Merry Christmas

I have been keeping a secret since April. My in laws decided last year that they wanted to come spend Christmas with us and they didn't want to tell the boys. We (and when I say "we" I mean me) suggested to also keep Rob in the dark about this also. There has been many phone calls back and forth as the time got closer, trying to keep Rob in the dark. It ALMOST worked. I had to tell Rob the night before they got here that they were coming. I had made up a lie to convince him to take an extra day off work, as this would have been the last day his parents were here. HE decided to take my lie (that I wanted to take the boys out of town for the night) and turn it into a work trip and bring back supplies for his store. He was actually quite proud of this and was going to confirm with a distribution centre that we would be in the city at the beginning of the week to bring an order back for the store. Of course, I couldn't let him make this confirmation as in fact were NOT going out of town. We did keep the secret from the boys, and boy were they surprised to see their grandparents pull in the driveway! The only thing I regret (and I know you will be shocked by this) is that I didnt have my camera ready to catch their reactions.

Unfortunately these next pictures are backwards, but frankly I'm tired and I don't want to change the order.

A typical Schwartz Family picture. People in this community are very generous. We received ALL these trays of goodies from people in town. I LOVE it here. My mother in law was just astonished by it all. It seemed every 10 minutes someone was coming to the door with a tray for us. My christmas coffee.

We bought Colby and Ipod Touch. He has wanted one for the past few years but we felt he was now responsible enough for one.

Waiting impatiently for me to put the camera away so they could open presents.

Throwing colored reindeer food so the reindeers would know where we live.

The traditional Christmas eve "Twas the Night Before Christmas". Jean started this in 2001 when Colby was just a month old. Since we have lived in the north this tradition has been kept alive via webcam. It's the first time the boys have been on THIS side of the webcam.

Christmas eve seafood chowder. Our friends from across the street came over to share it with us. There was just one small bowlful left when we were done.

Reading stories on the Ipad.

Walking outside with Puppa. For some reason Joey kept falling over into the snowbank.

Baking with Gramma. We were making Maids of Honour, which is a cookie that Rob's grandmother always made and I love them. I have never been able to make them right so I asked Jean to make them so I could see how they were done. Unfortunately somehow between us talking and Joey "helping" we quadripuled the butter (it called for 1/2 cup and we put 2 cups) so they ended up as Maids of Honor Crumble instead of individual cookies. It only took a couple of hours of soaking the mini muffins tins to get them to come clean. Although my new clean oven it's so clean anymore!