Birthdays, Plays and Christmas Markets

Happy New Year Everyone! I know a little late considering it's already Feb. but better late than never. I'm a little behind on the blogging so I'm going to try and do a bit of catch up.

Dec. was a busy month for us(isn't for everyone?), Mark turned 33, Lochlan was in his first Christmas school production and of course the usually parties and decorating. We had a quiet family celebration for Mark's bday. Lochlan helped me make his cake (one of the few that will cook in this oven)and we had a scallop dinner. Lochlan did great at his performances (he was a shepherd)! He really has come a long way. Our shy little boy sang and did actions and even smiled. It was really cute to see, I was a proud Mommy. Here are some pics below.



I also went on a trip to Belgium, the Nertherlands and Germany to see the Christmas markets. I went with Mandy (another Canadian down the street). It was fab! We stayed in Valkenburg, Netherlands and did day trips to the other places visiting Brugge, Belgium on the way home. My favourite markets were probably German: Monschau and Aachen, but I would love to go back and visit Brugge, what a beautiful medieval city. Maastricht, Netherlands had great shopping. Valkenburg (where we stayed) had two Christmas markets in caves with displays which depicted a story about elves which they gave you when you entered. Neat, but I didn't find the products nearly as nice. Valkenburg also had a spa (with mulitple pools - not hot mind you) and lots of restaurants/stalls with Deutsch food. On my trip I also discovered Kriek, cherry beer (Belgium) - yummy! Overall a fantastic experience and lots of fun! Kudos to Mark as well as he had the three kids on his own (for the first time)for 5 days and two out of three ended up getting sick. Thanks sweetie!
(To see my comments go into the album by double clicking on the pictures.)

Shopping, online

When you first get to Cornwall, the fact that you live in tiny, quaint, quintessential English small town is actually pretty cool. Lots of small shops on the "high street", lots of character, lots of fun. Enter Christmas shopping. I challange you to find two T-shirts and a football in less than 7 towns and 3 weeks.

Enter online shopping. On this I am now completely sold. So much so that on top of the fact that we now order groceries on-line, only yesterday I just bought something as trivial as a pack of vacuum cleaner bags on-line. Even with delivery fees, it is cheaper than our equivalent of Canadian Tire (Trago Mills), and I don't have to drive a half an hour each way to get them.

Only gets better of course. If you go to topcashback.co.uk, you can get all of the referral cash that a website would normaly get for sending you to a particular store... so now everthing is about 10% less than it would be if I actually took the time to go to the store.

Scary really. Never need to leave your house. On the other hand... try living here. Now I might actually get a chance to finally mow the lawn... it is getting pretty long! My new Chirstmas charol:

On Amazon
On Next
On Curry's
and Argos
On Tesco
and
Marks (and Spencer)
and
Scott's of Stow
and ASDA
but do you recall
the most famous on-line store of all...

Ebay is awesome... well, actually, that is the end of the song.

Merry Christmas all!!!!!!

M

Happy 1st Birthday Olivia!

Olivia turned one on November 28th. My baby is no longer an infant but a toddler. It took us three tries to celebrate her birthday. We had people invited over for a party but had to cancel due to the girls and I having a stomach flu. Try 2 we were decorated, cake good to go and Mark and Lochlan started puking. So try three although everyone wasn't one hundred percent we manged a family celebration. We had balloons, a cake and presents, so according to Lochlan and Miah it was a party. Olivia tore into her cake. I cut her a full big piece and had to take a bit back as she would of eaten the whole thing and made herself sick! Her siblings blew out her candle for her and she loved the birthday song.

She is really starting to come into her personality. She's cuddly and quite cheeky. She gives kisses and hugs. She manages short little words like Yeah and Hi Dad. She'll have a whole conversation with you, although you won't understand a thing. She walks everywhere and is quite proud of the fact! I haven't weighed or measured her but I'd say she's probably about 18 lbs and a bit. She's fitting a bigger size of clothes and has stretched out. She now has nine teeth, one being a molar. Aside from the local viruses she's healthy and happy. So here's our blond haired, blue eyed one year old: