Final Christmas Event :)

The Saturday after Christmas, we had our Christmas time with Mike's family. It actually worked out quite well with my family on Christmas Eve, his extended family on Christmas, and his family afterwards; it was much less stressful than trying to cram everything into 1 day!

Tyler and Jen opening their present from Mike and I--a fondue pot with some goodies to make in it! (Sorry, the pictures are so dark, the lighting wasn't good on this side of the room!)

Mike's Dad with his gift from me, a laptop cooling station. It was perfect because Mike gave him a laptop bag, so he is all set!

Throughout the month of December, I secretly stole Mike's Mom's recipes, typed them up, returned them and stole some more! I printed them up and put them in a binder for her, so now her recipes are organized and she can find them real quick!

Mike (wearing his other new shirt from me!) opening the first season of Chuck, a present from me.

Mike found this HUGE stocking and filled it to the brim with all kinds of neat gifts for me! It was a lot of fun opening up all the gifts!

Christmas Day

On Christmas Day, Mike and his parents came to my house for dinner with my family and I. We had a good time together. After dinner, we hung out at my house for a while and then headed back to Mike's house. From there we went to Mike's Grandma's house for his extended family Christmas party. We had a nice dinner, everyone brings something and it makes for a great meal. After dinner, we opened presents from Grandma and then played Bingo. She buys gifts all year, anything from dish clothes, to sweatshirts, to kid's books, to kitchen knives, for great prices and uses them as prizes for Bingo. When you get a Bingo, you get to choose a gift, and there are a TON to choose from...you never know what you'll be opening! It's a ton of fun!

The sisters opening their presents (Mike's mom is on the far right).

Mike (notice he's wearing one of the shirts I gave him for Christmas) opening his present from Grandma...with some help from Brooke!

The enormous mountain of Bingo presents!

Brielle "playing" Bingo...isn't she adorable?

Family Christmas

My family has a tradition of opening Christmas presents on Christmas Eve. We first went to the Christmas Eve service at my church. It was really well done, some of my girls from youth group did a dance. I am having trouble uploading it, and it might be May by time it appears, but I would like to share it sometime. For now, here are some pictures from Christmas Eve.

Dad opening his present from Mike, a pair of jeans.


Nate, opening his present from Mom, a package of Beef Jerky sticks. He opened it up and started eating them right away!

Mom, opening her present from me, a pair of jeans.

Mike, with his present from me. 2 shirts from AE.

Mike and I both love pickles, so when Mom saw this huge jar of enormous pickles, she just had to buy it for us!

Pray for Haiti

Most of you probably have heard of the devastation in Haiti. I encourage you to pray for the people of Haiti, even when the media forgets about them, they still need our prayers.

Please visit this site: http://thepioneerwoman.com/blog/2010/01/a_different_kind_of_giveaway/
Ree is doing an amazing thing to help the people of Haiti. For each comment, she will donate .10 to help the disaster relief efforts in Haiti.

Another quick site to visit is
http://www.nathanlawrenson.com/
For every unique vistor that goes on his blog from now until January 31, he will donate .05 to help Haiti.

Christmas in Canada (Part 2)

As promised, here is installment #2 of our Canada trip. So we'll pick up where we left off the other day...after Mike and I visited the Lake, we stopped at the store for a few things.

Mike picked up a bouquet of flowers for Grandma, Mom, and I. He said he had to spoil the ladies for all their hard work in the kitchen :) He gave Grandma the red ones, Mom the white ones and the pretty yellow ones were for me!

In the afternoon, the rest of the family came. We did the gift exchange for the youngest kids first. There are only 3 of them under the age of 18 now. This picture is the youngest, Braden, opening his gifts...he was so excited!

Bradley and Tyler are only a few months apart. They were both excited about their gifts from Grandma and Grandpa.

The adults do a $10 gift exchange. This was our pile of gifts! Mom got a neat circular serving tray, I got a relaxation water fountain and Mike got a digital picture ornament.

After gifts, we all went downstairs for dinner. And after dinner we sing some Christmas carols.

Mike and I wanted a picture with Grandma and Grandpa so we quick took this on Sunday after church. We left for home soon afterwards. It was a short trip, but we had a great time!

Christmas in Canada

The weekend before Christmas Mike and I, and my parents, drove up to Canada for Mom's family Christmas party. I took a lot of pictures, and I think I will share them in 2 parts. Today, I will share pictures of things that we saw, and later I will show you pictures of the party. It was especially neat because Mike has never been to Canada, so he got to experience everything for the very first time!

We arrived at my Grandparent's house Friday evening and spent the night visiting and making perparations for Saturday. Saturday morning, Mike and I went out sightseeing for a while. We drove out to the Lake (about 5 minutes drive my my Grandparent's house). It was super cold so we didn't stay for long.

This is a zoomed in picture taken to the left of where Mike is standing in the previous picture. The tall tower in the background is the CN Tower. The Tower is in Toronto, about 45 minutes from Whitby, but on a clear day (like the day this picture was taken), it can be seen from Whitby.

When we drove home on Sunday, I took some pictures of downtown Toronto. The building on the far right of the above picture is the CN Tower.

The view overlooking downtown Toronto.

We always enjoy looking for the airplanes landing and taking off from the Toronto airport. This plane was about to land as we drove by.

Stay tuned for more pictures...coming soon!

Snow storm!

The second week of December we had quite a lot of snow over the course of a few days! It makes for beautiful winter scenes, but I'm not a big fan of driving in it!

Mom's Birthday

The holidays have been extremely busy and I've been slacking on posting. My goal is to catch up in the next couple weeks so that I can get back to posting as usual...let the catch-up begin!

December 1st was Mom's birthday. Here are some pictures from the day:

Mom with her birthday cake
Walking into her room and seeing her birthday present from Mike and I
This is what she saw. Philippians 4:13 is Mom's favorite Bible verse and she has been looking for a nice picture with that verse for a long time. She hasn't found one, so I decided to have one made for her. The lady who I got my word block from custom made this window for me!

We also celebrated Mike's birthday because his was on Thanksgiving and my Mom was gone. He was excited to open up "Flywheel"!