Monkey Business

Gavin turned 4 so we called all of his monkey friends to come over and jump on the bed!


Okay, it was actually the church's bouncy castle.


They all had so much fun jumping around though! They also played pin the nose on the clown and colored pictures of monkeys.

We served lunch complete with Gavin's favorites- bananas, sweet peppers, chicken nuggets, string cheese, tortilla chips, and of course these little monkey cupcakes.

The ears were supposed to be made out of Nutter Butters, but that's another thing I can't find here. I used shortbread cookies instead, but they kept falling off. Gavin didn't mind though and he made a wish and blew out his candle!

He was a little stinker when it came time to open his presents. I think he was a little claustrophobic with his 12 friends crowding around him. He kept saying, "get me outta here!" So I finished unwrapping his gifts for him. He was still cranky and said that he didn't like a single thing- big stinker! Once we got home, he was in love with all of his gifts though. He also gave each of his friends a little monkey or other stuffed animal as a thank you.

All the cute lil' monkeys!

The family that's gone bananas over our little Gavin! Happy Birthday big boy!

Mini Gingi Houses

For their last day of Jolly Phonics this semester, their teacher prepared a bunch of Christmas crafts for the kids to make. Of course, my boys just wanted to eat the popcorn- ha ha!

Christine also made and assembled mini gingerbread houses that we could buy for only $2. She also had bags of frosting and bags with marshmallows, cheerios, raisins, etc to decorate with. Score! I bought 4. After school the big kids and I set to work decorating them, while Teague napped.

Soon after we finished, Teague woke up and I tried to get a group shot. He wasn't haven't any of it though!

He quickly cheered up when he saw what I made while he was sleeping!

Gavin was so happy to decorate his own, and then eat it right away.

Kaleb's masterful creation.

Noe's darling cottage.

Maybe someday we'll have skills like those who work at Chateau Laurier!

Flurry of Activity

While the snow was falling all around we were busy with lots of fun events:


Kaleb and Noe were front and center in their school assembly, singing and dancing to "Celebrate You."


They also had a fun arts & crafts day at school, that the little boys and I were invited to attend.


They love their teacher!

A sampling of the products they made that day.

I love to see the differences in their personalities. Kaleb made a giant snowman, while Noe made a snowman chain.

Noe also made lots of cute things at her Activity Day at church, including these "hope" and "joy" earrings, I mean ornaments- tee hee.

We had a Gingerbread House Competition amongst the Young Women and Young Men. While the girls made cute little houses...

...the boys made a nuclear bomb- ha ha!

We hosted our quarterly dinner party with the Cameron's and Martin's and I got to use these cute little place card holders.

The Sushi King! We went to dinner at the Yamada's and they fed us a delicious ham and shrimp dinner with all the trimmings, and then when they learned Kaleb liked Sushi they made him up 2 big rolls with crab, avocado, and egg to take home. Kaleb was in heaven when he got to eat them for lunch the next day.

We also went to the Holt's for their Christmas Party and to the Larson's for Holly's Birthday Party. It's been a fun month!

Christmas Eve anyone?

Last year in the blog world I read about a fun progressive dinner on Christmas Eve with family. I really wanted to do it this year with our families, but alas we live too far away. I wasn't organized enough either to find friends that would be interested. So I'm planning a year in advance for Christmas Eve 2011.

Christmas Eve Progressive Dinner / Activity / Gift Exchange:

House #1-
Appetizer/
Christmas movie (The King Is Born, Twas The Night Before Christmas, etc)/
Ornament exchange (bring an ornament for each family)

House #2-
Main Course (or potluck if more than 3 families participating)/
Singing Christmas Carols/
White Elephant Game (each person brings a gift to participate)

House #3-
Dessert/
Children act out Nativity Story/
Pajama Rama (for the kiddos)

If you don't already have plans with family or friends next year, let me know and we can make this fun night happen!

Visiting the man in red

You can barely see him, because our family is so big now, but here we are visiting with Santa at our Ward Christmas Party. We had a wonderful evening complete with a Turkey Dinner with all the trimmings and excellent entertainment in the form of our Ward Talent Show. We have some truly amazing folks in our midst- wow!


One day, I'll learn how to use the photoshop I have, then I can take Teague's head from this pic and attach it to the above one for a complete shot of all of us looking at the camera- ha ha!

All in a day's work

A picture of Leonard and his colleagues appeared in DFAIT'S magazine Our World. I thought I'd add it here with it's caption.

The Geographics Group has had numerous discusssions on new business practices to rebalance work between Ottawa and missions abroad.

