Christmas Tree

As Emily and I put up our Christmas Tree today I was overcome with memories from our mismatched decorations. Just a few memories:
1. The bows I made the first Christmas we had a tree. We had no money to buy ornaments and someone had given us a really nice fake tree. I bought two $1 spools of wire ribbon and made bows. Definitely not professional looking but I can't bring myself to fix them. So I hung them on the tree smiling that now they are surrounded by more ornaments.

2. Ornaments from Sis Perry. For Relief Society, my third year in Powell River, we did a gift exchange. You weren't supposed to spend more than 5 dollars and were encouraged to make something for the person whose name you drew. Sis Perry handed me a very large bag. I think she may have missed the directions because it held about 6 beautiful ornaments, Christmas tea towels and few Christmas decorations. It was another tight Christmas and these 6 ornaments became my first store bought gorgeous ornaments. All child proof. Which is so nice because Emily was able to play with them today before hanging them up. I cried.

3. Metal Snowmans. The bookman who came to the staff room at James Thomson Elementary School had brought in a beautiful metal snowman tin and five metal snowmans. Very different looking but the price was right at $7 so I bought them. I love how the lights reflect on them. When I look at them I think of the good memories I had at JT. I even have a beautiful sled ornament made out of popcycle sticks from Lisa Traer's class my last year at JT.

4. Crafty Christmas Balls. One Christmas Ball is embrodered and quilted with beautiful material. My Grandma Knoll gave it to me for Christmas 4 years ago with a note that reads, "Your Grandma Hull made this for me one year. I thought that it would mean a lot to you to have it. Love Gram K." She is right it does. I don't have many things from Grandma Hull. I treasure the ball. The other ball my mother made using many sequins and pins. It is beautiful and the light reflect off of it at night. As Emily picked it up she said, "Its beautiful!"

5. White scene ornaments. My Aunt Margaret does up a couple of beautiful white ornaments on her sewing machine every year. They look crocheted. I love them. They are simple and beautiful. My Aunt Margaret inspires me in so many ways. I love looking at the ornaments and the incredible stockings that she has made for me and my family. She holds a dear place in my heart.

6. Snowflakes. When Jared Holmgren was married he decorated with foam snowflakes. As I had Emily at the time I grabbed a handful when they were offered to me. Everytime I look at them I think of the Holmgren family and their generosity they have offered to me over the years.

7. Handmade Ornaments. My mom and Ashley have made some beautiful ornaments over the last few years and given them to me. I love hanging them on the tree. It makes them feel closer when they are so far away. I also have a handmade ornament from Vicki Caldwell. When I was no more than 8, Vicki made a cross stich ornament for every child in our primary. Mine says, "Tamara is a Child of God". Every child received one with their name on it. I love mine. What a labour of love. The Caldwells have played such a large role in my life and I am so grateful of the small reminder I get to see on my tree.

There are also ornaments from friends, one from Halifax from Lance and Amber, an A&W bear playing hockey to help me remember home, one from the PR Primary for Emily, decorations that the Coe's helped Emily make for me. I am blessed to be surrounded by so much love, good friends and family. I am so happy to have a tree that embodies that at this time of year.

Snow Day

Today is my first snow day! Due to the blizzard outside I get the WHOLE day off work! Unless there is one tomorrow I have to go in until 1:15 and then it is a four day weekend for Thanksgiving. I received the phone call as I was getting out of bed this morning at 5:30am. I was so excited that I got to sleep in! I didn't get up until 7:30. It was so nice and refreshing. I got up, started laundry, made a big breakfast for everyone and cleaned the kitchen. I was done all of that by 10:00 so Emily and I got out all the Christmas decorations and put them up. It is nice to have today to clean my house get things ready for the Christmas season, and pack for the three and half days at my inlaws. This way we can leave right as I get off work tomorrow.

I love SNOW days!
(And the fact that we have a four wheel drive vehicle since we are completely out of diapers for Collin.)

Remembrance Day

My mom brought me a poppy from Canada when she came down on November 1st. I was so happy to wear it! One of the students at my school is from England and her grandmother had sent her a poppy from England. The two of us had our poppies on every day. It started a conversation in the Social Studies class I team teach. The teacher I teach with reminisced to me about when she used to wear a poppy to school on Veterans Day (Nov 11). She came up with the idea that we would talk to all the 8th grade social studies classes about poppies, and Veterans Day. And then they would each make three poppies out of crepe paper. Then 14 students volunteered to come in on their lunch break and help MariLana and I make up the remaining poppies so that there was enough for each student and staff member. On November 11th all homerooms received a bag of poppies, and a copy of the poem, "In Flanders Fields." It was so neat. On each poppy we attached a slip of paper that said Lest We Forget. We had a moment of silence at 11 o'clock as well. It did cause a little uproar with one staff member who informed MariLana that poppies were Canadian and that the US only recognized a yellow ribbon on Veterans Day. After a little research we discovered that she was wrong but we were good and did not say anything. :) I am so thankful for all the Veterans who have fought for freedom.

