A little bit more Christmas and a LOT of snow

It started snowing on Friday, not much, it was kind of like the snow equivalent of drizzle but it didn't stop.  The kids went sledging on Sunday afternoon, here's a couple of shots of them enjoying themselves in the 6 inches or so of snow that accumulated.

And here's a couple of scenic ones instead of Time Lapse Tuesday.

Tom says this is very typically Canadian

On Sunday afternoon we decorated the Christmas tree.  Last year I outlined my usual decorating strategy for a balanced and elegant tree, to recap:

• Divide your decorations into 2 (or more depending on number of children) boxes with equal amounts of baubles etc. in each
• Give each child a box of decorations
• Brew a coffee/pour a glass of wine and watch as your tree is heavily decorated in small discrete patches corresponding to the height of your children with not a bauble in between

I thought we'd go for the same effect this year and got all prepped up but Jacob and Rose had other ideas, here is the finished tree (plus Rose with a hand print tree she made in school).

At first glance it looks like there is even(ish) distribution going on but this is not so, they decided to make a city and have decorated accordingly.  The city comprises a stand of pine cones, an apple orchard, a reindeer farm, a bell shop, a golden bauble shop, silver bauble shop etc. etc, each presided over by an Angel or Santa and has produced an interesting mosaic effect.  There might be some parental re-organisation although it's probably unnecessary/pointless as Rose keeps taking things off and breaking them or lying the character ornaments down flat on the branches for a sleep.  Perhaps a time lapse of the disintegration of the Christmas tree might be an interesting holiday project.

A Little bit of Christmas

Last weekend we indulged in a little bit of Christmas.

Tom went to the English shop in Burlington on Friday and bought me a pack of 4 mince pies.  Guess how much they cost... $5.75 + 13% hst, thats a grand total of $6.50 or $1.62 and half a cent each.  At today's exchange rate thats just under 1 of Her Majesty's English pounds each.  Wow.  I think they were the most expensive Christmas treats I've ever eaten, good job they were nice.

Just for a comparison and to be sure that English readers won't just shrug and tell me that that's normal I checked out the Tesco website and you can buy 12 of their 'finest' for 2.75.  I have a little request for you out there in the old country, if you chance upon a jar of mincemeat in the sales that has a best before of New Year 2015 please buy it for me and I'll pick it up in March.

On Saturday the kids and I went to Sobeys and met Santa,  you can tell by the antique sleigh parked in front of the deli counter that Sobeys is a classy establishment and look at Santa's luxuriant beard.  The kids were a bit overwhelmed by his storybook-ness, probably for the best as when I asked Rose if she was going to ask him anything (meaning tell him what she wants for Christmas) and she said she might want to know if he had swimming lessons when he was a little boy.

Our final foray into all things festive was a craft activity designed to prevent me from causing suffering to innocent poinsettias this year.  Jacob enjoyed making them and Rose didn't and individually they (the flowers) are not very convincing but the overall effect of the finished bouquet is pretty good.

Busy Busy Busy

This has got to be the biggest gap in posts since I started blogging in July 2012.  Many apologies to anyone who's missed it.  We've been very busy, in order to catch up I shall put in a mini post for each missed day.

Wednesday 27 November.  More snow, but not as much as Tuesday.  Spent most of the day waiting for Todd to show up with his snow blower, he did which was a relief as it would have taken me all day to clear nearly a foot of snow off the drive. Also packing and panicking about whether we'd be able to set off on our now obsolete but non-refundable adventure tomorrow.

Thursday 28 November.  Drove up to Barrie through more snow, glad I wasn't driving, for aborted house hunting trip.  Highlight of the kid's day was Eastside Mario's kids meal dessert.  See below for pictorial explanation.

Friday 29 November.  Shopping on Black Friday.  Yes I know, very foolish with children but despite crowds and kids it was quite productive.  I bought a smart and stylish jacket that I love but will only find an opportunity to wear once a year.  Jacob has 2 new/old DS games, Rose got a revolting headband and Tom bought an entire new wardrobe in 1 shop at 40% off and will not have to go shopping again for 2 years.  How do men do that?

Then the kids and I went swimming in the extremely well designed hotel spa.  The pool was small, only 3 feet deep and entirely visible from the very nice hot tub which was too hot for the kids, perfect.

Saturday 30 November.  We went out looking for a second hand book shop for Tom and Jacob bought some awful books of the Worlds most disgusting/scary things.  I discovered that I hadn't packed enough tops for Rose so we also called into a thrift shop and bought a rather fabulous sweater (no photo yet) and some sunglasses.

The Kids and I swam (for the third time) and went to see Free Birds at the Cinema while Tom and Gary went for a Beer.  Jacob enjoyed the film and the seats in this cinema were slightly better designed than those in Sarnia so Rose only fell down the back a couple of times, also the 3d glasses matched her new top so that was a success.

