The Presents

Presents were waiting for us as we came back from the church Saturday night.

Most of them were from Grand-Mère and Grand-Père!
They got toys, movies and clothes.

Julia was proud of the gift she made us at school. I did have a gift in my stocking too.

But Keld's stocking had nothing, which made Julia exclaim: "I knew you were on the naughty list!"
There were more presents to open at Special and Grandpa Bruce's on Christmas Day.

Brother Gauthier also gave presents and Julia got horses that you paint. Julia asked for help and she also painted with Rapunzel. 

But the kids remembered whose birthday it was and we got to re-enact the nativity again.

You didn't think I could play the part of an angel, now, did you???

The Réveillon

French call the 24th of December's supper the Réveillon. Here, the réveillon is traditionally spent with the Hayes' family. Aunt Tina is in charge of organizing the meal. As usual, she did a really good job, although some people complain about the cabbage rolls that were missing ;)

 
Thanks Aunt Tina and Uncle Jim.
We have the réveillon at the church, more easily accessible to Granny Hayes.

We ate, played and visited. There even was a slideshow of past Christmases and it was really neat to see how the cousins have changed.

We also re-enacted the nativity.

Maybe next year I'll film the whole thing and save me some work...

Julia and her class, again :)

For those of you who tried the link to see Julia's school play and didn't get it working, here is the new link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mETM6gCEPnE&feature=youtu.be

And the pictures:

Yesterday was the whole school's program. It was a concert really as most of the classes presented songs. They had it at the high school, Theriault, because their gym is way too small. I didn't record everything, it would have been way too long. I think anyone that is taking piano or violin and who wanted a part, got it. Don't get me wrong, it was nice and I like that they give the students a way to show their talents. Anyway, here is Julia's song. I love her teacher!

One more day of school till next year!!!

Last week before Christmas

Are we ready yet? We've done all we could so far.

We're all decorated and we've told Santa what we wanted to get.

Kelden's wondering if he's not on the naughty list :)
Zack, on the other hand, is quite confident.

Julia had her school play tonight. She was so excited! I guess even the teacher knows we bake a lot as Julia was the cook. Kelden was sad they didn't ask him to be the donkey...

http://youtu.be/mETM6gCEPnE

Thanks Jeff and Becca for watching Zack!!!!!

Christmas Project

Talking to my older sister the other day, we realized that we haven't spent Christmas together for 15 years. It's also been 15 years since the 5 of us were together for Christmas. It's mostly my fault, since I've been in Canada for over 10 years now. Something that I never thought I would miss is the singing. My Mom had made books with all the Christmas songs she liked and we would sing them all- yep we sang for hours- with our guests. So I decided that,  to continue the tradition, I would make a songbook too, illustrated with pictures of "old Christmases" in France. Since I am trying to do this with the Mac, it's taking me forever, but here are the pictures I am using.

Maybe in another 15 years we'll go to France for Christmas, but  I doubt it.

Matching Kids

Special bought matching outfits for the grandkids for Christmas and if you think I could get nice pictures of my  matching kids, well, you don't know my kids :)

Oh well, Julia did try her best. She actually posed by herself and even took her own picture.

Zack is not too bad by himself either but Kelden could do better.

So could the family.

Maybe next time...

8 months

Zack is now 8 months and since we had to go to the nurse for his second dose of flu shot, we got him weighed and measured. He is 20 pounds, 14 ounces (and a half) for 28 inches (and a half).
He now has his two bottom teeth, eats a lot better and can sit on his own. He actually sits up from the laying down position on his own. He does it quite well but before his two feet are up front together, they're like this:

And for some reason, that makes his brother and sister laugh.
Kelden is very proud of his brother's progress and can't wait for a little more interaction. He already goes and asks him to come play cars with him. So I bring Zack in his room.

Zack also started to crawl and grunt.

It has been a busy month for him!