Christmas Eve

 

 

This Christmas has been a whirl wind!  A series of super fun activities had been planned, we hosted family and were thrilled to fill our new home with people we love. We really haven't stopped since Maui but it has been all fun! Christmas Eve was the day we planned to play a little street hockey.  It turned out to be super cold, like -26c cold without the wind chill, still the dudes in our family ignored the cold and played hard.  I chose to stay inside.  We invited our extended family and were thrilled that my sibs and parents, Auntie Jenn, our Great-Grandparents and cousin Addie's family could all join us. The missionaries came too, neither had ever played hockey and were pretty pumped up.

 It was super fun, the day felt 'Merry & Bright'!!

Personally, my favourite part was acting out the Nativity.  Gramma and Grandpa Hudkins put together the 5 minute script and my mom has been collecting the costumes for the last 3 years, so we were well dressed.  The little folk did so good.  I felt the spirit of the story as Grandpa read about the birth of Jesus Christ, the whole reason we were gathered together as a family celebrating.

  It was wonderful!

 

Shepherd - Kingston

Wisemen - Camila, Amelia & me

Joseph - Hyrum

Mary - Jacey

Baby Jesus - Baby Joe ( just one month old)

Angel - Stella

Donkey - Leslie

Stage Hand - Alyson

 

 

Adding to the celebration was some 'Pure Melted Snowman' water and some dipped marshmellows for the hot chocolate.  Coolness!  Thank you Pinterest.

 

When our family is together for Christmas we always have an evening of appetizers and this year the spread was pretty saweeeeet.  My favourite was the stuffed mushroom caps, they are a bit of work but so good.

 

Also just before bed we quickly put together a little something, something for Santa.  We hope that Santa and Rudolph were happy, perhaps we'll get a little fancier next year. :)

 

Loving the season!

 

~ Mrs. P



Pre Christmas Preparations

I love this time of year!  I love the gift giving, I love decorating n crafts and I really love the preparations to spend time with our family.  I always want things to be special and I love traditions.  I will admit that I can go a little extreme with dorkiness but I proudly bare the family nickname Martha Stewart and take Christmas prep seriously.  The following are a few of the things we made up for the holidays.  These days a majority of my activities come from pinterest, which is an endless source of inspiration.  The Polischuk Peeps have really enjoyed the Christmas season!

 

Tissue Snowmen - These awesome crafting ladies were all over the tissue paper and glue, we added a snack to the table and boom an afternoon well spent!  Always fun with cousin Camila.

 So proud of their creations.

Oh painted wreath - Mia is a funny girl, loves the paint...seriously loves the paint!  We plan to fancy up the canvas' with marker drawn ornaments, no picture yet.

 

Beaded Candy Canes - We nibbled on canes whilst making canes, fun.  Again with the snacks while crafting, we apparently can't do anything without food along side us. Our dear friend Finley joined us while we got our patterning craft on.  Yeah we still need to work on patterns, red then white then red did not always appear on our pipe cleaners. Ha!

Reason for the Season Nativity - We had an impromptu JoySchool where each child was able to made these wooden nativity sets.   The Momma Jodi who organized went hardcore painting the wood for us so we just cut out the pics and modge podged.  So awesome and very fun to be together with some great kiddos and mommas.  Joy School starts again in January and our fam is totally looking forward to it.

Napkin Rings/Seating - We really do dig the paint and we are also big fans of reusing toilet paper rolls (we save every single one).  These sweet reindeer were made up one afternoon and you can see by the faces that our large family was a bit much for the three year old.  In the interest of time I just finished off the faces.  I love that Amelia wanted to make Grandpa Rudolf, cuteness!

They turned out pretty sweet!

Lovely Cranberry Ice - Ok, this is where my family starts to make fun of me, but the end result looks so pretty in a glass.  I had read that if you use boiled water the ice freezes clear, which I thought would be nice so I did it and IT IS NOT TRUE!  Still looked pretty in our glasses though.

Neighbor gifts - We went around our hood and wanted to 'Whisk' our neighbors a Merry 'Kiss'mas!!  I can take no credit for this adorable idea, it is copied.  I also have started hole punching Christmas cards and putting them on a ring so I can easily look through them and enjoy. Cards are one of my all time favourite traditions.

