Buteau's Brokedown Palace
This "charming" little fixer-upper has many great qualities...we just can't find them to tell you about them. LOL!!!!

Kuefler Rancher
This house comes complete with a fenced in yard, brick inlay walkway, security (6 watchful Gingerbread Men), gorgeous light fixtures inside and out and well insulated walls!

December 22nd 2007
The Great Gingerbread Contest
Kuefler vs. Buteau
You be the judge!!

As tradition goes the Kuefler's and the Buteau's come together for one night of construction...the ULTIMATE GINGERBREAD HOUSE is our quest!

Lucas was in charge of decorating the roof and adding on accessories. He made a great M & M fence and some fantastic window fixtures!

Once I cut Saylor off from our candy supply she quickly joined the Buteau side and tried to help them...which means she just ate their candy when they weren't looking!

Carter only wanted to put on the gum balls, we're pretty sure that he wanted to make sure the gum balls were strategically placed for optimum picking (by him).

Saylor LOVED making Gingerbread houses...or should I say LOVED eating the decorations. I think for every 1 decoration she added to the house she also added 8 to her mouth! Here she is all jacked on gummies, skittles, mints and M & M's.

The Buteau Girls had a few mishaps during the construction of their Gingerbread house. They had an entire side collapse, uncooperative candy canes and Saylor tried to "help" them.

Tina's Daycare

Friday December 21st
Tina's Drop-In
I had 9 different kids come and go on Friday, it felt like I had my own little drop in center!
Nathan and Karina's daycare provider got sick with the flu so they headed over around 8:30am and went home at 4:30pm. I had Avery and Evan for an hour in the morning and an hour in the afternoon while Lisa finalized some paperwork for her new job. Then there were the regulars, my 3, Niki and Natalie! It was a jam packed day!

Play-Doh Mania!

Nathan, Evan and Saylor

Destefano Kids
Karina made some interesting arm garden and Nathan showed me where all his Play-Doh went....in his mouth! His piece kept getting smaller and smaller!!

Larmour Kids
Even just kind of squished the Play-Doh and Avery couldn't get enough of it...she stayed and played with it until her Mom came to pick her up!

Kueflers
Carter's tower of donuts and Saylor's blob of something.

Carter and Karina

December 20th 2007
Carter turns FIVE!!!
BIG BRIGHT NIGHT OUT!!!
We combined Carter's Birthday dinner with the Stanly Park Christmas Train. We started with dinner at The Old Spaghetti Factory, Carter was fashionably late (because his parents got lost driving downtown) but he arrived to see some friendly faces; the Buteaus, Larmours, Kaisers and the Harnisch boys were all there to celebrate! After dinner we headed to Stanley Park to catch our train. It was our first time ever making it on the train (we've tried before but they were always sold out of tickets). Then we walked around to see the festival of lights. Carter thought it was a great birthday and can't wait for his skating party in January!

BUTEAUS

Avery and Carter

Evan with his Mom and Dad

Lucas and Carter

Hannah and Lucas

Nick, Dani and Carter

Larmours! Larmours! Larmours!

Leann, Saylor and Nat
Saylor talked about how she was going to sit with Leann on the train for a few days!

Tina and Papa Pip

"Aahhhh, this is the life".
Carter asked if he could have breakfast in bed on his birthday, so I asked him for his order....which I condensed. He wanted the works!
What he got was pancakes, chocolate milk and a gourmet cupcake.
He drank the milk. That's it!
After his milk he went on his first ever birthday scavenger hunt where he found a hockey stick and gloves from Nick, clothes from Mama and Lego from Lucas and Saylor.
Then it was off to school. His classmates cut out a life size Carter and they all put what they wished he;d get for his birthday, there were 3 hamsters, Lego, one golden retriever, Webkinz, trains, a dinosaur and a real Husky.
After school Carter got to invite a friend to go for lunch, so I took him and Keagan to McDonalds before they had skating lessons. It was his last lesson so it was a fun day, Nick, Saylor and I got to go on the ice as well. Carter got his report card and not only did he pass level 1 he also passed level 2!

December 16th 2007
Grouse Mountain - Breakfast with Santa
After a late night at the PMC Christmas Party, Nick and I slowly woke up and got the kids ready to take them up to Grouse Mountain for breakfast with Santa. The Gondola ride was quite the experience...being crammed in a small space with 3 kids, 2 bags and a buggy for 8 long, bumpy minutes wasn't exactly my idea of a smooth ride! But it was worth it! We had a great time and this will probably become one of our yearly traditions!

Breakfast was great, and the kids got to go and talk with Santa. Afterward he gave them all a little gift.

Taking a break, having a drink and making some faces.

Family Skate
After we struggled to get all our gear on after breakfast we were ready to go for a little skate outside. It was a little windy out but we had fun anyway!

Saylor checking out the two reindeer; Dancer and Vixen.

Our dare devil son decided to climb a hill (with his skates on) and barrel roll back down. His helmet bore the brunt of this adventure!

Saylor was unsure of all the snow at first. And she kept taking her mittens off and her hands would get cold, so as soon as she realized that leaving them on was a good thing...she got right into the action!