Christmas 2015

I thought it might be better to tackle our entire Christmas season in one post.... we just had too much going on!

One of the highlights of the Holidays was Sydney's first elementary school concert. They organized all of the kindergarten students into one big group so that they could have their own concert on a special Friday afternoon. The sweetness was seriously overwhelming. 90 tiny faces singing French and English songs and doing matching dance moves. It was amazing. Sydney did great and Henry was sooooo excited to watch his sister. He kept yelling out "Hi Sydney!" I am working on uploading the video of the concert for your viewing pleasure, but for now, here are a few cute photos.

That same weekend we attended the annual ATCO kids Christmas party. It is a highlight every year and we always go into it expecting a completely jam packed afternoon. 

For the second year in a row we managed to find the time to head down to the Festival of Trees. We love going to check out all of the beautiful trees and the fun activities. The kids always have a great time decorating cookies, visiting the mini hospital and buying gifts for us in the kids only Christmas workshop. My favourite tree this year was an incredible modern origami tree that I kind of want to recreate for next year. We will see!

Our Holiday season really kicked off with our annual friends Christmas dinner. I didn't take many pictures this year during the festivities, but I did before. I am constantly trying to up my game on the table setting for our dinners. I love to try to create a feeling and a beautiful environment. I think I may have accomplished that this year. 

One of our annual traditions is to go on a drive down Candy Cane Lane and some of the nicer neighborhoods to look at the Christmas lights. We always pick up hot chocolate from Starbucks for all of us and enjoy the time together. We try to finish up our tour at the Legislature where we can go inside to listen to whoever is performing that night. This year is was a Polish chior. 

Then came Christmas morning! My dad came into town to stay with us and I could not have been more thankful. Dave worked the days leading up to Christmas morning and it was so nice to have some adult company. We brought all of the gifts out after the kids went to bed on Christmas Eve so that when Dave came home from night shift the next morning at 6am he wouldn't have to do anything. 

I woke up early and got breakfast going before Jim and Joan showed up to get everything going. The food was delicious and the kids had the best reactions to seeing the Christmas trees and the stockings for the first time. We also told the kids about the baby on Christmas morning. We put together a little sign announcing that there would be three of them and we also bought another chair for their little kids table to make room for one more. I managed to borrow a doppler from a friend to show them the heartbeat as well. It was a really special moment and we managed to get some good video of the entire thing as well. 

I put on the turkey dinner on Christmas day so we were able to spend the day lazing around in our pajamas and playing with new toys. In the end it was a great Christmas season. It is only getting better as the kids get older. 

Mrs. E