Pre-Christmas Festivities

The weeks leading up to Christmas holidays were a shit show. And I really don't like swear words in the blog, but this is necessary. Work was crazy busy and full of crisis, and free time was spent preparing for Christmas with baking, shopping, events, and other preparations like daycare gifts for Logan's friends. Although I like Christmas festivities, i'm happy that January has less expectations.

We look forward to Rachel's school Christmas concert every year. This year, it was a bit later in the year on December 15th AND I thought it was the day before and drove all the way across the city the day before to see that the school was completely dark! That's where my brain was. But I made it! Aleksy and Logan stayed home because of Logan's bedtime... Rachel was so cute and was the only girl in her class who chose not to wear a dress!

This deliciousness here is Christmas stollen bread. We had it for the first time last year made by family friends, Tommy and Vina Wang. This is difficult to stay in the house for more than 2 days. I think that's all it lasted this year. Its sweet bread with dried fruit.

This year, Logan got to enjoy some too. He is particular about bread, and doesn't usually eat much, but not the Christmas stollen.. He loved it and ate tons!

Even though it made my days so extra busy and late, I took 3 days off in December so I could get my Christmas baking done and on the last day off, I made these hot chocolate reindeer as Christmas gifts for Logan's daycare friends! Pinterest for the win once again.

And on Tuesday Dec 20th, Big Sisters had their Christmas party. The last couple years, it was held at the Windermere manor with a buffet of caesar salad, pasta and hot chocolate and ice cream sundaes. It was pretty awesome and included craft activities on the tables and a dance.

This year, they took us on a school bus for a tour of Christmas lights. It was actually really cool... there's 2 houses near the east end library that have a radio station that is synced with their light show. Crazy! We were even provided with hot chocolate, candy canes, popcorn and a granola bar as snacks for the bus ride. We randomly picked up Santa and his elves at Argyle mall parking lot and brought them back to the library where we had pizza hut pizza, pasta, and salad. The there was cake and ice cream for dessert and presents for the kiddos. Pretty awesome! The amount of food they provided was amazing... thye thought of everything!

They had pictures with Santa and this "photobooth" set up too.

Snowy weekends at the C House

This past weekend was probably the most relaxing weekend we will have in December. Weekends fill up quickly with plans in December and this weekend, we had Friday supper with the sister and her new guy, Jon then Saturday we had plans with our neighbours. Sunday, the big event was Logan's Santa pic at the mall!

Other exciting events of the weekend... snow! Logan is still hesistant with the icy stuff, but still played outside for a bit on Sunday before Santa.

And some sledding happened. Same sled as Family day when he hated the sled ride, but this time he was interested and smiling! Win!

At the mall... all fancied up for Santa. This guy got so much attention for his cuteness in the mall. Could have been the bow tie, the uggs.... the ladies love Logan. And Logan loves the light-up reindeer...

We really prepared for some tears this year... Logan has recently gone through a phase of playing strange but I think daycare has helped him with this so we got no tears. And really not much of a reaction at all. Just staring at the camera where they were jingling the bells.
Other 1 year old pictures looking like Santa is terrorizing them are way more fun!!

The difference of a year... this little guy could hardly hold his head up last year and was slightly blobbish... as much as a not so chubby baby can be blobbish. But this year, He's a handsome toddler! And Santa is not quite as Santa-ish as he once was at Masonville.

Birthdays and Christmas Spirit

Our past few weekends included Scarlett's 3rd birthday, a weekend away in Kincardine, some mall meet ups, and Al's birthday party (aka Aleksy and Katherine were baby free and forgot how much hangovers suck).

Scarlett had her 3rd birthday party at Little Gym on Nov 20th. Logan had the best time climbing all over everything and participated in some of the organized activity (but mostly was his own boss and found his own way around). The staff were so good at including him too int he activities even though his attention span is hardly a second!

Just one small mishap with one of these red rails and Logans noggin. Just another goose egg to add to those he;s already had!

After some serious playtime in the gym part, we headed into the party room for some pizza and cake. Ariel was there. Logan was terrified. This balloon Ariel was way scarier than the 1 that came out for his 1st birthday!

Logan's little friend Indie wasn't so scared - shes just a few months younger than the Logster.

After Scar opened her present, she said thanks and gave hugs to everyone - Logan was getting grumpy because it was late and he has too much exposure to scary Ariel, but Scarlett was a sweetie to him anyways!

And the very next weekend, we headed up to Kincardine to visit Sam, Zac, Scarlett and little William. Best hosts ever - supper, appetizers, breakfast, and a crazy assortment of drinks for the weekend.
And fun activities with the children - boxes for adult and child fun!

This guy was so pooped by the time we were ready to put him to bed - it was hardly past his bedtime. it was just a long day of play and a crappy afternoon car nap. We plopped him on the bed for his sleep sac and he was basically snoozing already.

Not that he snoozed that night - this guy who usually sleeps the whole night without a peep from 8pm - 6:30/7am was up multiple times - like 5 or something. And he kept that for the next night too. I'm so used to peaceful sleep so I died at work on Monday. But he's now back to normal (thank goodness).

And the 3 kiddos the next day! After eggs and bacon and some playing in the serious playroom downstairs, we headed back to London during nap time and Logan slept the whole way home (because he didn't sleep at night!).

Logan really likes his boots - there's no bad time to wear them really. Christmas tree, boot lovin baby.

This weekend, we met up with my niece Emma and brother Mike for some shopping at the Disney store and some lunch. It's been too long since these two got together and  I'm so glad he got to see her again! Emma is not little anymore -this girl is 9 in a couple weeks!

Logan got some awesome new Mickey Christmas jammies and a playmat and cars from his Uncle Mike and Emma picked out a Moana nightie for her birthday. A successful Disney store trip then some lunch afterward. Uncle Mike treated Logan to his favourites - meat and cheese. It's little weird ordering a mr. sub sub with no bread but that's Logan's style!

And later that day, we dropped the goober off at his Nana and Dziadek's and it was time to party for Al's birthday! We went to the Palasad for 7pm and we didn't even finish up our bottle of champagne before the taxi got to our place to share with Chels and Warren.

I think this was the first time I did a shot in like a couple years.

This chocolate cake came out around 10:30 - it was a shared party with Al and his friend Malcolm.

When 30 creeps up on you and you're certain you're still in your 20s and can handle 1 single shot of tequila... but you can't.

Selfies with the bestie!

And this was the community drink - it was basically a fish bowl of a drink that tasted like juice. But to add the the awesomeness, the straws had sour keys hung from them. We all tried to finish it together but that didn't quite work out.

It was a fun baby free night out, but the next day I realized that I really can't manage much more than 3 glasses of wine in a night. The next day was a slow moving day!