So long 2010, hello 2011!

Posted on December 31, 2010 by Sherry

I can’t believe it’s the last day of 2010 and that as of midnight we’re in a whole new year. Time really does go by faster the older you get I guess. I thought I’d post a random photo from each month.

January 2010 – A little sledding.

February 2010 – I confess to having a bit of a yoga addiction.

March 2010 – An epically delicious meal in Chinatown where four of us ordered so much food the man at the table next to us asked if we were perhaps expecting some more friends to show up (no, we were just very hungry).

April 2010 – I spent some time contemplating the meaning of life while standing on my head (and have never been able to do it successfully ever since). We also bought a minivan and there is no going back.

May 2010 – Thanks to Doctors Without Borders, I spent a morning as a refugee in a camp that was set up in a local park.

June 2010 – I enjoyed an evening out with the PPO ladies at a local restaurant where I ate some of the best food I’ve ever tasted.

July 2010 – Spent a lot of time swimming, both with friends and at the nearby public pool.

August 2010 – Single best thing about August? Heading to Halifax.

September 2010 – It got so stupidly hot in Halifax that I actually willingly leaped into the chilly northern Atlantic Ocean. We also survived Hurricane Earl. Then Hayley turned eight.

October 2010 – We brought sweet little Winnie into the family.

November 2010 – Breanna turned five.

December 2010 – Best Christmas so far.

I usually do resolutions but I’ve found something even better this time around. Thanks to my yoga practice I’ve learned new things and new ways of looking at things. Instead of making a resolution I’m going to do a very yogic thing instead and make an intention.

My intention for 2011 is to find as much joy and happiness as I can each and every day. Not every day of a full year is going to be great; it would be unrealistic to expect that. Some days there will be kids acting up, a stupid argument, a stranger being an asshole to you, or you just might have a really bad cold and feel like crap.

Still, every day can have at least one moment of joy, no matter how small. It might be as obvious as having a fabulous day with good friends. It might be as easy-to-miss as having half an hour of silence to read on the couch. But those moments are all there and my intention is to try to find at least one for each day. I’m not going to commit to writing about them but maybe from time to time I can post something about it. Mostly though, this is something just for myself to create a habit of seeing something good no matter what else is going on. I’m one of those obnoxious hopeless optimists anyway so this should be good for me.

Happy new year to all of you; may 2011 bring you everything you want in life!

The holly and the jolly and all that cheer

Posted on December 30, 2010 by Sherry

Nothing like waiting until five days past Christmas to update about how your Christmas was, right? In my defense I’ve been really busy. And by “busy” I mean I’ve been playing the Wii, lounging on the couch, sledding, and other time sucking joys. You know. Busy!

In summary though, Christmas was wonderful. I think it may have been one of the best ones thus far because not only did Santa bring the kids exactly what they had asked for, George and I managed to give each of them a gift that brought about high pitched screaming of happiness.

As always, our Christmas is never just a one-day event. This year it actually started on Christmas eve because our good friends asked them to come over and join them for dinner. It was so nice and I enjoyed myself so much. It was also helpful because it gave the kids an energy outlet which allowed them to fall asleep somewhat easier at (their later than usual) bedtime.

Christmas eve with friends is awesome:

After the kids opened their traditional Christmas eve pajamas, I shooed them off to bed and once they were sleeping we put all of our presents out under the tree. I headed off to bed in the usual divide and conquer manner. Every year we split up and each of us sleeps in the same room as one of the kids. This year I squashed myself into Hayley’s twin bed. With all 572 of her stuffed animals. And all her bony elbows and knees. That was … not restful.

Then again I never sleep well on Christmas eve. I always jolt awake suspiciously at every sound wondering if one of the kids managed to sneak out to poke around or if the dog somehow magically opened her cage and was ripping paper off of everything. It didn’t help that because of where Hayley’s walls are situated I could hear the neighbors up talking until THREE IN THE MORNING (in that Charlie Brown “mwa mwa mwa mwa mwa” voice that all the adults use) and the water flushing through the pipes whenever someone downstairs used the bathroom. Alas. I did eventually fall asleep.

We ended up not waking up until 8:30 which is pretty nice. I had to laugh when my mom told me that my dad woke her up at 7:30 to open presents!

The kids were very excited on Christmas morning.

