We're trying to do fun things as a family Sunday afternoons, so today we decided we would go snowshoeing. There's not a lot of snow, so we figured snowshoe-less Michael could walk if he refused to ride in the sled. Spoiler: he refused to ride in the sled. The other kids enjoyed using it to slide down some of the hills though and a certain four year old had a series of meltdowns over our expectation that she could use her snowshoes for locomotion rather than being pulled in the sled.

We actually ended up carrying Michael a good chunk of the way but we still went as far as we normally do - just past the sledding hill. All too soon the sun was setting and Michael was falling asleep so we knew it was time to head back.

Michael usually goes to bed around 6 and is in the process of dropping his afternoon nap, so he's not at his best in the evenings.

Since his favourite meal is also breakfast, we decided it would be best to have his party in the morning and invited everyone for brunch.

Godparents Kate and Joel are on the final days of baby watch, but baby obligingly held off and they were able to attend.

Michael enjoyed his party very much. Toys! Cousins! Running around! Plus everyone was paying attention to him for once. We set up an obstacle course in the basement and had everyone go play for a bit first, then we had brunch. I mostly didn't bother with a theme, except that I couldn't resist making a "baby shark" out of watermelon in honour of Michael's very favourite song.

Michael was hilarious about his cake. His ability to blow out the candles was severely lacking - the flame didn't even flicker. I did get Elizabeth to help me hold the cake so that I could grab little hands if needed and it turned out that was wise. Michael tried to blow briefly but then decided he'd rather clap his candles out, a new thing introduced by Auntie Mary which has utterly captivated my children despite their inability to actually snuff the candles out that way. It's extremely nerve-wracking as they all wave their hands far too close to the candles. Only Matthew has successfully managed to extinguish a candle by clapping, but I'm happy to report that I managed to help Michael with his. It DOES cut down on the "baby spit" issue though.

After cake we opened presents and Michael approved very much of this as well. All in all it was a wonderfully relaxing party, remarkably free of toddler drama.

It was back to school but poor Elizabeth had a temperature of 39C so although she said she was going to school she also couldn't get out of bed for breakfast.

Michael was very happy to have his "Bey" home with him. Elizabeth spent most of the day in bed or lounging in the basement with Michael watching videos.

Piano lessons also resumed so I picked Matthew and Amelia up from school. Usually Elizabeth makes supper on Mondays while I'm at music with the middles and so I texted her to see if she was feeling well enough. She thought she was so I gave her some instructions for some turkey soup. Sadly I forgot to tell her to turn off the burner and Brendan was helping Michael nap. Elizabeth texted me to say "It smells like turkey" which turned out to mean "The soup is on fire". Later she told me it smelled burned, but by that point I was just about home so I raced in and rescued what I could. Supper was a little charred. Elizabeth was not pleased but after I told her a few stories of my own kitchen disasters she felt better about it.

The almond torte cake that she made was fine - and she even got to be Queen. Then we had sparklers outside with our epiphany blessing of the home.

Elizabeth wanted to do a "theme" every day of Christmas but she couldn't really articulate what she wanted to do beyond getting dressed up. Actually what she really wanted was to wear a new dress every day but since her parents didn't volunteer to purchase her twelve new dresses for the occasion she was sort of at a loss. So we had a "wear red and green" day and a couple of "party" days but mostly we didn't really do the theme thing.

We did open presents every day and on the day we opened umbrellas (the gift the kids gave to each other this year) Elizabeth declared it "pretend it's raining" day.

Anyway, the last day of Christmas Elizabeth decided we had to do a dress up day so we all got dressed up and watched a Christmas movie. We watched "Elf" which I thought was a pretty terrible movie, but apparently everyone else thought it was enjoyable.

We celebrated Auntie Janice turning 33 at Uncle Dave and Auntie Karen's. There was giant Yahtzee (using dice Uncle Dave made!) and chili and cakes and presents!