It's hard to believe that a new year has already started. In less than 2 weeks, we'll be celebrating the anniversary of Alex's homecoming (January 15) and much of this past year seems like it's a blur now.
We had a pretty busy December with getting ready for the holidays and some fun social events.
We got our Christmas lights up early, but didn't get the inside decorations and tree up until later in the month. My first effort at tackling a holiday task was to bake 10 dozen cookies for a cookie swap at the playgroup I take Alex to. I had it all organized and planned and was using a great recipe that made wonderful, soft sugar cookies in a spiral pattern.
Unfortunately, Chris accidentally put my cookie magazine away with his equine magazines and so I had to frantically find another recipe... and even more unfortunately, the cookies were utter cr*p. Sugar cookies are usually soft, sweet and melt in your mouth... not these cookies. Not only didn't they look all that great, but they were pretty darned tough. I just hope that the women at playgroup will forgive me for baking such little delicacies that should only have been used for paperweights or perhaps for propping up wobbly tables in restaurants.
Once I recovered from that debacle, we focused more on the holidays and shopping, shopping, shopping. We had fun putting up the Christmas tree (topped by an angel made for me years ago by my friend, Moe) and Alex was quite taken with a little decoration I got a few years ago that plays Jingle Bells when you squeeze the snowman's hand (pictures in the latest album).
We quickly learned that wrapping presents was much easier without a toddler tearing up paper and unwrapping things as we wrapped them, so most of our wrapping was done after Alex was asleep in bed.
For the holidays, we went to spend Christmas Eve with Chris' sister, Karen and her family in London. Alex loved spending time with his cousins, Amanda and Sarah and he flirted non-stop with his Aunt Karen and Uncle Lew. After a lovely afternoon/evening and a great dinner with the family, we drove to Toronto and tried in vain to get Alex to sleep. We finally did get him settled and then got organized for Santa's imminent arrival.
Earlier in the evening, we'd put out the cookies for Santa and the carrots for the reindeers. We'd all gone to a pottery place to decorate plates for Santa, and Alex did one as well so we used that on Christmas Eve and hopefully we'll keep it forever and use it every year.
Christmas morning was spent at Kathy's in Toronto with the whole family and we ended up staying overnight rather than drive home. Our plans all ended up changing, and the family all ended up in Kingston for a couple of days after Boxing Day, so overall it was a very relaxing holiday and we were home on the 28th.
We had a very quiet New Year's and stayed up watching a movie and then "jumped" into the New Year before going up and wishing a sleeping Alex a Happy New Year.
Things are now back to our normal routines with Chris back at work after having had a bit of time off, and Alex and I will be back at playgroup when their programs restart next week. I've also signed him up for a toddler storytime at our local library, so that should be a lot of fun.
Alex is still a delightful little guy. Other than a bit of a bug that we all had at the beginning of December, he's been very happy and healthy. He's into EVERYTHING now and is a great eater and sleeper. He's trying to say more words all the time and we can usually understand what he wants.
I've put a bunch of new pictures into a Christmas album in case you want to see the latest pics of the family.
All the best to everyone for a wonderful, happy and healthy 2006.
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