Merry Christmas

Hi Everyone!!!

Juat want to say Merry Christmas, we have all had a wonderful one. We are off to Vancouver.  I must run off to bed but I have uploaded pics of Christmas and other pre-christmas events…

 Happy New Year.

INSERT CLEVER TITLE HERE

So, guest Jeff fires in the post today, hopefully I do our week justice.  Fun times to be sure. The general Amelia update is that she’s a) very cute still and b) becoming too clever for her own good.  Lots of sing-songing and new words and overall just being a little monkey goofball.  New things this week include saying: “help please” and “move please” – a very polite little thing, but unfortunately, its way harder to ignore “help please” than “waaaaah” so she is learning to get things done for her way faster.  Singing is still on the upswing, with “bah bah sheep” and “row row boat” starting to edge out “happy to Ronan” as top of the pops.  Add to that her recent holiday jingle “ho ho merry *something*” and it’s a full on audio experience with Amelia these days. From the parents’ perspective, this has been another busy week.  We’re both fighting colds (I took Wednesday off sick) and the crazy warm weather has made it a bit tricky getting into the spirit of the season, though our Charlie Brown tree helps.  Uncle Richie is back from Bishop’s for the holidays, he’s already stepped up with some guest Manny duties and is right now waiting at our house to sign for delivery of our new computer (YES) which surely will have some sort of video gaming up and running within minutes of being unpacked (YES).  Alicia also braved a trek to the hairdresser’s on Saturday morning for a saucy new do, which I don’t think looks very different, apparently I’m weird, but the consensus is that she looks even more marvelous than usual so thumbs-up for sure. This weekend was pretty full-on.   Friday, we went out to Alicia’s company Christmas party, which was neat because a) it was around Christmas time and b) there was a guy who did a blessing before dinner which was just something I had never seen or heard of at a company party and was just astounded.  Not that that’s bad, just unusual.  Anyhow, first-class operation all around – nice food, open bar, the whole thing was awesome.  Amelia pulled a pretty quick transition move when we went to see Santa, she was all “ho ho” on the walk towards him but then the creepy proximity sensor alarm went off and she was not having any Santa’s knee time.  As soon as we backed away and got outside the radius of evil influence, it was back to “ho ho ho” so who knows what the heck.  Meals did her mom proud by dancing up a storm, eating lots of ice (just ice, yes) and being a fancy flirty monkey the whole night and having a great time. 

Saturday we did some more cleaning, cooking and gift wrapping during the day, and then had my 30th birthday bash (my actual birthday is on Thursday) at the Whelan’s Gate Irish pub [http://www.dine.to/whelansgate] which was super fun.  Amelia was parked at Wendy & Daryl’s, thankfully, so she didn’t have to be thoroughly scarred by the night’s events.  Though it’s a bit hazy, I will try my best to summarize and give a flavour.  As luck would have it, Adam – who is the fiancé of daycare lady superstar Heather – has the same birthday as me, so we pooled our friends and basically took over the entire top floor (ie. half) of the facility.  All up there were about 30-40 of us, I’m guessing, causing trouble and emptying the upstairs bar of at least two brands of whiskey.  Rich, Alicia and I started into things at 6pm, with wings and pints, and I ended up tapping out at 10-11ish, Rich and I stumbled home and passed out well before midnight (Alicia: I did make it home to but at a more respectable hour of 1:30).  Some lessons learned:

  - Taste-testing scotch, by lining up shots of various brands and comparing: not appropriate. 

- When your boat racing anchor (me) is trying to convince the opposition anchor (Adam) that he’s cheating for not taking a 1-steamboat penalty count for getting his trivia question wrong: not a good sign that you’re going to win the race. 

- Vomiting on the platform of the subway station or onto the electrified rail of the subway line itself: not a choice most people have to make in their lifetimes.  – The answer – for those keeping track at home – is “on the platform”, but in a sly, sneaky way so that nobody notices. 

- If you keep a spare key hidden in your toolshed, it is probably best not to suggest that the drunkest man in town (at that moment) go try and find it.  Recall that it is: hidden, small, and the drunk won’t think of turning on the lights.  As a bonus lesson, try the front door first – it may be unlocked or even completely ajar. 

