Yeeeeeeeehawwwwww! Got me a new toy!

Mum took me to the fabric store today & helped me select some material that I could use as a backdrop for photos (upgrading from bedsheets and tablecloths!). She has a membership that got me a discount and for $22 I have a nice little piece of material that will do the trick. I tested it out tonight. What do you think??? : ))) Very professional eh?

Storm? I'll show YOU a storm!

Murray's creating some wicked snowbanks & has to push the scoop UPHILL to clear the driveway now. We are running out of space for all this white stuff!!!!

Well, as they say, payback's a well, a you know what. After teasing Rick endlessly about the "big storm" that didn't materialize as expected, I'm getting PLENTY of snow here now. As the locals know, we've had 4 heavy snowfalls this week.

Our driveway has been at least knee deep every time! Murray has spent many many hours shovelling and I've tried to do a bit too but I don't enjoy the "total body workout" quite as much as he does. I go out for my hour, call it my exercise and then hang up my shovel! I'd planned to go out yesterday but never got anywhere.

Today I did escape and went to do some birthday pictures of some twins in our group who just turned 5, so I've been working on proofing those tonight but it's time to call it quits.

Honey & Lovey's colds have improved but Sweetie's down now & she can really put you through your paces when she's not well. If Sweetie ain't happy, ain't NOBODY happy! Murray's cold still hasn't improved and he picked up a large bottle of "medicine" today while he was out for hockey!

Boxing Day=Beat the Storm Day

After a busy Christmas day, we were enjoying Boxing Day, doing nothing in particular with no plans & nowhere we had to be. Then Rick called. ; ))) He'd been stalking, I mean checking the weather network and had noticed a storm warning for the 27th, our intended travel day. Rather than turn a 4 hour trip into an 8hour trip, we decided to pull up stakes a day early & hit the road. It seemed to take me forever to get laundry done and gifts wrapped and the car packed. We left here around 6ish & had a pretty good trip. Since we ate before we left, we only had to make one brief & inexpensive pit stop and just slid the girls right into bed when we arrived there. They entertained themselves in the car for quite awhile & then watched one of their movies and then slept the rest of the way, very peaceful! I got to use my new handy dandy book light & got through a good chunk of the novel I was working on.
The next morning Andrew & Mandy came over with our nephew Bo. The girls were all over him! they talked to him and were glued to Mandy's side for quite awhile as they watched him and brought him toys and showed him their stuff etc. Once we were all up & dressed we started Christmas all over again! Karen & Paul joined us shortly after we got started and eventually we worked our way through the very large present pile. Murray's parents got us a new tent that is more spacious than our current one so that should do the trick next summer. I'm looking forward to going camping! (you can remind me of this when I post the "camping trip from hell" entry next summer...)



Nancy went all out and spent most of the day preparing another big yummy Christmas dinner with turkey and all the trimmings. We ate very well while we were there!

Here's Rick getting some help digging out from the "storm". ; )))

After a couple days of being cooped up inside, I felt the need to get out and announced that we were taking the girls for a walk & we went around the block. It didn't take too long but served the purpose of getting some fresh air & sunshine.

Christmas!

Lovey digging into her stocking, already having donned her shades in case of sudden glare...

With Murray on vacation, I should have lots of time to get this little blog updated right? Hah! that's what I thought! Silly me! It never fails that a window of opportunity opens and some time vacuum sucks it all up. Between the storms and colds, I'm not getting much accomplished around here! Lovey woke up last night a little after midnight, coughing and choking and crying and screaming from the sore throat. We finally got some medicine into her and got her calmed down around 1:30am & I collapsed into a deep sleep right away and stayed there til Honey woke up repeating Lovey's previous problems at SIX AM. Ugh. Murray was completely unconscious so I handled that one & got back to sleep around 7 or so and when the others started stirring, I assumed the zombie stance, too tired to budge! He took pity on me and got up and handled the morning routine until I forced myself to resurfac again around 10:30.

Honey's tearing into the biggest highlight at our house that day, their very own jewelry/music boxes! These have been a huge hit & now travel all over the house with them.

You can imagine my excitement to discover another snowfall had buried our driveway again, this time pretty much swallowing our car whole! I had to go to another window to be able to see any parts of it. Murray logged at least 5 hours shovelling today. I got the kids outside for a bit and took them for rides on the toboggan but after an hour, they'd had enough so Murray took them in & I got my exercise for the day as I finished one tiny section of the driveway & dug out our mailbox.

Dora foam soap! They each got a can of this last year & we finally finished off the last one a couple months ago & they said that Santa needed to bring them new ones. Luckily he paid attention!

I'd intended to give a recap of our holidays but I've only managed to upload some photos...

Kids didn't wake up any earlier than usual, still ate their breakfast before going down to see Santa's gifts. Opened everything, seemed to enjoy the ripping process more so than the "getting". They didn't really seem to care about what the gifts were, just wanted to tear paper. Could have saved lots of money by wrapping up empty boxes. Sweetie won the squealer award for her shriek of delight when she opened Uncle Dale's present....... stick on earrings! TWO PACKAGES even. I came second to her when I discovered what M&D had been hiding under the festive tablecloth... a custom made bench for our new entryway. Wooooooooohoooooooo!

Sweetie checking out her new earrings!

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