Santa brought the walking dogs they wanted!

They also got a game for the Wii (25th anniversary for Super Mario), the Crayola spin-magic glow kit from George’s friend, Breanna got the Dora playhouse, and Hayley got a new stereo. However, the best was saved for last and we’re still a little deaf from the reaction we received when the kids each opened a DSi.

I also got a nice gift from each of them. Hayley got me a soap and cream set with a green tea scent, and Breanna got me a set of fancy bath soaps. Meanwhile, Breanna got George a huge wine goblet and Hayley gave him a cool candle. They were both really happy to go shopping to pick something out for each of us.

Even Winnie got in on the action, opening her own presents.

That wasn’t it though! After that we threw coats on over our pajamas and headed over to see George’s parents, sister, and brother-in-law.

I can’t even remember everything. The kids got some great stuff (including the above joke gift of cereal which cracked them up) – clothes, a projector book set, a candy apple kit, beading set, all kinds of stuff. George and I each got some nice clothes as well and we got a nice new dish set. We left the kids there and came back home to unwind for a bit and to let me take the dog for a good long walk before we headed back over for supper. Supper was DELICIOUS.

We were all quite tired and I think everyone slept well that night. Which was good because Christmas was NOT over. On the 26th we were up at a decent hour so we could drive out to see my parents to enjoy the holiday with them too.

Again I know I’ll forget something but George and I got a few clothing items (and I got the world’s most ridiculously comfortable bathrobe, I LOVE it) and a mini food processor. The kids got some Pillow Buddies, a wolf dressed like Michael Jackson who sings and dances to “Thriller” (that would be for Hayley), and some other toys. My sister and my brother-in-law chose some neat gifts; Hayley got a make-your-own fairy tale kit, Breanna got a decorate-your-own dog purse with a little stuffed puppy, and they gave us a gift card for a restaurant to have a night out. Very cool!

In the end, by the time all three days were over, I sort of felt like this:

Especially since my living room looked pretty much like this until I got it all cleaned up yesterday:

But it was a really, REALLY good Christmas and I’m so very happy and grateful.

(The full photo set is over here)

Not keeping up very well

Posted on December 16, 2010 by Sherry

So apparently this year I’m sucking at the Holidailies thing. I just haven’t felt like updating. I’ve been too busy with other things during the day and then by evening I’m kind of tired and brain-dead.

On the other hand I can’t quite think of anything in particular that I did that would keep me from sitting down and typing up a quick update. Ah well.

Anyway, I haven’t dumped or edited any photos in a couple of days either so I don’t have anything pretty to share. I do have one brief story I don’t want to forget though.

On Tuesday I took Breanna up to the school with me and handled the PPO used toys sale from 8 am until 11:30. Breanna came with me last year and had fun; this year was even better. She sorted money into the cash box, I’d tell her what to give back as change, and she helped bag up purchases if someone had bought a bunch of small stuff.

The entire sale went well in general and I do love watching kids shop. It’s interesting to see what they’ll be attracted to and it’s fun to listen to them excitedly chatter over their finds.

However, there was one little boy in particular – probably grade two – who was so sweet that I just wanted to fold him up and put him in my pocket. He had bought a handful of very stereotypically boy things. He was carrying around a couple of Transformers, a Spiderman figure, and a dinosaur. He seemed pretty thrilled with his haul. He had 50 cents left and wanted to know what he could get with it. I showed him the 25 cent table and said he could get two things there or that he could get one thing from the 50 cent table next to it.

A few minutes later he hopped up to me and joyfully held up something very different from his other things. It was a little black purse, about the size that Paris Hilton uses to cart around her little dogs. On one side it had a pink silhouette of a girl and on the other side it had a pink French poodle. The entire thing was covered in sparkles.

He excitedly told me that he had picked it up at the 50 cent table and that was what he wanted. I smiled and said okay and took him two quarters. Then he grinned and bounced a little on the balls of his feet and whispered, “it’s for my mom, she likes pretty purses and this one is REALLY pretty.”

Well. I was in the throes of PMS so it took everything I had in me not to just CRY. Instead I patted him on the shoulder, told him the purse was absolutely beautiful, and sent him off to catch up to his class who had left already.

