Thank you everyone for supporting Matt, Alex and I since April 2008 when we started Robinsons are Waiting – and now, When You Wish Upon a Star.

Three rules apply to this award:
1. Thank the person(s) who gave this award to you.
2. List 7 things that people may not know about you.
3. Pass it on to 15 other bloggers.

Thank you Thank you Thank you Christine!!  Christine has been one of my longest blogging buddies.  We both pretty much started the adoption process  from Korea for our boys at the same time back in 2008 and have been friends ever since. Matt, Alex and I even traveled to Boston in 2010 to meet her and the adorable Spencer.  Christine is a wonderful mother, photographer, creative soul and I wish we lived so much closer!

7 Things… well… I’ve been blogging now going on 4 years – I hope I have 7 interesting facts that I haven’t shared!

1. I can’t whistle or snap. Not sure why – I try – but my body won’t work that way!
2. I was a bit of a geek growing up – surprised? When I was young (grade 1 ish), I would do math homework pages for fun… even in the summer. Mind you my mom did pay me a penny a page… perhaps I just was after the penny candy for the corner store.
3. I have a desire to go hand gliding. Not skydiving or bungee jumping, but hand gliding. My dream place would be in Rio – I watched it on a travel show once and think it looked amazing.
4. I am a horrible speller! I rely on spell check quite a bit – that’s why I use Chrome online – has an auto spellchecker :) I also have really bad handwriting – thank goodness for computers.
5. Growing up Cory Haim, Keifer Sutherland, and Neil Patrick Harris were my teen idols. I was also convinced I was related to Keifer since we had the same last name… you never know… we might be!
6. I always have to have lip balm with me. I can’t stand having dry lips – especially at night. Sad thing is is that Mason also loves lip balm and has chewed up more tubes than I can count!
7. When I watch something on tv that is embarrassing for the characters I have to change the station and go back a few seconds later – drives Matt crazy!

Passing it on to the wonderful…

• Emily at Love to You
• Belinda at Belle and her Boys
• Barbara at Mommy’s Two Monkeys
• Amanda at Pursuit of Poppy
• Rachel at In His Hands
• Joanna at Little Bit O’Seoul
• Kelly at Uninterrupted Prosperity

I know – not 15… but I have to ensure you all have people to link to too

We had a very nice Christmas this year.  The only real downsides were that there was very little snow (I need it for that Christmas spirit kick), I came down with a cold about 2 hours after I was done work on Thursday, and the fact that Alex decided 2 days before Christmas that he would no longer like to sleep in his bed (post coming…).

On Christmas Eve our plan was to go to the children’s church service and then Matt’s parents for their family Christmas. Unfortunately about 2 mintues into our car ride, Alex fell asleep and as you know, waking a 3 year old can be dangerous. So sadly we had to skip church.

We had a wonderful meal with Matt’s family and everyone received lovely gifts.  One exciting thing happened while we were there… Santa made a surprise visit!  Santa comes pretty much annually and for the longest time no one could figure out who he was – but we now know

We headed home later than I would have liked so we ended up missing putting out cookies and milk for Santa.  After Alex finally fell asleep (10:30ish – told ya he isn’t enjoying bed time), we got Christmas ready. Santa was bringing Alex a full sized hockey net so that had to be put together (note to self: do not set up hockey net in basement… not easy to get up through a stairway…), stockings were hung, and egg nog was enjoyed.  Sparky also climbed into Alex’s stocking so he could return to the North Pole when Santa arrived.   Once everything was set, the elves went to bed for a long winters nap.

Alex luckily slept in until 7:30, letting us sleep in too  Alex was so excited to see the tree when he came down the stairs! He was quite excited about the hockey net and his “motor  boat ride” toy.  We did have one  breakdown…

And unfortunately Alex won’t look at one of his new books – The Giving Tree.  He saw the back of the book when he first unwrapped it which has the author’s picture on it… seriously – could they not have chosen a more child friendly profile picture?  (Crazily – just found a blog post about the same thing – I guess it is something that was written about in Diary of a Wimpy Kid). One of Alex’s favourite presents was his Superman shirt with cape – can hardly get the thing off him!

being super silly

I was lucky enough to receive a new 50mm lens for my camera! So I had fun trying to figure it out – got a few good pics…. but still need a lot of practice!

That afternoon we hosted dinner for my mom, my brother, his girlfriend and his kids.  That was a nice time too – Alex and Jason’s kids don’t get to play together all that often since they live out-of-town with their mom most of the time.

On Boxing Day we headed out to my Grandma’s for yet another Christmas feast – so more family, more food, and lots and lots of little boys. Seriously – there are 4 granddaughters, 2 great grand daughters, but 8 grandsons and 12 great grandsons (I think I have that number right!). So lots of little boys running everywhere.  Christmas at Grandma’s is always Boxing Day so we never get out to do the big Boxing Day sales… but thanks to the Interent… we were able to order some new speakers, a new satellite receiver, some blu-rays, and even a fabulous SLR camera purse!

So there you have it – our little Christmas holiday! I hope everyone had a great holiday too!

a hip hop Santa wishing you and yours a wonderful Christmas!

a little holiday baking.

(I know… this post is a little late – but better late than never!)

On Thursday and Friday I started my holiday baking.

I made Sugar Cookies

I did decorate them with sugar icing, but no pictures.

I also created little Pretzel Peppermint Hershey Kiss treats.

I had little helper for these tasty creations.

I also had great plans in making those yummy peanut butter balls rolled in coconut… but alas it was not to be. Mason ate the rice crispy cereal and the coconut while I was out at the grocery store – and there was NO way I was heading out into that madness again!

Next year I will be smart and bake early and then freeze the goodies.   Anyone have a easy peasy recipe for me to try next year?

So… my true love gave to me…

a fireplace mantle!

We’ve been on our fireplace mantle to be custom-built so we could declare our basement reno finished… for now (bathroom going in next winter).   On Tuesday it was finally installed.  And while it is a gorgeous piece of woodworking… it’s big.

Really big.

Bigger than we imagined that’s for sure.  The mantle ledge is 5ft off the ground – we were thinking it was going to be more along the lines of 4ft.  And since we have 8ft ceilings… it is kinda overwhelming.

So it looks like we are going to have more work done and have it resized so the fireplaces is a better fit in the room.   Most likely we will have the upper panel removed and have the ledge dropped.

The good news is that Santa has a fireplace this year!  If only I could find some stocking hangers…

Chocolate? Who me?

Know what’s crazy? This is my 600th post! Wowsa!

… my true love gave to me…’

a second Christmas tree!

Recently Matt’s parents asked us if we wanted to use a small tree they had in storage for an “Alex tree”.  Since our basement is finished (or will be once the mantle is installed – it’s going in as I type), we took them up on their offer and put up this little tree.  It’s about 3ft tall, a greenery is a little sparse in areas, but it’s pretty cute. So on Sunday morning, I dug out a few decorations that didn’t make it to our big tree this year and let Alex have fun decorating..

This is my favourite part.