A December Scrap-Blog

Here's a few photos of what we've been up to this month so far.

 Visiting with the Parrishes and Sahota's, and a Johnson too!

Lillian-Ruth and Evelyn enjoyed quiet, girly play. They played with a tea set and plunked out tunes on the piano. Once in a while, Alyssa-Belle got to join them. Mostly, she hung with the adults and made we laugh with her antics.




Ethan and Casey built things and explored and conquered things.  Ethan dumped salt all over the floor, then both boys shifted it all around with their toes...then vacuumed it all up!







Later that day, visiting with the Chidlows and Stephens, and Lewis' and Scotts. It's funny how so many names get added to a family as the girls marry!


 Here is Ryan's step-dad Alec with Tyson (the son of Ryan's sister Dawne).











Anyway, these are the children of Jenny and Karen (Ryan's step-sisters). The kids made candy necklaces and they coloured, and they created some music for us to enjoy.

I loved seeing how each of them went about completing their necklaces in a different way. Evelyn worked on hers for a while, then had issues with beads dropping off. So she decided she was content with what she had and would live with the smaller necklace that remained on the string. Ethan stuck at the task for longer than I expected him to. He has a few setbacks, but kept plugging away. He was not concerned about a pattern in the colours or how it looked, but he wanted all the beads on the string. Megan was the first to figure out that if she made a small necklace and finished quickly, she could just eat the left over candy. Ashley completed her necklace, in a pattern and shyly showed the adults her creation. She seemed surprised that we would want to oooh and ahhh at her. As you can well imagine, Evelyn delighted in being delighted in! Emily plugged away at her necklace and just as she would almost finish, she would drop an end and the beads would fly. She would quietly look at the mess, then start over. After the 3 rd time that happened, she happily accepted some help getting those last few beads on her string. Austin watched the others for a couple minutes, then decided playing with the trains was more fun. Later, he managed to get some of the left over beads from Evelyn's plate and enjoyed a few of those. Reward without work! Smart kid! I had fun making the train track with him and trying to build a tunnel out of a rug.


 Here are Austin, Ethan, Ashley, and Emily playing a song for us. What a blessing to get to know these nieces and nephews.

Evelyn's school had their Christmas Concert this week.  They did a great job! Acting, Dancing, Music... very well done. Evelyn's class was in one of the choirs.














If we looked through the heads, and the other kids in the choir stood just right, we could see her. Can you find her?

 Ryan's mom and Step-Dad also came up for the concert. Nana brought gingerbread houses for the kids to make. Here's Ethan's design...or creation? I don't think he had a vision of what he wanted his house to look like!







Evelyn had a definite plan for her house.

We bought a tree that was grown locally. This is the nicest tree we've ever had! It's really tall too. The kids enjoyed hanging the ornaments and each had their favorite. Evelyn liked the 'Dora' ornaments, Ethan liked the 'Charlie Brown' ones. I liked the teacup, teapot and spoon set and Ryan likes the Rudolph ornaments. A family favourite remains the two 'Christmas Story' ornaments. One shows the boy with his tongue stuck to the flag pole, the other the little brother with his arms stuck out in his snow suit.

Getting the angel on top was a bit dramatic. Ryan lifted Evelyn onto his shoulders, but she decided she now has a fear of heights. So she screamed and carried on but eventually put the angel on top. It doesn't look like the fancy trees in the stores, but if you look at each ornament closely, it has a lot to catch your interest!