It was the sweetest thing that I saw all day and I love that a little boy would buy something like that for his mother. If it was me, I would carry that purse EVERYWHERE just because of the thought.

Sometimes my faith in the world is restored by the simplest things.

A day outdoors in the crazy weather

Posted on December 12, 2010 by Sherry

The weather was a little bi-polar up here today. This morning it was snowing and it was actually the kind of snow that I like, with the big, fat flakes that float down slowly. It was also quite warm out. We had planned our Advent activity today to be sledding but I wasn’t sure how that would work out since they were calling for at least two hours of freezing rain in the afternoon. In the end George said we should go anyway so we set it up with our friends to meet at a nearby park and after a tasty brunch (George fried up some bacon then made us egg and cheese “McMuffins”, yummy) we were suited up in our snow suits and in the van.

I’m so glad we went. When we got there it was overcast but nothing more than that and the temperatures were still holding at reasonable levels. We were there for an hour and a half and in that time we also saw some mixed precipitation (that’s a mix of snow and rain for those of you who aren’t well-versed in Canadian winters), followed by ice pellets (a little painful on the face while zipping down a hill on a saucer but bearable), then just overcast skies again. Right as we were leaving there was a light pattering of rain and then that cleared up before we even got home.

Despite the weird transitional weather we had so much fun. The ice pellets lasted all of 15 minutes so I’m glad we didn’t change our plans based on the forecast. This is the second time in a row that a forecast has been wildly wrong. Last week they said to expect about 5 centimeters of snow and we got over 30. This week they warned of a 25 centimeter storm, then changed to a bit of snow and the freezing rain, and we ended up with little to worry about. Silly meteorologists!

I love sledding and other than a few minutes of break time here and there I pretty much spent the whole time going up and down the hill. We were four adults and four kids, plus we spent some time swapping sleds with another dad and his two sons, so it was pretty much a blast. Definitely a great Advent idea!

Full set over here.

Catching Up

Posted on December 10, 2010 by Sherry

Even though I’ve only missed one day since Holidailies started I feel like I’m so far behind on keeping up to date on stuff. I don’t want to let my advent activities slip away without remembering them so I’ll just fill you in on that.

On day 7 the activity was one that sounds strange at first: Putting shoes by the door. Although we’re not German, many years ago I “met” a lot of moms on a big forum that no longer exists, and we all picked up different things from each other. A friend of mine whose family is German told us all about Saint Nicholas Day where children lay their shoes by the door and in the morning they find some small goodies in them. Now in all honesty we were late – the day is actually the 5th but we were lucky because the elves left the kids some very nice things. They woke up in the morning to find hair accessories, notebooks (a hot commodity around here!), and of course a bit of candy.

Day 8 was one of those days where I was trying very hard to embrace winter since we have a lot of it left, so I planned for our activity to be good for a little post-sledding. That was fun and went well. When we came in, the advent revealed that we would have big steaming mugs of hot chocolate with lots of marshmallows.

Day 9 kind of slipped by quickly so I made the activity a quiet one, reading some Christmas books in bed which was nice. Alas, I have no pictures since I was busy reading.

Today was day 10 and I decided it was a good time for something very straightforward and simple. On the one hand it’s Friday so we can hopefully sleep in at least a little bit tomorrow but on the other hand it’s also the end of the week and we were all tired. I ended up choosing to put on a Christmas special in the evening and we all watched it before getting the kids to bed. I tossed in one of my favorites, the Charlie Brown Christmas Special and it never loses its charm.

We should have some good advent stuff this weekend if everything goes well.

*******

I ended up enjoying myself so much as I watched Winnie run free at the park that I did it again yesterday and today. I made sure to bring my cameras with me and I got some pictures and video. I was pretty nervous doing it all by myself but she did great. The fact that I brought cheese encouraged her to come back when I called too.

I even got video showing her mad running skillz.

Today was even better. We were alone again and running, playing, and throwing sticks when all of a sudden I saw her dog friend from the other day coming out of the woods. Winnie didn’t notice at first since I was busy holding a stick but when she turned and saw the Mastiff her body tensed up in that “oh my GOD!” kind of joyful way, then she pretty much hurled herself across the park; I’m not entirely convinced that her feet touched the ground.

Even though Ginger the Mastiff was already tired from a long walk in the woods with her owner, they both played for awhile and spent some time lazing about in the snow.

