Christmas, Here We Come

It is with horror that I realize that I haven't truly posted since our trip to Jamaica, but horror is hardly the proper emotion to open a Christmas post with so I'll move on...


It's been a busy month or so with a wide array of new acquisitions around our house. That's about as optimistically as I can paraphrase the month of breakdowns we've had at our place. Our 2010 truck fell victim to yet another small repair and Rob snapped, so 5 days after returning home from our trip we had surprisingly switched it out for a 1 year newer, nearly identical navy blue Ford truck. Just in case that wasn't enough excitement, our water pump quit without warning, then the heat pump on our furnace, then the dishwasher. That's not entirely fair, the dishwasher stuttered twice briefly before it refused to turn on one day. The woodstove then stopped drawing, we're still working on that one. The hard drive burnt out on our new laptop unexpectedly on my birthday, our ever reliable Corolla didn't turn on two days later in a patients driveway, and 3 hours after Rob finished putting a new starter in the Toyota, our toilet stopped flushing. On the upside, the whole chain of events has now moved into comic absurdity and I asked Rob the other day after he put in a load of laundry "Did the dryer start?" "Yes." "Wow! Well that's lucky!"

Our new truck - which looks exactly like our old truck, especially now that it's covered in road salt and filled with baby seats and hot wheels cars.

 



 

Decorating the tree

 

My work party - Brendan made a Christmas squid. He's very creative.

 

Sadly no photo with Santa for this year - Brendan sat on his lap, Harrison gave him a suspicious high five and Heidi would come no closer than 15 feet.

 

Train World took over our basement for a time - nice to see their interests all come together! Well, briefly. Heidis interests quickly become driving her shopping cart filled with stuffed animals all over the tracks, Harrisons interests quickly became trying to jump off the couch over the tracks (rarely succeeding) and Brendans interests became trying to guard his train tracks from inevitable destruction. Never a dull moment!

 

 

 

I got to attend my first Junior Firefighters night (Rob and Brendan go every other Wednesday). Here, Brendan pretends to choke while Carson gets ready to administer a pretend EpiPen. Brendan actually showed an impressively large amount of dramatic flair!

 

 

 

 

Speaking of dramatic flair, the third shadowy figure from the left is Brendan as Shepherd Number 1, delivering his line with astounding volume and projection!

 

Somewhere in here was my birthday. I don't have any photos of that since I sat on the couch and did nothing. It was lovely. That's not quite true. While Rob was trying desperately to make the work computer come back to life I did go downstairs and back up the hard drive on this laptop that has all my photos on it. I may be an optimist, but I'm not crazy.

 

 

We didn't quite know how to wrap it so Brendan got his Christmas present from Rob and I before we left for Ripley this weekend. He has grown out of his well loved 12 volt hand me down jeep, which can no longer pull his weight up the septic hill of the front yard. We figure he has a lot of years of driving ahead of him and several siblings behind him, but I still don't know how to explain to a 6 year old that this is in all likelihood the biggest Christmas present he'll ever get. PS Check out the epic snow tunnel he and Dad built in the snow this week!

 

Our Ripley Christmas always starts with the Anderson dinner - that's a lot of cousins!!

 

Heidi - all warmed up to the crowd by the end of the night

 

Happy Harry - off for a walk in the snow at the Owen Sound Festival of Northern Lights

 

Mr. B keeping warm

 

With Mimi and Papa

OK, I truly don't understand why the computer won't put these in chronological order but if I speak harshly to it, it may decide to suddenly crap out too, so I won't. I'll finish here with the photos from last weekends Christmas in Barrie with Mike and Tara (who will be spending Christmas Day in Toronto with Tara's family).

 

Nerf guns and dinosaur robots, toy cameras and hair barrettes; Christmas, here we come!

 

Only at Tara's house could the stiletto parade have been considered a normal part of the evening.

 

 

The Lock Family Christmas Photo!

 

Just in case I don't get back to the computer in the next 48  hours (and I think we can consider that a mathematical guarantee),

 

 Merry Christmas!!!!

Liebing Life

I have been awarded a Liebster Award, which is sort of like a blogging chain letter, with the intention that you answer a series of titillating questions and award 5 other noteworthy bloggers you follow with a mention on your site and so on and so forth. Sadly, the other two ladies/moms who I knew who had blogs have committed to spending less time talking about hanging out with their kids and more time actually doing it (as opposed to me), so you're just stuck reading my question and answer series. Enjoy, ha!

1. Are you a day person or a night person?
Night owl, for sure, for sure. I like that morning person isn't even an option here!

2. Why did you start your blog? Bored on mat leave? Keeping family up to date?
To try to notify people that the twins had finally arrived since we anticipated not having wifi in hospital. Ah to think something that was supposed to be short lived ...

3. What would be your death row meal?
My mom's polynesian pork tenderloin with ginger and soy sauce. It's amazing. So much work, but amazing.

4. Do you believe in horoscopes? Why/why not?
Seriously?

5. What is your favourite holiday?
Easter.  Easter in the Cole household is an epic event with 3 easter egg hunts and decorating easter eggs complete with voting in categories like best use of colour and most disturbing egg!


6. What is your favourite Christmas song?
Halekaleke mala. There's no way I succeeded in spelling that right.


7. What do you take in your coffee? Tea?
Cream and sugar. And none of this milk nonsense either. I have just recently discovered the difference that actual 18% cream makes. When I'm out at a restaurant. While I can be superior enough to sneer at milk, I'm also still too crippled by my clinical cheapness to actually buy real creamer for home.


8. What brand of toilet paper do you prefer?
Cheap.


9. Did you watch the entire series of Breaking Bad? If so, how long did it take you? If not, when are you going to?
I watched the whole first season and apparently am the only person in the whole world who found it disturbing and depressing.
10.  What cheerios do you like the best? Original, multigrain, chocolate or honey nut?
Multigrain; they've got that little bit of sweetness, mixed in with the naturally sweet taste of the moral superiority you get from eating healthier sounding food!