Simple Pleasures and Simple Sight-Seeing

You never realize how important some kitchen tools are until you don't have them.  That was the case for us here.  We have an okay-stocked kitchen, but we didn't have a can opener!  

What?!  

We hadn't realized it until after we bought canned foods and wanted to use them in our dinner.  We looked for one at a few stores but couldn't find one.  Strange, right?  So, one time when we were at Rabba--our little grocery store--I asked the cashier where I could buy one and she said they had a small section with one in it.  

Yay!

I know it's simple, but it's been very nice to have these last few days.  

Our First Week in Toronto

The best thing about our first week was the arrival of a crib for Sarah!  We had struggled the first couple of nights, but then thought to ask the apartment staff if they had a crib.  Thankfully they did!  So they brought it that day(Wednesday) and it's been great!

A New Adventure in Toronto, Canada

What does going to Toronto, Canada for 4-5 months look like in suitcases?

Like this:

New Year's Eve

For New Year's Eve, we went over to the Halling's house.  They are some friends from our ward--and we recently found out that Brent and I are 5th cousins on the Snyder side!  So it was kind of like getting together with family too!

We participated in their family tradition of doing fondue.  It was fun!

Paul's Birthday

Happy Birthday to Paul!!

Christmas Dinner

We were excited that Kirsta, Morian, Devin, Mackenzie and Grandma Esther could come for the weekend!  They arrived around 4:30 on Christmas Day.  That evening we had a delicious Christmas dinner.  Again we tried to take a picture of all of us with the camera timer.  It's tricky!

Christmas Morning

Merry Christmas!!

I had a hard time sleeping--and after waking up around 6:15 from a funny position and not being able to go back to sleep--I decided to just get up.  I was also really hungry!  I just had to eat something!

Glenn didn't get up until 8:35 or so!  When we were ready, we went downstairs to read the Christmas story and sing Christmas hymns.  That is another one of Paul's family tradition.  Glenn got to put the Baby Jesus sticker on another advent calendar he was working on.

Christmas Eve

December sure flew by and before we knew it, it was Christmas Eve!  Over the years we have combined some traditions from Paul's family, some from mine and added our own.  

Glenn and Paul enjoyed making "Merry Christmas" pizzas.

December Happenings

Like most years, December was pretty busy.  I had to continually take hormone medication and go in to the lab every few days to see how my levels were doing.  We continued to settle into our home, rearranging furniture and organizing our things.  We had little get togethers and play dates and the usual Christmas and end-of-the-year things.

Glenn sure is growing up!  I can't believe how grown-up he looks!  He isn't my little boy anymore!

Pictures with Santa and Mrs. Claus

The Wells Branch Library put on a special event in December.  The kids each got golden tickets that said "Believe" on them, some hot chocolate, a train whistle and a shiny silver bell.  The Polar Express was read out loud and then Mrs. Claus led us in singing some Christmas carols.  It was a fun evening!

We got a picture with her and also with Santa Claus!

Dominoes at Home

After doing dominoes at the library a month or so ago, Glenn decided he wanted to try some of the techniques at home.  He first set up some mini figures he had been getting in an advent calendar we have.

A New Rug!

So our new home has a lot of brown tile.  It is cold in the winter, and it made our home loud and echo-y.  We had some friends who had a rug that we liked and decided to order one for our living room.  It arrived in early December and we didn't hesitate to set it up right away!

In Vitro Fertilization

When we got back from Spain, we had some big decisions to make.  For the past several years, Paul and I have been struggling to get pregnant again.  We had been meeting with a fertility doctor, taking tests and trying to figure out why.  The tests came back showing there was nothing wrong with either of us, which was great on one hand, but also frustrating.  With nothing wrong, there was nothing for us to 'fix' in order to get pregnant.  Over the past year or so we had tried 5 IUI's--Intra-uterine insemination.  Each time was unsuccessful and disappointing.  We had tried one last time--the 5th time--just before going to Spain and we found out there that it too didn't work.  So we talked about other options.  I will be honest that there were times when I just wanted to give up and say that we had one kid--who was pretty amazing--and we could be okay with that.  But then there were times that I would cry and feel like a failure or that I wasn't giving Glenn siblings, or whatever.  I thought maybe we should just adopt because for whatever reason, we weren't having more of our own.  But Paul felt like we hadn't done ALL that WE could do.  So when we got back from Spain, we met with the doctor to see what we needed to do in order to start In Vitro Fertilization or IVF.

The first step, after ultrasounds to confirm that there were no cysts on my ovaries--I had to do that with every IUI too--was to take some birth control pills.  They needed to regulate my cycle and be able to make things happen on certain days.

November Misc.

Some really great things happened in November.

The first one was our new tables and chairs!!  We had been using a folding table as our dining table for about 3 years--ever since we left Utah and had given away our little round table.  So it's been a long time coming.  (The folding table didn't stop us from having lots of friends over for dinner, but having a real table will be even better!)

Happy Thanksgiving!

This year we hosted Thanksgiving dinner at our new home!

My sister Kirsta and her family came down from Dallas and we also sort of crashed another dinner.  Well, we asked to join with them and since we added another 7, we needed to do it at our house because it was bigger.

Thank goodness we just bought 2 new tables!  We pushed them together, moved the couches and other living room furniture and it worked out great!  All 19 of us fit around the 2 tables.  It was loud, it was crazy, it was wonderful!  We had good food and lots of great company!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Thanksgiving Week Fun

Monday, November 23 my sister Kirsta and her two kids came down from Dallas to spend the Thanksgiving week with us.  Devin had the entire week off, so they came to enjoy the entire week--Morian, her hubby, had to work until Wednesday, so he joined us Wednesday evening.

We were sure happy to have them here with us!  Paul also got the time off from work, so we got to enjoy the whole week together!

Throughout the week we played LOTS of games!  I didn't really take many pictures of that because I was usually playing in them.  But just know that we all had a really fun time. :D

However, I did take pictures of one game--Funny Bones.  This game is always picture-worthy!

Little Passports Continues

I know it's a monthly thing, but Glenn really enjoys Little Passports.  This month Sam and Sophia went to Egypt!

Dominoes at the Library

November 16, the library had a domino day.  We watched a video about different chain-reaction things and then the kids were set loose to create their own chain reactions.

They had learned some different techniques--to put the tiles closer together on a curve, how to split the lines, etc.  So Glenn was eager to try them.

Happy Veteran's Day

November 11, Glenn and I went to Pfluger Park to attend a Veteran's Day Celebration.

Soccer Ends

Glenn's soccer season ended on November 10th.  There were so many rained-out games that I feel like we got short-changed.  But there isn't much we can do about the weather.  Normally they have games on Saturday mornings, but they tried to get one last game in--to make up for all the rained-out games--and had one on Tuesday evening.  

I was kind of surprised too that the association didn't provide team photos.  So we took this opportunity to take pictures of the team.  We were missing a couple of players that night, but this was most of them--along with the coaches (and mini-coach).