Merry Christmas - a little late and WOW happy NEW YEAR!!

Shame on me it has been alomst 4 months since I posted - it's not like I am that busy or anything!  I don't even know where the time has gone and that is the truth.  One of my new years resolutions is to be more organized and in doing this I am hoping that it will allow for more time doing the things that I love!  Soooo let's back up a bit here.  The three older girls have been doing highland dancing since September and have been really enjoying it!  In fact they are getting quite good at it!  Avri adn Mika will be competing on January 15th so that is very exciting.  They have also been doing there piano but are on a bit of a break as there auntie/teacher is just about to have her little baby girl!!!  A GIRL COUSIN!!!  YIPPEE - very excited around here!  The fall literally zipped by, I think the months just ran into one another!

This is Avri doing the fling at the old folks residence in Maple Ridge Bailey House.

This is Zoe getting ready to do her high cuts and Pod - a- ba's (that is spelled very very wrong!)  Anyway they are important steps they learn for the other high land dances!

This is Mika getting ready to do the Lilt!!

Christmas was wonderful - it is my favorite time of year!  I truly do love it.  I love the baking, the shopping, the music, the entertaining, the magic, the whole thing!!  My girls seem to have inherited that love for the christmas season as well!  It sure comes and goes quickly though!  THis year I joined a small choir that performed in our Church Christmas service and I loved it!  I am by no means a great singer but I love to sing and I worked quite hard it!  I think the end result was good - at least that is what most people told me!!  One of the things the girls really enjoyed doing this year - as a family was the operations christmas child.  Where you fill show boxes with gifts that are sent to third world countries!  We had so much fun doing them.  Each of us did our own box.  It is very important to teach my girls how to be compassionate and generous and giving.  I also want them to grow up with grateful hearts.  It is a huge goal of mine to raise my children this way.  I don't ever want them to take for granted the life that they have been blessed with.

The christmas break was fun - gotta admit I am a big fan of the no schedule - but 2 weeks is long enough.  They even let me sleep in until 8am a few times!!  We ventured out to the movies twice - and it was an adventure - me with all 4 girls!!  But even little Leah sat though them for the most part, of course the big tub of popcorn helped with that!!  Josh took the older 3 ice skating - which they loved, even though there were a few falls on the ice!  Overall we spent alot of time together as a family, just simply having FUN!!  But I am happy to be back to routine again!

 This is the girls all dresses up for our church christmas party!!

This is the girls in their new jammies on Christmas Eve!!

So here we are in 2011 - I can't believe it.  I hope that this year will be as great as 2010.  I am sure it will bring many surprises and challenges - I hope I am up for them!!  For now I hope that I will be able to some what achieve my resolutions which are first to be more organized and second to find joy in everything - and I really mean EVERYTHING!!  I am a little bit of a pessimist at times and I don't want my children to see me that way so I am going to try really hard to change that!    Oh ya and thirdly - to keep on top of this blog :)