The Halls are Decked

We have had an insanely busy weekend. It's been crazy. Too much going on at once. Jordan's building me a new office in the basement, we picked this weekend for the house decorating and tree triming, our new bedroom set just had to arrive at 7:00 on Friday night, RONA called saying the lights we had ordered were in and so on. That's on top of the regular stuff like paying a milisecond of attention to the girls, swimming lessons and of course, plans for the big game today.

So, the best part of our weekend so far has definitely been the decorating. I thought I'd share a bit of what Christmas looks like around our home:

We finally got a dusting of snow so between that and the glow of the season inside, it's beginning to look at a lot like Christmas!

Traditions

Christmas time for me is full of traditions. Jordan and I have things that we are almost ritualistic about when it comes to the holiday season.

It all begins this weekend and I'm so excited.

Tomorrow we will go pick out our tree. We will smell them, measure them, touch the pine needles, decide which will go best in our house. Transportation of the tree back home has always been hilarious. It results in either a vehicle covered in pine needles, a rope too short to hold the tree on to the roof or something like last year when Jordan tied the tree to the roof of the car through the window, giving no thought to how he'd get back into the car. I plan that this year be be a bit easier thanks to a mini van and a roof rack. We will get home, curse as we try to get the tree straight in the stand and then the clean up the needles begins. And will continue multiple times a day for the next month. Worth it for a real tree though.

We will decorate the house while the tree starts to unfold and reveal to us it's beauty. Or so we hope. We'll turn on the Christmas tunes and have a delightful time.

After supper we'll put the girls to bed. Pop the popcorn, pour some eggnog and put on It's a Wonderful Life. Then, Jordan's favorite (not!) Christmas tradition, we will string cranberries and popcorn. And there will be cursing and mentioning of how much he hates doing this as the needles poke his fingers and the popcorn kernels bust in his lap. He secretly loves it. I know it.

Saturday we'll set up the girls' fake 4' tree in the basement for all their "pretty" or homemade decorations. See, I'm quite anal about my tree since it's the focal point of our livingroom for a month. If the ornament is a cartoon, not red or gold or has macaroni glued it to, well, it's just not allowed on the tree. Besides, the girls love having their own little tree with all their fun decorations on it.

Jordan and I will skip supper. Because again, after the girls are in bed we'll make appetizers, dip back into the eggnog, throw the tunes back in and decorate the tree. We'll string the lights, hang the strings of popcorn and cranberries, pick out our favorite ornaments and turn our naked pine tree into a thing of beauty.

And then it will be officially Christmas.

With no snow and above zero temperatures this year, but Christmas nonetheless.

I can't wait!

Friends

"People come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. When you figure out which it is, you will know exactly what to do."

I love this quote. It has really been ringing true for me lately.

I look back at some of my friendships and I know exactly which category my friends fell into. And they belong there. As much as at the time I wanted to grow these friendships or keep in touch, they weren't meant to be. I have a handful of friends that I've had since I was a kid, like Amanda, that I will keep for a lifetime. I have some new friendships ... some I know are for a reason, some that are for a season, and a few that you just have a feeling with be those lifetime ones. I'm feeling a bit sappy about friends today because I have some great ones and am so grateful for them.

As a teenager I always told my mom that my friends wouldn't rub off on me. No! I wouldn't start smoking, or doing drugs. I wouldn't date the wrong guy or run with a bad crowd who did these very things. I definitely wouldn't start listening to loud crude music.

So not true.

In fact, perhaps my favorite thing about having friends is how much we really do rub off on each other. I spent a week in Summerland this summer at Amanda's. When I left, Amanda had taken on my addiction to coffee loaded with tasty creamers and I can now hardly go three days without an everything bagel with herb & garlic cream cheese. We like the same things, we say the same things, we recommend books and t.v. shows to each other, we have the same sense of humor. She's a staple in my life.

In the past year Jordan and I have started spending time with a couple we met through Jordan's work, Adriel & Naomi. Like a lot of time as you probably noticed throughout my posts this summer. Minot, camping, movies and appetizers on the weekends, backyard BBQs, a girl's trip to Edmonton and in 7 weeks, the four of us will be on the beaches of Cancun WITH NO CHILDREN. Naomi and I had a lot in common right from the start and Jordan and Adriel are somehow the identical person. But Naomi is much more adventurous and athlectic than I am. But she makes me work out with her a few times a week, she told me to stop being a wuss and just get my nose pierced, we are going to go parasailing in Cancun. Perhaps I haven't rubbed off on her very much ... the only change I can see is that she wants to invest in an apron. ;) But she's been good for me, that's for sure. She's one of the ones I hope I'm still parasailing with in 50 years. ;)

Perhaps that's why I'm so set on making sure Abby has friends at school. I know it's something she needs to do on her own and doesn't need my help doing it but I've been reminded this year just how important friendships are. My heart bursts with joy when I see how well she has clicked with a certain girl at school. I smile ear to ear when she gets off the bus and the kids all press their little faces against the window and wave to her.