I had to laugh at Len's friend Jocelyn's response to the picture, "I don't remember what Leonard was saying, but we all look pretty sceptical (and very authentic)!"

2010's Top 10's!

Dear Friends and Family,

Welcome to the Reil's Top 10 of 2010 (in no particular order):

10. Len and Jen got to see Nickelback in concert and meet them backstage (Len went to high school with the Kroeger boys and they hooked us up- sweet!)

9. We followed the yellow brick road and met the Wizard of Oz (actually we met Prime Minister Harper and his lovely wife on Halloween.)

8. Len spent a long weekend at Man's Camp. Yes, the name of the campsite was Crotch Lake (too funny!)

7. Jen spent a long weekend in New York City with all of her Barlow gals. She also got to go with the youth from her church to visit historic sites in Palmyra, New York and Kirtland, Ohio.

6. Kaleb turned 8 this year and was baptized by his daddy. He also became a Cub Scout, continued in Taekwondo, and baked lots of cupcakes to raise money for the people of Haiti.

5. Noe also turned 8 this year (the joy of being a twin) and she too was baptized by her daddy. She's been participating in Activity Days, Jazz Dance, and she made lots of sparkly bracelets to also raise money for Haiti.

4. Gavin will be celebrating his 4th birthday next week- we love our Santa baby! He participated in the Primary Presentation for the first time with his Sunbeam class, and is also in a Jolly Phonics class.

3. Teague turned 1 this year and since he's been walking he is constantly getting into everything (good thing he's cute!) He goes to Nursery at church now, and loves his weekly play days with his future girlfriend and her older brother.

2. Our family got to visit with our Lee, Pittl, and Reil families and some friends this summer as we circled the Great Basin visiting in Nevada, Utah, Idaho, and California.

1. We are so happy to celebrate another Christmas season. this time of year helps us remember how much our Savior, Jesus Christ loves us, and how much we in turn love each of you!

We hope you have a very Merry Christmas and a happy and healthy 2011!

Love,
Leonard, Jennifer, Kaleb, Noe, Gavin, and Teague

PS- Enjoy our Top 10 Songs of the Season (click on the title to hear it):

1. It Snowed- Meaghan Smith

2. Shake Up Christmas- Train

3. Sleigh Ride- KT Tunstall

4. I Believe in Father Christmas- Emerson, Lake & Palmer

5. Wrapped Up in You- Laurell

6. Whatever Happened to Christmas- Andy Kim & Ron Sexsmith

7. 2000 Miles- The Pretenders

8. Someday at Christmas- Justin Bieber (I couldn't find the Jack Johnson version)

9. Good King Wenceslas- Loreena McKennitt

10. Everybody Loves Christmas- Eddie Money & Ronnie Spector

Like Mother, Like Daughter

My Granny was crafty- seamstress extraordinaire. My Mom is crafty- interior decorator extraordinaire. I don't think I'm extraordinaire at any particular thing, but I do enjoy artsy/crafty things. Maybe I'm enthusiastic extraordinaire about witchcrafting. It appears that Noe is following in the footsteps of her mothers, as she is always drawing, coloring, writing stories, becoming her own little artist extraordinaire. Today we went to the Mother/Daughter Craft day at church and made these little treasures.

Noe painted and dressed up some cute pinecone snowmen.

I've always loved the quote, "Wise men still seek Him" and now I finally have this cute little picture to display of it.

We also decorated sugar cookies. The plan was to take them home and share them as a family. My plate of 5 went to Len, Kaleb, Gavin, Teague, and myself. Noe's 5 went to Noe, Noe, Noe, Noe, and Noe. It looks like she's inherited her mother's sweet tooth too!

Let the Festivities Begin!

This week the Young Women came over for our annual Christmas party. We ate lots of good food, visited, played games, and topped off the night with an exciting round of "White Elephant." I stole the cutest Strawberry Shortcake coloring book and crayons, only to have them stolen from me later on- boo hoo. I ended up with a ceramic teddy bear pencil holder and a chocolate candy cane- hooray!

Aren't the girls lovely?

They are so silly too!

Us Leaders are lovely too! Wait, what are you doing Laura?

Hey now Sonia!

Okay, well we're definitely silly too!!

