I’m back!!!

I haven’t written any blog entries in the new year. I have two excuses: 1) like bears, in winter we hibernate. Since we don’t go out much due to the horrible Canadian winter, I haven’t taken a lot of pictures. 2) We received very happy news on Christmas eve... It has been taking most of the energy I have left after a long week work week:

Thankfully, summer is almost here, so we’ll be going out a lot more and we’ll have a lot more stories and pictures to share, starting with Emma’s birthday party tomorrow! Until then, here’s a little summary of the past 4 months ....

January was spent mostly hanging out inside, and building castles!

In February, Emma and I got sick. When she finally started feeling better ... she got sick again! L The positive side of the millions of colds she got is that she is now very proficient at blowing her nose (a.k.a emptying the Kleenex box).

In March, I made a really cool “Happy Retirement” cake for Bernard! Unfortunately, since Emma was still sick, we were unable to attend the party and actually taste the cake but I was told that it was very good! J

In April, the weather finally got better and we were able to start going outside a bit more. One of the first things we did was to go to the Eco-museum. Because let’s face it, otters are awesome!

Then came Easter but Emma wouldn’t let me take a good picture of her wearing bunny ears; she finally let me take a few while playing outside, later that afternoon.

Next came May. May is always busy, we start working on the backyard (and this year it included building Emma’s humongous swing set!), Anil’s birthday is the 16^th and then Emma’s birthday is shortly after. For Anil’s birthday, I made a Holland Jersey cake! The Euro Cup is coming soon and we’ll be cheering for Holland (hey Emma is a quarter Dutch after all).

And the swing set took a lot of time to build but Emma is enjoying it very much!

I’ll be back soon with pictures of Emma’s 2^nd birthday! I can’t believe she is already 2 years old!!!!

December (part 2)

After weeks of preparation and anticipation, it finally arrives ... December 24^th! Despite Santa being an epic fail a few weeks prior, we decided to have him drop by our house to distribute the gifts. Everybody was there, cameras and video camera recorders were ready, Santa (a.k.a. my father) arrived, Anil said “Emma look!” and she panicked... Santa dropped his gifts under the tree really quickly and left. Conclusion: Emma hates Santa. It took her a few minutes to calm down and even then she was sceptical about the gifts that were brought by the evil man. I had to help her a bit but she ended up loving the gift unwrapping part!

It was a great day! Lots of food, gifts and love.

Did I mention I made a Christmas tree cake?

The next morning, Emma got to unwrap the gifts from her mom and dad. It was a wonderful Christmas morning. Like an oasis of calm in between lots of activities. After the gift I took her outside to see the snow. It hadn’t snowed yet this winter, so it was one of her first times in the snow.

Later on, more family arrived for Christmas dinner. This time we skipped Santa and went straight to gifts. Emma liked it much better!

Did I mention I made two Christmas cakes??

It was a really good Christmas for us. Emma enjoyed seeing all her uncles, aunts, grand-parents and great-grand-parents. We spent the following ten days, mostly in our pyjamas, resting and playing with the fabulous new toys she received.

Now December is over, a new year is beginning, and back to work we go. I think the New Year will bring lots of joy!

Happy New Year everybody!!

December (part 1)

December always seems to be the busiest month of the year. In between the Christmas shopping, decorating, getting ready to host both families and attempting to go see Santa, it seems like everything goes to fast. Thankfully I often remember to take pictures and when things finally calms down I can sit back and look back at the craziness that is December ....

To begin, we put up the Christmas tree. After several attempts at figuring out the perfect way to set up the lights, we ended up with a pretty Tree. Emma LOVED it!

Next, there was the attempt to take a picture with Santa. I use the word “attempt” very loosely considering the fiasco it ended up being. It started well enough; Emma seemed to like the reindeers. She wouldn’t let them eat out of her hand but wasn’t scared of them either.

Soon after, we went to visit Santa’s house. Again, it went well enough; she was fascinated by all the lights and decorations...

Suddenly, Santa Claus arrived. She didn’t react much, watched him arrive, but no more than that.

We were second in line! Our turn came and she was eyeing Santa suspiciously until I attempted to sit her on his lap. Then... all Hell broke loose! I won’t post the picture because it wouldn’t be very nice of me to do that. Just take my word for it.

I don’t blame her. Who wants to sit on some weird man’s lap? Seriously?!

The following week, even though it was still 2 weeks before Christmas, Emma got to un-wrap some gifts from grandma, because grandma, being true to herself, gave her gifts BEFORE Christmas. I don’t know why, she always did that, as far as I can remember. When we were kids, she would let us un-wrap our gifts on the 23^rd of December!

In the spirit of giving gift in advance, we gave Emma the super-duper Kitchen that we had bought for her. She tried to get Maya to play with her but didn’t get much doggy cooperation.

(To be continued)