A night on the town !

At least one person in this house will still be awake to ring in the New Year!

Grand-maman's new year visit

For the 3rd year in a row, Grand-maman came to spend new year's with us. Of course, she travels with her pie dough and all her tools!



She put Maelie to work on making Mexican pies and an apple pie.



She taught her how to cut the extra dough off ...



Here is the perfect Mexican meat pie!

a lot of this going on

How we LOVE vacation time!! We don't get to relax in our jammies much on most days... but Christmas time rocks!!! :)

Maelie's homemade pizza!

Maelie decided that it was her night to cook!! She took out her kids can cook book and started making her pizza dough from scratch!!



Half of it was covered in her favorite toppings: nothing and the other half was covered in Bill's favorite toppings: everything. LOL



It turned out delicious!!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone!! I hope you had a wonderful Christmas Eve and Day filled with love. Our day started off before 5 am when Maelie got up and went through her stocking. She was just too excited !!



Once Lisa was up, we started working on the presents! It was a fun time :) Peluche's present was LOTS of affection :)



We were all very happy with our surprises! It was quite fun!! How blessed we are to be able to spend Christmas together. Maelie got an Air Hog helicopter with a camera. She spent the day flying it and charging it. It only got stuck in my hair ONCE! LOL



A colleague at work said she was doing a brunch raclette. I thought I would try that! It turned out awesome!



We had mini pancakes, potatoes, sausages, omelettes, meat pie, potato bacon pie, beans, coffee and juice!



Our afternoon was spent relaxing, cleaning Christmas wrapping paper up, and preparing for the next meal!! Lisa made some amazing dishes... Tortilla Espanola



And Croquettes with ham and cheese (to die for). We of course didn't have the proper ham or cheese on hand, however it worked well with black forest ham and mozza cheese!



I made some bruschetta with a few missing ingredients... and i made an asiago artichoke dip! MMmmmmmmmmmmm.



I guess our day revolved around food! That's what Christmas is, isn't it? We didn't go traditional on the supper, but we did go AWESOME :)



As a dessert.... what better to eat than a Tiramisu buche de Noel?! It was delicious!!!



What a beautiful day! It snowed most of the day so we did end up with a white Christmas.

Countdown to Christmas 2011 - Day 24

Christmas Eve at last!! Hurray! One little girl is VERY excited!! This morning was the last advent calendar. Her last advent calendar turned out to be EMPTY... she had to open up a gift!



She received her American Girl! It came in the mail a week ago but we waited until the right time to give it to her. She had used up money she got from different relatives to order it.



Maelie insisted we have an early supper so she could go to bed earlier. I made a Pillsbury Christmas tree and chicken veggie rice.



After supper we opened up our Christmas Eve presents .. Maelie, Lisa and Bill got jammies!



and i got chocolate covered pretzels... MMMMMMMmmmmmm!



After that we played games for family game night! Spelloker and Jok-R-Rummy. Maelie was really tired so we headed off to bed after the games!



We are so ready for Christmas!!

Countdown to Christmas 2011 - Day 23

As Maelie says: it's Christmas Eve Eve. One of the 3 most exciting days this week! Maelie had a little bit of help opening up her advent calendar today!



Maelie came to work with me. We set up a movie, crafts and snacks for the kids and they had a good time. I was relieved once it was time to go home! Vacation for 10 days! YAY!!



At home, I wrapped up a few chocolate suckers I had for neighbors and friends we will see during the holidays. It just looks more festive with treats around!



I also made little Santas to put at the end of these M&M sleeves. They are so cute! I found the idea for the Santa on a blog somewhere but I forget where.



It's all made with different punches and real easy to put together.



This evening we also opened up an activity present. Maelie was curious as to why I was giving her a ball of yarn!



I quickly cut circles out of a box in the recycling and taught her how to go around and around to make....



POM POMS!! The yarn was glittery white so once completed... we used them as snowflake ornaments!



Maelie made 3 more and we hung them all on the tree :)

Countdown to Christmas 2011 - Day 22

Day 22!! last day of school for Maelie. Her school was having a sing along tomorrow but she rather come to my work. I still cannot believe how close we are to the day I've been anticipating for soooooo long! In September I started counting the days. This whole season gets me excited!!



This evening we went out for supper with Sonia and Naomie. The girls were SO excited to give each other gifts! I am so relieved that the are always more excited about giving their gifts than receiving them!



Sonia and her family are going away for a few days to go skiing where there actually IS snow... (not here)! So guess who we have as a special Christmas guest? Yes indeed! The famous Peluche! I better get a gift for him under the tree!

Countdown to Christmas 2011 - Day 21

Maelie is starting to get up earlier and earlier every day now... she is getting SO excited!



It was a rainy day with a bit of freezing rain by the end of the day... not very safe on the roads!!

We stay put at home. Jessica, our neighbor, dropped by the play with Maelie a little. They like to make menus and set really high prices to their food.



I had donated a 5 lb chocolate sleigh for our charity auction at work, so the lady was picking it up this evening. It looked awesome!



Afterwards, Maelie and I crafted a bit with beads. She is not very patient with some crafts!!



My project for tonight in the kitchen? Irish creme fudge. Turned out awesome!



4 days left til Christmas!

Countdown to Christmas 2011 - Day 20

Day 20 - how this week is flying by!!



This morning Maelie brought her teachers gifts to school. Everyone was happy. Her homeroom teacher was really happy with her apron, apparently she showed it off to others during the day! Makes me happy... since sometimes you just don't know what to give to someone!!

I managed to pinch a nerve in my upper back when I carried all the arrangements to school! The back door was a bit frozen, and I pulled the wrong way. I felt it get caught! OUCH! it was quite inflamed during the day.

This evening, we were not in any rush so I told Maelie that if her homework was done, we could open an activity present. First we had supper together watching Glee from a few weeks ago. Then Maelie laid out the activity presents and she made her choice.... she knew what she was looking for.



... and she found it :) The gingerbread house!!



We got to work... but man oh man that icing was sticky!!



Assembling it is the less messy part !! I stopped taking pics once my hands were a mess!



Ta-Da!!! I find it turned out AWESOME!! :)