Christmas Eve

This year we decided to have a laid back Christmas and stay home.  We didn't go to Vancouver to see my parents like we often do.  We wanted to wake up in our own beds, with our kids in their own room and just relax.  It's been a really stressful semester and we wanted some quiet family time.  We have been very happy with our decision. 

Cole's favourite family Christmas tradition is the Christmas Eve Smörgåsbord.  So we had a table full of appetizers and this served as the main Christmas celebration.  We had a selection of cold appetizers (click on the name to be sent to the site where I found the recipe): prairie sushi (tortilla roll-ups), cheese, pate, meat and crackers, veggies and dip, pickles and olives, quinoa salad, devilled eggs and bits and bites.  Our hot selection included buffalo chicken dip, spinach and feta puff pastry bites, jalapeno popper puff pastry bites, and baked brie with apricot jam and hazelnuts.  Our sweets consisted of homemade turtles and nutella truffles.  Everything was delicious.

Cole's dad came up to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with us.  We don't often get to see him at Christmas so it was good he could come.  As K only had a vague understanding of what Christmas entails, she was ready for bed at her usual time.  She was sleeping by 7/7:30 pm.  But first we opened the Christmas Eve pajamas and story.  The girls got matching fleece sleepers and Cole attempted to read the First Christmas Story book to the girls.  B was very attentive but K has never been able to sit still so she was back and forth. 

I tried to get a picture of the girls in their new pajamas- but it's a near impossible task to get them (really, it's just K) to sit still long enough to get a nice picture of both of them.

 

I couldn't get over how much this is a Cole expression

After K went to bed, the rest of us watched It's A Wonderful Life as we have every Christmas Eve since Cole and I have been together.  My favourite Christmas movie!  K and B's Christmas present to us was a quiet night.  We didn't hear a peep out of K for 12 hrs and B was up once around 5am but just needed a quick snuggle and she went back to sleep.  B has been sleeping through the night (12 hours) with no feedings for the past few nights.  Just randomly, all by herself.  Merry Christmas indeed!

Potty Training

Potty Training. Oh how I've dreaded you.  K has been pretty quick about all her transitions and doesn't put up a whole lot of fuss and I assumed it would be the same for potty training.  And it was- but still, potty training sucks.  It just does.  Whether your kid is quick to pick it up or not- teaching your kid to pee in the potty instead of on the floor or in the diaper- it's just no fun. And the only thing worse than changing a poopy diaper is changing a poopy anything else- toilet seat, floor, whatever. 

I decided to wait till Cole was done with exams so he could help.  I just didn't have it in me to potty train K by myself while still nursing B.  I am not super mom.  I decided to block off 3 days this week to just commit and do basically nothing else.  K spent the whole time naked the first day (except for when I was watching a friend's child for an hour) and naked half the time the second day and in just a pull up the 3rd day.  For 2 1/2 days we barricaded ourselves in K's room.  It doesn't have carpet, so there would be easy clean up.  I could easily heat it and there was a safe, pee-free zone (the crib) for B to play.  I took out all the toys that couldn't be put in the dishwasher and removed all the bedding (she was also not allowed on the bed).  We brought in the little potty and either Cole or I sat in there with her while she figured it out.

Day 1 wasn't too bad.  She had some accidents and some successes.  It was an exhausting, all consuming process though and by the time I needed to go make dinner K was wiped.  I put her up on the change table to put a diaper on her so she could come into the rest of the house with me while I cooked and she fell asleep before I could finish putting on her diaper.  She was so exhausted. See video HERE.

The benefit to such a gruelling day is that both kids slept like...well not like babies, they slept like rocks.  What a terrible saying- "slept like a baby" -must have been someone without kids coining that one!

Day 2: one (pee) accident, Day 3: no accidents.  Day 4/5: a couple pees in her pull up and one ugly half accident that I literally just dealt with (I had to stop this post to go clean it up- one of those half in the pull up, half in the toilet beauties).  But I'd say it's going pretty good.  We've emerged from her room and we're back to living life again.  But it makes it a tad harder for her to remember she needs to go to the bathroom for her business now that she's not walking around naked. She's not even 2 1/2 so really, my expectations are fairly low at this point.  Even if we can remove poopy diapers from our life, I am ok waiting longer for the pee ones. 

She has been so proud of herself when she gets it right, though.  She claps her hands and says "I did potty".  Also, my favourite part of this whole process was introducing her to her Dora pull-ups.  I explained to her that we don't pee or poo on Dora, that we have to go to the potty.  She says, "no potty on Dot (how she says Dora)"- it was pretty cute. 

Unfortunately, she has realized that she has another excuse to prolong bedtime.  The ol' "I gotta go potty" excuse. 

This parenting thing is a messy business.  Literally.

Christmas Baking

The thing I love about Christmas baking is I get to try out a bunch of recipes, sample them but then the rest gets given away.  This year it was my Sunday School kids, Cole's home teaching families and a few friends that got packages.  As always, there was a few recipes that I will be keeping and few I won't bother with again.