It's not because I want her to be Miss Popular or the prom queen, but because I want her to know the joy, the comfort, the fun, in having a best friend.

Dads

Always stepping it up a notch.

Taking it to the next level.

Turning something safe into something dangerous.

Making it a lot more fun than it was with boring, safe ol' Mom.

Blessed Beginnings

Things sure have taken off on the doula-ing front this year! Wow. Hard to believe it was just over a year ago that I was taking my training course out in B.C.

I have a lot of people ask how I'm enjoying it, how busy I am, what it's like. What better place than here to share the delights (and downsides!) of my new side job.

Short answer: I love it!

It's rewarding, you feel appreciated, I have an outlet to exercise my passion for childbirth, pregnancy and health. Getting to sit beside women as they go through one of the most beautifully challenging and empowering times of their lives. I love watching the dynamics between the couple during labor. The dads who know just what to do, the dads who don't. The tenderness of the men as they labor with and care for their wives. The delivery room thick with anticipation and full of love.

I can't imagine anything more fulfilling than getting to watch a couple welcome a new little person to their family. The mom's who gush, the dad's who cry, the ear to ear smiles, the cooing, watching the parents check out their new baby, to be there for the very first moments of someone's life. Rewarding, thrilling, exciting, heart warming. To say the least.

I feel very in my element while I'm in the labor & delivery room. When they call me to come to the hospital, I get butterflies in my stomach, I quickly review their folders to remind myself of their birth preferences and medical histories and I drive, often in the middle of the night, to the hospital. As soon as I walk in the room the butterflies are gone, the nerves are calm and I seem to know just what to do. I feel like I've found my niche.

The one and only downside for me is being on call. I truly enjoy every other aspect of it. I'm not bothered by the sights, sounds or smells. I don't find it difficult to mesh with the nursing staff. My only negative is having to have my cell phone connected to me, checking it at movies every few minutes, those sorts of things. Being on call also means finding last minute care for the girls, which isn't easy, even with lots of family in the city. My list of "babysitters" keep shrinking as my friends are getting full time jobs or have little newborns themselves. This is a bit of a cause of stress for me!

Luckily for me, business is booming too! I may be booked right through until the end of June! I set up a Facebook fan page and made myself a website (www.blessedbeginnings.webs.com) and the calls and e-mails just started coming. I'm so thankful for those who have helped me spread the word, my first few clients who let me use them as guinea pigs, for the kind, positive reviews clients have left, for words of encouragement and for Amanda who's taken care of all my graphic designing needs.

I have been presented with two other really REALLY exciting opportunities that would be a fantastic extension of what I'm doing right now so fingers crossed that they work out! I would be over the moon if these two things worked out.

So, that's how it's going. Thanks for asking. :)

On Days Like Today

I decided to have a (pretty much) computer free day. I snuck on only once because I HAD TO immediately e-mail my mom the cutest picture of Josie in her bumble bee Halloween costume and I rebooted because Abby wanted to play Starfall when she got home from school.

I loved it. I want to spend way less time online. Even when I came back online this evening, there wasn't that much for me to check out. I've heard enough H1N1 info to last me a life time, all the blog posts were still there for me to read, e-mails were quiet today. I think it's the beginning of a new trend for me. Quieter days spent doing things much more enjoyable than the circle of blogs, Facebook, e-mail that is so easy to get stuck in.

Today wasn't necessarily an awesome day due to a lousy sleep for me last night, Abby being a little crabby after kindergarten and Josie not being able to resist the urge to do a little scratching today. But it was nice. In that disconnected type of way.

A day with time to enjoy the simpler things.

Like wrapping up in a blanket, still in your pjs and sporting your bed head and doing sewing cards:

Or hanging out with your sister reading Winnie the Pooh books:

Or my personal favorite. Me, my favorite magazine, with some of my favorite loose tea, in my favorite mug, on my favorite couch, snuggled in my favorite blanket while the girls watch Rapunzel downstairs.


It was nice. Refreshing. And I didn't miss a thing.

I shall do it more often.

Snapshots

We had one day of fall so we took advantage of it! Raked all the leaves in the front yard and had a play/photo fest!

I love these types of days.

This was last week but we had such a nice day. The girls and I spent a lot of time together, got some good fresh air, had a nice lunch with Jordan, I got to sit and read on the couch for a bit in the afternoon and then I got to go out for dinner and some shopping with a friend.

If only every day could be so perfectly balanced.