Sunday 1 December.  Drove home via Burlington where we will be moving in the next couple of months.  It took a long time and I would prefer to forget being squashed between the kids in the back of the Camry while Jacob regaled me with facts about leeches, tape worms, horrible skin diseases etc from his new books, but Burlington looks OK.

Monday 2 December.  Went grocery shopping and panic bought expensive Lindt advent calenders as had forgotten all about them.  Went to quilting pot luck lunch and finished a Christmas gift that cannot blog.

Tuesday 3 December.  Was sick.

Wednesday 4 December.  Felt better and spent all day volunteering at School Christmas Lunch (no respecting all religions for that one then!).

Thursday 5 December.  Made final home made Gift for posting to UK (hope it gets there in time) and found this little ensemble posing the lounge.

Wow, don't they look fab!

Today I am blogging and then will be trying to catch up on the mountains of house work that remain undone after my busy few days.

Urghh and Snow

We have had a weekend of plague and pestilence, I shall say no more about it except that both the washing machine and I are now exhausted.  Also it snowed quite spectacularly on Saturday night so here are a couple of pics.

This is the front doorway

The guard dog was buried

and the kids decided to shovel the patio, perhaps they thought I might BBQ?

So just one last time lapse (again), this is the river this morning.

Jacob Post: Comic from bitstripsforschools.com

I've made a comic on bitsripsforschools.com. Here it is:

Hope you enjoy.
You need flash to operate.

Oooph, What a Day

Any readers in Southern Ontario will be aware that we had some strong winds on Sunday night and into Monday, not as bad as parts of mid America but still quite interesting.  We lost power at 10pm on Sunday night and didn't get it back until Monday night at 11.07 and it amazes me how useless we are without electricity.  We had no phone line or broadband, no heat, light or hot water, we have a gas hob so I was lucky enough to be able to make hot drinks and food (and wash up).  The kids spent a long time playing chess in the dark.

you can tell it was getting cold in the house, Rose has a sweater on

Tom had to keep going out in the car to charge up his iPhone and try to find signal good enough to get data.  While he was out he took this video of the lake, excuse the fingers but he kept getting blown over by the wind, also you'll have to look at it sideways as I don't have the right software to rotate it.

I spent most of the day fantasizing about how great it would be to have an Aga and a wood burning stove, I think I'm going to start looking for a hobby farm where these things would be appropriate.

Anyhow, power's back on and I've mainly caught up with cleaning the thin film of crumbs which seemed to be coating the entire ground floor, so here is the weekend.  Jacob had his first bonspiel of the year and was a bit disgusted as his team came last so no photos, here he is with his latest Mathletics certificate, Gold this time.  Do you think it counts as Work in Progress?

On Sunday we went into town and bought snow boots for the kids, here is Rose in hers, I'm not sure she will consent to wear anything else on her feet from now on.

WIP Wednesday Kids Special

I knew all this on time business couldn't last.

This week much work is in progress but none can be blogged for fear of spoiling Christmas so rather than post nothing here is some of the kid's work.  Rose made this poppy at school for Remembrance Day.

And here is a picture she drew of her friend Audrey.  I like the way she still writes her name ROZE, very Rock n' Roll, I hope that one day she will front an all girls Guns n Roses cover band although I'm not sure about the perm.

Jacob said all he has in progress is his video game and I could take a screen shot of it, a great idea but being a technological genius with a masters degree in IT I don't know how, so here is a picture of him playing his DS.  This is the view of him we see most these days.

When he gets home from school tonight I shall ask him to take a screen shot of his game and post it himself, I shall watch then I can do it myself next time.

Just One More

I know I said no more time lapses but I just had to.

Arctic winds are currently sweeping in from the north over Lake Huron and we on the eastern shore are being hit by the results.  We might get another 10cm today.

Being English and clearly a bit daft I went for a walk after the kids went to school to see what the lake looked like.  It looked pretty dramatic and sounded like a freight train which was weird because the woods were still, usually when the lake is loud the wind is roaring through the trees too.  I took a couple of pictures to make the walk and the brutal stinging of hail on my face worthwhile.

Now I'm going to go and apply copious amounts of serious facial moisturizer to try to reduce the effect of intense hail bombardment.

Sharks and Shoeboxes

Just a quick post today to prove that we are still alive.  We really are not doing anything very exciting at the weekends right now with my badly thought out children's sporting activities and the weather being cold and wet.  However, yesterday the kids and I achieved 2 things.

Jacob and I put together his build your own shark, it was fiddly and tricky and required a moderate amount of in my head expletives but we finished it.  One piece was missing after it had been on Jacob's table in the pit of doom for 2 weeks so unfortunately this particular shark has no bottom teeth at the front.  Oh well, it's probably safer that way.

 Rose and I put together a Samaritan's Christmas shoe box for a girl somewhere out there where times are hard.  Hope she likes it whoever she is, Rose did.

WIP Wednesday - test blocks

Actually I've done lots of sewing this week.  I made 2 test blocks from Elizabeth Hartman patterns. I'm not keen on this one but I finished it off anyway to practice a wavy cheats free motion quilting technique.

