Christmas 2010

Ah, yes! Another holiday season has arrived, Christmas Day has come and gone. This time of year is always fun, but I'm glad when it's over too. It's such a busy time and this year was no exception. Here are a few highlights of the past couple of weeks.

Santa made his annual visit to our house again this year. The kids are always happy to see him and Will and I are glad that he can come.

Lucy checking out the big Man in Red

Liam, of course, wouldn't go near Santa, but when he found out that he brought presents with him, he tried to get his and run. It didn't work and Will sat with him while he opened his gift. The kids all got Zhu Zhu pets this year and promptly ran off to play with them and forgot all about Santa.

Last Sunday the girls were still at Grandpa's house from a sleepover the night before, so I took Liam to the shelter with me. It was his first time to help clean up the adoption rooms. He had a good time, especially with the kittens.

This is Divot. He kept stretching up on Liam for some loves. If we didn't already have three cats, I would have taken him home with me. He is a sweetheart, but takes every chance he can to escape out of the room.

This is Liam. Liam the kitten, that is. He is a nice boy too and I had to capture this moment of Liam and Liam together.

This is Keifer, Divot and Tyke

Sweet Aristotle

Dark Sky

Liam came to the shelter again with me today and almost half the cats in the shelter got adopted this past week, including Divot, Liam, Tyke, and Kyla's favourite, Badger. I hope all those cats and kittens had a very merry Christmas. We will miss them.

Will and Liam doing some vinyl work

This brings us to Christmas:

This was Christmas Eve night after the kids went to bed and the house was calm and the tree looked lovely.

It didn't last long!

Liam getting the much longed for train set

After we opened up our presents and got the front room cleaned up, it was time to start it all over again when Will's family came over. I tried to get a picture of the chaos that ensued, but my camera didn't have a wide enough lens to capture the mess. We usually have Christmas over at Will's parent's house, but since his mom is no longer with us, the responsibility fell to us this year. We missed her a lot that day.

This is our annual "What is your favourite present" photo that I take every Boxing Day. This year Moira chose her Nintendo DS, Liam is holding on to his Thomas train that goes to his train set (although, secretly, I think his fave gift was his scissors. He promptly opened them and offered to cut things for everyone.) and Kyla chose her bike.

As for Will and I, Will's fave is his bottle of scotch and I picked my pink revolver.

Kyla trying out her new bike

Moira got an IOU from Grandpa to go bike shopping next month.

I finished school for the semester, with my last final on the 18th. It was particularly rough this go around. One of my classes was brutal and with a lot of family upheaval these past few months, it was hard to concentrate on school. But it's over and as long as I pass, I don't care what my grades are at this point.

Now it's time to clean up. I think it's going to take me a week.