Christmas and New Year's 2016

Wow, am I ever behind!  Christmas in May.  Better late than never, right?

Early on, in the month of December, Sophie had a Christmas concert at her school.  Too cute!  She was one of the few that was paying attention and doing all the actions to the songs.  She may have a career on stage; she really seems to love it.

Just before Christmas break started, Sophie hosted a small Christmas party for a few friends from school.  Of course, she would have invited the whole school if I had let her.  Tristan, Ashton, Ewan and his little sister, and Callie came over.  We had a gift exchange and decorated Christmas cookies.  But mostly they just had fun playing and tearing the house apart.

We celebrated Christmas at our place this year.  Nana, Papa and Aunt Janae were here to spend Christmas Eve with us.  The kids got to open one present, pyjamas, slippers and a stuffy (and a book for Hunter, he's so over stuffies!).

Christmas morning was chaos as usual.  There are always far too many presents.  Sophie got her very special pony, StarLily, which she had been asking Santa for since August.  Elise got a barbie pony horse set; Barbie and her three sisters and a horse for each.  Both big hits with the girls.  Hunter got a new cell phone.

Uncle Warren, Aunt Ave, Ally and Grace joined us Christmas day for a turkey dinner.

Finally, we had some friends over to celebrate New Year's.  Candice, Caiden and Aileen; Kelly, Jude and Jonah; and Denny, Chelsea, Emily and Logan were here to count down to 2016 with us (at 8pm).

To see all our December pics, click here.

Thanksgiving and Halloween 2015

This year, we travelled to Medicine Hat for Thanksgiving.  Nana had a special day planned for us while we were there.  We went horseback riding at Midnight's Trail.  Of course, the girls loved it.  The horses were saddled so that one of the girls had to ride with Nana.  Elise would have none of that, being the experienced rider that she is.  Sophie was very helpful and took the first ride with Nana; later, they switched so Sophie could ride by herself as well.  She can't wait for the day she gets to ride with no guide.

Halloween was lots of fun.  Sophie was a My Little Pony Equestrian Girl, and while Elise had initially picked out a fairy costume, she later decided she wanted to wear Sophie's Elsa costume from last year.  We started with a pumpkin hunt at the park by our house.  Our neighbour and good friend, Denny, hid the pumpkins beforehand.  Apparently, he wanted to prolong the hunt for as long as he could, so the pumpkins were very well hidden.  Moms and dads enjoyed some hot chocolate while providing helpful hints to the kids.  After our hunt, we went back to our place for some pizza before heading out to trick or treat.  Sophie and Emily ran from house to house and got almost all the way around the block.  This is a first since in previous years, we only visited a handful of houses before losing interest and wanting to get home to enjoy a few treats.  Elise and Logan were bored sooner, so Chelsea and I stopped at their place with the two little ones while the older ones continued on with their dads, then joined us later when they had had enough.

To see all the pics from the month of October, click here.