Anyhow, a great time (thanks again to everyone) and by all accounts I wasn’t the only one marking territory.  Yatta!  Special bonus kudos to Alicia for getting up at 8.00 with Amelia and for stealing the aforementioned box of Trivial Pursuit questions from the bar. Sunday was a recovery day, Julie was the knight in shining armour who brought over burgers and fries at 11.00 while Amelia was running completely cuckoobananas around her hapless vegetative parents.  Great family & Rich birthday dinner that night at my parents’ place in scenic Mississauga.  Delicious ribs ease the pain. Anyhow, last full week until Christmas – lots of wrapping and feasting and general brouhaha to look forward to.  Hope everyone has a great one.

Weekend of the Chocolate Extravaganza!!!

I can’t believe how quickly Christmas is coming!!!  Craziness!!!  Jeff and I officially finished off our Christmas shopping last week (now we just have to sit and wait for our online ordered to arrive at our doorstep. 

On Friday night I caved to the Christmas cheer and we went and picked out a little Charlie Brown tree from none other than our local No Frills (we need eggs too).  We got it home and discovered that there was a HUGE bend in the bottom foot of the tree which prevented it from standing up straight in the stand so we further Charlie Browned it by cutting off another couple feet, it now stands a whopping 3, maybe 3.5ft tall, it is pretty funny and cute… Much to my surprise neither Amelia nor the cats are all that interested in it after the initial reprimands.  When we were attempting to get the tree to stand up Amelia was very cute walking around with a stray branch that fell off yelling “TREE TREE”.  After some very “festive” tense discussions between Jeff and I, we got the tree up lopsided tree up and Amelia to bed.  We decorated the tree listening to Christmas carols, in dimmed lights, swearing our a** off as a result of the prickly needles, ah can you feel the love J. Amelia was quite transfixed for a good 5 secs on Saturday morning when she got up and saw the tree, how it make it all worth it, HA!

As some of you may remember I mentioned that Jeff, Julie, Denise and I have taken a couple chocolate classes, well we decided to put our new found knowledge to work and this weekend we attempted to make truffles… Oh my…. I don’t think anyone knew how much time would be required.  We spent half of Saturday and most of Sunday creating our little chocolate works of “art”.  I must say they are very tasty and most actually look like truffles…  We had a goodtime most of the time although the tempering of the chocolate did result in an hour of frustration.  There is talk of doing it again next year so it couldn’t have been that bad.  Amelia was very good during the chocolate extravaganza and played with Pake for most of it, did a few taste tests for us and had excessively long naps.  

Sat after chocolate time Julie and I headed to our gourmet friend Laura’s baby shower at no other than Dimitri’s (restaurant of desserts, ugh!!! The smell of chocolate almost made me sick).  An hour after getting home from the shower Jeff, Amelia and I headed over to Leigh and Robs for a yummy and relaxing dinner. Ronan and Amelia ran around like maniacs but were quite happy playing together, Amelia even sampled her “Happy to Ronan” song for him (I tried to teacher Happy birthday for Jeff’s up coming birthday but for some reason it only comes out as  “Happy to Ronan” very funny). 

After Sundays chocolate festivities we rushed rather late but better than never over to Heather’s daycare Christmas party.  We had a great time meeting all the other parents and chilling with our regular drinking buddies, Heather, Adam, Leigh and Rob.  I don’t know how Heather does it, I found it chaotic and vacated the basement kid zone quickly especially after Santa Heather brought a bunch of musical instruments for the daycare for Christmas, EEPPP the girl is nuts!!!  If it was me the would have all got pillows.  Jeff make note of one thing, will the parents were in charge of their individual kids it was insanity, as soon as Santa Heather called them over they all dropped what they were doing and followed her single file, she is like the Pide Piper of toddlers.  IN addition to hosting the party, Heather did a wonderful photo montage to music for us and gave us all a copy on CD, so thought fully.  The pics are absolutely hilarious, I tried uploading the whole video up to YouTube but it wouldn’t take, I’ll try to figure something out.

After the Christmas party we made a brief visit to Sunday night dinner at my parents then headed home for an early bedtime.

