The Countdown has begun.

It's the second week of December and Christmas is almost here. Only 15 more days til Christmas and 31 days til Disney. Our trees are up, (yes we have 2) the decorations are up, the stockings are hung and the christmas countdown has begun. This year christmas seems to be comming faster than usual. Maybe it's because the kids are the perfect age for Santa, maybe it's all the snow on the ground or maybe it's the fact we are waiting to go to Disney in January. Something we are all excited about. Don't get me wrong, we all love christmas in our house. We read all the traditional christmas books, listen to all the christmas music and watch all the christmas cartoon and movies. This year the kids love the Polar Express and Home Alone, and Ron and I love Elf and A christmas .

I also love all the lights at christmas and will have to take the family for a drive around the town to see them all. We have some up but with 2 acres it's hard to decorate the yard. This year for Christmas we decided to cut back a little on presents. The kids are getting a few gifts. Ron and I are exchanging a present or to and of course Santa will bring Riley and Kiera something. We also decided to teach the kids about giving. This year they each gave up a present so we could pick an Angel from the tree and buy a present for needy kids. Riley choose a 15 year old boy who asked for books, and headphones, Kiera choose a 9 year old girl who wanted a warm sweater, flannel sheets and Slippers and I chose a 6 year old girl who wanted princess sheets and a webkinz. I felt so bad that I could not help more of these families. The kids liked that they were helping kids that were not going to receive much this christmas.

Both Kids have seen Santa and written their letters. A few weekends ago we went to a Santa skate at the Scotia Bank Arena, where the kids skated for an hour then went to see Santa, eat and make crafts. It was a greta day. We went with friends of our and their Kids. They all had alot of fun. And last weekend we went to the town's Santa Parade. It was great. It lasted over an hour and all the floats were lite. upThis year Kiera asked for a white puppy in a purse and Riley asked for Martian Matter. Riley's Santa letter from school appeared in the community newspaper. He was happy to see that.

This christmas will be a little different since we are not going to Winnipeg and no one is comming to visit us. It is our first christmas alone. yes it will be pretty quiet with just the 4 of us but will be a nice change. There is no stress of running here and there.




Yesterday we had a winter storm that dropped approx 30cm of snow. Let me tell you, that's alot of snow. I had an appointment in the city that took me at least an hour to get to. The roads were horrible. When I got home I had Ron teach me how to use the snowblower and I did the whole driveway myself. Riley was sick home from school and was happy to get out of the house to play in the snow with the neighbourhood kids. Then this morning, the radio announced buses were cancelled. Which means snow day. usually I keep the kids home but because Riley had missed 2 day of school already we decided to send him to school today. Another reason was he was getting bored at home.

Tonight Riley has hockey, and on the weekend the kids get to see the Barenaked ladies. Kiera has finished Gymnastics and is now looking for something else to do. Next week we have Christmas concerts and school will be done. Wow the time flys.

Merry Christmas Everyone. Hope to see you in the New Year.

P.S.

I am sending the Kids school Pictures out.

Boo

Here are some pics of the kids at "family fun night" last night and their school and tonight.

Fall is in the air

Well it's that time again, when you wake in the mornings with frost on the ground and ice on your windows. The day slowly gets warm and just when you think the day is warm and beautiful, the sun goes down and it's cold again. That being said, we have tried to take advantage of the warm weekends to get some things down around the house and go see the beautiful fall Foilage in Ontario. For those of you who don't know Ottawa has the most beautiful tree colors I have ever seen. There are Red, orange, yellow, green and Brown. The red and orange leaves stand out the most. While on one of our excursions I tried to capture the colors but the pictures do not do it justice. It is something you just have to experience.



Our excurions this Fall have not included our typical Gatineau Park or Pumpkin Farm. This year we went to The Mill of Kintail(about 15min from our house) and Luskville Falls(on the Quebec side. Both had hiking trails, an abundance of colorful leaves and water. The kids love throwing rocks or twigs in the water and looking for different insects etc.. I was happy i could get a few nice pictures.

Last night Ron racked the leaves in the front yard and made piles for the kids to jump in. They had lots of fun but became cold fast and were in the house for some hot chocolate. I must say I'm glad we don't have as many trees as some of our neighbours or we could be out there for days (like them) raking those leaves.
The weather is cooling down and were supposed to have some rain. I just hope it doesn't turn to snow.
Happy Fall

Mmmmmm Donuts

Friday I gave Riley a little more power on the ATV and he figured out how to do power slides and donuts....of course Kiera had to try as well but since we don't give her enough power, she couldn't really do it. She has been enjoying the ATV lots though and can drive it all around by herself.






-Ron

Drums

Riley got some drums for his birthday. So far both kids have been enjoying them. Riley can't get the "Darth Vader" song out of his head and basically always ends up playing it. Kiera didn't feel like playing them today so no video of her.






-Ron

Concert time

The kids like to put on concerts. Here is one from the other night. First up is Kiera singing a song her and Riley wrote about a tornado.




Next is Riley "singing" a Barenaked Ladies song off their kids album.

And finally Kiera again...unfortunately the kids love xmas music so we end up listening to it all year round :)

Homemade video game

For some reason Riley decided to start making his own hand-held video games. They have all different buttons for jumping, spinning, electricity and other stuff. Kiera and he can sit there for quite a long time playing these imaginary games.

He just made a new one ( picture below ) this weekend. This one is special as it can transform into a laptop...and its a good thing too cause he was able to log onto the transformer website and watch the new transformer movie ( which comes out next year! ) yesterday while we drove to the "Mill of Kintale"to go for a hike. Kiera and he watched movies on their pretend videogame/laptops the whole way there...crazy.

Upgrade from Frog to Snake

Frogs are sooo last week. We've upgraded to snakes. I caught this one along the side of our house the other day. The kids really liked it ( we've been trying to catch one that seems to live in our ditch for a while now ). When we let it go, we had to drive down to the river so that Mel will go outside again :)

The Frog Catchers

Boy do our kids love frogs. Its a good thing too cause our pool loves to trap frogs! We've started leaving the pumps off at night so they don't drown in the skimmer. On this morning there were 4 in the pool.

Starting a new blog

Well everyone, I'm starting a new blog. Basically it will cater to my on going crafts and scrapbooking. The new blog is http://treasuresforyoubymelb.blogspot.com/.

Here fishy

Getting good use of the boat so far this year. Taken the kids out twice so far. The lake here is great for the kids, they catch fish as fast as I can take the fish off and put a new worm on. Not much fishing for me but oh well. Mostly they catch bluegill and perch. Kiera likes the perch better since they're smaller, she's a bit scared of the bigger bluegill. She's funny too because she gets tired of fishing but then complains that Riley's catching fish and she isn't...go figure.







Here is a catfish Riley caught...guess his lure was in the mud :) Pretty heavy fish though.And here is Riley's favorite fish. He had to tell everyone at the dock about how he caught a Walleye