Better Late Than Never!

It's been a long, long time since I've posted a blog. I know I could have just done a write up but I like to post pictures with each blog and for the life of me I couldn't find my camera cord, make that two camera cords. Well I have found one but so much stuff has happened that I hope I can do an update without it becoming too long and boring. First things first, these are my activity girls. Note the t-shirts. They decorated them for their service project. I must say some were colorful and quite creative. The service project was to collect food for Feed Nova Scotia. As you can see they collected quite a bit of food. Just for the record, we don't usually have boys in Activity but the boys' activity was cancelled and my son Camden(in orange t-shirt) and his two friends tagged along. I was really impressed with the girls' excitement at collecting the food. They didn't complain at all and was quite brave at going from door to door and asking for donations. We're looking forward to doing it again in the spring. The next major happening was our daughter Chelsea's "sweet sixteen" birthday. She had a boy/girl party and had quite a good time with her friends. She had a great time and really enjoyed the gifts she collected. I must say she made it easy for us to throw her a party because she's such a great kid. I didn't have to worry about who she was going to invite or what her friends were going to do once they arrived. I decided that I would try my hand at baking her cake and decorating it, something I haven't done in a long, long time. So please no heckling from the peanut gallery. This was my version of the "travelling" pants. Note the fruit roll-up belt. wwwbettycrocker.com really came through for me and fortunately Chelsea was very forgiving, lol! The next event has been our daddy/daughter activity. I thought it would be a good idea to do a breakfast and a craft for the fathers and daughters. We had sausages, bacon, scrambled eggs and caramel french toast. Well let me tell you, those caramel french toast was a huge hit and it so happens that we're having it for our christmas breakfast. What the fathers lacked in creativity, they certainly made up for it in enthusiasim. They seemed to have enjoy themselves immensely. Our craft was the family tree made out of wire with silver foil leaves (http://www.mormonchic.com/). It called for the use of some tools which I thought would be right up the men's alley. However I think some of them would have just rather some good old scissors and paper. All in all it was a very memorable time. With just two more events to go, we come to the annual christmas concert. With six children and oodles of christmas concerts under our belts, it was a little weird going with only two children this year. It felt a little lonely and really quiet. In fact, we actually arrived at the expected half hour early time. A first in all our concert years. Check out Camden in his suit looking out of the corner of his eye. After years of fighting with the kids to dress up for concerts, Camden decided he wanted to wear his suit and was quite excited to do so until he got to to the school. He suddnly lost his courage and was very shy. He loves to sing but freezes up the minute he faces a crowd. That's Raven in her blue dress and pink hat. She was doing a song which required a hat and mittens. She was so cute. She did really well until someone stepped on her shoes. It was all downhill after that. Oh the trials of elementary! Last but certainly not least was the decorating of the tree. This year has been a strange year for us. Everything seemed to have taken longer to get done. We were extremely late in getting our tree. We got our tree on December 18th and decorated it on the 21st. We had all the children with us but we also had some unexpected guests show up. As some of you already know, we've been spending almost every Saturday night for the last six years with the Nelsons at their home and this night they paid us a surprise visit. Of course this was not going to stop us from decorating the tree in fact, we had an amazingly fun time with our six kids and the four Nelson children. Without further ado, I'll let the pictures do the talking. Sorry about the long post. Hopefullsy some of you out there will actually read it, lol!





This is Emmanuel, Tiffani's boyfriend. He spent christmas with us last year and he's going to BC this christmas. Fortunately he was able to spend sometime with him before he leaves. I just want to wish everyone an enjoyable Christmas and a happy New Year.