It's Winter

I always wanted a "real" winter as a kid. Well, my years in Calgary and now Cranbrook are fulfilling that wish. It didn't start until late (apparently) this year but now it's here with a vengeance. Today has actually warmed up and I might let the kids go play in the snow. It's been -15F (-25C) and today it's above 0 before noon (actually before 9am).

I've been seeing lots of snow pictures from all of you, so it's time to show mine, though I'm never quite happy with how snow pictures turn out.


I love looking out the window at the top of the stairs over to the church. The tree is so pretty covered in snow and the church is my perfect idea of what a winter church should look like.
The town actually looks pretty too.

Cute Singing Boys

Christmas Baking

I started baking today. I've been pondering it for quite some time but things have been busy and I'm just beginning. So here's my plan:

Kringla (that's what I started with today)
Russian tea cakes
Sour cream twists
fudge

Cheese ball
Sausage rolls (if I get to them)

Any requests? This is all traveling with us to Arlington!

John John likes sushi!

Ok, so not really sushi but seaweed and rice! I like to make lazy sushi when we have rice for dinner. I just fold the nori in fourths and pick up a scoop of rice with it and sometimes kimchi -yum! John John agrees.

St. Nicholas Day

We had a fun morning at church celebrating St. Nicholas Day!

From St. Nicholas Day

New glasses::2nd try

Gabe's glasses broke less than 2 days after getting them - so it was back to the store and they exchanged them for a frame that should be much more 4 year old friendly. He was tantilized by those 2 days of seeing and kept asking when he could go get his new glasses. So here we go.

It's that time!

I love pulling out the Christmas decorations and I think the kids love it even more than I do. Our living room is really small and I have absolutely no idea where we'll put a tree so we got a couple small trees for the kid's rooms. They were so excited to have their own little tree to decorate! We'll still put something small in the living room but this way we can still use most of our ornaments.

They keep asking me what we can decorate next!

Matins

We started a daily Matins at St. Aidan's in August and I love it. I'll admit that I had my doubts about the doability of a daily morning service but it's really working. Anyway, I've been wanting and trying to get a picture of the boys serving with Daddy for awhile. Finally managed.

More Photos

Gabriel!

And I thought he was a cutie before.

He is so excited about having glasses. Now he is even more like his big sister. And the resemblance between my dad and Gabe is even more striking.

What's Happening

Last Friday we went to the dedication of the new bandstand in the park downtown. The kids had a blast. There was free hot chocolate, balloons, a bugle band and the high school jazz band. But the highlight was definitely the flame thrower.

On Sunday we left right after church for the wedding reception of friends in Calgary. It was fun to see so many people from St. Peter's and to meet the new second priest there, Fr. John, and his family.

The rest of the week has been busy as usual with school for Lily (her 1st term is ending next week), work for R (he's working for the Salvation Army for the Christmas season) and church, of course! Speaking of church, the OCA has a new Metropolitan and I have to say that it's very exciting. You can hear him over at Ancient Faith Radio and I'd highly encourage you to do so.

Gabe needs glasses!

Little Gabe needs glasses. Apparently he has the same far-sightedness as Lily. So in a couple weeks we go back and get his exact prescription and he'll have a new look!

Naptime today

Pumpkin Carving

The pumpkin fun continues:

John is 2

Boy, does time fly! We had a fun, quiet celebration today. You can click on the photo below to see more. He was such a cutie.

John is 2

Pumpkin Sale

We had such a fun day. We spent the whole day outside selling pumpkins to raise money for our church school. It was chilly so out came the blankets and tea and cookies. We even built a fire (as you can see)!

Mom's Little Helper

Spiderboys!

The boys love to be matching and they are sooo in cute their new spiderman pajamas. They rushed around the house just like spiders!

Birthday Flowers!

I love getting flowers. So cheerful, so pretty. Ahh.

Lily's 8!!

She was pretty thrilled with her birthday present! Grandma & Grandpa made it up for a quick visit, we had a pink party, ate cake and went to bed early on Sunday night!

Yikes, we've been busy

Time flies. Can't believe its been a month since we posted! So much has been going on. We celebrated Richard's birthday at the same time as St. Aidan's Feast Day and a visit from the Bishop! Then I headed off for a week to Ceour d'Alene for a reprieve. But things didn't slow down. Lily is back to regular school work, I've been canning like crazy, we finished painting the house trim, I went to the annual Calgary Women's Retreat (and it was awesome!), then we all headed back to Calgary for St. Peter's Feast Day! Wow.

Anyway, here's what you are all interested in: pictures!

John Francis Rene: Our Personal Path to Holiness

Yesterday was quite a day... First, John caught a wasp and was holding it in his cupped hands. We rescued the wasp and put it out of its misery. John was unscathed...

Later, John found a pair of scissors and was walking around with the pointed end in his mouth, while he opened and closed the handle. We rescued the scissors. John was once again unscathed.

Talk about our personal way to holiness... Lord, have mercy!

Basement Tour

Camping

We had a church camping trip this weekend. It was great to get out to the woods and enjoy each other's company. The boys loved being able to play in the dirt during church!

We got home this morning and after church Gabe crashed:

The Traffic Guru

I found this article via another blog and had to share. Tom Vanderbilt writes about the effect of cars and traffic on society and vice versa. This article is mostly a summary of traffic engineer Hons Monderman's work and it is fascinating.

Vespers

We began serving Great Vespers in our church. So nice. The Creston folks are going to continue doing Reader's Vespers in Creston. If any of you are interested in keeping up with St. Aidan's you can visit the website, which is regularly kept up!

Camping wears them out!

I'm a bit behind in my blogging but wanted to share some of the last few weeks anyway.

Playing on the Beach