Noah in the snow

Noah, playing in the snow when it first started coming down.



I'm such a geek, filming with the camera held vertically! I'm glad my editing software (CyberLink Power Director) has a rotating feature.



This was the next morning:



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Who let the dogs out?

Grant playing Wii Just Dance. This video makes me laugh so much!



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Christmas

A very belated Merry Christmas to you all! We had a lovely, relaxed Christmas. The boys loved their presents and we had friends over for Christmas lunch, which I cooked. Grant took one photo of the boys and then we pretty much forgot to take pictures all day - except that I photographed the food!

The boys, opening their stockings:



This was the view from the kitchen window - a white Christmas.



My master list for cooking the meal:



The drinks chilling outside in the below-zero weather:



The food we had:





1 - gammon (ham) which our guests brought
2 - roasted new potatoes
3 - Yorkshire puddings
4 - roasted butternut squash
5 - chippolata sausages
6 - stuffing balls
7 - Brussels sprouts
8 - steamed broccoli
9 - roast chicken
10 - roast lamb
11 - steamed carrots

For dessert we had rocky road (with shortbread, marshmallows and Brazil nuts) and individual raspberry trifles:

Imagination

Noah and Daniel, pretending it's summer by dressing up in their swimming things!

Happy, happy, happy

I hope you are all happy and healthy. I am so content at the moment. We don't need to leave the house for the next two weeks, which is just as well since the roads are treacherous with all the snow and ice. The prospect of this might drive some mad, but I'm a real homebody so it suits me just fine!

I just love that it's so snowy, it's so Christmassy and it feels so cosy being indoors. We've been relaxing and taking care of some home maintenance stuff in preparation for renting the house out when we emigrate. Today I put some Christmas music on and painted some doors and woodwork for a few hours. It was quite relaxing and enjoyable and I'm looking forward to doing more tomorrow. I was playing the music on our netbook - I use last.fm and just chose a Christmas tag station.

I am feeling so happy and grateful. I am blessed beyond measure - so much more than I deserve. My heart is overflowing with gratitude, most especially for this simple, quiet joy that I am feeling.

Christmas tree cupcakes

These are the cupcakes I made for the ward (church) Christmas social. The trees are fondant. I usually just buy white paper cases but bought some red and white polka dot ones for a change.

Snow

When Grant got home from work at 3:30am he took this photo:



When I woke up this morning I saw that we'd had about 6-8 inches of snow in the night.





The boys were very excited to go out and play in it.







Check out the neighbour's washing line:





We went for a walk through town to Ashton Gardens where the boys sledded on a taped-up piece of cardboard - check back later for videos (I even had a go).



































Shame, look at his face, he was totally frozen and miserable.





The pond was frozen:







Except for a small patch, which was crowded with ducks:











The most used roads are covered in black slush:



How's this for contrast - the back garden in summer ...




... and today: