Christmas 2010

We had a really nice Christmas this year. Fairly quiet, good times with family, yummy food and treats and lots of wonderful family traditions.

On Christmas Eve, we held our first annual McMullin/Hughes Christmas pageant. We dressed up our two little toddlers, Hudson and Seth, as sheep (although Hudson's costume is a little more basic than Seth's - I wrapped quilt batting around him and pinned it to his shirt). Maira played the part of Mary, Shae was the angel, Connor played three roles: Joseph, a shepherd, and a wise man, and Isaiah helped Connor as a shepherd and then a wise man.

The shepherds being astonished at the angel as the sheep wander around:

The sheep decided to climb up on the angel's spot to check out the view:

We tried to get a group shot at the end but one of the sheep was pretty sad about something and the other one wanted to play with the wise man's gold:

But, Seth calmed down after a few minutes and we brought our little Santa Howie in for another group picture:

Connor hated his wise man costume, he insisted that it made him look like a girl!

Once the pageant was over, we tried to take a picture of the kids in their new Christmas pajamas - but Hudson was having none of that, we couldn't convince him to sit nicely on Shae's lap for even one second:

So, we gave up and took pictures without him:

And then when we were done, we discovered what his problem was: he wanted to sit on the chair, not on Shae's lap.

The look of a toddler who has finally communicated what he wants and has gotten his way:

So then, we called the others back and got this cute shot:

On Christmas morning, the kids all got sugar cereals in their stockings so this is them enjoying their rare treat:

But Hudson couldn't be convinced to eat cereal for breakfast even if it was coated in sugar, not when there were jellybeans to be eaten:

We had a lovely morning opening gifts from each other:

I spent the last couple weeks before Christmas frantically knitting because I decided I wanted to make "Oma Slippers" for my kids. I got the last one done on the 23rd after many late nights. They're really very quick to knit but to knit 4 pairs in 2 weeks, is really pushing it! When I was little, my Oma (my dad's German grandmother) used to knit up these same type of slippers for all her kids, grandkids and great-grandkids and I remember receiving several pairs of slippers from Oma during my childhood. She lived far away from me and so I really didn't know her at all but these slippers were something tangible she had made with her hands for me so they were something that connected us together. I hope that these slippers can be a connection between my kids and a great-great grandmother they never knew.

Over Christmas holidays, Jess and Connor had a special day out. They went to the Deep Sea Caverns at the Mall where Connor got to take pictures of the sharks with one of Jess's old cameras:

And then they went to the Telus Science Centre to see the cool new Lego exhibit. This is Connor at the space exhibit pretending to be an astronaut on Mars.

Christmas was wonderful, the holiday from school was great, we made some really nice and important memories, but I'm so glad it's all over!

School Christmas Concerts

Watch the boy in the grey shirt behind Maira, he's hilarious!

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My Little Authors

M and C both love "writing" books. M's most recent novel is entitled "Fairy Arshall Arts". Did you mean 'martial arts', I asked her when she announced the title. No, it's definitely 'Arshall Arts'. What that means, I'm not sure but I found her story quite entertaining so, on the off chance that you will too, here is a copy of her story, as dictated to me, as well as some pictures of the finished product, once the illustrations were added.

Chapter 1

Once upon a time there was a fairy named Leah. She went to Fairy World with all her friends. One of her friends was named Rosie. Her other friend was named Bella. Her other friend was named Karina. Her next one was named Madeleine. One time there was a girl named Amy and she was looking for fairies to trap. And she trapped all of the fairies. And then she put them in a cage. And so she went to look at the orange fairy Bella. She had orange leaf magic then she caught all of the fairies. Then she wanted to catch more fairies and she catched more and put them in the cage. And then she wanted to catch all of the fairies in Fairy World and she catched all of them.

Chapter 2 The Fairies Get Lost

When the fairies got lost, they found a deep dark wood and they heard a growling and snarling and there were two tigers and two bears. Karina, the silver fairy, poofed an elephant with silver drink inside of it which it shot out of its nostrils and it poofed out the tigers and bears and they disappeared so the fairies could go through.

Chapter 3 The Fairies Go in the Forest

They wanted to go in the forest. Leah, the pink flower fairy, poofed pink flowers all around them so powers could go inside them.

Chapter 4 The Fairies found the way to their Fairy Home

They went and went and found their home and they were so excited that they got out of the cage and they went to the play place which is already in their home and the Fairy Queen and Fairy King were so happy to see them.

The End.

C's books are usually similar in structure to M's book, although with more adventures and monsters to be sure. But this time, he decided he wanted to make a comic book. So Jess set him up with a camera on a tripod, a white backdrop, and left him to it. C planned out his plot, built his Lego characters, and carefully arranged them in each scene to tell the story. He then took all the pictures himself. Then, Jess helped him format the pictures into a comic book, and add the dialogue, and voila, a fantastic comic book, called "The Quest for the Diamond City".

Oh, and finally, I thought this picture was great. This was after S, C and M spent several hours playing together (a miracle, I know), and they played "radio". Whoever's turn it was to be on the radio, sat inside a little tent and used a microphone to broadcast their program to the others. It was really cute.

"School" Pictures

After a few years of disappointing school pictures (fake smiles, messy hair that was neat when they left that morning, corny backgrounds, etc, etc), I've decided now to have Jess take our school pictures every year. That way the portraits of the younger ones match the portraits of the older ones AND I have complete control over the pictures! Plus this year, I got the added bonus of getting to use my new Paint the Moon photoshop actions to enhance the photos, so fun! So, here are the before and afters, one "good" portrait of each kid and one goofy portrait to keep the whole thing fun for everyone.

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H didn't get the concept of making goofy faces so this is the best silly face we could get from him (he's about to let out a loud roar on behalf of the dinosaur he's holding):

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And finally, this isn't a school picture but C wanted Jess to take pictures of him with his best friend Howie and at one point in the photo shoot, Jess stuck a dog treat inside C's collar to keep Howie from jumping off the chair and I just love the expression on C's face as Howie tries to find his treat!