Merry Christmas!

We had a very Merry Christmas in our new home. 

Here we are all dressed up on Christmas Eve.

We enjoyed having brunch, singing carols, and reading a story at the Wiens'.

Caede and Peter having a dance

The kiddos.

We went to Christmas Eve service at our church and were very grateful that some friends and neighbors joined us this year. Then we attempted to take a family photo.

Christmas Eve night in pjs.

We started the morning by choosing a gift for Jesus. Then we opened our stockings and other gifts.

We give the kids each 3 gifts. Pajamas, a Bible or devotional book, and a special gift they have been wanting.

This year's gifts were:

Ella - typewriter

Juliette - stroller

Karis - ergo

Peter - a train set

Silas - next year when you know it is Christmas we will give you a gift ;)

Ella is thrilled with her typewriter. She writes an incredible amount of books, so this will be a very useful gift for her. This year we received about a dozen books under the tree. She spent a very long time writing and illustrating these books and some of them are really well written. 

Karis and Juliette continue to love playing moms. Now they both have an ergo and a stroller (Karis got a stroller from Grandma Jo-Ann). 

Peter loves his train set. Now, to find a way to keep baby Silas from destructing the track he has made.

Perhaps our funniest gift was Ella's gift to Dadda - Head and Shoulders. We took the girls to the dollar store to do their Christmas shopping and let them get their own gifts for our family. So this was  selected all on her own.

And we have been receiving all kinds of sweet notes from Ella's new typewriter.

Silas' first Christmas. We did get him some new snuggly pjs.

On Christmas morning after having our French Toast breakfast we went for a walk down the trail behind our house.

Grandpa Rob joined us for turkey dinner.

He also brought Jenga for the kids. It is a great game, as long as Silas is not within reach :)

We baked Jesus a birthday cake.

Grandma Jo-Ann gave Ella a knitting loom and she has been busy making scarves.

Yesterday we went sledding at Kwantlen Park. 

On Boxing Day we went skating and had dinner with the Lafleur side of the family. And we took some pictures that did not turn out very well.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas fun

A couple of weeks ago all 7 of us got on the ice together.

Our girls are finished with their skating lessons for now. They worked very hard and can now all skate independently. Karis goes very fast (even though she doesn't know how to stop). Karis just likes to go all out in most of what she does.

Silas is very mobile these days.

And the other day our morning started like this... crash! "Mom, I was trying to plug in the tree and I knocked it down."

We went to Spencer's school for crêpes with our friends the Werdals. Santa was there as well. 

Peter has enjoyed using the bleachers as a road for his ambulance during the girls' skating lessons.

We visited with Grandpa Clark and he blessed our kids with some nice Christmas gifts. And the girls put a wrench in his plan to make a quick exit after dinner by reminding him that they still hadn't finished their game of Sorry. So Grandpa was a good sport and finished a long game of Sorry with the girls.

Peter had his 2nd hair cut. Although he was scared, he did amazing and sat in the chair on his own this time. When I asked him how he was doing, he said "too scary for me, I want down now." And then he made this facial expression.

The end result.

We rode the Christmas train at Bear Creek Park and met another Santa.

And Spencer and I got out for a date in downtown Vancouver. We even went to Robson Square to do some skating.

Last night we took the kids on our annual Christmas light tour. They were crazy excited about this. The houses that have their lights synched to music are always a favorite.

Our Jesse tree is getting very full. This is our 5th year going through the same advent readings and using the same ornaments. We love this tradition. Here's a flashback to 5 years ago...

http://thelafleurs27.blogspot.ca/2011/12/jesse-tree-advent.html

And "Guesstures" has brought our Friday night family games night to the next level. "Guesstures" is a timed game of charades, we had so much fun playing this tonight. 

Let it Snow!

On Monday morning we woke up to a white blanket of snow. Our kids were over the moon excited. We got more snow in one day than we have had in the past two winters combined. 

We built a snowman, went sledding, had snowball fights, made snow angels. We spent the morning out in the snow enjoying it together. In these parts you never know if this will be the only snow of the year, so we made the most of it.

Hello there, Mr. Snowman.

It was Peter's day for a date with Dadda, so they went for a snowy walk.

I then brought the rest of the kids to meet up with Peter and Dadda and we did some sledding.

Today we took a walk around the block to a house that is very decked out for Christmas. They have a donation box raising funds for babies in need. The girls were happy to give some of their giving money to this cause, and they also enjoyed a close-up view of all the decorations. Ella is pretty excited to be able to see the lights from this house from her bunk bed.

And I finally remembered to take Silas out of the ergo for a picture. Our little guy is often sleeping in the ergo so I have lots of pictures with only 4 kids.

Snowy nature journal entry.

We also made "tire d'érable." I think when your last name is "Lafleur" this is a must on the first snowy day of the season. It is so simple and delicious. You heat up syrup and pour it onto a pan of packed down snow. Then you pour a strip of syrup onto the pan and roll it up onto a toothpick or popsicle stick. It makes a delicious taffy tasting candy.

We saw 2 bald eagles on our walk today and Ella enjoyed practicing the poem she has been memorizing.

Ella likes to make lists of what she will do for her quiet time. Spencer and I get a good laugh from reading her lists. Click on the picture for a closer look. She has been writing tons of books these days and then wrapping them to give as Christmas presents. I looked in her desk the other day and saw that she has 25 wrapped presents in there.

We typically learn a new hymn each month. For the month of December we are learning the song "Messiah" by Handel instead. It is so beautiful and I love hearing our little voices singing it around the house and in their beds before falling asleep.