Life

I realize that I really haven't been keeping up with posts for the blog. Which is kind of sad since I do use this as our family journal. Life has been coming so fast lately. I leave for work early and come home late. By the time dinner is made, the kitchen cleaned up, and I've played with the kids it is time to put the kids to bed. Then its a quick check of my personal email and off to bed to start over the next day. There are a few things that I would like to document though.

1. My living room is as done as its going to get for now. Just in time for me to decorate for Christmas. :) I will post a couple of pictures as soon as I get the pictures off my camera. :) Now for the other rooms in my house.... No money though so they will have to wait awhile. :) I did purchase the material I need to mostly finish my bedroom. Hopefully I will have time over Christmas break to do some sewing. :)

2. Trip to Canada. We did a quick run up to Alberta and back the weekend of the 10-11. We needed to import the car so we drove 8 hours, stayed the night with Naomi and then drove home the next morning. Due to a few snowstorms and trouble at the border it took 10 hours to get home. Let's just say I am glad that was the last brush I should have to have with customs and immigration for awhile. I'm tired of the good cop/bad cop routine. We loved visiting with Naomi. The kids absolutely loved seeing her. We went swimming that night which was lots of fun. Even though Collin was determined to drown himself. So much fun. We met Naomi's boyfriend who was extremely nice. Landon loved Southern Alberta and wondered why we didn't move there earlier into our 7 years in Canada. I told him he would like it but he was determined to stay on the coast. :) The drive through Montana was fantastic. It is gorgeous in Northern Montana.

3. We have almost finalized everything for the purchase of our house. I can't believe how many things have gone wrong. Not to mention how painful financially it is to pay almost $300 more a month in rent than what our mortgage will be. Yikes! We hope to everything done by the end of the month. Just a few more wrinkles to iron out.

4. My sister, my life saver. I don't know if I would have survived the previous three months without my sister and her family. They have helped us out so many times. I keep asking how I can help her but she can't seem to think of anything. Seriously a SAINT!

5. Making new friends. In an earlier post I lamented about how I haven't made any friends and how sad I was. Well I woke up and decided that it was my attitude that stunk and to get over it. Very quickly things began to change. Instead of assuming that everyone had their own friends and that they weren't looking for new ones I just assumed everyone would love to meet me. I know how conceited. :) We have made some strides to creating some really great friends. We were invited to the home of our home teacher (who actually is the grandson of a missionary who served in Powell River when I was a teenager) to hang out with his family and another family in our ward. Emily had someone her age to play with and same with Collin. The older kids looked after the younger kids downstairs and the adults played about 12 hands of Scum. Jared and Elisabeth Stein are absolutely wonderful people. We had a blast and suddenly realized it was almost 10 pm and we needed to get the kids to bed. That was Saturday, November 6th. On Sunday I was chatting with our fabulous ward mission leader about his kids. His beautiful (insert beautiful and gorgeous so I am instantly intimidated) wife was standing across the room. Now he is good looking as well but he is so outgoing I am not intimidated. Beautiful people always intimidate me. :) I decided to get over it and went over and introduced myself. I told her that I loved her jean skirt which got us talking. I mentioned I was heading into choir and she said that she has always wanted to sing in a choir for the Christmas program. I invited her to come in with me since she mentioned she sang alto. We chatted between songs and at the end of the practice she asked if it would be okay if they invited us over for dinner. And they did! We went over Thursday night for dinner at Quinn and Suzanne Dance's house and they also invited another couple. Their daughter Maddy is one month younger than Emily and their son Bodie is a year older than Collin. We had a wonderful time and stayed until 11pm. They are a fabulous couple. I found out that Suzanne was family friends with my friend Taggart from USU. She went to high school with his little sister. I was invited out to another lady in our ward for a girls games night where you can buy the games. (Kind of like a Mary Kay party but with games.) And then Saturday we had Alicia and Blake over. I really feel like we have become a part of the ward and it feels really nice. We've invited other to our house but they have had to cancel for various reasons. I look forward to getting to know others.

Wow this post has gotten long! There is just so much going on and so much to be thankful for!

Weekend Memories

I wanted to write down some wonderful memories from the weekend.

1. Picking Emily up from dance class (an extra makeup class) on Saturday. Nic had driven her because I was at choir practice. She was so proud to come out and show me her stamp that she got for listening in dance class. She is doing so well and I am so proud of her!

2. All the Snow! It started snowing early Saturday morning and snowed until almost 3pm. Emily and Collin were so excited! The Explorer drives fantastic (so far) in the snow and it was fun to watch the kids play in the snow.