*This party was the kick-off to our round of holiday merriment. Here's the list of what's on the calendar this month:
Angela Chung Jewelry Party
Special Book Club with Book and Goodies Exchange
Mother & Daughter Craft Day
Ward Linger-before the 1st Presidency Christmas Devotional
Christmas Wrapping with Young Women
Ward Christmas Dinner and Talent Show
Stake Christmas Fireside on The Forgotten Carols
Crafting with Kaleb and Noe at school
Crafting with Gavin and Teague at phonics
Young Women and Young Men Gingerbread House Competition
Kaleb's and Noe's Christmas Assembly at school
Gavin's Birthday
Holt's Christmas Party
Stake Nativity Pageant
Christmas
New Year's
Mom and Papa coming to visit the week after Christmas
Hopefully, we'll get to rest a bit in 2011- tee hee!

The Tale of 3 Trees

While Len and I were growing up our families always had real Christmas trees each year, so for the first 5 years of our marriage so did we. Flashback to 2002, when we first moved to Ottawa we learned 2 things- 1: We were not allowed to have real trees in our apartment building (fire code, shmire shmode), so we bought the least expensive fake tree we could find. 2: We learned a lot of our friends in Ottawa put up 2 Christmas trees each year, 1 for all of the "pretty" ornaments and 1 for all of the "kid" ornaments, so I made a mental note to do that at a later date.

Each year we buy a new Hallmark ornament to represent that year. This year we chose "Kissmas Cottage" representing that we are homeowners. I know we technically moved into our home in 2009, but last year we had Teague's "Baby's 1st Christmas" ornament and this year we have truly turned our house into our home.


So here is our 1st family tree in our living room trimmed in red and all of our Hallmark ornaments with a star on top.

While we were in Taiwan we upgraded our little Charlie Brown tree for a fuller version, but we kept our original tree for that mental note that was tucked away for a "kid" tree in the future. Last year after moving back to Ottawa, we finally put up both trees, 1 with the "pretty" ornaments upstairs, and 1 with the "kid" ornaments in the basement. It was a little skimpy on the decor, so I picked up a few snowflake and icicle ornaments to fill it out.

This year I thought of ditching the kid ornaments (Does that make me a bad mom? I still kept them though!) and using more snow and ice elements. I was inspired by Debbie Travis' "Winter Forest" ornaments at Canadian Tire, but...

...our 2nd parent tree in our master bedroom is done all in white with ornaments only from Dollarama(!) with a snowflake on top.

I love shopping during the after Christmas sales, and last year I found a 6.5 foot Christmas tree for only $13, so of course I had to add it to our collection. I was inspired by Michael's "Jingle & Jolly" theme and I used coupons to buy some ornaments and then I made a ton more for...

...our 3rd kid tree in the basement in all the candy colors (cherry popsicle, orange sorbet, lemon drop, sour apple, winter mint, blueberry slush, sugar plum, and cotton candy) with a few fancy Michael's ornaments complete with a cherry on top.

*If we ever have space to set up the 3 trees together, I'd like to do one in ruby, another in emerald, and the last in sapphire with gold crowns atop each. They would represent the 3 Magi and I would put a manger filled with hay at the center with a pretty calligraphic sign that says, "Wise Men Still Seek Him."

*Now our kids think Santa is going to leave gifts under all 3 trees, sorry kids he's too busy to run up and down all of our stairs. The fireplace is on the main floor so that is the only tree he will visit!

Non-traditional Thanksgiving

American Thanksgiving is a very important holiday to me. Of course, I always wish we could be spending it with our Lee, Pittl, and Reil extended families, but getting a special day with my own little family is always nice too. This year, Len did take the day off work, but we ended up sending Kaleb and Noe to school. We usually keep them home for the day, but their school was having an amazing field trip to the Museum of Nature, so we let them go. It just wasn't the same without all of us. The 4 of us at home watched the Macy's 84th Thanksgiving Day Parade, but we weren't slaving away in the kitchen like we normally do- we opted to go out to dinner instead. We went to Kelsey's our neighborhood grill, and we each ordered something different: Len- ribs, Jen- steak & shrimp, Kaleb- cheeseburger, Noe- pizza, Gavin- chicken tenders, and Teague- pasta. We topped off the meal with a yummy apple crumble dessert. Back at home, we watched "Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving" with the kids, then after we tucked them in bed, Len and I watched "Miracle on 34th Street." Non-traditional yes, but still a nice day over all.

We are thankful for:

Kaleb-
My family
Club Penguin

Noe-
Being silly with my family
Being silly at school

Gavin-
Playing with my Thomas trains
Going to Steven's house

Teague-
Mommy being home with me during the day
Having so many interesting things to get into trouble with

Len-
My family that I have now and my family that I came from
Bananas

Jen-
That I didn't have a nervous breakdown this month
My family and friends that love me even when I'm about to go crazy