It’s been fabulous seeing how easy it is to wear her out with just a nice walk, a wild romp, a lot of snow, and a walk back home. Between that and the fact that it’s almost 11 pm and Winnie’s not a night owl, she’s passed out directly behind my chair and I think she might actually be snoring.

Which is my cue to go chill out a bit and then think about bed!

Trying to get along with the snow

Posted on December 8, 2010 by Sherry

Today ended up being quite the day in the snow for me. A little before lunch time I decided to take Winnie for a walk. After she had done her business I didn’t feel like carrying a plastic bag around with me so I headed into the park. I figured I’d throw the bag in the garbage and we could spend a bit of time running around in the snow.

Instead, I noticed Winnie became very alert and when I turned around I saw a man walking in with his Bull Mastiff. Winnie loves every dog on the planet so they started sniffing and getting tangled up in each other’s leashes. The guy said he was planning on going for a walk in the woods but wondered if I’d like to let Winnie off-leash to run around with his dog instead.

I had never done that before and was a bit nervous but he pointed out that they’d likely just play instead of trying to run off. Agreeing, I took a deep breath, leaned down, unhooked the leash… and then I spent almost half an hour watching the glory that is a Border Collie-Lab mix running full tilt through snow.

It was amazing, she had so much fun and I got to see the herding instinct in her; it was quite funny watching her try to herd a dog that big. They never once tried to bolt for the gate or the woods and what with all the snow they were so tired that we both just needed to walk up to leash them as they laid exhausted at one point. I was surprised I didn’t have to carry her tired self home.

Later that day I took the kids out again after Hayley got home from school and I brought out the two sleds. We don’t have a huge hill or anything but there is a nice one behind our building and they had a great time going down it repeatedly. I brought Winnie again but I think she had more fun yesterday when she was playing soccer. Regardless, she had a good time too and even took a quick ride on a sled down half the hill. She then tried to EAT the sled so that was the end of that.

I have some pictures but I am so tired that I just can’t bring myself to edit and upload them tonight. Maybe tomorrow after I get back from doing Breakfast Club. There’s something nice about editing photos while drinking my coffee.

The snow wore everyone out I think. Breanna and Hayley both fell asleep very quickly and Winnie was so tired that she only paid a few minutes of attention to the rawhide bone she’s been working on the past couple of days. Right now she’s passed out cold. As for me, I’m feeling particularly sleepy as well and that’s good since I have a 5:30 am wake-up for tomorrow.

On that note I should drag myself to bed and get some sleep so I can be awake enough to make breakfast tomorrow.

Winter throws down the gauntlet!

Posted on December 7, 2010 by Sherry

Well, it would appear that winter has most certainly arrived in Montreal. Yay?

Walking was a total nightmare since this city doesn’t give much of a hoot about the pedestrians who live here. They kept sending plow after plow up the street but none on the sidewalks. When I was walking out there with Hayley there came a point where I was up over my knees (and my boots; thank GOD they’re at least as high as they are!) and I was grateful that Hayley’s tall for her age because as it was she was almost hip-deep. We eventually had to venture out on to the (busy) street to get around a huge drift and I was nervous about it since you can’t count on drivers here to handle the slippery streets very well no matter how long they’ve lived here.

So that was fun. But Winnie had a blast! She was born in March so I assume that she didn’t see much snow, if any last year. We had a few little dustings recently that she enjoyed but this was probably her first real snowfall and she went pretty much ballistic out there. It’s a shame she doesn’t have a reliable recall or I would have set her loose in the field across the street just to see her go.

Later when Hayley came home she asked if we could go out to play and despite my best efforts I couldn’t think of a good enough reason to say no so out we went. The kids had fun (even though one of Breanna’s boots kept coming loose and falling off in deep patches of snow) and I took the dog out too. We found a frozen soccer ball in the middle of all the snow and apparently Winnie is quite the soccer player.

I’ve never been a fan of winter but I survived nonetheless. I’d better get used to it since Environment Canada is predicting a lot more snow than last year. Sigh.

Advent Day 5 & 6, plus a great example of giving

Posted on December 6, 2010 by Sherry

Today is the first day of Holidailies, and that means I’ll be doing my best to post daily or almost daily from now through January 5th. A lot of people start Holidailies with an introduction for new folks dropping by. I don’t normally bother but I saw that Carrie had done an intro so here’s my brief version for anyone who hasn’t been reading here before.

