Merry Christmas

I know this is delayed, but it is never too late to celebrate Christ's birth. Christmas was a bit hard because we were so sad with Rudy gone. Our nieces and nephews, along with our crazy families kept us preoccupied. We spend one night at my parent's in Camrose- eating Ukrainian food and fighting over my auntie Carol's cookies (my grandma's famous recipe). My nephew Rykan is a little shyster (I know it is not nice to call little kids names, but he is quite the little boy and his mom agrees that he knows how to 'ham' things up) really wanted to play the board game Battle Ship. My loving and patient husband agreed to play with him and I wish we had it on video. You see, Rykan is 4 and knows how to count and the alphabet so Carman thought he could teach him. Carman would say, "do you see the letters along the along the top - A,B,C..." and Rykan would start singing the alphabet. And then he would have Rykan look for the numbers and Rykan would start counting to 20. Alex (my 6 year old niece) and I enjoyed playing with her sticker book - she is so smart. Jacob really didn't like Rykan taking his toys - I don't worry about him being bullied. Jacob also liked Auntie Carol's cookies wanted to go to be with 3 of his new trucks.

Then we spent 2 nights in Drayton Valley with Carman's family. Carman's dad made Ande and Kade (2) each a rocking chair. It was cute to watch them sit on their chairs and play only as two year olds do. Baby Tobi is so good and loves to cuddle (he must get this from the Park side of the family). Becky (Carman's sister) and I got out snowshoeing to try and burn of some treats. One of the gifts in the gift exchange was a game called 'Fart'. Can you imagine! It came with a CD and everything. For over and hour we had to listen to the guys play that stupid game.

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas. I know this particular holiday can be quite stressful for many families. Family members not getting along, disappointments when someone doesn't attend, words said, words not said........ It really isn't worth it. It make take a compromise on your part, but family is family.

Here is a picture with me and my sisters - Tara bought me a matching sweater for Christmas

last year. Tara, Me, Jodi, Kari. FYI - Tara is 30, lives in Edmonton ans is single. If anybody has a great guy .... they can contact me to go through the application process - when we were in high school a guy came to take Tara on a date and I had him convinced that we had an application he had to fill out before they left!!!! In advance, sorry Tara for the embarrassment!