I can’t express how in awe I am of how much these kids can pick up so quickly, I year ago we were in shock cause Amelia was starting to walk around abit with help now thing year she seems to be absorbing the dictionary. I am also loving this new interest she has in singing “Happy to Ronan” isn’t her only “song” she also does the “row row klj;sljdf….” (there are a few unknown syllables in there before she drifts off) okay so maybe it isn’t really singing but she thinks it is and even sways along with her song.  We have this book of nursery rhythms, most of them are signing, Jeff and I only know the turns to about half, but Amelia is addicted right now, she carries book to in front of the lounge chair and starts saying “chair chair” which means we are required to sit down, pick her up and read to her.  She knows all her favs in the book by name (ish) and flips through till she finds the one she is looking for.  In addition to the nursery rhyme addiction she loves her book “through a pig a party” and she has to bring it to bed with her ever night.

Sorry I have a bunch of pics just haven’t had a chance to upload them…

Montreal!!!

Ah our 2^nd annual pre-Christmas Montreal trip was another success although this year was filled with much more interesting weather.  Jeff, Mom, Amelia and I left straight from work on Thursday and took off for Kingston to spend the night at my grandfather’s (AKA GoGo).  We had a very rainy drive and Amelia was abit out of sorts for parts but ended up falling asleep around 7 and woke up at 8, ah the dreaded pre-bed nap OUCH!!!  After 4hrs in the car Amelia was spun out of her gourd by the time we arrive at Gramps, she put on quite the show for him tearing around his condo pointing out and naming things for him and mooching chocolate chip cookies off him.  I was ready for bed at 9pm, Amelia was ready for bed at 11pm, ugh!!! We compromised and were all in bed by 10pm.

Friday we were up bright and early trying to make a dash into Montreal before the freezing rain started.  We had planned on visiting my Aunt outside of Montreal but alas the weather was pretty treacherous and instead went right into town and cramped out in Fairview mall for a couple hours through the worst of the weather.  Too bad a jump on our shopping J

We may it downtown and into our cozy little B&B right downtown, if anyone is heading to Montreal and need a place to stay we were all very impressed with or stay here, http://www.bonsmatins.com/.  We had two self contained apartments, it was prefect for us as we had brought a ton of food.  Once we got parked and got our bags through the front door we cracked our first beer and there was no looking back.  Rich arrived shortly after us, much to Amelia’s delight cause really no one can horse play like Uncle Richie. The rest of the gang arrive around 4:30 after abit of a wirily gig tour and sans John as he ended up being stuck at work for the weekend boo hoo. All of you Royal Bank customers who had problems with your interac two weeks ago, not to fear Mr. Reitsma was on the job and instead of boozing it up in Montreal, he was hard at work…

Anyways we had quite the party that night, with a visit from mom’s childhood friends Jo and Ron who were happy to join the party.  Jeff and I being the responsible parents that we are (ha ha) passed out at 12 and 12:30 respectively while the rest stayed up pinching bums (it’s a Reitsma thing)  and chatting away. Amelia was up and down, probably a result of all the noise coming from us and the on again off again naps she had in the car.

Saturday was abit slow but we were out shopping on St. Catherine’s by 9am.  Mom returned to her mecca of Simmons and actually we were all pretty “HOT” that day and came home with quite a few bags… Amelia and her father were abit wiped after the night before and went home early for a nice long nap.

That night was dinner out… We went for Italian and Amelia loved her first trial with un cut spaghetti, there was a huge mess but she had a great time slurping and playing with the long worms of noodle.  More fun was had that night but it was more tame and included lots of cards. 

Sunday morning we were up and packed and down to Old Montreal for a little stroll and coffee.   We dropped Rich off at the bus depot and then we got on the road just a beautiful flurry of snow started, which quickly turned into an unexpected blizzard.  In the stretch between downtown and just past St. Anne de Bellevue we past 8 multi-car accidents, it was abit scary.  We made it on to the highway with no incidents and snow disappeared and the rest of the drive was uneventful (oh other than the mass full-blown tranrum by Amelia in the rest stop when I wouldn’t hand over my freshly cracked ice cold bottle of water, grrrrr). 

We got back into town in the late afternoon and then all got together for dinner again cooked by John. 

Now with December here Christmas prep has become pretty crazy.  I have come around to the idea of getting a tree, mostly cause of Jeff but we still haven’t had a chance to go pick out our lucky stunted, lopsided Charlie Brown tree (we like the “character” of the “special” trees, plus part of our tradition is trying to haggle for it)…

Amelia continues to pick up words like crazy which still amazes me, last night she said a flawless “Grandmaman” which now rounds out all the family.  

Checking out the window at Olgivey’s