Bests of the Holiday

The Christmas holidays have come and gone. Around here we're winding down and getting ready for the New Year, new semester for me, and back to work for DH. The tree is down and decorations are nearly all put away. For us, usually this doesn't happen until well into January - however, I heard on the radio awhile back someone talking about how they take everything down by December 31st so as to start the new year with a clean slate. It made sense.

Highlights of this holiday have been:

• Brendan participating in the Christmas Play at my mom's Church. He was a horse. It was very cute.
• Hosting our first Christmas dinner for extended family. It was a success and surprisingly low stress.
• Seeing Brendan so excited realizing that Santa had came and brought him the "big boy scooter" he had requested (the only thing he asked Santa for). 
• Flying a new kite - thanks to Nana and Papa - on a rather warm Christmas morning
• Getting together with old friends. We were lucky to have multiple visits from one of my very best childhood friend's who came home from Edmonton for the holidays. One of these visits involved a foam sword fight..between her and I. I haven't laughed so hard in such a long time. I was also able to get out for dinner with 3 friends from high school and despite not seeing each other in years it was just like old times. 
• Taking B skating for the first time. I was so proud of him. Skating is hard and he was such a good sport. We only caught the last 30 minutes of a family skate session but by the end he was balancing well standing in one spot and getting better at getting up from the ice on his own.

Tonight is shaping up to be another low key New Years Eve and that's A-okay with me.

The Perfect Holiday

Christmas eve was spent wrapping gifts and enjoying champagne and Christmas music after Brendan was in bed.

Christmas morning in this house was spent enjoying a hot cup of coffee and watching the wee one open a ton of gifts and try out each and every one before opening the next.

(Very proud of my Value Village find - the xmas table cloth, also the tree from our own christmas tree farm and the beautiful flowers on the table from my awesome husband since I was having a less than great week the week before Christmas. Not so proud of our old dining room windows in the background that need replacing but at the very least need a curtain to cover up the awfulness)

Then we went on a Christmas morning walk

Made Lentil Soup

Made Super Charge Me Cookies - found here and they were AMAZING

And to top it all off we ate some greasy chinese food!

New Years was spent with Ryan's family at his sister's house playing good old fashioned pond hockey. Unfortunately the ice was a little soft on top so no skating could be done. This is the 3rd year she has had a New Years Day event and it is quickly turning into a tradition. Lots of fun was had indeed!

Happy Happy New Year!

Well.. this is my first post of 2009. The last leg of my winter vacation was pretty hectic and included a bad case of the stomach flu for all of us. For New Years Eve day we went to Ryan's sister's just outside of Newmarket for some outdoor fun. We were hoping Brendan would enjoy riding around outside in his new toboggan but it was too cold out and he got pretty angry pretty fast. All in all we spent more time bundling him up then he spent actually outside. Ryan enjoyed playing some pond hockey with his family and I enjoyed standing on the sidelines by the bonfire and drinking mulled wine from the Coleman stove (unfortunately my skates cannot be located as they have been lost in the move - for now).

I spent the rest of the holiday frantically trying to finish my already late literature review for my thesis project. I am happy to say that I sent it away to my professor last night so I'm feeling pretty good today.

Brendan is growing, growing, growing. He has been trying all sorts of new foods and seems to love the Stonyfield Farms Organic "Yo-Baby" yogurt. He has also taken a liking to melon and loves it in the mesh feeder. It would appear that Brendan will have a ton of new friends in 2009. It feels like everyone I know announced over the holidays that they were having babies this summer. Ah yes.. 2009 should be an exciting year.