caramel/chocolate pretzels

Marilyn Smith (my mom's friend), my mom and I made chocolate/caramel pretzels the other day, they are SOO good. Dreyton had lots of fun helping.

Preschool Christmas Party

Zoë had a preschool Christmas party today, they asked the parents to come 15 minutes early so they could sing a few songs to us.

Christmas Crafts

Zoë and Dreyton LOVE doing crafts right now. Their cousins Tighe and Dominic came over and they all painted some cute ornaments for the tree, Dreyton after awhile figured he would have fun painting his face....

I went to the store Michaels the other day to pick up some cute Christmas crafts as they were half off. Zoë and Dreyton have been having a blast making a few different crafts this week.


Today we did sugar cookies and the kids all got to cut them out and decorate their own. We had cousins Jayden and Drew over, as well as friends Saryn and Jaymeson.

Sefcik Christmas Party

My grandma had a Christmas party at her house this year for all her great grandkids that were in town. They had SO much fun and Grandma was very organized, they decorated homemade gingerbread houses, sang Christmas songs, and had a present opening with older toys my grandma had. They also had belgium waffles for lunch which everyone loved as well.

December is here

Today we started listening to Christmas music, doing Christmas crafts, our Christmas decorations and tree are up, and I am now starting to feel the rush of Christmas shopping.

I was able to convince Lee of getting a real Christmas tree this year, I LOVE having a real one, I love the smell and the look of them. When we were picking out our tree from ikea they were all tightly strung up and they looked SO tiny, so we decided to pick the largest one, which still didn't look that big. Once we got home and cut the rope it was WAY bigger, I love it.

I have been really wanting turkey lately, so today I made a small turkey for dinner. While I was cooking, the kids surprised me with an impromptu dress-up dance together, to the Christmas music I was playing.

Dreyton is almost 3, crazy! He is extremely independent, needs to do everything himself. He is very eager to help me when I ask him to do something. He is in a sports class right now which he gets so excited for.
Dreyton was doing a craft in this picture, and he was trying really hard to colour all the letters in the picture. When Dreyton is in the middle of doing something he can have amazing concentration where nobody can break it, especially with anything puzzle related.

Update on Zoë

Zoë is a busy girl with preschool 3 days a week, and swimming lessons. She looks forward to those days as she's not one to enjoy staying at home for long periods of time. She is excited about the snow, and a great helper for daddy to shovel the driveway.



Zoë's friend Saryn that lives so close and birthdays only 2 days apart, Zoë gets very excited when she has a play date planned.

These are the pictures of Neil I used on the slideshow, in no particular order.

Pops 1946-2010

Wow, the last couple weeks have been a blur, not quite sure where to begin...

The day after Halloween, Lee got a phone call at work saying his dad had called his brother Jesse to take him to the hospital. We knew he wasn't feeling well a few days prior so it was no surprise to hear he was headed there. When Neil was getting out of the vehicle he collapsed and his heart stopped beating, the doctors weren't able to get it started for 5 minutes. During that time, with no air flow to his brain it got damaged, but we didn't know to the extent of it. There were countless hours spent at the hospital while they did tests and we hoped and prayed he would wake up out of his coma. Unfortunately, there came a day when the decision was made once we knew he either wouldn't wake up out of his coma, or wouldn't be able to function how he'd like, to take him off of life support. He lasted 6 hours off of life support before he peacefully passed away surrounded by family.

The next day we had lots of family come over to our house while the relief society from Mckenzie Ward brought over TONS of food, some family members even surprised us coming from Coutts, AB (Their mom passed away two months ago from cancer who was Neil's very close sister). The past week has been working on funeral arrangements and I did a slideshow to play during the luncheon after the funeral service. We just got back from the burial ceremony in Cardston and a catered luncheon from hutterite's.

Neil will be greatly missed, especially from his grandkids. Zoë and Dreyton loved to sit on Pops and tell him what they have been up too. If the kids were hyper or cranky he could calm them down where they would just lay on him for what seemed like hours. They loved to cuddle with him.

Neil and Carole would make Zoë feel so special taking her on playdates to parks, or even to go to Costco with them where she usually came home with a special present.

Even though Neil did dialysis daily he was always there for birthdays, holidays, and events or just being at the lake to spend time with us.

Halloween

Zoë getting ready for preschool where she got to wear her costume



We went to two trunk or treats this year which added up to a TONNE of candy, it was alot of fun and the kids had a blast. Dreyton went as Shrek, and Zoë had three different costumes (superwoman, tiger, and pirate).


While I was at work, Lee and the kids carved a pumpkin

We handed out mini decks of cards for Halloween, the kids were so excited to hand out the cards to kids who came by.

The loot

Corn Maze

We went to the corn maze on Saturday, it was lots of fun.

Going on the train

Going through the smaller maze, you try to find 5 boards while you go through the maze, put the color chalk on one of your fingers and then at the end from the pattern of colours you put on your hand you are supposed to pretend to be something, we were sharks

they got something new this year, which are big inflatable pillows. Kids could get some good air from jumping on them



Watching the pig races





My dad's birthday was on the weekend, so we had a ham dinner at our place for him on the Sunday.