Good morning.  Nice lazy day today.  Drove up the coast a bit and went and played at Shipwreck point Rob's favorite close beach.  The kids thoroughly enjoyed it, and were sad when we left.  We left due to it being FREEZING cold.  LOL    Oceanmama as requested there's a picture of two of our five puppies.  Points up.  Those are the two white ones.  They are both girls.  And they actually look like puppies now and not rats.

 

Now points down.  That's Kaylin climbing a tree at the beach.   Its our seasaw tree.  When Rob's feeling strong he lifts it up and down with the kids screaming on it.  

Jamari checking out a piece of seaweed. 

And Jeremiah playing in the sand. 

A fairly poor picture of where we were playing at. 

All in all a nice day. 

 

 

 

The visitors in our tree outside our back door.

Oh man I'm loving my new camera.  It has a 12x zoom and it actually works.  Looking at these in a larger form gives better detail. 

 

Good morning

Yeah for Fridays.  I'm very much looking forward to a laid-back weekend.  Rob is playing with the kids outside, and I'm babying a headache.  At lunchtime I'm going to go out to eat (my postponed run-away day).   Other then that not sure what we'll do.

I know we won't be celebrating New Years unless my parents invite us, as Rob needs to work Monday.  It used to bug me, but now its okay.  When the kids get a bit older we shall have to find a way to make it more special, but for now we're fuddy duds.

The power has fluxuated 3x, and its windy, so there's a good chance we shall be in the dark in a bit.  Other then that we're here and enjoying each other. 

Yeah!  ONe of those rare and precious beautiful blue sky days today.  And perfect for going to the beach.  My uncle & mom packed a huge vanload full of firewood, and we sat around it for almost 4 hours, wrestling, laughing, rock throwing (yes at each other), and wave watching.   A few of the crazier ones even played wave tag.  And Samuel on a dare (from my uncle)  went belly flopping in the waves  (Gee thanks Uncle Vic).     It was so wild as there was wind even though it was blue and the surf was just blowing.  When we first got there I was FROZEN.  My extra sweater got water spilled on it on the way, so I didn't have all the layers I'd planned on.  And the wind just cut through me. 

We tried to pretend like it was beautiful.  Which it truely was.  But oh man it was COLD. 

Jeremiah in a snow suit wasn't even intrested in looking at it.  HE just hunkered down on daddy's shoulder hoping it would go away.  LOL   Finally my brilliant mother suggested we hunker below some drift wood.  And instantly the wind stopped and it was nice.  After a while my uncle came back with they keys--the firewood was locked in the van.  And then we got the before mentioned fire.  It wasn't a huge fire, but it kept the chill off.  My dad and Samuel and Uncle Vic and Zeria did mock sword fights.   My mom and my uncle had a orange throwing fight.  At which point my mother informed me "You are not my mom, and you can't tell me to stop fighting."  I'm still snickering and shaking my head over that.   My mom and my uncle also had a semi-mock-fight over the best place to roast hot dogs.  *snigger*   And all in all it was fun.  This is my mom's baby brother.  There's 13 plus years between them.   But oh man they still act like siblings!

That's my mom using driftwood as a lean.  My mom grew up in Alberta and did not see the ocean until she was 18.  As a result she has an extreme love for it, and most of my truely favorite memories are watching her watch the waves. 

And there's Kaylin building a driftwood fort.  It was nice and NON-windy in there. 

And the ferocious waves of the Pacific Ocean;

 

I would have a ton more pictures, but my batterys died.  *sigh*  I had a back-up set for this new camera only to find out this camera is much pickier about what kind it uses.  *growl*  So the next three hours I spent just enjoying the ocean, and laughing at my slightly nuts familiy.  Okay really nuts family.   It was a fun and exhausting day.  I wouldn't be at all suprised if I sunburned even though it was soooooo COLD!   But it was worth it, after Christmas would be no fun without a trip to La Push.

 

Christmas pictures.  That would be Jeremiah checking out his stocking.  The candy was on top.  He was NOT letting go of candy.  He was not sharing, and he would not look any deeper in his stocking.  The candy was all that was important.   He was very very determined that it was HIS candy and nobody was taking it from him. 

Each of the kids got a bunch of books, although Samuel got Fantastic Four comic books.   It was my effort to get him reading more, he loves comic books.    They spent a few minutes checking them out, the only time they were still enough for me to take pictures.  *snigger*

Kaylin got most of the Mandie series, Zeria the Elizabeth Gail series.  They were two of my favorites when I was there age. 

Jerbud LOVES books, and is quite demanding about us reading to him.  And now we have a few new ones so we're not reading the belly button book 50x a day.  Only 40. 

 

The Christmas mess

Kaylins FAVORITE gift.  This was her exchange gift from Gabe.  She has been absolutely thrilled with it!

The kids playing Hullabaloo.  Its a hysterical game.  It comes with the pads their standing on and a DVD.  The DVD makes them walk, hop, skip, growl, make ape sounds, and sea creature sounds, and a bazillion other things.  While looking for squares, triangles, varying animals and colors.  It is the best kid game man.  If not REALLY loud!

And that's all Xanga will let me load the stink.  I had one more picture.  But maybe later.  And this afternoon we're headed out to meet my aunt uncle parents and siblings that still live at home to go to the beach.  They will come back afterwards to eat pizza at my house.  So busy day!

