Merry Christmas 2014!!

Our little Christmas was spent as quiet as can be, Maelie, Bill and I. We were up at 3:30! Oh boy! This year we only had a mini tree out, which was fine by me! Our big one took a break! :)

Maelie excited as always to open up her stocking!!

Whatever card we received for her for Christmas, we put under the tree, so she had sweet messages from our family far away on Christmas Day!

Spoiled little lovey! This year, Maelie shared how she was excited for Christmas so that she could give US presents. She is at that point in her life where she is earning some money babysitting, therefore she saves up her money and gets us things she knows we will love! I love that she loves giving more and more!

 

Family and friends, and even people I don't know, if you read this message, know that I am truly thankful for you. I am thankful that our lives are connected in some way :) May you have a wonderful holiday season surrounded by people you care about.

 

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve is here!

Maelie has been counting the days til Christmas! School ended early this year so she found that was torture!! She wanted school to last until the 24th! Thankfully, Maelie was busy Monday and Tuesday babysitting, so time flew by and she was also paid for it! :) Great deal!

Christmas even is the day for the Christmas even present! Jammies as always :) but this time there was also an extra surprise....

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.......... an awesomely soft blanket! Come to think of it, I wish I kept it for myself! LOL

And the perfect jammies for Maelie... the shirt says "This Girl loves Christmas!" ... and she REALLY does!

Gingerbread village

Maelie and I decided to make a gingerbread village this weekend! We made the gingerbread dough from scratch using the Wilton recipe. Maelie then cut out some house shapes and we baked them.

We whipped up some icing with merangue powder to make sure the house parts stuck together!

It's beginning to look a lot like a village!

We each worked on three houses.

It's amazing what a big of icing and candy can do!!

Ta Da! What a beautiful village! a lot of sweet people would love to live there!!

Much nicer with this sweet girl in the picture!

Maelie wasn't done after all that creating... she made some little mincemeat tarts... for who?

For the only person in this house who will eat them! Daddy!

Band Concert

Maelie had her Christmas Band Concert on Friday. Along with the concert was a bake sale to raise funds for their band trip in May. My mom is ALL about bake sales! So of course, grand-maman came for a visit with a BUNCH of pies, cakes, cupcakes, etc etc! Some friends donated bread and maple-banana loaves, and I worked on a bunch of cute boxes and other goodies!

Reindeer cupcakes. Idea came from Pinterest.

Elf Kisses and Reindeer noses, idea also from Pinterest. To the right, alternating green & red M&M tubes.

Hamburger cupcakes, idea from Pinterest.

Little curvy keepsake box Santa and penguins. Idea from Pinterest, To the left, chocolate covered pretzels.

We raised a lot of money to help for their trip! The band did an AMAZING job at entertaining the crowd. I LOVE hearing Maelie play the saxophone! She is truly amazing :)

 

My November

Well, November came and went. My colleague Nicole and I worked on Christmas cards for most of the month. We made over 400 cards for our annual card sale at work. In the end, we raised over 1100$ for charity! We donated all supplies and time, so all money raised went to a couple of different causes.

Some of our cards were repeats from last year, but not many of them!

It's hard to count the hours spent on cards!

We added a few more religious ones this year as well.

 These cutie penguins were a hit!

I made a bunch of cards with fireplaces, trees and pets (cats and dogs). They seemed to disappear quite fast!

It was our second year doing this... and both years we raised over 1000$. While we were selling the cards,  we were already talking about things we would make next year! OH BOY!

a mid-October visit

Grand-maman dropped by for a visit this month with her friend Diane. We love having a height-check picture!

We enjoying going to feed the squirrels and the geese, and then headed to the ByWard Market for a bit of walking around. I love how the Market is so seasonal!

There were still lots of veggies available! Lots of apples, pumpkins and squashes! Yum yum!

Apple picking!

What a blessing for us to have Kathleen and her family over for apple picking!! We met 34 years ago, and have been through so much... sometimes together yet mostly far away, and we are still friends :) Every time we see each other, it's like we saw each other the day before!

 

 

It was a bit rainy the morning we went out but it stopped shortly after we started!

 

I love seeing my daughter with Kathleen's kids. It's hard to explain...!

 Of course, this is Maelie's normal face when I act silly with her. She thinks her mama is c-r-a-z-y!

Hurry up mom! Take the picture! The branches are hurting me!

Quite the loot we were able to pick! Amazing picture opportunities as usual :)

A bit of play after all this work!

Pumpkins are out... Halloween is on its way! The apples were a bit late this year! Sometimes, the season barely lasts til Labour Day, and here we are past mid-September!

Thanks for visiting with us Friends!! :) We love every minute we get to spend together!!

Hot Air Balloon Festival 2014

We didn't get too many days of hot air balloons this year sadly. There was too much wind way up in the sky... even if we didn't feel it down below.

Maelie and I managed to go hot air balloon chasing one evening at least!!

We just drive to wherever they are heading! We follow a few as they land and take pictures.

This balloon was the Friendship balloon! I thought it was such a sweet message, being a world. It shows we are friends around the world! Oddly enough, the file name of this pic was DSCN5050. Friendship should indeed be 50-50!

The next morning, the balloons went up but I got up late, so I only managed to get to the Pirate Parrot once it had landed! LOVE it!

 

This festival is definitely one we look forward to every year!

 

Sunny Sunday at Bate's Island

 

Maelie asked to go and feed the squirrels at Bate Island. I love when she wants us to do something together :) So off we went. These guys aren't squirrels but they were happy we visited!

 

The squirrels ate out of our hands. It was quite cute!

Do we not have the most amazing creatures right here in our backyards?

So amazing. If we take the time to observe the nature around us, we can freeze moments in time with the click on a finger!

I appreciate the times we spend together, I know soon enough, Maelie will probably prefer being out and about with her friends rather than hang out with he mama!!

*Love* and *beauty*