I’m Sherry, I’m 36, and I live in the Great White North. Okay, it’s just Montreal, it’s not THAT high up there, but it’s been snowing all day, so it’s definitely pretty white out there. Included in this blog you will find frequent references to George (my husband), even more frequent references to Hayley and Breanna (my 8- and 5-year-olds), and a lot of random blathering in between. We recently got a Border Collie/Black Lab mix that Breanna named Winnie, I work from home as a freelance blogger (not this blog!) and content writer, I obsess somewhat over yoga, I am highly involved in Hayley’s school (I’m the secretary for the PPO, co-chair for the Governing Board, and I volunteer for a lot of the events up there), and I can’t leave home without a camera (and the few times that I do I almost always regret it).

Until Christmas comes you’ll find me updating about our family’s Advent Activity calendar. You can read more about it over here but the basic gist of it is each day we open an envelope that contains some sort of activity either just for the kids or for the whole family. If you feel like catching up, check out the Advent category.

Yesterday was our fifth day with the calendar and our activity was really just for the kids since neither George nor I joined in this time. It involved going from this:

To this:

It was Build-Your-Own-Sundae time! I scooped out the ice cream and the kids added sliced bananas, marshmallows, broken pieces of candy cane, chocolate sauce, and of course sprinkles.

It was not surprisingly a big hit, and surprisingly the sugar rush didn’t keep them up all night.

Today was day six and I had chosen a Christmas movie (just a short one since it’s a school night) as our activity but when Breanna opened it up the kids both decided they’d like to repeat Saturday night’s family Wii challenge instead. We ended up saving the movie for the weekend instead. Alas, there was a bit of a meltdown near the end, but it’s still fun.

In other news, today was one of the best days I have ever spent up at Hayley’s school. A local restaurant (Table 51 for Montreal peeps – you should go, the food is delicious and the staff is awesome) sponsored a hot pasta lunch for all the kids at lunch time. They served pasta with tomato sauce, parmesan cheese, bread rolls, juice boxes, and even red velvet cupcakes for dessert.

More than that though, they really wanted to re-create a restaurant experience because some of the kids in our school have probably never been to a proper restaurant in their life. Since we couldn’t exactly bus them over to the restaurant because of logistical issues, they brought the restaurant to us. Several staff members – wait staff, chefs, etc. – came to the school along with all the food and it was incredible. We put tablecloths out on the tables, there were menus, and we had music playing. The kids all sat down and the staff served all the kids just like they would in a restaurant. Meanwhile, the parent volunteers just kept things moving by bringing plates up to the front table for the wait staff to grab.

The kids had a blast. Everyone was smiling and enjoying the food, and they especially loved being served. I think it made them feel really special. One anecdote had a few of us a bit teary-eyed; one of the boys who often shows up with a very sparse lunch or no lunch at all because of financial issues at home was so grateful for this experience that he sat at the table with his hand pressed together and he prayed to God, thanking Him for the delicious food and all the kind people who came in to bring it to him. It was so touching and that one moment was worth every bit of effort.

The whole thing went smoothly. I was there by 9 am, things were set up and the pre-cooked food was heated back up, and we were able to serve 350 people by the end of lunch hour. We even got to sit down to eat our own servings, clean up, and get out of there by 1:15 pm. It was a great time.

By the way, that was the first time I had ever tasted a red velvet cupcake and I now understand the hype. I am completely RUINED for any other cupcake from now on.

Thanks Table 51, you guys were amazing!

Advent: Day 3 & 4 and a whole lot of holly jolly

Posted on December 5, 2010 by Sherry

December is just flying by so far, I can’t believe it’s already the 5th of the month! On day 3 of our Advent activity calendar was a candlelit bubble bath for the kids. Most of our activities are the same as last year and they thought this one was great – adding candles makes it very different from your average bath. I figured it was a good weekend (Friday) night activity since I knew they would want to stay in for awhile and this way I didn’t have to worry about rushing them to get them to bed for 8 pm.

It just goes to show that the activities don’t have to be expensive or complicated for the kids to enjoy them!