I like this one and think it might feature in a large future project.  You'll probably see it again when its been quilted, I'm going to attempt pebbles.

I've also started a couple of things that are un-bloggable until after Christmas.  Someone will be getting something made out of this and the rest is secret.

Time Lapse Tuesday

There's definitely been a change this week.  We had frost last Wednesday then 3 days of rain and wind so all the remaining leaves went yellow or brown pretty much overnight then immediately fell off.  Looks a bit sad now.

 So I think that might be the conclusion of my time lapse experiment for the time being.  I'm thinking that I'll give myself a month off then start another one of the lake as it ices up for the winter, that might be quite neat.

Halloween proper

Another successful Halloween haul in our very generous neighbourhood.  Just like last year Jacob did a count when he got home and this is what they each got...

• 5 bags of chips/crisps
• 1 bag of popcorn
• 1 apple
• 1 can of root beer
• 49 candies
• An uncountable variety of pencils, erasers, tattoos, stickers, plastic spiders and other bits of Halloween related tat.

The weather was wet again but it wasn't minus 10 which made things much more bearable.  Here are the kids in their costumes.

Wow, no Stompeez

Is he un-dead Robert Smith or Owen Wilson?

Not Halloween, Halloween

This year, in their infinite wisdom, the school decreed that we must respect all religions so the kids could not have the usual Halloween parade in their costumes today.  I don't have a problem with respecting all religions, or with not carting costumes in on the bus but I'm not sure that any of the kids know that it has anything to do with Christianity anyway.  Actually, I looked it up and it seems that it is probably a borrowed pagan/Celtic, living dead/harvest festival called Samhain.

I digress, so the school had a black and orange day instead and I've had to dig up (buy) black and orange for the kids to wear for school as well as preparing trick or Treat costumes.  Thus they managed to double the work for us parents and have managed to ignore all religions instead of respecting them.

So here are the kids in their first outfits of today.  Jacob is very cross because I bought him the orange striped top but wouldn't let him wear a pair of black track pants that are too short and flap about round his ankles.

Not sure about the stompeez

WIP Wednesday

Wow, on Wednesday again, surely this can't last.

Lots has been achieved over the past week, I shall start with a none quilted item.  This morning I finished Rose's Smurfette dress, I hope she approves, there is nobody fussier that a particular small child and I am still smarting from the spider fiasco last year.  We should be ok because her new teacher (who is the be all and end all right now) says she will make the cutest Smurfette ever.  Here's the dress with no one in it.

I also knocked up a couple of black and orange things for tomorrow but you can wait for those.

This was also a week of 2 finishes!  I went to quilt club on Monday where we finished the binding and labels for 33 wheelchair quilts that are off to the old folks home in Forest tomorrow.  I forgot to photograph mine which was a bit daft.

And finally, the very last picture of Homespun Skies, quilted, bound and ready to be used.  Hurray, bet you're glad to see the back of that one (ha ha).

Time Lapse Time Again

Last weekend was a bit of a blur.  Rose had gymnastics on Saturday morning (this week she learned head stands but don't ask her to do one on her own yet) and Lillian came round for a belated birthday Princess play date in the afternoon.  Here is Rose wearing her lovely gift which came with a Rapunzel tea set.

Obviously the tiara didn't go with the Stompees

Sunday was first curling of the season, no photos as Jacob is honing his avoiding my camera skills.  His best friend Jacob has also joined this year so he is especially keen.

You may have noticed from the above that I have managed to completely mess up all our weekends until about next April.  I have one child in Exeter on Saturday at 11.30 am and the other in Forest at 12.30 pm on Sunday, won't be making that mistake again.

So time lapse.  I'm not sure whether to bother with these anymore, there are hardly any leaves left now (most seem to be floating in the water) and we didn't really get a great show did we.  I don't think the right kind of trees grow by the river.  Anyway, here we are.

Surprise Parcel

Today the kids got a surprise parcel all the way from Mississauga.  Thank you very much it has been well received, especially the bracelet making equipment which didn't stay in the box very long.

You may notice the Halloween spoiler in this photo

On Wednesday I made my Christmas cake, hopefully this is organised enough for it to be well and truly fed (with my cheap cooking whiskey) in time to ice and eat it.  I wasn't going to blog it but it looked so cute wrapped up in parchment waiting for a drink that I couldn't resist.

Last year I made cake, pudding and mince pies for Christmas and nobody but me ate them so to avoid weight gain and waste I am resolved to leave it at cake this time.  My strategy for getting rid of it is as follows:

• Have a cake tasting party for Canadian neighbours uninitiated in the way of the English Christmas Fruit Cake (and mulled wine and hope to get invited to an eggnog party in return)
• Present it as nibbles at the January quilt club meeting
• Palm some off on my English born hairdresser
• Give the rest to Gary
• Failing all that get married again and use it as wedding cake, but then again maybe not, better the devil you know eh