3. Watching Emily make dinner. Emily really wanted to make dinner on Saturday night. So I decided that we would have tin foil dinners in the oven. I set out all the ingredients and let Emily assembly the proportions on the tin foil. (I put the raw hamburger in...) She was so proud of herself when they were done and she told each of us which was ours. She talked about it all night. My little girl is growing up!

4. Having friends over. Alicia and Blake Hymas came over last night to play games and have dessert. Landon said he felt a little old inviting them over at first but by the end of the evening he was thoroughly enjoying himself. Alicia is 26 and Blake is 24 which is why Landon felt old. But we laughed and played a fun game Boxers or Briefs. Hilarious get to know you game. Blake was fantastic with both of our kids who decided to be rather clingy and wanted to play the game with us. They stayed until 11pm! And the best part is that the next day at church they both talked about getting together again. I'm always nervous that people will be nice to us and then disappear because we are too weird or not cool enough. :) I'm really enjoying getting to know the other couples in our ward. Some really incredible people!

5. Walking to church in the snow. We are only 3 blocks from our meetinghouse and so we walked to church on Sunday. Both Emily and Collin were mesmorized by the snow. Emily ran across the lawn at church because she wanted to make tracks. Of course her feet were soaking wet and she spent sacrament meeting barefoot. :)

6. Singing in the choir. I love singing in the choir. But I don't have the best track record with them. It has been so much fun to belong to our ward choir. The members are so nice. I've even convinced Suzanne and Alicia to join me in the alto section. It is nice to have friends to sit with. Emily comes with me after church to sing with me. She wants to sing different songs but it is so fun to watch her hold the music and sing.

7. Pride and Prejudice. I love that I woke up from an afternoon nap and found my husband watching the 6 hour A&E Pride and Prejudice without me! I made him turn it off until after dinner so I could finish watching it with him. That movie always makes me happy.

8. Bunkbeds. Landon and I put up the kids bunkbeds to curb the amount of jumping on the bed. Emily is so proud of her bed. She keeps saying that its just like Ethan's. And how she can't wait till Ethan comes and she can show him. We miss you Ethan. My kids are growing up! I pieced together a board to keep Emily from rolling off. Its not too pretty but it works. I already have plans on how to make it look nicer. Now to find the time and money... :) The ladder is only hooked to the bunk beds when Emily is sleeping because Collin has figured out climbing up it. See he is short enough to jump on her bed. :) But last night we found him on the top bunk and the ladder was not attached. Seems he has figured out how to climb up the side by watching his sister do it. Hmmmm.

I love my family. I am so blessed!

Incredible Hero

We tend to liberally give out the label of hero. But there are definitely people in the world who deserve it. Check out what this man was willing to do to save a man's life that he did not know. I don't think I would have been so selfless.

Subway Hero

Happiness is ...

I feel that happiness comes to us when we accept who we are with no reservations.

If I want an instant lift in my mood, I watch the movie Penelope. I tried to introduce it to my grade 7 students today. Didn't go over well but now I am energized, feeling content and happy as I look ahead to 4 1/2 hours of parent teacher conferences. Whenever I watch this movie I feel recommitted to learning to love myself. If you haven't seen the movie I highly recommend it. (And I will admit I would LOVE her wardrobe.)

Flashback

This morning was our motivational assembly. It is in conjunction with the chocolate and magazine fundraiser. A couple of professional BMX riders (both have gone to the X Games plus been featured on various tv shows), an announcer and music person put on a 30 minutes BMX trick show in our school gym. A few minutes into the show I felt like I had gone back in time to my childhood. I was listening to songs like "Eye of the Tiger" and watching moves that I had seen on my favourite childhood movie, "RAD." A great morning after a not so great night. It makes me want to go home and watch some 80's movies.

Abigail Jane Peck

I am an aunt again!

I love being an aunt! It is the best!

And this time I am close enough to get to see her right away. I can't wait for my work day to be over and go hold her!

She is 7lbs 6oz and 20 1/2 inches long.

Don't know how long labour was since Nic texted me at 6:45am and told me they were at the hospital. I don't know if he waited until he knew I would be at my carpool or if that is when they got there.

Yeah!!!!

A Little Green Card

I just got home from work and grabbed my mail on the way into my house. I found a third "Welcome to the United States" letter promising that I should hear from them within 30 days. Its the third one in a week. I was laughing about it as I opened the next letter that was coming from Texas with no return name above the address. Inside I found a pamphlet for new immigrants and my very own GREEN CARD!!!! Yep pretty much everything on the card is in different shade of green but now I can officially stay in the country, work, pay taxes, etc etc until 2020. The best thing is that it means that we can start the process of purchasing our FIRST house. Yippee!