Christmas 2012

We had a wonderful Christmas this year, and we felt privileged to be able to share it with Edward's parents, sisters and my parents, too.   A lot of photos were taken, and I picked a few that would give a flavour of the action-packed, yet still surprisingly restful, days that surrounded Christmas 2012:

Auntie Jane came down from Toronto a couple of days early, so we managed to take advantage of a fresh blanket of sticky snow to make our first snowman in the backyard:

Aunt Jane provided the muscle to get the snowman assembled.  Here I am adding grapes for the eyes.  Keith merrily ate them, and so we moved to Plan B...

Colin and the second incarnation of the snowman, with pebbles and cedar leaves as eyes/eyelashes.  Keith tried to eat those, too, but they didn't prove as tasty.

Not everyone was enamoured with being cold and wet

But we still had fun playing peekaboo

Auntie Jane's presence also meant that I had time to finish the felt board I made for Christmas.  I got the idea for the board and some basic shapes from this blog.  Of course, I had to add the OpaNanaCar, as well as Sprocket (the black, spikey, slightly devilish-looking creature against the barn).  You may notice that almost every vehicle has a steering wheel and a door handle.  For whatever reason, those items are a must in Keith's opinion.  The Ducklings love it!  We already had Sprocket driving the ambulance.  I'll add more shapes as inspiration and demand strike.

 Grammy, Colin and Keith enjoying the wonderful family photo album that Aunt Pinie put together.  If there's anything the Ducklings like better than seeing pictures of family, it's seeing a picture of Monkey!

This is what Christmas morning looked like.  We waited until the kids were in bed on Christmas Eve before we put up the tree in an effort to minimize the potential for damage by grabby toddler hands.  Colin didn't participate fully in the experience, as you'll see, because he wasn't feeling well.  He woke up with a fever and was out of sorts for most of the day.  Happily, he's feeling much better today.

Keith getting down to business.  Santa brought him a huuuge digger.

Santa brought Evelyn a new "baby".  We hope it will tide her over until, say, the end of June when she'll have the real thing to play with....

Yes, that's right!  Edward and I are over-the-moon and tickled pink to announce the pending arrival of our best DIY project to date:  Baby Z.  I'm half-way through my 14th week of pregnancy and the baby (and Mama) are doing really well.  We'll get our next peek at baby at the end of January, so stay tuned.

Wishing everyone a happy and healthy 2013!