 Signage - A friend had bought a bunch of kitchen cabinets and another friend has a Silhouette that cuts vinyl.  I had seen this years ago and always wanted to make a sign with those words to have near my nativity set.  Beautiful, certainly the reason we celebrate!

 

~ Mrs. P

 



Maui

 10 days went far to fast...but man did we make some great memories!

 

Thought I should record a few highlights:

 

The best was being together, we literally almost spent every waking minute together as a family.  Graham and I rotated sleeping in, the girls went to bed before us but the rest of the time we were together.  Obviously a wonderful part of the trip was the beach!  It was fun to see our ladies enjoy the sand and the water.  Their bravery grew as the days wore on, that was cool to see.
 

    

Everyday we were able to watch the sunset!  It made me feel all relaxed and chill.  Seriously beautiful and such a peaceful way to end the day.  Sometimes we watched from the beach or grassy area just outside our hotel, other nights we watched from our balcony which faced the water.



 

Loved that our ladies play together.



The Maui Aquarium was certainly a phenominal experience.  The shark tank was a bit crazy!  We sat behind the wall of glass watching the swimming sharks, it was freeky but made for a cool picture.



 

Also a highlight for our big girl especially was taking the Sugar Train in Lihaina.  It was a slow moving, not to scenic train ride.  It was fun for the girlies and that is what matters. 

Shaved Ice - classic Hawaiin treat!!



 

We had a few adventures.  We took the road to the southeast part of the island and saw the 7 Sacred Pools, which is a river that flows from the volcano and creates a stunning series of waterfalls and pools. The girls loved this crazy tree along the path to the pools.  Everytime we were in the car Stella spazzed out but this destination was worth it.

Again just more wonderful beach time.  In the past warm vactions meant snorkeling and laying in the sun, now with our little ladies warm vactions mean sandcastles and playing in the sun! 

We wouldn't have it any other way.

These are just two of my favourite pictures from the trip!!!! Love those ladies and this dude.

 

 

We didn't hit up a luau, instead decided it was great incentive for us to come back!!!

 

~ Mrs. P 

 



the girls help decorate and it shows

It has been so fun decorating for Christmas this year!  The girls are quite into looking at the different ornaments and LOVE to move around the Fisher Price Little People Nativity.  The tree in our den is a little 4 ft. tree that I use to have in my classroom at school and it is perfect for that space.  This is our 'fun' tree and has the ornaments we have given the girls and one another over the years.  It is tradition that each year we give one another a new ornament.  The girls will LOVE theirs for this year, can't wait!

 

  If you look closely at the picture of the tree below you will see evidence that little girls live here.

 

When I went to turn off the tree before bed the other night I found two bracelets hanging on branches....awesome!  But of course bracelets make perfect ornaments!!!!!

 



 

Love those girls of mine.

~ Momma P



Princess Culture

I guess it was inevitable that this phase would eventually come along and the 'Princess Culture' has hit our home hard.  At first I kind of had mixed feelings, don't get me wrong I am a girly girly but want our girls to be well rounded women not just focused on outward beauty.  A guy that Graham works with had even said to him he wouldn't let his girls get obsessed with beautiful princesses and happily ever after because that just isn't reality.  Eeeek! Harsh!

 

I have concluded something different.  I WANT our girls to focus on beauty- inner beauty and I want them to feel that they deserve to treated like a princess, worthy of a happy ever after.  In turn they should seek a wonderful prince (insert cheesy tone but serious eyes), who possesses great qualities and then work together towards a life of happiness. As I type this I want this to happen in like 25-30 years!!! 

 

 

Bottom line I am embracing the culture, I even bought princess Christmas ball ornaments and recently princess shampoo (which is gross by the way).  A friend suggested a great book:  'Real Bible Stories of God's Princesses' by Carolyn Larsen, it is sooooooo good.  It is a fabulous book about the women in the bible and the attributes they poses, excellent!  We are choosing to look at this dive into princess culture as a fun phase and make sure that we talk about how patient and kind Cinderella is, not just how beautiful.  I must say it is super fun to dress up and put tiaras in my little ladies hair! Clearly though the day I snapped these pics, we hadn't done our hair or gotten out of pj's yet.

 



 

Oh our sweet little princesses, they are so deserving of happily ever after!  Very lucky to have them.

 

~ Momma P