elfing" the girls!

Bringing the Christmas Spirit!

Amazing Flash Mob