I’ve run a little late with this entry considering I’m writing this on January 16, 2020 and there’s a whole lot of snow on the ground. It’s strange to see that we were outside at the park like this six weeks ago! I do remember getting worried about the lack of snow for Christmas.
December was a fun month with Sierra. She is grasping the concepts of giving gifts, opening gifts, asking for items from Santa. Her attention span definitely wanes though. The evidence of this is her advent calendar which still isn’t completely opened yet!
For the second year in a row, we wanted to try and open up gifts for a series of days instead of opening them all in one morning. The way we see it is that we are stuck inside for the Christmas break, why not have something special to look forward to each day? Sierra was definitely blowing through a few gifts on Christmas morning until she stopped at the greatest gift ever…a fishing game. We stopped everything and played that game. We also played it the next day. And the next. Every time we asked if she wanted to open up some gifts, she said “No, I want to play the fishing game!” It warms our hearts to see that she actually enjoys playing with the gifts she receives instead of blowing through them and leaving them in a pile on Christmas morning.
Before I forget to mention, this past month (or past season…it’s been so long!) has been the time where Sierra isn’t the nicest person in the world. She constantly says no to us at every turn. “Let’s brush your teeth.” Non. “Let’s get you dressed.” Non. “Let’s leave daycare so you can go home.” Non. Argh! It is very frustrating right now. We are trying to give her a reward system like “Hey, if you get dressed to go to daycare you can watch television tonight.” but it doesn’t seem to phase her. When we point out that she can’t get something special, she just says “It’s ok.” like she’s consoling us! Hopefully this phase will pass soon enough because it’s getting too frustrating in the morning when I’m trying to have her speak quietly so she doesn’t wake Ezra but at the same time she’s saying no to everything!
Onto some photos!
Typically on a weekend I try and get away with both kids to give Maman a break. This must have been the day where Ezra was still sleeping in so I decided to hit the road with Sierra. First stop…breakfast!
We were pretty lucky to see Santa Claus while we were out at the grocery store!!
Sierra is starting to not like her picture being taken.
Etienne and I made a photo book of ourselves for the Christmas gift exchange at work. We were pretty disheartened when we found out at the last minute that there was NOT going to be any exchange this year! Luckily Kelly didn’t get the memo either so we did an exchange between ourselves. She was over the moon with this gift and proceeded to bring it to every meeting she could in the proceeding weeks.
Sierra’s first advent calendar! Note for next year: get the cheap ones where the chocolates have a different design to them. This kinder one was the same exact chocolate each day.
Preparing for her first job.
As parents with two kids, you sometimes have to split up when it comes to activities. Vero headed downtown with Trish to see Damien Robitaille at the opening ceremony for the Christmas lights in Ottawa. Jealous that they got to meet him on their way into the event! By the way, if you don’t have his new Christmas album, go get it now. It’s great!
Sierra showing me how the ratio of icing to cookie should be at least 50/50.
Sierra and I went to David’s Tea to pick up a gift for Maman and they treated her to some decaffeinated tea. Yum!
Bahaha!
Helping put up the Christmas decorations. Stan Lee’s Santa hat came out for the event!
I got a calendar notification reminding me to infiltrate the girls’ Christmas party with a gift of my own. I sent a long a photo book of my life. Vero thought it was hilarious and supposedly there were a few people fighting over the item!
Holly won it in the end and she tells me that her kids look at pictures of Uncle Ryan each night.
This is probably the photo they like to look at.
Tis the season to make sausage dip!
Sierra insisted that our tree had a star on top this year so we went out and picked one up.
The best part of Vars is their annual Christmas celebration! Someone tried to get me to play tunes for the kids but I wasn’t prepared in time. Luckily they got the guy who had been doing it for years and he knows how to get the kids entertained!
Sierra and her friend were more focussed on crawling on the floor than singing and dancing!
Ho Ho Ho!
I had a homework assignment for the month of December. I was going to play some Christmas tunes for the daycare along with our friend Vero. There has never been a French translation of Frosty the Snowman …until now! The daycare had this book and I copied the words down and figured out how to play it in French.
Clearly they had fun at daycare today!
I’m not sure if I have already posted this but this is this year’s school photo. I put in another two minutes of effort on her hair that morning. Usually it’s a rat’s nest.
