Manitoba Christmas

It's been almost a week since we returned from our Christmas adventure to the prairies of Manitoba.  The sunny winter wonderland felt like a distant memory this week as we trudged back to school in our rubber boots through ankle-deep rain puddles under endless gray skies...

A road trip is never without some drama and adventure, and, believe me, this trip didn't disappoint!  We drove through the States this time - 3 days of driving and 2 nights in hotels.  Here's a brief synopsis of how the whole trip went down:

Day 1 - People are in good health and good spirits.  Roads are great and we're excited for Christmas.

Night 1 - (Coeur D'Alene, Idaho) Silas starts throwing up in the night.  I wake up feeling achy and feverish.  And so the sickness begins...

Day 2 - Silas and I hang out in the back seat together doing a lot of sleeping.  Silas starts having a major throw-up just as we're pulling into a rest stop and Erik manages to pull him out of his car seat and out of the van before the spewing begins.  We consider it a major success that we only have to change his shirt.

Night 2 - (Billings, Montana) We stay in a super cheap hotel with a waterslide - kids who are feeling slightly under the weather magically perk up and make multiple trips up and down the slide.  1 hour later things start going downhill as sickness kicks in once again.

Day 3 - Keziah wakes up puking.  I feel achy and disgusting. Micah and Silas aren't doing so hot either.  Amazingly, Erik is in optimal health and I'm praying it stays that way as I have no intention of doing any driving.  After a rough morning of travel, we make a stop in frigid Bismark, North Dakota to stock up on drugs and puke buckets.  Around 7:30 pm on Christmas Eve we finally make it to my parents house.  

We were pretty wiped.

The first few days the kids and I still felt pretty sick.  There was a lot of coughing and sneezing and nose-running and tylenol-taking.  The puking subsided for the most part other than Boxing Day when it was time for a family picture.  While the rest of the Harder family was waiting for us outside in the -27 cold, Silas and Micah decided to simultaneously puke (only one made it to the toilet) and then proceed to whine and cry loudly while we dressed them and dragged them outside for the quick photo session.  (My apologies to the rest of the family for how bad that picture is going to turn out...)

But even though we may have infected half of the family with our "plague", we hope they were still happy to see us...?? (insert sheepish smile).  

We were definitely happy to see them.

Boxing Day was the one day that we were all together - so that was the time for presents and Christmas festivities.  Erik & I haven't participated in a Manitoba Christmas since Keziah was a newborn, so it had been awhile.

 Auntie Laura reading a Christmas story to Keziah.

Apple was well-represented at the Harder Christmas.  There were plenty of ipads, ipods and iphones to go around...  though Granny was smart to ban them on Boxing Day :)

Men actually did dishes.
For real.

We met our niece Amelia for the first time - she was born right after we left Manitoba the last time.  What a cutie :)

A highlight of the Harder christmas is the program (a.k.a. talent show) put on by the kids.

 There was some guitar-playing.

And the always classic recorder.

Micah's talent was showing off some artwork.

While Liam's talent was lip-syncing to Gangnam Style with his back-up dancers...

While I lounged indoors, blowing my nose and reading books - content to enjoy the snow and sunshine through the big picture windows - Erik had endless energy to be outside.  He took several trips to Lake Adam with our kids and the other cousins to do some skating and sledding.

Silas tried single-blade skates for the first time and loved it.

Grandpa and the boys on the toboggan hill.

After being happily cooped up in the house for the first week, Erik finally convinced me to come along for one last skate on New Year's Eve.  It was cold.  And my skates were too tight.
Not that I'm complaining or anything.

Keziah and I lasted about 10 minutes on the ice and then we put our boots back on and drank hot chocolate by the wood stove.  Thank goodness for warming huts :)

Erik's highlight was probably the last day when he went snowmobiling with my Dad.  It warmed up to about -8 that day (heat wave!) and he had a blast.

Finally it was time to say good-bye and head back home.  After 12 days of holidaying, we were all Christmas-ed out.

Easy Christmas Baking 101

Christmas baking has been low on my priority this year, but the other day I had the urge to whip up something simple.  If you've spent any time on Pinterest, you've certainly seen various versions of these little treats.  They just looked so easy that I had to give them a whirl.  

First I gathered my 3 ingredients...  waffle pretzels from Superstore, "Hugs", and M&Ms (the mint kind since I already them).

Silas had the tedious job of unwrapping all those hugs and placing them on the pretzels.

Ready to go into the oven...
(Bake at 350 degrees.  3 minutes wasn't long enough, 5 minutes was a little too melty.  So next time I'll do 4 :)

Once the hugs have softened, remove from the oven and place an M&M on each one.  I did this while they were still on the pan.  Then I recommend letting them fully cool off before trying to take them off the pan.  This took awhile (maybe because I let them get too melty in the oven).  Next time I might put the whole pan in the freezer to speed up the chocolate hardening process.

Super simple and quite festive looking.  I started imagining other variations - like a mini peanut butter cup with a Reese's Pieces candy on top... Mmmm.

I'm thinking a handful of these in a cellophane bag might be a great addition to this year's teacher gifts.

Christmas on the Farm

We were all up before the sun on Christmas morning...

... ready to take part in the gift-opening festivities - gifts from us as well as from Granny & Grandpa Harder were waiting to be unwrapped!

Time to start opening...

Silas was so pumped about the dollar store cell phone in his stocking that he had to try it out while it was still in the box...

A new book left him a little less impressed.

New slippers!

A pretty new skirt from Granny :)

Silas getting his first glimpse of his big gift - a rock n' roll Elmo...


Even Mommy got some gifts :)

One of Micah's favourites - the magnifying glass in his stocking (once again, from the dollar store...)


A little chocolate for breakfast - a la Kinder Surprise. (Thanks Granny!)


Mmmm. Chocolate.

Daddy helping with toy assembly.

Then it was time for Mommy to help the kids set up the Marbleworks set we got for Micah. This was a big hit with all the kids.

Another popular gift has been Elmo.

He is pretty cute.


But not as cute as this little "rocker" who sure knows how to get down while Elmo is singing.

Yay for Christmas!

We hope you all had a good one too!!

Teacher Gifts

This year I opted to make homemade teacher gifts after finding a recipe for homemade vanilla brown sugar body scrub, which contained 4 simple ingredients.


So after school last week I solicited the help of the kids to make our sugary concoction.


Vanilla Brown Sugar Body Scrub (www.bystephanielynn.com):

2 cups brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup sunflower oil (this oil doesn't have a strong scent like olive oil)
1 tsp pure vanilla extract

I doubled-and-a-halved this recipe since I had to fill 5 small jars (which I found at the dollar store).


Not only did it smell delicious, it was also quite edible! I had to keep telling the kids to stop eating their teacher's body scrub!


Then it was time to make the Christmas cards...



While the kids worked on that, I created some labels out of cardstock & scrapbooking paper.


I tied on a spoon with some wire ribbon (all from the dollar store) and our teacher gifts were complete!