~Welcome 2009!!!

We had a wonderful 2008- and the ending was amazing!!! We spent Christmas in Crooked Lake Saskatchewan- which has become one of my favourite places in the whole wide world (besides my mom's house and my bed!). The pace of life there is so much different than at home. No one can bug me; my MIL takes total care of me (Bless that woman for loving on me like she does); and I simply RELAX (which doesn't happen in my life very often anymore).

I mean who wouldn't love this place??? Isn't it simply beautiful?

The night before we left for the lake we saw SANTA! What a man I tell ya... the kids he chats with year after year and he still is so full of glee and ho ho ho's year after year! This is only the 2^nd year that Alyssa has ever sat on Santa's lap and she is not one bit afraid anymore. And of course sweet little Karley loved him too!

Santa brought Karley whatever she wanted because she is so darn cute and had such a great conversation with him!

Anyhow- Christmas was simply fabulous... the eve was spent with family. Karley made the trip into town to see Great Grandpa with Mommy and Auntie Angie- it was so awesome! Grandpa was concerned when we left that I wouldn't be bringing "that baby" back to see him! Of course we came back to see him later in the week.
Auntie Angie planned her crazy games that she always does and it was SO much fun! We were wishing Auntie Marina was there to play them with us, Next time??

The kids decorated the "older" cousins as Christmas trees... That was a hoot and so much fun! And of course this being Karley's first time at the lake for Christmas she got to play the oven mitt game (where a present is wrapped about 100 times with PACKING tape and you have to roll doubles on the dice in order to get a chance to try to unwrap it while wearing oven mitts and a silly toque). Of course there were more games to be had... but these are just a few to mention...

Speaking of mentioning... did I tell you how much I enjoyed my R-n-R at the lake? And did I mention that one of the favourite foods my MIL makes is 7 layer salad? And did I mention that she made it for me 4 times while I was there? Man o Man was it YUMMY!!!

Christmas morning was C-R-A-Z-Y in the cabin! There were 20 people ripping open gifts! There was paper everywhere- you could not believe how deep it was! To top that off there were 5 dogs hanging around too!! I wish I had a picture to show you how crazy it was... Of course this scrap-booker was rescuing her 9 month old from getting buried under all the mess... so no pictures were being taken.

Soon after the gift opening there was a clearing out and all that was left was my crew, Uncle Warren and Grandma and Grandpa. There was some money to be won at cards and just in case you were wondering- Jason won most of it- was Frank ever upset (I don't know why- he won sometime like $200 and then some on the lottery in which Karley drew his ticket number- LOL ).


We rounded out the week with Ice fishing, sledding, and quality family time! It was wonderful! Mason missed out on the festivities of the rest of the week as the lucky duck got to spend a week in Calgary skiing on the big hills with some friends- so of course he's missing from a lot of these pictures. Enjoy these last few pictures and I wish you and your a prosperous 2009 with much more blogging updates from me!

** oh- so you know, I just spent over an hour getting this blog ready to post- and I thought being a smartie pants that I'd use my option in word to create this blog and then be able to SAVE it- man o man I wont make that mistake again- It didn't copy it over even close to how I had it formated in the program.... UGH!! I hope you guys appreciate this! **