The Final Countdown…

Christmas is quickly approaching.  I think I’m done (OK, to be honest I have a couple of presents to wrap for sister and BIL).  I boxed up all the cookie tins and they are ready for delivery.

I still have to clean up all the nonpareils that are coating my floor.  But I’m happy that I had Ella’s help with the cookies this year.

I’ve missed her help these last few years.

 

As usual, Ella did a great job on the tree.  It’s nice not to have to climb up and down on the chair any more.

And of course, with Merry here for her Christmas visit, we never know what we’re going to find.

The night before we got the tree, the elves thought Ella missed a spot when we moved the cubby.

Then hanging out with Ella’s new gnome decoration that we found at the Pakenham General Store on the way home from the tree farm.  By the way, if you watch the Halmark Christmas Scavenger Hunt movie, you’ll see ‘our’ tree farm a number of times (including their covered bridge).

Then last Saturday while Ella was at a sleepover with her girlfriends in Arnprior, the elves had a serious looking meeting with all the stuffies!

And finally, last week we FINALLY got some snow.  It looks like Christmas.  Everywhere looks like a Christmas card.  Though we didn’t need the sudden drop to -32C (-25F) windchill that we had the other day.

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O Christmas Tree -2014

Friday we headed out for Pakenham to pick out the perfect Christmas tree.  We love going to the Cedar Hill Christmas tree farm.  It’s the best place around.  Daddy always takes this picture to see if ‘Momma has grown’.  As we can see, I’m still the same.

We got a bit of snow on Wednesday (and Pakenham got a bit more than we did).  So conditions were beautiful.  Though the trees were really loaded with snow.

Patiently waiting for Daddy to cut down the tree.  The temperature was great, just a bit of a breeze.

Hauling the tree up to the pick-up spot.

Ella and her souvenir snowball.  I convinced her to leave it at the farm.

The farm was settled in the 1820’s.  This is the original farmhouse.  I love all the windows.

Sledding was a bit slow with the deep snow.

But after a few Daddy passes, they were flying.

Lunch -hot dogs (chili for Momma) and hot cocoa.  Perfect after all the snow fun.

Then back outside for a bit more fun.

This is Ella ‘stuck’ in the drainage pipe.

While watching the fun, I caught an almost perfect snowflake on my mitten:

Ready to head home…

All tuckered out.

Saturday after the tree had rested and melted.  Daddy put on the lights and garland and then Ella did everything else.  I think I literally put on 2-3 decorations.  She does such a nice job.

Oh yeah,

Merry has already been caught fooling around in the tree!

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Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real -11 December 2014

 

A very Happy girl this week.  Ella is really loving her figure skating lessons.

That long-legged blur in the middle is my girl.  It’s so hard to get a picture when she’s skating.

My Pretty girl was so very Happy after class on Monday.  She earned another ribbon and that meant that she also received her first badge!  I’m so proud of my girl and of course, she’s so proud of herself too.

The house is starting to look Pretty too.  We’ve gotten out a few more of our Advent/Christmas decorations.

Things are very crowded at the stable this year.  I’ve just noticed that even the giraffes have come to visit our Lord.

Not Christmas without my German pyramids (didn’t get a picture of my other one).  I love the countdown candle I got in last year’s swap.  I still don’t think I’ll light it, it’s too pretty.

We got a bit of snow last night, just a couple of inches.  But Ella’s been outside for about an hour already.  We’re going for the tree soon, so I was hoping it would snow.  At least it’s not like the Christmas I was pregnant with Ella.  The snow as thigh deep (on me) and I was big I had to stay home.  You should have seen the tree Colin came home with!  It barely fit in the living room, it was so big around.

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Advent Reading

I forgot to share our Advent reading with you.  Since last week we’ve been reading:

The Snow Princess

Let It Snow

Night Before Christmas

Gnome’s Christmas

Santa Mouse

Santa’s Surprise

Christmas Trolls

The Christmas Baby

This week we finish up our reading with:

Littlest Snowman

Madeline’s Christmas

Raggedy Ann’s Christmas

Christmas with the Mousekins

Littlest Angel

Polly’s Christmas Present

Little Women (little kid version)

Berenstain Bears -Old Fashioned Christmas

Reindeer’s First Christmas

Berenstain Bears -The Nutcracker

A Magical Christmas

The Christmas Story

Merry Christmas, Emily

Bruno in the Snow

Jingle Bells

Pioneer Christmas

The Christmas Stocking

Listen, Said the Donkey

Splendiferous Christmas

Rudolph

Mary Englebret -Night Before Christmas

Santa’s Key

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Gaudete! -Third Sunday of Advent

Busy day with the family so I will share a post from another wonderful Advent:

This is the third Sunday of Advent.  If you are using coloured candles, this is the pink week.  It is the Sunday of joy and rejoicing.   Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I say, rejoice; let your forbearance be known to all, for the Lord is near at hand; have no anxiety about anything, but in all things, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be known to God. (Philippians 4:4-6).   This is the opening lines from the introit for this Sunday’s Mass.

