No Chocolate for Breakfast: 2013

Concluding Christmas

Nearly all of our family activities since the end of November has been related to or in preparation for Christmas. Not featured below due to lack of pictures are that we recently celebrated my father's birthday, had a nice lunch in Carleton Place with Casey and Debby, and went skating at the St-Laurent Complex. Here's the last holiday installment before we move on with our lives.

Taffy Lane

We are lucky to live near Taffy Lane, reputed one of the prettiest decorated streets during the holidays in the Nation's Capital. This was the first year I visited Taffy Lane. We took the Beavers there as it's adjacent to the church where we meet and then back to the church for some hot chocolate. I liked it so much that I took Liana to see the lights and decor the following week. Here are some pictures I thieved from the interwebs.

Work Kid Christmas Party

The morning of December 24th we attended our fifth annual work kid Christmas party. We gave Liana the option of staying home and she took us up on that - the party's really catered to kids under 10 and she's been a trooper coming to the last four. This year the big guy was busy so he sent an elf who delivered letters and candy canes on his behalf.

Caleb getting his letter from Santa and explaining that he doesn't like candy canes

Evelyn's turn

Yum yum paper

Passed out after walking the 10th and 11th floors saying hello to people

Christmas Eve Feast

We spent the rest of Christmas Eve day at the house. We watched A Christmas Story, Caleb played outside and Liana prepared dinner. Caleb lost a tooth at dinner so the Hartwick residence had visits from both Santa and the tooth fairy that night. Around 9pm Caleb had a sleepover with Liana in her room which was great because she made sure he wouldn't leave the room while we prepared for the morning. Caleb's Santa gift was especially tricky because in addition to string (to make bracelets) he requested a Funky Monkey drink. The drink required an afternoon trip to the mall, chilling in the garage all evening, and being wrapped in an open box so as not to spill.

She started by preparing dessert

This is the first year we let Caleb play out back in the winter. He's old enough to steer clear of the pool. We still asked he stay in that corner though so we could see him from the living room window.

Liana spent the day in the kitchen = Dexter spent the day in the kitchen

How cute is she?!

Spiced Carrot and Orange Soup

White Bean and Sun-Dried Tomato Pâté with toasted french baguette

Roasted Garlic Mashed Potatoes and gravy

At first Darcy was afraid. In the end he said it was very good! Then he saw the mess in the kitchen and was afraid again.

Liana also made some mashed peas for the baby to eat

Sesame Green Beans

Vegetable Stuffed Tofu Roast

Chocolate Mint Truffles

Caleb prepared this for Santa. He choose Great-grandma Jean's chocolate chip cookies "because they are the best cookies"

Caleb placing name tags on our stockings

Ready for bed!

Christmas Day

Around 6:30am the last of us sleepyheads made our way down to the still dark living room. We opened our stocking, the our presents and then had some Pecan French Toasts for breakfast. Evelyn had a morning nap and we helped open her presents later. We had a lovely Turkey lunch at my parents' house and then came back home for some r&r.

Ready for Christmas

Stocking time

Dex loves unwrapping

A project I worked on this month but couldn't blog about was to make journal books of Liana and Caleb's first five years. I used Mixbook because I loved their software when I used it for my wedding album. It was tricky because all of Liana's baby photos had to be scanned and because she shared my laptop so I could never leave it open. I've published the books as unlisted (you need the link to view): you can view Liana's First Five Years book here and Caleb's here.

I got excited when unwrapping this present from Liana when she said "I'm really proud of this one." She tends to not like paintings she makes so her confidence was nice to hear. The moon only looks shiny from a certain angle. It's shades nicely just like the sky. I love it.

For Liana's gift to Caleb she put together items needed to make paper mache projects because Caleb's always saying he wants to do paper mache

He was SO excited to play with the two Beyblades he received. He was also given a $25 gift card for Toys R Us that he plans to spend on a Beyblades battle dome

Some of my loot! Meant to hang the calendar in the kitchen but boy is it not family appropriate. Darcy actually watched a musical with me on Christmas day of his own volition ("Score") - now that's true love!

Buffy: The Making of the Slayer

Some of Liana's loot

Liana's Santa gift

Liana's gift from my parents

A good gift for a bad dog

A mug of Caleb's very own

New outfit from Grandma

Liana and I received tickets to see Hair in Kingston next month! And I got tickets to see Disney on Ice for me and Caleb...admittedly more for me than for the kid

Hartwheel's Adventures

I must admit that I wasn't very creative with Elf placement. Heck I didn't even remember to take a picture every day. Apparently elves are supposed to get into mischief overnight but (1) the elf is supposed to ensure my kids are well-behaved so shouldn't he be, as well? and (2) I focused my attention on Christmas crafts and it was all I could do to remember to move him every night. That being said, Caleb loved having Hartwheel. Every single morning in December he woke up with that Christmas magic in his eyes and had fun looking for Hartwheel.