Saturday came around and our day 4 activity was a family game night using the Wii. I do like board games too and we’ll probably bring that one around on another weekend, but I love the Wii. I suggested that we’d have more fun if we got two more remotes. Last year when we did this we had to team up and share our two remotes. It was a great idea because playing four people at once is awesome.

We moved the coffee table over to one side of the living room and started with some carnival games which were good but ended up moving on quickly to the newest game that we had, Mario Party 8. THAT was fun. It’s like a board game with little mini-game challenges in between turns and it was a blast. It took about 45 minutes for us to play a ten-turn game but we had such a good time that this morning George suggested that we play again before lunch.

Today’s day five but our activity won’t be until after supper so I’ll save that for another post. Holidailies starts tomorrow with participants posting (almost) daily from December 6th until (I believe) January 5th, so there will be no shortage of blog posts for the next month.

In other news, our Christmas decorations are all up and it looks like Christmas threw up all over our living room. I love it! Our friends gave us a spare tree that has pre-strung lights and let me tell you something, I hope to never have to string a tree with lights ever again. It was fantastic to just need to plug everything in. The best part though is that it’s so much bigger than our old tree. We’ve had a 4-foot tree for the past 12 years (I bought it when I moved in with George and found out his decorations amounted to a 12-inch tree that sits on a desk. Um, hell no.) and I’ve always wanted to have a bigger one. This new one is 6 1/2 feet high and looks amazing in front of our living room patio doors.

I put the tree up on Friday evening so that Winnie could get used to having it around in the hopes that she wouldn’t start trying to pull the decorations off later. On Saturday afternoon George was out for a few hours and since he isn’t super interested in decorating (see aforementioned 12-inch tree) I figured that was a good time for the three of us to go ahead and go nuts. I blasted Christmas music on iTunes, made myself some minty tea, and we set about dressing up our tree.

I love our tree.

And apropos of, you know, nothing…

Now for supper so I can get ready for today’s activity!

Advent: Day 2, plus I poured my coffee in my camera lens!

Posted on December 2, 2010 by Sherry

Day two of our Advent Calendar brought about a much-loved activity. Today we were to sit down and write letters to Santa!

I know that writing to tell someone what you want as a gift is just adding to the consumerism of Christmas, but hey. It’s Santa. He has elf labour, that’s not consumerism right? Err. Anyway!

I always tell the kids they can ask Santa for ONE gift and then they also get stockings from Santa so there’s no need to go bananas and list 25 things. With a bit of harrrumphing over the reminder of this rule, the kids sat at the coffee table and got started.

Of course Breanna can’t write whole sentences yet, so she dictated her letter to me and I dutifully wrote it out, smiling to myself at times – especially when she promised to be “super-good for Christmas”. That’s mostly in the hopes of getting the gift she wants, I think.

She did sign her own letter though.

I’m very proud of Hayley’s writing; she writes stories regularly in a notebook so naturally she’s got the whole write-to-Santa thing under control. It’s a bit bittersweet though since I remember when I used to have to write her letters too. Sigh.

My favorite part of her letter was when she asked how Rudolph was and then explained she was asking because she’s learning to play “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” in her guitar lessons.

I hope Santa doesn’t wake her up on Christmas Eve to hear her play it.

They both added a drawing to their letters as well.

Hayley and Breanna are both requesting the same gift from Santa which makes it very easy for the elves involved in packaging. They both want the Go Go My Walking Pup thing. I guess it’s because although they have a dog of their own – a real live dog! – she’s too big and strong for either of them to walk her. That’s okay. I just hope they remember not to leave their toy dogs alone with their real dog lest we end up with an unfortunate crime scene.

We’ll mail the letters tomorrow so that we can hopefully get the replies back before Christmas.

*******

In other news, this morning I poured my coffee into my camera lens. My very expensive 24-105mm lens. Horrors!

Okay, so it’s not a real 24-105mm lens. Considering I priced one for fun at almost $1600. This lens mug only cost me $25 plus shipping from Photojojo. I love it! It’s very realistic and appeals to my goofy dork self.

Also, Photojojo apparently includes a random tiny dinosaur figure in all of their shipments just for fun. I can’t even explain why this makes me giddy, it just does.

Alas, that coffee was many hours ago and bed beckons.

Chaos Theory

Monthly Archives: December 2010