Xmas day 2009 an hour at a time

Inspired by Miss Fish I've been taking a photo an hour with my iPhone.

We're home and I'm tired so I'm done photo logging for today. But it was fun. Enjoy our day in reverse order :)


Moving a marble countertop vanity up the stairs - fun for the men at Xmas.

The boys went wild for these remote control cars that lit up.



Grammie and two of her boys.

On our way to party #2


This necklace from Eric of a mama bird with three baby birds is my favourite gift of the day.

More potatoes for our round two meal!

Wrapping paper still isn't recyclable right?


A tiny bit of down time to play with gifts.



Making our guests peel potatoes

Turkey time.


Watching tv and hanging out waiting for guests to wake and grandparents/aunt to arrive to open presents under the tree.

Wakeup was a very acceptable 7:15 and we opened stockings in the upstairs hallway to keep the noise down for our kid-free houseguests in the basement.

View from an iPhone part 2

Shopping at Costco on our chasing Santa day


I fell in love with these initial stockings on Etsy, but I admit, I didn't pay attention to the dimensions. Next to Kiernan's enormous stocking, they look a twitch small ;)


Sick day


Feeling well enough to do some crafts

Oh, are you taking photos? "Cheese!!"


We love our cookies



Kiernan eating donair

Time to decorate!

Our house is officially sold!!! Yay! So now I can honestly start thinking about the new house. It's a great house, but, it needs some new paint and a some new style. I thought I'd fish for some advice on what we can do in each room, because unlike others I know, decorating isn't really something I LOVE to do. I'd love your input!!

The house!! We don't love the colour, but considering the work I want to do inside, I can live with this for awhile :)


The family room. I'm hoping to remove a wall (the one to my left from where I was taking this photo) so the room will be due for some painting and stuff. If I get my way and the wall comes down then the family room, eat in kitchen and kitchen will all be attached and will need to be similar in theme. The kitchen/eat in are currently painted and wallpapered like this desk area. It'll be a shame to get rid of the wall paper border (eyes rolling) but I'm sure we can come up with something a bit better :)

Quinn and Kiernan's rooms. (Quinn green/blue and Kiernan yellow/blue). Both bedrooms have closets like that and chair rails. Wondering if it'll be easier to decorate without the chair rails? Kiernan has resquested a blue and blue room. Doesn't exactly go with his current safari themed room or the pirate stuff he has so I think we're starting from scratch and Quinn is old enough that I don't want to decorate his room in a baby theme but not old enough for me to know what his likes/dislikes will be.


Juliette's room. Definitely want to do something girly without it being too princess-y. Hopefully this dark grey won't be too hard to cover up. I have visions of wide pink/purple stripes but not sure if that'll get old too fast?
'
Our room. It's 10 and abit by 20. Our furniture will fit but I suspect it'll be a bit crowded. Our current room is a light beige on 3 walls and dark red on the last but I think that's very 5 years ago ;)


I'm wondering if wall decals are the way to go? I really like the one we have in Kiernan's room now and there are so many fun ones out there. Especially for the kids' rooms it seems like the easiest way to personalize their rooms.

If you guys are interested and actually have input (I know I'm not exactly the pioneer woman) then I'll post more soon asking for input on some of the other rooms and showing you the stuff I can't change for awhile but would like to eventually. To get an idea on our furniture you can see the photos from this house from our listing. Maybe I'll even do a giveaway. Hey, maybe the new Lowes in Orleans will want to sponsor a giveaway for home improvement tips? :) (ps I hear Lowes is having a 2 for 1 toilet sale, in case you're looking for a bunch of new toilets ;)

Ho ho ho... MERRY Christmas

This, my friends, is Santa Pierre. He is a Santa as Place d'Orleans and I think he is the perfect Santa. And Kiernan sat on his knee for his first 3 Xmas photos. This year, I was thrilled to learn you could get Santa Pierre's schedule to make sure you got him for your photo. Unfortunately, life had a little chuckle at my attempt to be so organized and despite my good intentions I never managed to get to the mall with all three kids in their Christmas best for a photo with Santa Pierre (really, I think buying a house and then getting our crazy messy too full house looking like this was a good excuse ;)




Impromptu babies with Santa photo at Billings Bridge early this week. I made an exception for convenience of location and the desire for a cute photo with the three bebes.



Yesterday I was all set to get THE Xmas photo. Santa Pierre, however, was not working until Saturday. Saturday. I knew it would be insane and really, life is insane enough without adding Saturday crowds to the mix. So, I decided instead we would go back to Billings Bridge. My mother in law and I got all three kids in their clothing (no easy feat, let me tell ya) and got out the door only to have Kiernan announce he was NOT going to have his photo taken with Santa. I knew better than to force the issue so instead we went for lunch.

After lunch he agreed to go see Santa so we drove to Billings. Guess what, we arrived and he was on a lonnnng lunch break. So we did a few more errands and then instead of heading back to Billings again, I decided we should go to Carlingwood since it was near my in-law's and we were having dinner there.

We got there at 3:15 and Santa wasn't there until 4:30. HA HA HA! :P We spent almost the entire days chasing after Santa with three young kids. FUN TIMES.

We waited and despite some impatient and tired children (mommy messed up naps for all 3 with all that galivanting) we got the photo. Carlingwood has a pretty good system where you get to choose from several photos right there and photos are ready within 15 minutes! (So much nicer than the 2-5 hour wait at a lot of other places) and I'm loving the option a lot of malls are having now to get the photo on a CD. By getting that option at Carlingwood I actually got all 3 photos that they took so the pressure to choose the best one on the spot wasn't so bad.

I am beyond thrilled with how cute they look in their matching Christmas outfits, despite my friend's comment encapsulating perfectly how I felt about this Santa "My Santa, what big teeth you have"

and I'm trying to resist tracking down Santa Pierre for one last shot at a photo with him this year. :)

It's elf yourself time of year!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

On being three and a pain in the ass

Mother nature is very smart. She made babies cute and lovable so you would take care of them even when they scream like banshees and wake up 20 times every night. They look like their parents so people believe they are their children and stick around. It's a good design.

Now I realize how her cleverness extends. By the time they are 3, cute isn't enough anymore. It's a good thing they are so charming and amusing or the whole "I feel the need to assert myself" thing might get them booted out the door. sigh.