Middle Eastern, Scream and Downtown

Sorry it's been a few days but we have been super busy here. I finally finished my Christmas cards to be sent all around the world; lots to England, a couple to the US, one to Australia, one to Portugal... Good to get them done and think about those friends and family...

Did you get yours yet?

Friday kicked off the busy weekend as we had a PD day (professional development for teachers). Much to the girls' disgust I took them to the doctors to get their flu jab, then we had friends over to play. We made some lovely gingerbread house scenes.

Do you like them?

A large part of the day was spent cooking for friends who came in the evening. We had a middle eastern inspired meal; hummus and salad, Morrocan chicken and couscous and a honey yogurt cake with caramelised mandarins. I think it went down well, and I loved how the table looked with the festive settings.

Sunday morning began with a scream! Meg had let Joe in (who we hadn't seen in a few days) and followed him upstairs after a few minutes only to find him standing in a huge pool of water staring down at a lifeless little fish... He'd knocked over Tess' fish bowl and the poor fish was about to be cat food. However, SuperMum came to the rescue, scooped up the poor fish, ran to get bottled water and, you'll be glad to hear, the fish is looking as though he'll pull through!

The rest of Sunday was a whole lot quieter. Olly always likes to head downtown at Christmas time to see the huge Christmas tree at Nathan Phillips Square and we took a peak in the windows of The Bay. Here's Meg looking in on Santa's elves.

Very busy week ahead. I'm teaching Kindergarten all week, the girls have their holiday concerts at school, book club, and two Christmas parties... Wish me luck!

Cards, Wreath and Frog

This year I felt like I'd run out of time to make Christmas cards... Previous years I've had them made by the end of November, ready to start writing and send out the first weekend in December. Christmas seems to have crept up quickly this year, don't you think? Anyway, I was playing around with some supplies and came up with very, very simple design. So, there are some Christmas cards on their way to you.

A sneak peak.

Continuing the Christmas theme.

Today at MomVet was our annual wreath decorating challenge. Every year we buy wreaths and one of the members goes crazy in the craft store buying baubles and ribbons and other glittery things and we all stick them together to create something beautiful to hang on the front door. Mine was very simple this year as you can see.

My wreath hanging on our screen door.

And finally, it is with much sadness that I must announce tonight that one of Meg's frogs, Bubbles, I believe, is no longer with us. Over the past few weeks he has been getting skinnier and skinnier (while the other one has been getting suspiciously fatter and fatter...) And tonight... well, tonight he is no more... She is being very brave but is worried the other one will be too lonely...

Goodbye, little friend!

Sprinkles, Roast and Hat

Can you guess what we were up to today?

Here's a clue:

What requires large amounts of sprinkles in various shapes and colours, a ridiculous amount of icing in every colour imaginable and vast number of cookies....?

Yep! The Annual Gingerbread Decorating at Nancy's. And here are some of our results:

Everyone was in their usual fine form (mums and children included), Tess' blood sugar level was scarily high and we all went home happy....

And Tess and Meg and I were treated to a delicious meal cooked by Olly. Roast pork, roast potatoes, broccoli, green beans, sauted mushrooms and onion and, of course, gravy. Not a thing left on anyone's plate... He should definitely do it more often....!

And one more very quick and silly thing to leave you with... Here's Meg and a hat.

Andy, Andy, Andy

[There should be a picture of the Andy Williams Christmas album here.... If you are getting something else, big apologies and please ignore.....]

Forgot to mention that this has made my day. The music of our childhood Christmases... Very, very evocative and very, very dated... Marvellous!

So, so thrilled to have found this on iTunes this morning. I think I listened to it four straight times before the girls finally demanded I press pause....

Costco, Decorations and Elf

Friday's festive fun was a trip to Costco with Christene. Managed to spend alot of money in a short space of time... But definitely made good headway with the Christmas shopping. It was busy, and bustling and actually quite fun. The big problem is where to stash everything away from prying eyes.

Today has been a very Christmassy day. We busted out the boxes of decorations, put up two trees, hung lights outside, went Christmas shopping, made gingerbread...

We are all exhausted and all we can mange this evening is the final festive fun of the day which is to watch our favourite Christmas movie, Elf.

If you haven't seen it, it's worth a look; it's very silly, but we love it!

Advent, Nativity and Santa

So it's been a really long time since I've posted but the beginning of December seemed like a good time to share a few photos and thoughts...

We're continuing the tradition of the advent calendars, but with alot less chocolate this year. The girls were thrilled to discover the calendars hung on the fire place this morning; their number one was a little Christmas doodle book. (Though I think they're more interested in tomorrow; chocolate Santa!)

