Christmas Eve

In our family, we have worked our way through many ideas as to how to handle Christmas. Ray grew up with gift opening at midnight on Christmas Eve. My family opened them on Christmas Day.

When the boys were little we went my way: opening them on Christmas morning. It made more sense that way, since they were too small to stay up late. Then when they got older and we were getting together with my family on Christmas Day we began to change our traditions. Now we opened our families gifts on Christmas Eve, after coming home from the Christmas Eve service. This is about 9:00 pm. The boys end up going to bed at midnight. And then they sleep in the next morning, while I get up and begin the turkey preparations.

Another change we made a few years ago, was to celebrate St. Nicholas Day. It has always bothered me how the boys were so focused on Santa Claus. No matter what we did, because we did Santa Claus, they always looked forward to the gifts. This took the focus off Jesus.

A few years ago, I heard about St. Nicholas Day - December 6. I loved the idea!! So now we celebrate St. Nicholas on his day. They put out their stockings the night before, and then the next day is all about St. Nicholas. Just a simple day. They have all month to enjoy their gifts.

Then after that is over, we begin focusing on the "Reason for the Season - Jesus". Through the rest of the month, we do a variety of Christmas activities. One thing we did this year for the first time was sending gifts to other countries. We got the World Vision gift catalogue and the kids poured over that for days! They were each given $100 to spend and it took a lot of thought to decide how to stretch their money to cover as many people as possible. They were very excited and earnest in their discussions and final decisions.

World Vision Tree

Christmas Eve, the children were each given their envelopes from World Vision and they got to hang their ornament on the World Vision tree on our kitchen wall. To add to this, we bought my parents and my sister's family gifts, also. My sister received 25 coats, hats, gloves for children and my parents had the pleasure of immunizing an entire community!

After that was done the children grouped in the livingroom and we did our gift exchange.

"I'm A Present," said Cooper

It's Life!!

The story behind this gift is what Cassidy did this summer. He went to a friend's house for the night while we were at an adoption seminar. He played the game of life *once*, and when he came home he reproduced the game *perfectly* from memory. He and his brothers then proceeded to play this game over the last few months!! It was such a pleasure, in a such a materialistic world, to see our children cluster around a loved, but wrinkled sheet of paper, to play Life, with the most unlikely game pieces!

Homemade Life

A Gift From Cooper to Honey

Cooper is my cutie. He is such a loving little boy. Ever since I can remember he has called me, "Honey." I don't use that term, nor does Ray, so I don't know where he gets it from. He doesn't often call me 'Mummy'. I have always liked the fact that he has his own name for me. It is very sweet.

The other day I suddenly realized where it probably came from. When he was tiny, he had two favourite movies - we are talking about the time between 2 and 3 years of age. They were Matilda and Black Beauty. He would ask for his movies by these names: 'horse' or 'honey'.

In the movie 'Matilda', there is a little girl and her beloved teacher, Miss Honey. It dawned on me the other day, that there is a good chance that in his subconscious he thinks of me as the Miss Honey in his life - and he is the Matilda. Might sound far fetched but in a little boys mind where his mummy is the one who does everything for him, it seems reasonable. All the same I am his 'honey'. *smile*

Dancing With Delight

Briton was thrilled with Memere's gift of bulky crayons! He loves to colour.

Briton Helping Daddy With His Stocking

When we were in California Cooper played with one of these at the Flight Simulator where Dane was flying.

Cassidy is reading the book, "The Great Brain," and on Christmas Eve he came to me and asked me what an 'erector set' was (this was mentioned in the book) - well, actually, he came and asked me what a 'rectal set' was. We all had a laugh and then I gave him the correct vocabulary!! *grin* I explained what it was. It was very exciting that night when he opened his gift and found he had received an erector set. And no, he did not find out early. I had wrapped it when I brought it home, so there was no knowing ahead of time. Just a neat coincidence!

Dane is our resident pilot. He was thrilled with his remote control F15 (I think that is what it is).

Christmas is About Love

My parents, brother, sister, and her family came for Christmas. It was nice treat since my brother doesn't often make it up here at Christmas. So we were all together this year.

When my brother arrived, Austin realized he did not have a gift for his uncle. This concerned him greatly, and so I told him he could make him a gift. He arrived downstairs shortly after with his brand-new art kit. This was his main present; something he cherishes because he loves to draw. I thought he wanted to open the kit to get out the supplies, so he could make a gift. I was wrong. He was asking me for paper, so he could wrap the gift to give to his uncle. This was such a loving gesture!!

When his uncle found out what Austin wanted to do, I could see he was so very touched at the selflessness of this child. He truly received a gift in that thought!

Of course, he would not let Austin give his gift. Austin would not let that be, so he kept searching the house for something that he could give his uncle. Finally, he gave him the booklight he had received for Christmas - another very special gift. He is a very loving child - a real encourager!

Cousins

Tea Time Snack - Niva and Cooper

Dane and Ahria

Skating Cousins

Christmas Pictures of Our Family

Our Little Ones All Decked Out for Christmas Eve Service

Our Family

Ray and Justine

My Sister's Family

Granny, Colt, and Dane

Grandad and Briton

An Elf?

