Little Dumer News: Simply Having A Wonderful Christmas Time!

As usual, the Dumaresq Family has been keeping busy this holiday season!

I completely forgot about some photos I took the night before Chris got back from his trip to Romania and the UK last month, I took the kids out to Lafarge Lake in Coquitlam. They used to do a big charity event called "Light The Lake" to raise money for the local hospital, but they skipped that this year for some reason. They still put on a lovely light show though, and the kids liked poking around where they could and marveled at so many pretty lights.

What's inside...?!

...The dwarves' gold mine!

The kids and Mommy spent one evening decorating Christmas Tree shaped ornaments. Hopefully, when they are older, the kids will appreciate seeing the decorations they made as tots and will share them on their own family Christmas trees. In any case, we made some fun gaudy tree ornaments and it was a good time crafting.

On another afternoon, Jordan and Mommy baked and decorated cookies together and afterwards we trudged through the snow to deliver boxes of cookies to our neighbours! It was fun playing Santa.

Trudged through the snow? Yes, it snowed for a few days this December. Once was a light dusting, barely a couple of millimeters, but a week later we got a good dump one night and then it snowed all the next day, so we missed the last day of school before Christmas Vacation due to snow. It was a little sad not to be able to wish all Jordy's teachers and friends a happy holiday, but that was soon forgotten in favour of playing in the snow and building snow-people with Daddy!

Meet Frosty D. Snowman and his wife Chilly.

Cygni kept giving them hugs and said to Frosty, "Oh Mr. Snowman, you're so cute!"

On Uncle Tommy's birthday we went out to Thunderbird Arena to see Sesame Street Live: Elmo Makes Music, and the kids LOVED it! It was very gratifying to see the kids dancing and clapping and singing along with their favourite characters and songs.

On Christmas Eve we all went out to the German Christmas Market, where we rode on the carousel, the kids nibbled some waffles on sticks and Mom and Dad enjoyed jager schnitzel and potato salad. It was a cold evening and lots of waiting in line, but we all had a good time.

Of course, as soon as we got home, it was time to get the kids ready for bed and for Santa to arrive. They were very excited, but also very well-behaved and headed off to bed in an orderly fashion with minimal whining, that was a nice treat for Mommy and Daddy.

Chris dug his old Tonka Trucks out of the crawl space

and gave them a nice clean-up to hand down to Jordy and Cygni.

Daddy was about Jordan's age when he got them from Santa for Christmas.

We must have been good this year,

because Santa did come to drop off a few parcels after snacking on some egg nog and cookies!

Jordan got the Gumball Machine he asked Santa for,

and Mom, Dad and ALL the grandparents, chipped in to get Jordan a new iPod Nano.

He loves it! And even plugs it in himself to re-charge every night before bedtime.

Daddy really hates the headphones Mommy chose for J-man though...

All Cygni asked for was Kinder Surprise eggs, of which she got a huge variety.

As you can see, she was delighted!

Jordy got this coin bank from his cousin Isabella

and as soon as he opened it he said, "It's The Stanley Cup!" and hoisted it!

Who knows, maybe you'll see this picture again in twenty years

in a photo montage about Jordan as his team prepares to go into game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals.....

The next day we held our annual Boxing Day gathering and though it wasn't as busy as it some years, we were never without some visitor in the house. Several neighbours swung by, our dear friend Linda drove all the way from Ladner, Dave and Sarah brought sweet Baby Jaycen (who is partial to his Auntie Deb, I must say!) Hayley and Matty are annual regulars, and the surprise visitors of the night were Corree and Daren, who popped by for the first time ever! Chris hadn't seen Corree since a couple years after graduating with her from UBC, it had been over ten years! We hope they will make us a traditional visit from here on out, because it was fabulous to see them.

The table of snacks and desserts.

The food was kept hot using the new crock pot "hook-ups" that Deb got for Christmas. We had leftover turducken, stuffing, our annual raspberry-chipotle ham (it looks oddly pink in the picture above) and some creamy macaroni and cheese.

The kiddos check out YouTube with neighbour, Sammy

Chris with newlyweds Corree & Daren

Chris models his Zoomies

(a gag gift from Deb because he always gets such a kick out of mocking their commercial!)

Jaycen with Mommy & Jordan, Hayley, little Sophie-pup and Matt

After Boxing Day we headed out to Stanley Park to see the Bright Nights light display and ride on the train. The kids, as you may expect, enjoyed this greatly!