Christmastime

Woohoo! Farewell to our small one bedroom apartment! Moving time!
No words needed for this photo.
Decorating Christmas cookies a few days before the move. Matthew came up with the idea to create an Advent Box with activities for Greta to do each day of the season. She opens an envelope from the box every morning, and it tells her the special activity for the day. Some of them are simple, like "sing jingle bells" or "read part of the Christmas story", and others are more involved. Making and decorating Christmas cookies was a rather involved Advent activity that we all enjoyed. Greta understandably had some trouble avoiding the temptation to eat all the treats as she put them on the cookies, but she did pretty well. Therese enjoyed her first ever sugar cookies to celebrate Advent too (plain for now!)
Lots of sugar!!!
Here is Therese up in our new home. She loves to climb up on things and practice standing...

We moved 2 weeks ago today. There are still a few boxes left to unpack, but it felt like home up here right away. We can see the sun, the sky, the clouds, the MOUNTAINS! I even have my own washing machine for clothes now! Matthew and I have an actual bedroom! We have a cute kitchen and bathroom again! It is all SO GOOD. What a blessing. The girls seem to notice the difference too.

Another Advent activity: making snowmen with Papa. (See that cute kitchen? Pink and maroon tile countertops??)
Such concentration. (Aaaah, and my pretty mirror from Matthew is back in its old spot again, just as it was when Greta was a baby. See it back there?)
Happy snowmen! Greta is really into snowmen, and sparkly things like tree decorations, and most anything Christmas-related (don't let her loose at a festively decorated store--she'll never want to leave!!). She loves to say "Look at our beautiful Christmas tree!" and she has a Raffi Christmas album that she spends a lot of time singing and dancing to happily.
MORE COOKIES! I went to the ladies Christmas party at our old church (Marineview Chapel) and got to decorate these sugar cookies. It was so much fun and they tasted amazing. My friend Julee is an amazing baker, and she made hundreds of these cookies for a bunch of ladies to enjoy decorating together. There were many cookies leftover after the party, so she hosted another one at her house a few nights later. This was fantastic, because the cookies do not last long in our family!
A fun game on Papa :-) And a new haircut for Greta!

Eating--you guessed it--another Christmas cookie!


Greta is really into the Thomas the Tank Engine stories and characters (her favourite is Gordon). We wanted to take some family photos on Sunday after church and it was quite a chore to convince her that the photos would be rather silly if she was looking at her Thomas catalog for each one!
Therese finally getting this little puzzle of Greta's to herself! Happiness!
Chubba-bub.
Playing under the tree. We got our biggest tree yet this year! It smells really good.

I'm pretty sure my Grandma Marlene wore this dress as a baby...and my mom, and me, and Greta and now Therese!
Our most difficult timer-involved family photo shoot yet. And yes, I do realize it will probably be even harder next year.

This is the one we will frame.

Merry Christmas!