We Have Our Own Elf!

Gingerbread House Destruction

After Christmas, the boys were allowed to eat their gingerbread houses. Their cousin, Niva, was visiting and she brought one with her that she built with the children's granny - my mum.

Ready....

Set.....

Go!

Oh! The Sugar!!

Loving the Rink

A Little Gretzkey?

The rink we built is wonderful! Since we moved from the country to the town, we wanted to bring a bit of the country with us. Our kids don't roam the neighbourhood, therefore we wanted to make our yard appealing to them and their friends. We built a sportscourt for the summer and then the plan was to flood it for the winter. It works wonderfully and the boys are out there playing hockey everyday!

Summer Sports Court

Can't I Go YET?

Skating Pro Austin

Goalie Cooper

Playing With Uncle Dave and Niva

Notice the clothes? Dane will go outside in any weather in shorts and t-shirt! He has always been this way. We don't put his shorts away at the end of summer. There is no end to him!

Devoted Daddy Day

About four weeks ago my husband began taking Wednesdays off work. His work schedule during the months of May through November is long. He usually works 5-6 days a week, leaving early and coming home late. Now that winter is upon us, he has been taking off earlier in the evenings and coming home around 5:00 pm. But he is still tired from working in construction and it doesn't leave him with a lot of energy.

I don't particularly like taking five children to the ice rink on Wednesdays and having to lace up three little boys. It is hard work and I figure it is a great thing for a daddy to do!! I also have one child who needs to be online during that time with his Euclids Elements class.

Therefore, I had the bright idea of corralling my hubby to do the job. I approached him and suggested that he take Wednesdays off for the duration of the winter. He willingly agreed. This was wonderful because it meant that I would have the day to myself from about 11:30 - 4:30!!! I rarely get time alone, so this is a real treat.

Ray takes the boys first to skating, he then follows this up by going to our homeschool chess club for an hour. After that he takes the boys to the library where three of the boys meet up with another family we know for a reading/craft time. It is wonderful because this is a public time, but only our two families signed up for it. So they get a personal friends time. The teacher enjoys them and calls them 'my boys' because there are five boys only.

Last week, after skating, rather than taking the boys to chess, Ray took them bowling instead.

I am really enjoying how Ray is having fun with 'his time' with the boys. It is a great thing since it is hard for him to get kid time during the busy season of the year! Unfortunately, Colt misses it as he is in school and Dane only gets to go sometimes, when his online classes are not in session. It will be skiing come January!

Gingerbread Men and Feet and Trucks

Cooper Rolling Out His Gingerbread.

When you make cookies you have to make icing!! So I made a big batch of icing and then I had my trusty helper, Cassidy, hold the bags as I filled them. As I would put some icing in the bag, if he was lucky, some of it would drop on his hands. He thought that was great. Well, you gotta have FUN, so when he least expected it, when I had finished filling one of the bags, I took my icing spoon and wiped it across his face!!

MUM!!

Who says you only make gingerbread men? We had fun putting nail polish on toes. The was me. Cassidy insisted on putting toe jam on his feet! Gross! Boys!!!

Icing Their Cookies

Some of the Finished Products

Gingerbread Houses

Our next fun activity was building gingerbread houses. I wanted to do more with my kids this Christmas, rather than less, so due to my crazy life the fine tuned quality got put out the window and I was happy to just get things done!! So, we used Graham Wafers and thick icing, rather than making actual gingerbread houses!! I mean, come on!! I have SIX kids. Can you imagine how long that would take?

Briton Loved Decorating His House!

I made the two little boys houses and covered them with icing and then I gave them each a bowl of decorations so they could decorate. I *thought* about putting all the candies in the bowls (as I had previously planned) but then I realized that I don't care *how* good your children are, they are human. There might be fighting over the candies and toddlers licking fingers and touching everyone else's candies. So, I divided them all into bowls and everyone was happy!

Black-Eyed Cooper Adding Windows, Doors, and Skylights.


When Colt came home from school he had fun decorating his house. He was very creative creating a Ski Lodge complete with a gabled entrance.

Here is a little view of the boys decorating their houses.

Christmas Baking Fun

With the week before Christmas full of baking, I thought it would be fun for the kids to have lots of decorating type cookies! So we did.

Every time Briton cut out a little shape he would say with delight, "DONE!" He so enjoyed it.

Decorating Sugar Cookies

We began with making sugar cookies and then the kids used sprinkles to decorate them. Briton saw me getting out all the candy bowls ( on the counter above) to make the gingerbread houses and his little head would occasionally pop up near the counter. He would say, "Dandy?" and I would have to shoo him away... again... again...

Finally I let him have the last few sprinkles from the bowl. He thought that wonderful!

"Eat?"

Shortly after that his little body popped up again near the icing bowl. "Eat?" he asked sweetly? "No!" I said, as I gently remove him from the stool again!! *laugh* He has such a sweet personality and accepts what I say, but it had to be hard this week with all the 'dandies' and sweets that we were working with.

Yummy!

Finally, I gave him the icing mixer to lick and he was happy!

Our Boys!