Grandma and Grandpa's Package Arrives

We've been inside most of the weekend enjoying the Christmas decorations and playing ball.

After swimming at Westside, we had lunch and a package arrived from Canada Post. We said we bet it was from Grandma and Grandpa. Mads asked "is it hot wheels?"

They brought all the wrapped presents to place them under the tree. There were other items in there to use right away for Christmas and to add to the decor.

We got some Santa's to hang on doorknobs. We have one from many years ago that Mads didn't like when he first saw it last week. He kept throwing it off the door knobs and onto the ground. When he saw two more, he was excited because he knew what they were for. He likes them a lot now.

We got some crafts to make from the package and Bobs wasted no time getting into them.

Mads prefers to play with his hot wheels for now.

Around the Dining Table

On monday, Mormor and the boys made jewelry and christmas decorations.

On tuesday, we had visitors - JJ and KC's uncle is visiting all the way from London, England.

On thursday, Bobs had hair and nails day at daycare. He said " I can't wait to go home and do it all again".

On friday, we made more Christmas decorations and tried to keep the paint on the snowflakes.

Putting up the Christmas Tree

Friday night was putting up the christmas tree night. Bobs doesn't like to wear anything but his underwear on weekends.

Mads was very helpful in getting all of the bulbs out. His favourite colour is red. He calls it the "Mads" colour.

This was the first year that Bobs could actually put things on the tree by himself and he did a great job at it.

You might have noticed that we re-arranged the rooms. We switched our dining room for our living room because we wanted to enjoy the fireplace over the holidays with the tree next to it. We might switch back after the New Year.

We showed Bobs how to make garlands. His scissor skills were sharpened.

Mads and I made some peanut butter marshmallow squares. Bobs says he doesn't like them because they are peanut butter.

We added new photos to the boy's albums as well. Mads loves looking at Baby Mads photos and talking about what is going on in them, and who is holding him as a baby.

We have a new babysitter who is 14 and she used to live in our house. She now lives a few blocks away. The kids think she is great.

Bobs and Daddy enjoy wrestling in their shorts. Mads usually does too but he was probably too busy with his Cars 2 Monster trucks.

A funny thing to mention: Bobs calls Red Deer "Reindeer" and Elkwater "Elfwater".

Edmonton/Red Deer

We decided a bit last minute to go to Edmonton for the weekend to check out West Edmonton Mall, since we both had monday off and figured it wouldn't be so busy this weekend. Boy were we ever wrong. We didn't realize Black Friday was in Canada now.
We tried to book a hotel on the way up, but nearly all of them were full. We ended up at a hotel close to the mall, but it was a bit dirty. At least it had a pool.

I thought the kids could have a bit of a vacation at Galaxy Land. We had no intention of shopping. It took 20 mins in traffic to drive 1.5 kilometres to the Mall. Then another 30 minutes of looking for a parking spot. It took 45 minutes to wander through the mall in huge crowds to find Galaxyland for these out of towners. It was a nightmare. We didn't get any photos of any of this as we were dealing with kids who didn't want to be at the mall.

We cut the trip short, and drove to Red Deer the next day to check out the Alberta Sports Hall of Fame. It seemed like everyone was at West Ed, and nobody was at the Hall of Fame. We had more fun there than at the mall.

We tried out virtual sports games, mini putt, a climbing wall, and a few other games.

The boys were pretty good at a mini curling game.

I like Babies

Bobs is a lego obsessed man. Even his PJ's are lego.

We had Mark and Cassandra and baby Declan over this weekend for brunch.

As you can see, Mads really likes babies.

We also went swimming twice and the boys got a lot more brave in the water.

Bobs loves going down the big slide at the pool.

Quick Update

We have just been too busy to update. The blog might slow down a bit over the winter. Mads is into Cars 2 characters and hot wheels.

Bobs was kind enough to model his new silk PJ's from Shanghai. Mads wouldn't wear his.

Bobs likes to set up race tracks for Mads while Mads is napping.

It was Mormor's birthday on the weekend and we went over there for an amazing supper made by Morfar.

Snowballs and Snowpersons