Oh... Christmas Tree

On January 1, 2011, I had enough of Christmas occupying my living room and felt it was time to bid farewell to our tree. Much like Chloe's poem about what happens to a Christmas tree when Christmas is over; it made its way to the curb. We are fortunate enough that our city will pick the trees up and take them to be chipped up for wood chips. Because we still had a fair sized snow bank at the curb side the tree was stuck into the pile. I always like to do that (although Jason did actual removal) as it gives the appearance of a more tree lined street.

This morning when I woke up we had received a few inches of snow over night. Since our city is not terribly quick in picking up the trees left curbside, the tree is still there. I have to say with a nice coating of snow on it, it looks all the more a permanent fixture on the street.

Well, excepting the fact that it is beginning to tip a bit.

Winter

How big do you grow the icicles at your house? This one was hanging off the roof.

Ice Skating

The girls and I have been going ice skating the quite often the last month. We went over Thanksgiving for the first time and everyone loved it. Always looking for a chance to get them up and doing active things, I kept taking them almost every weekend. They like it so much I decided to buy them their own skates for Christmas. I also received new skates for me from my mom for Christmas as my old ones fell apart. Yesterday we took our new skates to a local rink to get them sharpened and try them out. It was a little bumpy going at first as the rink was really crowded and they only had one learning bar left to rent. Chloe was also really nervous and rather grumpy at first because the skates I purchased her were a bit different than the ones we had been renting for her. However everything worked out just fine and in the end everyone was happily whizzing around the ice and having a good time.


Now that our skates are sharpened we can also got o the local ponds for FREE and skate whenever the weather permits!

New Year's Eve

I have some pictures from the Christmas that the girls and I had together, but since I am late in posting them, it now seems like a better idea to show you our New Year's Eve. We attended First Night. The girls had a blast. There was a lot going on, so we tried our hand at lots of different activities.

They tried out working the pottery wheel...


Alexa wanted to get her face painted; Chloe wasn't interested but she had fun making a wand while she waited for Alexa.


They made some masks with lots of decorations.

Jason was able to come with us which meant that Alexa could take advantage of a nice spot to view the parade complete with complimentary glowing star necklace.

Last on the list were the kid's fireworks at 6PM (instead on midnight) at the Waterfront. From there we headed home to dinner and bed!

Early Reader

You really had to see it to believe it, but the eight year old kid who has to be told to turn off her reading light, put down the book, and go to sleep, was always in love with books.

Chloe was about 6 weeks old in these pictures, and she loved to be read to even then! Don't you just love a good book?

The Christmas Wait

This is my first Christmas without the girls. Up until this year they have spent the last three Thanksgivings with their dad and Christmas with me. This year we switched that. The girls will be home on the 29th for us to have our Christmas together. So right now our Christmas tree looks like this...

and has since Christmas Eve. Santa has come and I promised the girls that I would wait until they came home to open anything. It has been a little odd to say the least. They will, however, be home soon and we will have our Christmas together.

Along this theme I found it really cute that Chloe came home from school on Wednesday having written this poem about our Christmas tree.

She is right. It has about another week and the tree will be out to the curb for the truck to come pick it up. Destined to become wood chips.

Preschool Concert...again