gift time!

This afternoon we pretended it was Christmas Eve and opened our gifts. We figured that way we could pack tomorrow and the girls could have some time to play with their new things since we leave on Tuesday. My understanding is that Christmas is not a big holiday in Taiwan, so for us, today was it!

Anyway, I just wanted to post these pictures in appreciation of the gifts that were sent our way! The girls were especially enthusiastic and lots of fun on this sunny Sunday afternoon. 

Such a big smile when she realized it was the exact Barbie she had hoped for!

"YESSSS!" 

And... it even had exciting goodies inside!

He is SO ready for Rosemary Canada Day! 

Leggings!! Better try them on immediately!

New pj's!! 

Beaver Canoe! Brings back memories... 

"Just what we needed!"

Friendship bracelets just like in Annie's book!

Merry Christmas!!! Love, the Janzens

Christmas Festivities

My mom pointed out a few weeks ago that this blog could use an update... and I agree. Must be lack of time,ambition, inspiration or motivation. Just not sure which one!
Anyway, we've had a busy month leading up to Christmas, and here is a little sampling of what we've been up to:

 Making the Christmas crafts that came in the Christmas box from Grandma Ruth (magnet Christmas picture frames). Fun!

 We were heading to an evening performance of the choir Annika is in, so we stopped on our podium to take some pictures of the girls wearing their Christmas dresses. The weather was clearly much warmer at the beginning of the month than it is now! It is now way too cold to be sleeveless!

Pre-performance warm-ups.

Here they are finally performing after a very long time of waiting through "technical difficulties". We were feeling sooo sorry for the music teacher while they were figuring out what was wrong. 

 This fall we started attend St. Andrew's Anglican church because it is so much closer to where we live than our old church. We just couldn't handle an hour long commute with two trains and a really long inter-change. We miss "Island", but we all are enjoying St. Andrews, and we especially enjoy our weekly lunches with our good friends Mary and Joseph (no joke!). Their daughter is to Leila's right. The kids were singing here in a special family service. 

 Amazingly the gingerbread cookies that Grandma and Grandpa Janzen sent us arrived in one piece. The girls had a lot of fun decorating them (and eating them)!

Mike and Leila hanging out waiting for Annika's Christmas concert to start

Leila's Christmas concert. By now, the temperatures dropped and there is no heat in the chapel, so the kids had to wear their jackets and then quickly take them off before they performed. 

Leila was in a little small group that sang some lines of "Away in a Manger" on their own. It was so sweet! And she really wasn't feeling well, so I'm glad she made it through. 

Mike was able to stop by her class party for a few minutes on one of his breaks. 

Annika's class party later in the week. They got to have a "free dress" day on the last day before the holiday. 

Annika's class party

 Christmas din-din with friends at Phoebe and Joey's. Side-note story- that little goof with the rabbit ears was a friend who was just over for the evening, and he goes to CAIS, so he recognized Mike. Mike didn't know who he was though, since he would have been in Grade 4 last year when Mike was teaching grade 6. Anyway, he informed us that he had seen us in the Edmonton airport this summer. We were like "What?!? Why were you there?". He told us that he had an aunt or somebody who was living in Edmonton. So that's a bit unnerving to think that he and his family could have just been watching us in the airport and they didn't approach us and say anything. Weird!!

And... that's what our catered Christmas dinner looked like! Along with wine and ice cream. Merry Christmas!