Christmas Memories - Part II

Here we are within days of Valentine's and I'm still reminiscing about Christmas!  I must say it was really such an incredible Christmas that I'm having a lot of trouble letting go, so although it's February I'm quite happy to come back and catch up on all these amazing Christmas memories.  I know most people will say that Christmas is for kids, but I've decided it's for Mommy's & Daddy's just as much, watching the kids really enjoy everything about Christmas made this one so special for this Mommy:)

Here are some of my favorite memories from this Christmas:

- NO FLYING!!!  We stayed in Bermuda this Christmas and not having to travel with an 18 month old was a huge gift of it's own!  Thanks so much to Dad, MaryAnn, Jana & Chase for coming to spend Christmas with us as I know I would have been sad to not have family with us over Christmas.  It really was the best of both worlds for us to be close to our Bermuda home and yet have some of our Alberta family with us too!

- Kailie GIVING pressies!  Our little Kailie-Bear is very much into crafts and one of her favorite 'crafts' is wrapping gifts, so Christmas was a constant on-going craft for her (that is still on-going for the record)!  Even when Dad & MaryAnn were leaving Kailie was 'secretly' putting little gifts into their suitcases for all her cousins - they were all wrapped up so lovely and no one knew just what Kailie was sending which hopefully didn't cause too many problems through customs!!  Don't get me wrong Kailie loved getting her gifts too, but I really loved the sense of giving she adopted this past Christmas.

- This was the first year that Kailie REALLY got and understood the Christmas spirit and all the fun that comes with that.  Everything from decorating, to learning about Baby Jesus, and even some fun with Santa was fun for Kailie to learn.  At one Christmas party Kailie could hear Santa ringing his bells as he came from way down the hall and she made the comment, "Mommy, Santa sounds very far away, maybe he's still in Bethlehem" . . . !!!  So a few twists to iron out but that will be for next Christmas I guess:)

- We had put off having Kolton dedicated until we had family here as we really wanted to share this special time with them, so in order to accommodate travel schedules the only day that really worked to have Kolton dedicated was on Christmas Eve.  At first we were a bit hesitant as so much is already going on then but as it turned out it made for a very special Christmas Eve service for us.  Having Kolton dedicated while family was here and on such a special night made it all the more memorable and meaningful for us.

- We were especially lucky to have Dad come out a bit early and spend some extra time with us  - however Dad is not one to sit around much and as a result we got A LOT done around here!!!  To mention just a few things Dad fixed some doors, planted a herb garden for us, put up curtain rods and the biggest project that had everyone working hard was a complete make-over to our dining room set including re-apolstering our chairs and refinishing the table top.  It was so nice to have the extra help on the DIY projects we had been trying to get around too and Joel and I were completely inspired to try and do more of this stuff on our own.  And all this help was really just gravy on all the help everyone was in keeping the kids happy too!

- Adventures of Ralphie!  Most of you have probably heard all about Elf on the Shelf, well by the time I got on to that, all the Elfs had been billeted out so we got Ralphie the Reindeer!  Not sure who had more fun with this, Mommy & Daddy or Kailie & Kolton but seeing the mischief that Ralphie got into some evenings sure made our things interesting and also made for a great tool to keep these kiddo's in line!  I'm sure Ralphie (or maybe we'll even get an elf next year) will make a re-appearance for everyone's sake.

- So many more but as we get so busy and we are already well into 2013 I know I'm forgetting things already.  One thing I know I'll never forget is that Christmas 2012 was absolutely wonderful and I already can't wait for next Christmas!!

Here are a 'few' pic's of all our fun and games:)

Joel's company kids Christmas party - TONS of fun and really well done by Lancashire!

This is an idea my Mom gave me years ago - Kailie's bedroom door all decorated up like a pressie!

Hey Santa - we should get my little brother over here too . . . . 

Ok - maybe not!!!!

Mommy's Little "Helpers" - a very "Type A" Mommy and having fun decorating Kailie & Kolton style was a very interesting balancing act . . . in the end after bed time was done "Type A" Mommy won over ;-)

The finished product.  We had an amazing tree delivered all the way from Canada (naturally!!) it was so beautiful all on it's own it hardly needed any decorations!

This is how most pictures went over the holiday season as I was always trying to get a nice pic of these two Monkey's together - note the cheeky smiles they both have, it was definitely two against one when it came to getting good pictures and this is one battle I rarely won!!!

They could kinda be bribed with food!

My sweet girl:)

When we could convince these guys to stop working - we had sooooo much family fun!

Ok so there was lots of playing too:)

Andy loved that there were other people in the house who were pulling his tail or trying to bite him!!

This was a lovely group of Filipino's that came caroling one evening.  You can't see in this picture but there was also someone playing the guitar for them - they were AMAZING!!!  We had neighbors commenting on it as their voices just filled the entire area, it was truly such a blessing to hear them sing!

Kailie had a few opportunities to play the handbells with her school - at the hospital , at Masterworks Museum, and her Christmas concert, the kids were really awesome!!

Our adorable little shepherd in her Christmas School Play!

Kolton's Dedication on Christmas Eve.

On Christmas Eve Kailie also participated in the Church Christmas Play and she was just a beautiful little Angel :)

Christmas Eve train set-up!  The big kids got to have their fun before the little ones woke up:)

Christmas morning fun with Chase!

MaryAnn's Bermuda Frog for her garden.

In Alberta we go sledding, but when in Bermuda we head to the beach on Christmas Day!!  It was a bit chilly but didn't stop a few die-hards from going in for a swim!

Cheers Mommy!!!

Merry Christmas from our beautiful beach!

Enjoying the water:)

Dipping our toes in:)

They claimed that once in it really wasn't cold at all!

Ready To Eat!

Christmas Day was really perfect for us as we had our both our Canadian Family and our Bermuda Family all together!  Marsha was the photographer in this pic which why she's missing.

Post-Dinner R&R

After the food had finally settled we got into the games portion of the night!

Looks like Joel needs to work on getting a bit more height!!

There was so much playing and fun going on that it actually took a few days to get through all the gifts to be opened, so we got to do Christmas morning over a few times which no one complained about!

We don't get to celebrate birthday's with family very often so we really took advantage of having everyone here and caught up on a few birthday celebrations while we could.

The real party was for Jana though as we all got to celebrate with her on Boxing Day.

Ohhhhhh Ralphie!

Snow Ball Fight!!!

Bum stuck in the pasta jar!!

Ralphie had his own movie night!

Ralphie loves bandaids just like Kailie does!

The promise was that once it was Christmas Day Kailie could cuddle with Ralphie - a bit contrary to the 'regular' Elf on the Shelf but when you have a 4 year old you just have to wing it sometimes!

The fun kept right on as we had a fairly quiet NYE dinner and celebration with the Burkes.  It was really such a perfect way to close a wonderful year!