For YEARS I have gone to the department’s Christmas party and they only had tea or coffee on hand. Finally, they have smarted up and offered up some hot chocolate as well!
Ah, the work Christmas party. Always a fun time. We now reserve Le Troquet for our festivities and rightly so! We spend most of our time there during the year anyhow!
For the past two years, Nanny Ruth’s Christmas sweater (I’m wearing it in this photo) has one the Branch’s Christmas sweater prize! We were going to go for a third year in a row which I mistakenly thought was four years in a row. So you will see that everyone’s t-shirt says FOUR FOR FOUR accidentally. I never told them the truth and if they are reading this now…sorry? My team loves Nanny Ruth’s sweater so much that they rallied behind the cause of winning another year in a row and we got some t-shirts made for the event. Unfortunately, we were completely shut out of winning this year…we didn’t even make it into the Top 3! I think that’s a little unfair, but whatever. At the end of the day, there’s no tears shed over losing a sweater competition. It is Christmas after all! Nanny, if you are reading this, I hope you enjoy seeing how much joy you bring to my colleagues! Special thanks to the great group I work with and the fun times that were brought to the Branch Christmas party even though most of you were severely hungover from the previous night’s party.
Now that Christmas has passed I can start posting photos of a project I was working on. I was going to attempt to make a cribbage board for my parents as well as another one for Vero’s dad. I got these biscuits from Emile at work who had taken down a few trees on his property. I let them dry over a month’s time on the heater at work. I had purchased a router to do the middle portion but after speaking to Dad I realized that the router needed bits and other things that I wasn’t prepared to purchase so I returned it and worked at carving out the middle portion for the cards.
I sat on the project for a few weeks seeing that the clock was ticking. I needed to get this done! I then took an old credit card and drilled a few holes in it to act as a template to drill over 300 holes into the board. As you can see from the photo above I marked it with a pencil before going all out!
Birthday party fun!
Everyone loves a good marshmallow.
Sierra pulling Maman on the sled!
After some varnish.
Making some Christmas cookies
Note the Mr. T action figure!!
Might steal this idea for next year.
Finished product! The only thing that really messed up with this entire project were the custom playing cards I ordered…the box they came in was larger than the spot I carved for them!
I can’t figure out if the cribbage board or the custom playing cards were the best part of the gift!
It’s been a long Star Wars ride but we went and watched Rise of Skywalker on opening night and it was great!
For a few years I have been suffering from styes that form on my eyelid. I was having a good run of not having any for a few weeks but it came back in full force. I hadn’t had it this bad since when it first started up years ago. Hopefully one day we’ll figure out how to get rid of them but as the specialist once told me: “You won’t die from it, but you will die with it!”
Sierra riding the escalator at my work
There were carollers so Sierra and I sat down in the lobby to listen to a few songs.
Santa was nice enough to pay us a visit at work!
After awhile at work, it’s time for a break.
It was great to see some of the old gang from when we worked together back in 2010. It’s also crazy to think that some of us still work together! Hey, when you love your job and the people you work with, why would you leave?
Clearly Sierra was not too happy with Mina trying to watch her iPad.
It’s Christmas eve and the cookies, milk, and carrots are ready for Santa and his reindeer!
Christmas morning
Alright, some context is needed for this five minute video, but it is well worth watching. A few months ago while eating a smoked meat sandwich for lunch, we asked Sierra what she wanted from Santa Claus. She thought about it for a bit and then said “a smoked meat sandwich!”. We thought this was quite funny but when we asked her a few more times as Christmas got closer, she had the same answer. But she also added a few things…”un smoked meat sandwich puis un non et un oui!” Only Santa could figure out what she meant by this and Santa delivered! Sierra was VERY excited to see some smoked meat come her way for Christmas.
Smoked meat!!!
Prepping Christmas dinner.
What a great Christmas treat! Poppa, Grandma, Abbey and Maureen came to visit us for a few days! Too bad it was freezing rain most of the time!
Sierra enjoyed the activity tablecloth that Grandma brought for Christmas.
I had a good laugh at this one on Facebook.
Sierra enjoyed the slippers that Nanny Ruth made for her.
Kitchen party!
I love how this photo makes it look like I’m playing to an audience of one.
Obligatory moose mug shot!
