Inflight Entertainment or Ade's First Christmas?

I could regale you with stories from our 13 hours in the air enroute to Dubai but I'm not that mean. I would hate to bore you with 13 hours of nothingness.

I won't bother telling you that Yvan slept almost the whole flight and I spent the entire time fighting off the hand of the guy sitting on the other side of me. I won't mention that he tried to grab my ass pretty much the entire flight and covered it up by pretending to be asleep. There will be no stories about how said guy never spoke a word to us unless Yvan got up and went to the washroom. Then the "ass-grabber" told me all about himself and how if I liked he would give me his number and he could show me around Dubai while we were there. Not sure how that would have worked since MY HUSBAND would have been there too.

Anyways, instead of telling you THAT story....I will show you pictures of Ade's first Christmas with us instead.

It is a much happier story!!! I will title the story.....

THE BEST CHRISTMAS EVER!!!!

Christmas Morning - having our oatmeal.

Coffee on the couch with Daddy. He still doesn't understand the presents under the tree are for him so he isn't even interested in them....YET!

Opening his stocking.

Ooooooh! What's in here?

There's more?????

Brunch with Yvan's family (missing his sis and her hubs - they joined us later)

Post present opening disaster area!

Playing choo-choo trains

Helping Grandpa open his gift :)

Riding his new car!

Chocolate and Cheese Sweats

Alright!

What is it about Christmas time that instills in people free range to eat anything and everything in sight?

Or is it just me who does that?

This year leading into Christmas I was really good. I was sticking to my new eating style, working-out like a mad-dog and using self-control beautifully. In fact, (excuse me whilst I brag a little) I lost 2% body fat and 2lbs in 2 months. Now, I realize I don't have a lot of weight to lose but body fat is something totally different so I was very pleased with this. I have seen a noticeable change in how my body looks (leaner) and feels (stronger) because of this.

I promised myself I would stick it out entirely through Christmas allowing myself a couple of splurge days on Christmas Eve and Christmas day. Because everyone deserves to splurge now and then.

Christmas Eve we had a lovely potluck appetizer gathering at my bro-in-law's house. I hadn't been eating much cheese (I did eat about 8lbs of cheese at another family gathering the week before) or bread so seeing all the delightful food on the table had me salivating more than Pavlov's dog.

I dug in!

I dug in hard!

It was good! Well, it tasted good anyways. The eating always feels different than the digesting. Typically after I have eaten certain foods, and an over abundance of them, the after result is uncomfortable and not so pleasant for my husband (think lactose intolerant symptoms). I know you've all been there. (Well maybe not the lactose intolerant symptoms.)

Then we headed back to our house (we live next door) for some dessert. The box(es) of chocolate were opened and it was game over.

Seeing all of those delicious dark chocolates nestled in their tiny, little beds inside the glittery, gold box with a pretty bow on top melted my heart like a fondue pot! I began to eat one, then another and another and....well you get the picture.

The gluttony fest had begun. My wall of will power came crumbling down and visions of hamburgers, sweet potato fries, apple pie, potato chips, waffles with whipped cream and chocolate cake danced through my head.

Over the next week I ate myself silly. It's almost as if once I started my brain (re stomach) said "Well, you've started now you might as well keep on going." By New Year's Day night my stomach and digestive system had, had enough of the junk food.

I pulled our last organic chicken out of the freezer on New Year's Day and so it was ready for the next day. Monday I roasted the chicken in the oven, made some sweet potatoes and corn to accompany the chicken and we sat down to a delicious, healthy meal.

It tasted good!

Yesterday we returned to the gym for the first time since the day before Christmas Eve. Oh my! What a week off and non-stop eating can do to a person when they go back to their regularly scheduled program.

I felt sluggish and slow, heavy and thick!

And the sweat! It was not a good sweat!

There is the healthy, salty, "I've just worked out really hard" sweat you get from a work out.

But this sweat...it was full of everything I had eaten over the last week. Mostly, Chocolate and Cheese!I could feel the chocolate oozing from my forehead as I did my row, box jumps and knees-to-elbows.

Today, it was the cheese sweats! Trickling, thickly down my face as I did back squats.

