Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Our 12 Days of Christmas {2014 Edition}

I have been wanting to share our Christmas festivities but I must have been too busy enjoying them to do so.
Now here I am, December 31st mere hours to midnight, feeling the need to squeeze all this in before the New Year hits.

1. Ballet.  
The Christmas recital for Alberta Ballet Edmonton Studios included our BFF Charlie this year.
Fiona was also more than ready to attend Alberta Ballet's Nutcracker and loved every minute of it.
 2. Gingerbread house making at Gram and Grandpa's.
 3. Festival of Lights at the Edmonton Valley Zoo.
 4. The Legislature grounds.
Cedric was focused less on the lights and more on eating snow.
Fiona was focused less on lights and more on climbing snow.
 5. Candy Cane Lane.
We always love the lights but were especially taken by the sweet people who decided to give their time to play Santa (on the left in case you weren't sure) handing out candy canes and 3 friends who bought toys to hand out to the kids walking on the lane.
We were blown away by this generosity.
 6. Visiting Santa.
 Love that guy.
 7. JCI Holiday Hamper.
This was our first year participating and it was our partner Chloe who organized it.
It was a humbling and heart warming day and an organization we would support again.
8. Christmas Eve was at our house this year.
I loved having ample time to set out our cookies and carrots.
9. A month worth of early mornings and late nights with background Christmas lights.
10. A beautiful, magical and lazy Christmas morning.
11. A beautiful, magical and exhausting multi location Christmas day.
We enjoyed 2 turkey dinners and lots of love.
Small traditions like the angel carousel below gave the day extra magic.
12. Christmas aftermath.
On boxing day we headed to the lake for some much needed decompressing.
Just like last year we shovelled a rink on the lake and broke out the skates.
The kids were significantly more confident and begged us to get out again.
I brought the tripod out and attempted a family picture.
One small hitch, 10 seconds is not long to walk over snow from the camera to the shot when you're wearing hockey skates.
The result is a shot where I'm holding my 4 year old for support and, you know, I love it.
BONUS
13. A Christmas miracle.
My sweet boy decided on Dec 22nd that he was done with diapers.
Not just wants-to-wear-underwear done but meltdown-when-we-tried-to-give-him-a-nightime-diaper done.
So we obliged {and frantically re-read the "3 Day Potty Training" manual} and never looked back.
By Christmas Eve he went the day with only one accident and on Christmas morning he woke up dry.
No you didn't hear wrong, dry!
I'm not counting my chickens just yet, this isn't my first kick at the can you know.
We could just as easily go backward but I am so proud of my guy.
He made this decision completely on his own and with a little help {thanks Gram and Grandma} rocked it.
I hope you had a great Christmas and are having a beautiful New Year celebration.

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