Merry Christmas!

Our family has enjoyed the Christmas break, spending time with family and playing in the snow.

 We made and decorated sugar cookies. It took a lot of patience on my part not to get angry every time the kids put the cookie cutter in the middle of the rolled out dough.

 Grammy came to visit! The kids enjoyed playing games with her and having her obey their requests. We took an outing to Fly Over Canada, which we all enjoyed and highly recommend. We also opened gifts together, a day early on Christmas Eve. The kids filled Grammy's stocking with items they chose at the Dollar Store, so she was the happy recipient of items such as princess stamps and a slinky. 

Grammy gave H2 kid-sized sleeping bags for Christmas, which they love. On Christmas Eve they snuggled up in their sleeping bags to watch Christmas shows on the computer. 

 We went to church on Christmas Eve, and these pictures are as normal as they get around here these days. 

 Our family of four opened gifts on Christmas Day. (Hailey chose this face for the picture.) The kids were delighted with all of their gifts - it was very sweet to watch them unwrap things.

Hailey has been active in painting nails - a gift she got for her birthday but has been using a lot recently. 

 We spent the days between Christmas and New Years in Kelowna. The kids enjoyed playing with the train that goes around Papa & Grandma's Christmas tree. In the bottom picture they have put their stuffies on the boxcars. 

 The kids did lots of playing with Papa and Grandma, Uncle Tom and Aunty Sara, and my extended family too.

 They built a snowman, another dream of Hailey's, similar to her desire to rake leaves. She didn't seem to care that it was miniature (because the snow was too dry) as long as it had a carrot nose.

 We watched the Dawgs play in the Peach Bowl.

 And the kids did a good amount of sledding. This is a new activity for the kids this year, first at a birthday party here at home and then in Kelowna. Both kids are very brave and also quite willing to climb back up the hill after sledding down.