Merry Christmas

The day finally arrived to much excitement from mommy and daddy :o)

We managed to get Jared past the playroom door without him seeing the presents so that we could give him breakfast first, since we knew we probably wouldn't get him away from the new toys once he saw them. He is incredibly observant though and did spot the "doggie" in his stocking hanging on the fireplace.

After breakfast we took him and showed him all the presents. He was quite overwhelmed to start with and not quite sure where to start or what to do. He got into the swing of things really quickly though. It was really nice though that he would open a present and then spend time playing with it. He never rushed off to open something else, in fact, we had to try and prise the stuff out of his hands to give him something else to open. (I am sure that come next Christmas things will be much different though ha ha!!) Eventually we decided to leave him with each toy until he had had a chance to have a good look and play and only then to encourage him open the next thing. So present opening took a looooong time which was actually really special.

After getting through all the presents we sat down to a yummy lunch and then we all had a nice long afternoon sleep. How's that for a wonderfully relaxing Christmas Day! After our battery recharge we were all ready to go another round and spent the rest of the day playing with all the new toys. I think Hannes and I had just as much fun as Jared did today. Children are a wonderful excuse to behave like a child yourself. To say we are having fun being parents is an understatement :o)

Here are a few of the pics taken over the course of the day. It was a tough choice, we took 274 photos in total. WOW!!! These aren't all the toys he got, I ran out of space to post everything.

Breakfast before presents

His stocking on the fireplace

His first look at all the stuff that wasn't there yesterday!

His new drum and instruments. They are all sorts of insects. The drumsticks are centipedes.

I don't think he could believe his eyes when he opened Barney.

His new talking bear

Kisses for the bear. He is so affectionate that even the centipedes got kisses. Adorable!

Shrieking because we were all throwing balls at each other.

Saying "oh no"! Everything that does not meet his approval is met with this phrase and matching face.

I'm tired of eating now, can we go and find more presents rather peese?

Teehee!!! That was funny!

Christmas came a little early...

Well, a bit of Christmas anyway!

Hennie has been visiting for the last 10 days and he spoilt Jared rotten on the weekend. He bought him the most divine little easel. You can also put the top down which then converts it into a desk. Jared of course loves it. We bought him the cleverest (for mommy anyway) paints. They only work on the special paper which is wonderful because he like to test the floor, walls, his hands etc if you give him half a chance.

Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells

Christmas is coming up at a rate of knots and with all the festivities going on around Calgary it is difficult to keep up and even more difficult to decide what to go and take part in. We went to Heritage Park on Sunday. They do The Twelve Days of Christmas every year. It was lovely. The day started off chilly but it got really nice. How nice, 0 degrees nice. Can you imagine wondering why it is so warm and finding out it is 0! Nope, neither could I, but it happened. Anyway, they had Santa on the train for the kiddies to meet. We gave that a skip because of Jared's last encounter with the man in red. We still live in hope of getting a nice pic in one of the malls with Santa so we don't want to totally scare him. :o) We did a hayride though, that was great. There was an outdoor skating rink which was fun to watch. The kiddies start skating here as early as 2 so it is really adorable. It is very easy to make a skating rink here, all you need is a body of water and the rest is self made. Seriously!!! There was also a lovely Christmas Market with all sorts of quaint little goodies for sale. My favourite was a kiddies only section where your children can go and buy a Christmas present for their parents. No parents are allowed in that stall. There are adults to help the kiddies on the other side with their shopping.

We put up our Christmas tree yesterday afternoon when Jared woke up from his nap after getting home. It was fun and Jared was actually very good. He of course insisted on helping (which was the idea) which was really cute. He gets an ornament and rests it on a branch, steps back, pats his chest looking very proud and says "there you go". If he drops something he is very quick to pick it up and tell you "I got it". He is honestly so adorable. 100% edible. Being our first real family Christmas we are working very hard at starting some of our own traditions. One of which is buying a special ornament for Jared every year. When he leaves home one day he can then take all his ornaments with him for his own family tree and hopefully he will have some really special memories attached to each year. This year he got a bear in a stocking on which we had his name and the year painted. He saw it for the first time last night and was really enamoured with it. He kissed it and told us "cute" and then just wouldn't put it on the tree. He would think about it and then decide otherwise. He was very funny. We have decided against putting out any presents just yet because Mr Chatterbox will definitely get stuck into those. They are staying in the basement until the 24th. Oh, and our tree topper is too big! He is gorgeous though so we have decided that he will be an ornament instead.

I think that's all the news for now. Here come all the pics xxx

This was taken on the hayride

Our little helper "hanging" the ornaments. You can see one of the bears he hung lying on the branch. (If you double click the pics they enlarge just in case you never knew)

The finished tree, except for our tree topper which we need to go and buy still.

Jared's special ornament

Oooohhhh!!! You're kinda cute Mr Bear!

So cute in fact that I think I'll kiss you.

And now I'll put you with on the tree with the other bears so you won't be lonely.

Jared's stocking that we have hanging on the fireplace mantle.

Our treetop Santa who is now an ornament because he is too big

The fireplace which is a work in progress. I will show you another pic once it's done

Run, run as fast as you can.

You can't catch me I'm the gingerbread man!!!

Jared and I met some friends at one of the malls today. We had a lovely time looking at all the beautiful displays. Each mall has their own Father Christmas and you can have photos taken with Santa. We will go back on the weekend and have some done because we would like to have some done as a family too. BUT, Mrs Clause was very busy with the children in her cookie kitchen today so we stopped in for a visit. It was adorable. They had little tables and chairs out with little gingerbread aprons. Each child was given a colouring in book, a gingerbread man and a cup of icing and some sprinkles. They then got to decorate their gingerbread man and they got a little bag to take him home in afterwards.

Jared had lots of fun. He thought it was great. He quite fancied eating the sprinkles straight out of the cup rather than putting them on his cookie. Also, once he decided he was finished decorating he started to eat his gingerbread man. The little girls who were sharing the table with him were still diligently decorating and he was already munching. He is a real little boy. Oh, and just a side note, this was all free of charge!

Mrs Clause in her kitchen

This looks like fun...

Oh, this IS fun!

Heavy concentration. The sprinkles were in this cup

The finished product.

And just for good measure because I know I haven't been here for a while some snow pics. We were playing on the snow board over the road again last night. It is loads and loads of fun. Jared loves it as do both Hannes and I. You go to the top of the hill, put Jared on the board, get on it yourself and yeehaaaaa, off you go, down the hill.

We were trying to throw snowballs again yesterday, but the snow is still so powdery it isn't even wet. I am sure our chance with that will come though.

The weather was also not so cold, unless you were whoosing down the hill then it really wasn't bad. I didn't even have my gloves on while I was taking the pics.

On the way back to the top of the hill. If you aren't fast enough he goes back up on his own.

With daddy after a ride down together.

SNOW FIGHT!!!!

With mommy at the bottom of the hill