The Talens' Tales

We had a wonderful holiday season this year. The winter weather has been rather crazy, but that made for great time at our house with family. We had a nice looking tree. Made Cut-out Sugar Cookies...with all hands on deck for decorating. Joash and Mataya decorated gingerbread houses. Once they were assembled, they were both able to indepently put on the icing and candies! We opened gifts with our family, with a scavenger hunt for the kids to find their final gifts. Christmas day found us with a turkey and lots of lovely company. Boxing day was a great day for our almost annual Boxing Day walk on the beach. Wilbert's brother and family were here for the week following Christmas. That means lots of music... Cousin time (all of the kids LOVED Nieko)... More presents (including the gift that has been circling the family since at least 2010)... And a family swim followed by an early supper at Boston Pizza. The kids sure changed a lot in that week...

Well, we are nearing the end of Christmas break. And overall we had a pretty great Christmas. Gideon got sick during the night on Christmas Eve, so I didn't make it to church on Christmas Day. But, no one else got sick, so it was okay and we still enjoyed Christmas together and with extended family. The kids decorated a gingerbread house before Christmas  We also Skyped with my parents on the Saturday before Christmas and the kids opened the gifts from Grandpa and Grandma. They really enjoyed the craft kits they recieved and spent the rest of the day working hard on them.  New PJ's from Great Grandma!  We did a lunch of appetizers and finger foods on Christmas day.  Gideon really got the whole idea of gift opening down.  We a nice afternoon of opening and then playing with gifts.  On New Year's Eve, we celebrated Christmas with the Talen family that was here.  Joash had to run around the house 5 times before he could open o...

It is that time of year again where we do a few of those things we only do at Christmas time.  We have made Christmas Cut Out Sugar Cookies. The kids each decorated their own.  The final products.  We had two Christmas programs last week, which were both very nice. Mataya was an angel in her preschool program.  Another project we worked on was a nativity seen that we need to press out of a book and then assemble together. It took us a bit of time, but the final product turned out very nice and the kids were quite proud of it.

We hope that you and yours had a wonderful holiday season. We had a great time with lots of family visiting. Wilbert's brother and his wife were visiting from Calgary and Wilbert's sister was home from the Bible college she is attending. We all love when they visit and my kids love having all of the extra attention. Kids on Christmas Eve before we opened gifts Opening gifts with Wilbert's family. A gift from our family from Wilbert's brother...a place to display the kids art work. It is nicely hanging on a wall in the play room now.   Wilbert and Jander spent a good chunk of a morning working on playing "I Will Wait" by Mumford and Sons. It sounded quite good by the end. Mataya really enjoyed playing games with everyone and she can play a modified version of Spot It quite well.  We also had a small gathering at our house for New Year's Eve. We let Joash stay up until midnight for the first time this year. He thought he was p...

One of the our Christmas traditions is making a gingerbread house. I always pick up a kit as soon as I see them out in the store and save it for a day when we need something to do.  Well, today was that day. We were stuck inside with some crazy winter weather, so out came the kit. After breakfast we assembled the house  Then during Gideon's morning nap, we put the candy on. Well, the kids put the candy on. I was on icing duty and Joash and Mataya put all the candy on.  It was a great snow day activity and they were pretty pleased with final results. We will see how long it stays whole. Joash and Mataya are pretty eager to eat it.

Alas, our streak of good travel did not continue for the journey home. Let's start at the beginning. For some reason, we decided that we knew how to get the airport from my parents house. So we were in lead the driving and we totally missed the exit. And of course, there wasn't another exit to get turned back around for another 11 miles. Thankfully, we had left my parents house a bit earlier than we needed too, so we arrived in time. Check in went just fine. But, when we brought our checked bag to the counter it was 2 lbs over weight. When we travel to Michigan, we try to pack as lightly as possible. I always do laundry at my parents house, so I basically pack 3-4 outfits for each person and we just repeat through the week. So, all four of us had fit in 1 standard size suitcase and one backpack that we used for carry on. I was hopeful that the person at the desk would see this and let our overweight bag pass. But, no. We would have to pay a overweight baggage fee. Thankfull...

A few weeks ago we did our biannual trip to Michigan to see my entire family. Our flights there went amazingly well. I am pretty sure it is the first time we have flown to Michigan since living on PEI that we did not have any problems. We had only one stop, but it was a rather long lay over. So we walked pretty much the entire airport. They had a nice kids play area, so we stayed there for a bit and let the kids run. They enjoyed it. While in Michigan, we had just a few family events. My dad's side of the family had their Christmas party one evening and almost everyone was able to make it. The kids and Great- Grandma. All of the great- grand children and Great-Grandma. We also had a baby shower for my sister who is due in February. It was a great chance to see many of my aunts and cousins, several of whom I had not seen in over 5 years. We did a few fun things with just my family as well. We visited The Critter Barn, a really nice petting farm with a lot of d...