As it is the 1st December today we allowed oursleves to delve into the Christmas boxes. I wanted the music (John Lennon's 'So This Is Christmas' hit the spot for me), Meg wanted the books and Tess was all about the PlayMobil Nativity set. I really can't believe it's only been a year since we saw all these things. Where, oh where, has this year gone?

Christmas preparations are well and truly started here and we have had about 2 weeks of writing stories, lists and making cards. Tonight I found this on the computer after Meg had been working on it....

I really think this is a dilemma for Meg; Is Santa real? Not a dilemma for me... I KNOW he's real!

Fly in the Ointment, Appreciate and Beauty

What a busy week we've had here. The new rhythms of the family, with me working, are kicking in and things are not feeling as frantic as last week. I now have less time to get things done during the day, but that's just the way it is, I suppose!

The added 'fly in the ointment' (though it could be a good fly) is that there is a possibility that I will be doing further Smartboard training at a school in the area. This time I could be paid!!! Still waiting to hear the outcome.

As a result of this I have been doing lots of research on the Internet looking for exciting ways to incorporate technoogy into the classroom via the Smartboard.

There is so much out there and my creative juices are flowing and I find myself full of inspiration. I cannot wait to try some of these things out in the classroom

My current favourite is Wordle. Wordle creates word clouds out of selected texts and presents them in a beautiful and fascinating way. I created this one out of dictionary and theasaurus definitions for my One Little Word which is Appreciate. 

I have almost completed my January assigment for the OLW class (as my page protectors finally came from Two Peas in a Bucket). I am, however, moving very slowly. My friend came for a day of scrapbooking on Wednesday and I barely got a thing done; still, very good for the soul! When it's done I'll post it here so you can see what I'm talking about.

Today is a PD Day (an INSET day, to you Englishers) so the girls and I have been hanging out. The weather has been very snowy again so they're both outside playing. We built a tunnel in the front garden and these are the pictures of Tess and Meg playing in it.

Sheer beauty, don't you agree?

Subway, Proud and Good

Despite not being too thrilled to be working three days a week at the moment (as I would much rather be at home pottering), I am loving going to work on the subway. It always makes me feel part of the city when I ride the TTC, even though almost everyone around me is slightly miserable or asleep, it always feels very real. I'm appreciating the walk to the station, the special little tokens and even the little bit of annoyance when the driver announces a 'slight delay' at Davisville... I wonder how long this will last!

Just after I waved the girls off into school this morning I was approached by another mum on the yard. She had helped in Tess' class last week for Scientists in School. I was very, very proud to hear that Tess had found this mum on the yard after school and thanked her for spending time in the classroom. Isn't that nice?

Sometimes it's lovely to be surprised by her behaviour in a good way.

Talking of good. Our curent book club pick is a good one.

Really looking forward to discussing this one at book club tomorrow night.

Inches, Macro and Time

This was the beautiful scene that greeted us this morning. The first real snowfall of this winter. The girls couldn't wait to get out in it and by 8 o'clock we were outside with snowthings over our pyjamas.

We used the tape measure to show how much. Around 6 inches (about 15 centimetres) - lots and lots of lovely fluffy snow!

I wanted to try the macro setting on my camera to take some close up shots in the garden. I think these photos are quite good. 

Anyway, not much else to say tonight.

Today I appreciate time to myself (Olly has been in Las Vegas) and the feeling of looking forward to him coming home.

Happy, New and Year

Just have to share some Christmas videos with you.

These clips show two very happy girls, make me feel very happy and hopefully will make you happy too.

So the new year has begun and I have deliberately not made any new year's resolutions (though in my head I've made the usual ones about losing weight, being better at keeping in touch, you know the sort of thing...) because already I would feel let down with myself.

Instead I've decided to go with Ali Edwards and opt for a word of the year. Her One Little Word project over at Big Picture Scrapbooking seems a great way of making some changes without it being too obvious. Plus it's a creative project which I need ('cos another one of my secret, I'm-not-telling-anyone-else resolutions is to do more scrapping...!).

Anyway, for the record, my word is going to be appreciate.

Tonight I appreciate listening to the girls playing contentedly in the basement while I cook dinner (and the cold glass of rose wine that is helping...)

And the new year has already brought change to the Horton household. I started work this week (a little part-time job at a little insurance office while I wait until I can apply for teaching jobs for this September).

I was supposed to start on Tuesday but in true style Tess was sick Monday night so I had to phone my new boss and tell her that I wouldn't be in work on my first day.... Ha! Not a great phone call to have to make.

Ho hum - onward and upward!