Blech!

While I love Christmas and all the glad tidings it brings, I am definitely happy it has come and now gone and we can get back to life as we know it.

Sans chocolate and cheese sweats.

22 Days!

That is when I go back to work.

22 days!

I'm still processing the fact we have had Ade with us for almost a year. The year flew by. There were days and weeks at the beginning that were loooooooong but now time whizzes by!

People ask me how I feel about going back to work.

I'm a little bit sad to have to go back to a scheduled work day and not have the time to just go out with Ade and do whatever might strike our fancy.

But, I have come to the realization that I am not a stay-at-home Momma! It is not what I want to do. I want to work some days and be at home some days. So, that is what I am going to do.

I tip my hat to all the Moms who make the choice to stay at home because it is HARD WORK!!! The hardest work of all I think. It is overwhelming for me some days. I find it can be lonely and isolating at times. I'm pretty social so work is also a bit of a social outlet for me. I like to go on adult lunch dates etc. Plus, I actually like working!

Who knew! I like feeling like I am contributing my ideas and abilities to our business. I like watching our business grow, change and prosper. I like to think my ideas, thoughts and creative juices are part of that growth.

This all sounds so selfish. What about Ade? What does he need?

He needs us! He definitely is the happiest when it is the 3 of us together.

However, he LOVES his daycare. We call it school since in essence that is what our daycare is like. He loves the predictability of going to school with Daddy in the mornings. He has been going 3 days a week for a while now to get him ready and he has transitioned really well. Where else can you go about the busy work of playing all day long, with like-minded other little people who truly get you! He has made some wee, little friends - Hannah (whose parents are from Ethiopia), Brooklyn, Oakland, Lucas, and his favourite friend of all, Brett!

Brett is a little girl who is a month older than Ade and they are kindred spirits. They play together all the time and have been known to hold hands all day long. Too cute!

So, Momma gets her adult play on and Ade gets his kidlet play on and then the days we spend together are so much better for it because we miss each other. We always make sure to plan something fun for just the 2 of us!

I am glad I took the full year of work off instead of just the paid Paternity leave of 8 months. We get to experience the Christmas season together fully!

This Christmas is certainly much different from last year and the year before. We are so excited to Ade home and to be able to celebrate with him. No more tears of wanting, anguish and sadness.

And All Thru the House...

...just two creatures were stirring!

In A While Crocodile!

Back to Work

So, we are back to work after our week off...sigh!

We started the week off with a visit from my momma who was here to spend some time with Grandma D after her surgery. She drove all the way from Vancouver with my cousin H.

We had a family BBQ on the Saturday night and it was delightful.



My Momma Joe and snuggly Leroy (Joe is not her name but I have called her this for as long as I can remember - I don't know why!)



My Auntie B and cuddly Grissom

My Grandma D, Cousin H, and Great Auntie R hanging on the swing!

After the family visit, we spent the rest of the week doing some serious landscaping. O.k not so serious, each day we leisurely got ready, had breakfast and then headed outside to work in the yard. It was awesome!



Our new flower bed - now the Hostas were already there..we just finally made it look pretty with the stack stones.



My favourite part is the deck, we were finally able to stain it this year and put up the white picket rail...it is cozy and we get to sit out on the front porch and watch the neighbourhood go by...with cold beer and clam in hand or tea and book...whatever :)



Finished product - well, not quite finished...notice that we are missing one set of shutters...these have been missing for almost a year and I thought we would get this done this week...we did not...a slight irritation to say the least...better not be next year! However, we did get the yard mulched with the big bark mulch which we love...it look alot of mulch though...we didn't realize how long our side yard was!

I can honestly say that after our fabulous week of holidays I was not looking forward to going back to work. Yvan said this "Next year we will take the same week off, but maybe two!"

I said this," I better bloody well be off on my 35 weeks paternity leave next summer or you will have one cranky wife! 2 weeks, bah! better not be only two weeks, better have a baby home by then..2 weeks, bah..." I mumbled on for a while and Yvan finally told me to be quiet :)

Here is to being off with our wee one for the entire summer in 2009!!!