Tales From a “GREEN” Minivan

This is a holiday event that I’ve really looked forward to over the past few years. I know I’ve spoken about it in some of our Podcasts, specifically Cookie Exchange 101 but it’s a great thing to do with your friends at this busy time of year. This years event included 5 of us (Johnnysmom, KVMom, MomtoDarrandBre, SarahNB and myself Ladybug Mom),we all met through CPO at some point which is pretty cool! It was so nice to catch up, and of course listen to KVMom’s hilarious stories, she can always get us in tears from laughing so much. Here’s a group shot of us, minus SarahNB who took the photo.

This year I decided to try Chantelle’s Truffles she posted in her blog. I made them the evening before at about 10pm. Note to self, do not procrastinate when it comes to truffles, as they can’t be rushed! I decided to do a little twist and add some Caramel Baileys to the cream cheese mixture, this cause the mixture to take a little longer to harden, and take longer to prepare. From what I heard (I ran out of time and didn’t end up making some for us) they tasted really good, I may make some for a treat in the new year.

It seems that I may also have started a personal tradition for our Cookie Swap day…this is the second year in a row that I decided to take my pre-Christmas day-trip to Maine. It was a busy day, but worth the trip down, who can turn down cream cheese at 99 cents a brick?! I also picked up a nice spiral ham at $1.49lb (compared to $3.49lb here) for Christmas Dinner to have alongside the Turkey. I managed to get home almost on time, but brought Finn with me as he was needing a little cuddle time after the drive back.

It was great evening, and I promise not to plan my shopping trip to Maine on the same day next year Sarah!

That’s Sarah’s tree behind me, isn’t it great?

It was decided this year instead of having two separate concerts for the K-5 and 6-8 they would have only one concert! This makes it easier for us parents that have one in Elementary and one in Middle School. Everything was all set, Ciaran would spend the morning with my FIL and we would drive Liam and Mackenzie to school that morning and take Finn with us. Now getting everyone out the door in the morning is always a challenge. I would say it’s probably one of the most stressful things for me, getting the boys strapped into their carseats, making sure that I have everything, and the kids have everything, it always seems that something gets left behind. School Concert day was one of these days…Liam’s backpack with his lunch and dress shoes (of course he insisted on wearing his suit) was sitting right at his launchpad in the front room! I, of course was upset but tried to not let it get to me. I decided the best thing to do, was watch Liam as his class was one of the first to perform, then sneak out and head home to make sure I got back in time for his recess and to see Mackenzie’s class sing. They looked so cute with they antlers they made in class singing Rudolph. Here’s a few shots:

After Liam performed I snuck out and rushed home to grab his backpack and lunch. I also grabbed a change of clothing just in case he wanted to change out of his suit, he replied with a, “No mommy the boys said I looked like the principal!” I guess in Kindergarten this is still a good thing! I ran back up to the gym, only to find out I had just missed Mackenzie’s class! This is honestly the first time I had wished we lived closer to the school. The kids are in French Immersion, and ouir neighbourhood’s school doesn’t offer it, so they have to get bussed to another part of the city. It’s a nice big school (formerly a highschool) with lots of immenities, but can be inconvenient at times. Although I did miss her perform, my MIL got a video of her and I grabbed a few shots of her and one with her friend Joli.

have been having so much fun with Smilebox ! I have had very little time to do one of my favorite hobbies of scrapbooking lately, so this has been a great alternative (although not a replacement). I like that with my premium account that you can save the jpgs individually and have them printed out, or just save them to create your own slide shows, this is what I did for one of the gifts for my dad. I got him a digital photo frame, and made Smilebox pages to display on it!

Here’s a few from the kids playing in the backyard after our first snowday! We’ve actually had 2 snowdays already this month!

Click here to see the Smilebox I created:

Here are what the jpgs look like when you save them!

I’m hoping to do a year in review scrapbook so watch for that soon!