Visit with Grandpa

Grandpa arrived and Mark was very excited to see him. Thanks Dad for coming! "My very own Grandpa" Mark said, and "Grandpa is Santa cause we can open presents when he comes". I love childhood comprehension of life. Really at this point I don't think it will matter if we don't teach him the difference. Mark had a great time playing with Grandpa. One of Mark's favorite games is puppets. It's sort of like hide and seek in his mind, with stuffed animals as they hide then come up. He is also really enjoying playing hide and seek with us. Being 2yrs he will say "Let's play hide and seek. I hide 'under the blanket' (or wherever it is) and you count.
We did open the presents and now the tree looks a bit bare. I actually think I might be ok with it coming down this week already. I can remember thinking Christmas trees can not be taken down until 1/2 way through January but I am ready for cleaning it up and having more space in this livingroom.
We also took in some hiking with Grandpa. Sort of remenising for Dad and I. We spent may hours hiking in the mountains years ago, so it was nice to get out and smell the cedars and enjoy God's creation this time of year. Mark was disappointed to not find that much snow to have snowball fights with Grandpa and Mom and Dad.
Well, Dad finally met Kyla and over the time of his visit she discovered more of her voice. That was great to see and hear. Laughing and making lots of loud cooing noises. Her voice is surprising low for a girl and yet she has a pretty high pitched cry when she wants too. The best laughing happened in the jolly jumper as mark swung her around and back and forth. I love watching him interact with her more and more.
Dad joined us with Ray's family for Christmas dinner. Went for a walk, played games and had a slide show (Always great to laugh at clothes and how people have changed.) Thanks Dad for coming even though it wasn't our family. I appreciated it.

Merry Christmas

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO EVERYONE. I hope everyone had a great holiday full of family time, relaxing and lots of food - guess that covers the typical holiday hey. We enjoyed skating only to have all the snow melt days later. I guess I was just praying to be like all of you spending Christmas with no snow that we had a green Christmas too. Mark looked for the small snow patches of snow for snowballs on our hike today. Kyla is laughing very obviously now and here she is in the "Christmas PJ's" passed down from her oldest cousin. Pretty good condition after 3 christmas's and 3 boys. The kids all got loads of gifts and the challenge now as parents is to deal with where everything belongs and which of their "old" toys we could but aside for now and bring out later. You know clutter control. This was another Christmas without a puzzle thanks to kids but another year of learning a great new game. Check out Carcassone. Well, I hope everyone continues to have a great holiday and Happy New Year.

Early Christmas

Well I was going to share with you some of our early Christmas pics. with Marianne and mom but as it turns out our camera card can not be read. So here's the thing; we purchased an new digital camera for Christmas - an upgrade, and low and behold the Future shop guys sells us this card that can't be read by any machine, thus it can't be developed without going though this long process of changing the files and so on and our computer won't let me upload them on to this blog. So Ray goes back to Future shop to see what the problem is and the same guy who sold us the camera and card says "oh, that one is not compatible" and leaves Ray to find one that is compatible on his own. Yikes, some people have no customer service skills. To make a long story short we finally got a few pictures developed but I appolize I can't share them on this blog. Now with the new card we hope there is no problems.
On a brighter note, I just want to say Thank you to my sister Marianne. I have been having a rough time with Mark lately and feel like I'll never make it through this terrible two stage with Mark. The whole time she was here she kept seeing how cute he was, or reminding me to see the postives rather then feeling like all I say is "no Mark, don't Mark, stop that Mark, slow down Mark, ect...." Even in the midst of it all he dose say some cute things or stops to give a hug and really he is just trying to have our undivide attention - all the time! So for the last few days since Marianne has been here I have tried my hardest to focus on him and see his cute side more. When there's a tantrum - 'cause believe me they haven't stoped - I try to CALMLY seek out what is bothering him. I guess I knew to do this all along but I have been so overwhelmed lately and emtionally drained I forgot. So Marianne - THANKS FOR SEEING HOW CUTE AND LOVING MARK REALLY IS!!
by the way, last night he said he is not going to bed until Auntie Marianne and Grandma come back!!

Here's a few photos to share with you

Melody with Kyla - mamma needs her cuddles

Mom thanks for the visit and all the cuddle time with the kids!

We picked our Christmas tree from up the mountain, not only was it free it was a great memory shared with Karl and Lisa and Kaden and Mark.

Let's begin - Dec. 13 2005

Well, as the Christmas season is upon us there is much to consider. We just enjoyed a great visit with my mom and sister Marianne. We celebrated a small Christmas together taking in the "Living Nativity" production at our church - Ray you looked great singing up there in full costume. We also shared a few gifts and had a great time visiting. Mom sure helped with the Christmas baking as well as a mini Gingerbread village.
We are starting to feel more and more at home here and a huge thanks goes to Ray's family for that. Ray is settling in at work even though there seems to be a great deal of disorganizness within the company as long and there is work and Ray is happy there all is well.
I have been keeping myself busy with the two kids and taking in a playgroup and take-a-break for women which has been a great means of meeting people. I also try to keep up with my scrapbooks, reading and learned to knit - Jill you always did inspire me and I finally picked it up - scarves is all I can do right now though.
I truely loved and needed this visit with my mom this last week and will count the days till February when I can see her again. Dad will finally met Kyla in a few weeks when he comes for the holidays and we lookforward to that time too.
Mark is doing great being a two, testing my patience and the rules and yet he has thoses cute, adorable times too. Kyla is 4mths now and discoved her voice and tongue. She'll coo and giggle for everyone. She learned to roll over while mom was here and just before mom left Kyla began to discover a means of inching like a worm to move across a blanket. I think she just wanted to show off to Grandma.
We have really loved keeping up with people through this blog idea and hope that many others will be able to use this means to keep in touch with us also. Thanks Lisa-Joy and John,(lisajoy-and-john.blogspot.com), Josh and Michelle (joshfuller.blogspot.com), and Brad and Stacey (xanga.com/bradandstace) for your blogs and letting us keep up with your lives. Hope many of you enjoy ours as well.

Keep in touch

melody - ray, mark and kyla