The three candles move us from expectation, to longing, to rejoicing.  We can be confident that the grace we ask for will be given.  And soon we will be shouting with the angels, proclaiming the joy of Christ’s arrival.

Today’s Advent activity was to finish decorating in the house.  The garland and lights are up and our various angels are out.  Ella loved her stocking and was quite amazed with my German Christmas pyramid.

 My favourite Advent carol for today:

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Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real -5 December 2013

Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real this week is about my happy girl.

Ella and Daisy are very happy Daddy has started building Mt. Ella.

Daisy is loving the snow.

Guess who’s come for her annual Advent visit?

Ella’s little elf friend Merry has come for Advent.  She likes to play and she’s gathering ideas for Santa.  Ella doesn’t usually have much of a list for Santa, so Merry keeps her eyes open for the little things Ella likes.  Mostly she’s just some fun company, though elves do get into some mischief when no one is looking:

Last week we visited the Big Guy.  It’s so great to be able to go during the day mid-week.

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First Sunday of Advent 2013

Yesterday was the first Sunday of Advent.  It was a quiet day because Ella was having a sleepover at Grandma’s so they could go see Frozen (which is highly recommended by both Ella AND Grandma).  I took advantage of the quiet to get our Advent decorations, so I thought I’d take you on a short tour.

Ella’s nature table with the peg people nativity.  She really enjoys the Advent tree with its new decoration every day.

In the living room are my German pyramids.  The one on the right I have had for a long time.  The one on the left was a lovely surprise from my swap partner last year.  The countdown candle was from this year’s swap.

And as a total surprise, I actually won one of the door prizes at the Christkindlmarkt in Pembroke this year!

Ella’s Little People crèche set and some visitors.  I’ve given up trying to do the empty stable, Mary and Joseph travelling thing.  Ella likes to have everybody ‘in position’ right from the start.  Since I do it for her, that’s the way we do it.  It’s like always putting faces on ‘Waldorf’ based peg people.  She hates them without faces, so on go faces.

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Third Sunday of Advent -Joy! and Sorrow

Today is the third Sunday of Advent.  The Sunday of Joy!  This is the song you would hear if you came to church with me.

It’s hard to feel joy today.  We buried Colin’s Mom yesterday.  It was such a sudden, unexpected shock, we’re all kind of numb today.  I know we should feel joy.  It’s like Colin says ‘if Mom doesn’t get into Heaven, there’s no hope for any of us’.  So we will try to celebrate with joy this Sunday.  It’s what Mom would have wanted.

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Second Sunday of Advent

Ella’s sick and I have a migraine, so I will share this post from 2010:

Last week we lit the candle of Hope.  Today we light the candle of Peace or Grace as well.  We want the grace to hear the Promise and to invite God into all parts of our lives.

 

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Farm Girl Friday -7 December 2012

For Farm Girl Friday I thought I’d share what we have been doing to celebrate Advent.

Every night we read a chapter from The Jesse Tree and the Advent Storybook.

And we also read a story book too.

Sunday we got out our Advent wreath and tree and set up Ella’s nature table for Christmas.

We read The Very Fairy Princess: A Fairy Merry Christmas.  Some days I find the nicest little books at No Frills. And yes, the book is by that Julie Andrews.

Monday was a very special day.  Ella’s elf friend Merry arrived!

I know there have been some rants out there about Elves visiting and how it’s not going to make children behave.  Well this isn’t why Merry comes to visit.  See that happy smile?  What you don’t see is the jumping up and down and happy shouting when she spotted Merry for the first time.  It’s just fun to have a mischievous elf around the house.  And you know what, ‘remember Merry’s watching’ does help rein in the sillies.

Ella also set up her Christmas stable.  As usual, Ella supplemented with her other LP animals.  She has so much fun with her stable set.  She’s going to wear out the battery playing the song though  🙂

December 4th Daddy surprised us by getting the Christmas lights put up outside.  We also put our Christmas candle in the window.  I found my other German pyramid and got them lit too.

Ella was a little pokey getting ready for bed, so we just read the reading for today not the extra story book.

December 5 we hung up our door wreaths and our bunny angel made an appearance too.

We really enjoyed A Gift from Saint Nicholas, which we found at the library.  I was hoping for more of a biography, but this is a beautiful book with a good story.  Ella really liked it.  The illustrations remind me of Jan Brett.

December 6 we celebrated St. Nicholas day by baking St. Nick shaped speculatius (Kris Kringle) cookies with the cool cookie cutter I received the other day.  Ella really enjoyed our new book, The Legend of the Christmas Stocking.

Today Ella went skating and then for a sleep over at Grandma’s (it’s Knit Night for Momma).  Not sure what they will read tonight, but Grandma has quite the collection of books.

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