Christmas Advent

I made a homemade Christmas advent this year...here are pictures of our days leading up to Jesus birthday!

Day 1 - Mail our Christmas cards

Day 2 - Watch a Christmas movie

Day 3 - Pick out a gift for someone in need

Day 4 - Hot Chocolate

Day 5 - make a homemade gift for someone special (we did - I forgot to take a picture)

Day 6 - Camel Lot Christmas musical at church

Day 7 - snack time in front of the Christmas tree

Day 8 - Twinkle Tour!!!

Day 9 - visit Santa

Day 10 - Christmas Bath!

Day 11 - Christmas crafting (our very festive dump truck)

Day 12 - we cranked up the Christmas music and had ourselves a Christmas dance party

Day 13 - we acted out the Christmas story

Day 14 - Christmas Brinner

Day 15 - Abbotsford Family Christmas

Day 16 - Canyon Lights at Capilano Suspension Bridge

Day 17 - Small Group Christmas Party

Day 18 - Snowman Pancakes for Supper

Day 19 - let's take a plane ride to Grams & Gramps

Day 20 - let's wrap our Christmas gifts

 

Day21 - Build a Gingerbread House

 Day 22 - Two Horse Open Sleigh Ride

- Christmas Tree Meatloaf

Day 24 - Christmas Eve Candlelight Service 

Sir Branson - 11 Months!

11 Months - 22.5lbs - 28.5 inches

Feeding - You are a FANTASTIC eater!  You are down to two breastfeeds a day, but eat three meals and a snack of big people food.  You eat as much as your big brother and so far we havn't found anything that you don't like to eat!

Sleeping -  Your sleeping is definately better, but still not amazing.  You still are napping twice a day and in bed for 12 hours at night.  Most nights you sleep straight through, but you still have had the occasional rough night.  We are thankful that even after those "rough nights" you remain a happy little man.  

Milestones - You have no new teeth this month.  You have transitioned into a big boy carseat.  You love crawling around and exploring the world on your own.  You can pull yourself up to standing and have recently started to let go of things and stand on your own without help.  You love to practise your walking while holding onto someones hand and think you are a pretty big deal to be "walking."  You started climing stairs this month.  We didn't show you how, just one day you started and now you won't stop.  You can clap and sign "more." Your vocab is growing, you now say "mama, dada, nana, papa, nono."  You don't say the words at appropriate times, but you happily babble away all day long!

Likes - eating, bathtime, exploring, attention, playing with hair, climbing, dancing & music

Dislikes - the end of mealtime

Funtimes - You have had a fun month full of holdiday cheer.  We enjoyed having Auntie Becca come to our house to share in our American Thanksgiving celebrations.  We also had fun sharing all our Christmas traditions with you.   And today, as you turn 11 months, we are in Lloydminster to celebrate Christmas with our Kaminski side of the family.  

We love you baby Branson - you are a joy to have in our family - happy 11 months!

Small Group Christmas

We had a Christmas party with our small group on Thursday night - it was wonderfully chaotic!  We have added one family to our group since last Christmas and also FIVE new babies - very impressive!

The kids table at the party.

these are our 2015 babies - the oldest being Branson at 10 months and the youngest is just over 2 weeks here

so many blessings in one year!  can't wait to watch these littles grow up together!

the three newest members of our group - it's wonderful - there are more than enough newborns for everyone to get some good snuggles in!

the tribe - 15 littles (5 and under) and 14 adults - hence the wonderful chaos that exists when we all get together!

Student Development Christmas Party

Matt has his Student Development Christmas Party this past week. He made his own ugly Christmas sweater for the event - it was fantastic!  You can't tell in this picture but that balloon glowed in the dark!

Minute to Win It games

white elephant gift exchange - this bear is now proudly hanging in Sarah's office at the gym :)

Matt with his awesome coworkers!

Canyon Lights

We adventured out to North Vancouver this past week to Capilano Suspension to see the Canyon Lights display and it did not disappoint. 

It was chilly but we were warm with babies strapped to us :)

There is a new cliff walk there that was beautifully lit up and  not so popular - when we were on it we were the only ones - it was magical!  It is strangely not so scary to be 100's of feet up when it's dark cause you can't see just how high you are.

these two :)

and there is the bridge - all lit up!

we're on a bridge!

on the far side of the bridge there is a maze of treetops that you can walk through and they had them lit up...again magical!

gorgeous reflection off the water

my sweet family

our little crew - it was a fun night full of Christmas fun - Sully kept telling us that it was the "best twinkle tour EVER!"