 

 

One week old today.  Fatter, but not a whole lot bigger.  *giggles*

This is my Christmas Eve blog.  We celebrated Christmas day on Christmas eve thanks to Rob and Tony having to work.  My brother Joel had to work both days so he didn't make it all.  My mom's baby brother and wife and two of their kids drove down from Grande Prairie to celebrate with us, so the house was quite full.  Read FULL.  LOL 

We started Christmas Eve by driving to my parents church and going there with them.  They had there Sunday School program and we knew a lot of the kids due to growing up with their parents.  We interacted with them via youth groups etc.  So it was fun to watch, and giggle through.  This is Zeria dressed up for church in her new coat.    And the picture on top is Kaylin with my Uncle Vic.  He was and is my favorite uncle.  HE's very gentle, and very crazy.  Its a terrific combination.  My favorite memory of him is teasing him about my Aunt Sandy when they were dating, and getting dumped in a rain barrel.  I knew I had it coming, and was quite frankly asking for it.    He and my dad get along like they are brothers instead of brother-in-laws.  All in all there great people. 

 

We had a nice Christmas dinner and did the Christmas exchange.  It was LOUD, noisy, and almost impossible to think let alone take pictures.  I do have one of Jer opening his exchange gift from Sarah.  My sister made this gigantic dragon.  It was all rather hysterical as he's a bit young, and didn't know how to open it, and then when he finally got it open we said "that's from auntie Karla."  So he grabbed it by the ear and gave it to her.  Not to from Jeremiah.   We all had a good snicker at his expense.

 

My Aunt Vic and Sandy were down for Christmas when Jer was *just* a month old, and he spent a lot of time in her arms.  So we had to snag a picture of how much he's grown since then.

Uncle Vic and Aunt Sandy bought Chicken Limbo for my sisters family.  Tony set it up, and a bunch of the kids, and not really kids any more played.  It was hysterical.  The stupid thing bucks and crows at you when you touch it.  *snigger*

Brittany

Zeria;

Sarah 

Eventually the adults couldn't take the chicken clucking sound, so it got put away.   Which meant it was time to invent fun.  So here we have sister being a horsey.   Any pictures I would have of Kaylin and Samuel and Jamari glued to the video games. 

Zeria was sad cause her cousins her age weren't there, so she got a bit lonely.  Uncle Vic and my mom played games with her some of the time to distract her, and then she entertained Jer. 

After a long loud day we headed home.  But had already planned to see a few of our "favorite" Christmas lights.  People that do them every year.  Now that we don't live in PA its a pain to go see them, so it was the perfect time.  We look at about 15 houses, and then made it home about 9 pm.

The kids all fell asleep on the way home--actually 3 of them fell asleep while we were looking at lights.  *giggles*  Rob actually had to carry Zeria into bed.  He's not gonna be able to do that much longer!!

After they were tucked in mommy and daddy weren't quite done.  They had to stuff 6 kiddos stockings.  I had all the stuff all laid out in a laundry basket, but it still took us about 45 minutes.  We were exhausted, and ready to go to bed.  We crawled into bed, turned out the light.  And realized we hadn't put any of the gifts under the tree.

Three or four groans, and we got back up, and spent another 20 minutes getting everything out.   Then into bed at 10:30.   Rob caught the boys attempting there stockings at 4:30 am.  But they were sent back to wait until 7.  We are so mean.  Actually we had to wake the girls at 7 cause the boys just couldn't wait any longer.  Snigger, but that's my next blog.

                                                           

Points up.  That's my Christmas pressy.  Its about 18 inches tall, though you obviously can't tell in the picture.  And it looks just like Jeremiah.  In fact Rob thought it was several times.  *snicker*  Its porcelain, and absolutely adorable.  So now Jer can grow, and I'll remember just what he looked like....

 

My other pressy of course was my camera.   Which I've been using for several months.  And Rainee unequivicably broke on Saturday.  *sigh*  The issue was is its been a lemon since the get-go.  I will NOT be buying camera's online again.  ITs too much of a pain.  So traded that and got a different Kodak.  Its a 7.1 pixel  with a 12x zoom.  And I can already tell its a way better camera.   So that actually worked out pretty good.

Rob is working today, so its a bit of a bummer.  The kids got quite a few different board games between them, so we are slowly playing through them, and my todays project is to find a home for them...so that the parts can't get mixed up.  We already had 4-5 games.  But now we're at umm 10 or so due to my also buying Rob Scrabble which I've recently discovered he LOVES.   So I have a space in mind just have to do some organizing. 

They may be the kids gifts, but I'm guarding them zealously as I haven't in the past and they just get trashed very quickly.  So their allowed to get them out, play them, and then back they go to there home.  (mean mommys )

Anyhow no fancy Christmas dinner today, just vedging, and probably hot dogs for the kids about 3.  But we had a lovely Christmas brunch before Rob went to work, so that's okay.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas from my family to yours

Good evening

I did my last shopping before Christmas, and am quite eager for the holiday to begin.  We have 3 or 4 pressy's to be wrapped tomorrow, but other then that it should be a quiet day.   Our stupid cow has spent much time getting out of the field onto the highway this week.

I left Rob home with four kiddos and he was gonna fix the fence.  Instead he spent most of the time catching the cow.  Needless to say he was extremely grumpy.  Ahh well we can't have everything.   He thinks he has the main break fixed, and if she's still in the field in the morning we'll know for sure.

The puppies are growing, and eating, and Achi seems to be quite a good mommy.

The kids are counting the minutes until Christmas.

And life seems to be peaceful.    If I don't get back on Merry Christmas!