Christmas 2013

Peanut Butter Pudding Cookies (with reeses pieces, pretzels and chocolate chips). 
-I've used this recipe before- it's a keeper
http://wightrecipes.blogspot.ca/2012/08/peanut-butter-pudding-cookies.html

Homemade Turtles
-suuuper easy - will definitely keep this for next year
http://wightrecipes.blogspot.ca/2013/12/homemade-turtles-done-in-half-hour.html

Toasted Coconut and Toffee Bit Cookies
-not bad, recipe found HERE but I prefer THIS recipe (also coconut)

White Chocolate Craisin Cookies
-again, not bad (found HERE) but I should have stuck with my mom's recipe:
1c butter

2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
2/3 c packed brown sugar
2/3 c white sugar
2 1/4 c flour
1 c rolled oats
1 tsp baking soda
1 c dried cranberries
1 c white chocolate

greased sheet, 350, 8-10 mins

The Pièce de résistance: Browned Butter Nutella Stuffed Sea Salt Chocolate Chip Cookies
-delicious -didn't STUFF them as much as recipe -so much work I probably won't do them again but so so good
-while I may not make them again, I will probably use the browned butter technique again for chocolate chip cookies- DIVINE!
http://www.ambitiouskitchen.com/2012/09/nutella-stuffed-brown-butter-sea-salt-chocolate-chip-cookies-my-favorite-cookie-ever/

Gingerbread Muffins
-not included in people's packages but a delicious Christmas recipe discovered this year that our family devoured!
http://wightrecipes.blogspot.ca/2013/12/gingerbread-muffins.html

Christmas 2012

Here are the links to the keepers from last year:

http://partiesandholidays.blogspot.ca/2009/12/few-of-my-favorite-christmas-treats.html
-the chocolate covered peanut butter rice krispie balls (about half way down the page)
http://wightrecipes.blogspot.ca/2012/02/skor-bars.html
-these are the BOMB! still don't have a picture but trust me- so delicious!
http://wightrecipes.blogspot.ca/2012/04/brownie-cookies.html
-these are the cookies I grew up on - don't know the name, but I always call them brownie cookies because they have the texture I want in a brownie
-my FAVOURITE cookie recipe
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/the-best-rolled-sugar-cookies/
-this is my favourite sugar cookie recipe -I love it with a classic buttercream icing
-love to sub almond extract for vanilla

If you are a cookie connoisseur like me, here are some of my favouite go to cookie recipes:

The Brownie Cookie (again, my FAVOURITE- in case you missed that)
http://wightrecipes.blogspot.ca/2012/04/brownie-cookies.html
Chewy Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies
http://wightrecipes.blogspot.ca/2012/07/chewy-chocolate-chip-oatmeal-cookies.html
Gluten Free 5 Ingredient Soft Peanut Butter Cookies
http://wightrecipes.blogspot.ca/2013/10/gluten-free-soft-peanut-butter-cookie.html
No Bake Chocolate Mint Fiddle Diddles
http://www.cooks.com/recipe/3y0cb1i1/chocolate-oatmeal-no-bake-cookies.html
-I use this recipe but use mint extract instead of vanilla and no peanut butter
Peanut Butter Stuffed Chocolate Cookie
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/magic-peanut-butter-middles/
Peanut Butter Pudding Cookies
http://wightrecipes.blogspot.ca/2012/08/peanut-butter-pudding-cookies.html
Cowboy Cookies (chocolate, coconut, cinnamon)
http://wightrecipes.blogspot.ca/2013/10/cowboy-cookies.html

Christmas Tree

We went to chop down our Christmas tree on a beautifully sunny, cold day at GoGo's.  Love that every tree is $25.  We bundled our kids in their snow suits and went on the search for the perfect tree.

We traipsed for quite a while, K fell down every few steps in all the brush but she was super padded with her snowsuit and the little bit of snow on the ground. 

her "flower"

We finally found our tree and Cole proceeded to saw it down and I tried to keep K from getting trapped under the falling tree.

Can't believe this is K's third time accompanying us to GoGo's and that we are now a family of four!

  

We all had a lot of fun and the girls did so good in the cold.  This was my favourite Christmas tradition growing up and I'm glad my girls are getting to experience it.

 On Sunday we decorated the tree.  We listened to Christmas music and ate some yummy food: quinoa chili with sour cream, cheese, lime, avocado and chips, devilled eggs, sausage rolls, and gingerbread muffins.

B had a small window where she stayed up to watch and then got too cranky and I put her to bed.

B's ornament from Grandma

  

 K wanted desperately to help but is still probably a year away from being able to put decorations on the tree without help.  She loved to pick them out but I had to help her hang them. 

   

Cole putting on his Oilers ornament:

 K helping with the star:

Family pictures:

 

The outtakes:

watch B in the background

ahah love it- faceplant!

K not looking

fail

fail

The next morning while I was in bed nursing B, I heard K break an ornament- and so it begins.  Every morning since we put up the tree she has woken up saying "it's a tree!"

B watching the lights this morning

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Swimming/Movie

B and K both had a first this month: B went swimming and K went to the movie theater.  With K, we had already taken her at 3 months to the pool but with kid #2 six months can fly by when you realize you still hadn't gone.  B loved it- she did really well.  K, on the other hand, has been going through a "scaredy-cat/baby" stage lately.  A lot of the things she usually does with no problem or fear (things she's been doing for over a year) she has suddenly stopped and clinging to us for everything.  So that was disappointing- but I'm sure she'll be back to her normal self soon.  The other day at the park we saw her back to mostly her normal self so hopefully next week when we go swimming again, we will see our water-loving, crazy-jumping daughter.  We miss her.

This weekend we went to see Frozen at the movie theater.  We took both girls and it was a lot of fun.  We brought treats and K sat on the booster seat and saw her first movie (in the theater).  I thought the movie was great.  B did excellent as well.  She watching part of it, nursed for part of it and hung out for the rest.  She even missed her morning nap but was a trooper.  K got restless for the last half hour or so but she was really good and stayed pretty quiet and didn't run away.  It was an 11am show so there wasn't a ton of people and they were all like us- little families with kids.  It was so cute to hear all the kids- none of them knew how to whisper yet so we got a bunch of commentary.  Really cute stuff, though.  I would recommend the movie. I also loved that the first movie our girls saw out at the theater was about sisters.