CHRISTMAS DINNER - HAMILTON

We are grateful to be able to see all of our family easily in one day.  The whole crew from Ottawa made the trip to Hamilton for a few days.  Grampa Mike, Auntie Erin, Auntie Meg and Uncle Connor drove down a few days before Christmas.  Uncle Paul, Aunt Kristen and baby Kaitlyn travel from Aurora on Christmas afternoon.  We all gather at Kel, Darin, Owen, Kaitlyn, Nora and Maeve's house for huge Fitzpatrick Festivities.  Thank you Kel and Dar for once again hosting all of us.  You guys are amazing!

Kel and Darin's gorgeous, festive home

Kait, Owen and Kieran with cork mustaches trying to match Uncle Connor's

Hilarious!

Gramapa Mike with his 6 kiddos.

All 6 kids

Back:  Paul, Erin, Dave.  Front:  Meg, Connor, Kel

CHRISTMAS MORNING

Over the past few years we have taken to hosting a Christmas morning brunch for my side of the family.  We welcomed Grams, Claw, Poppy, Nana, Great Grampa and Pete. (Jally sleeps over so I consider her one of the hosts).  Coffee, Christmas morning breakfast, cinnamon bun casserole, fruit salad and freshly squeezed orange juice.  It was a delicious feast of food and a table surrounded with those we love, adore and appreciate.  Post breakie we exchanged a few gifts and all went on our Merry way to the next stop.  The only people we missed on my side of the family were Heather, Doyle and their 3 kiddos, Charlotte, Jacob and Oliver.  We will have to extend the table a bit further and perhaps start a kids table next year.  Our next stop was Hamilton for the Fitzpatrick Family Christmas...

Santa came!

Yahoo!  All I wanted was an orange furby.  There must truly be a Santa because nobody in their right mind would buy one of these things!

Two Lego sets from Santa!  Wow - Fire and Police, K's fave!

Furby and a Lego set.  Thank you Santa!

Spy glasses in the stocking.  You can see behind you.  Cool.

Happy to meet "Coco" the Furby

Never ending, glow in the dark spinning tops

The gift of sleep over camp.  Thanks for the camp shirt and headband Jally.  Camp is going to be AWESOME this summer.

Fave book from Grams and Claw.  Yippee!  Thank you!

Showing the book to Nana and Grams

A very cool 3B Zoo book from Uncle Bill, Aunt Shelton and cousin Zan all the way from Hilton Head Island.  Thanks!

Kieran and Poppy enjoying the book

The family. 

LET THE MAGIC BEGIN...

Home from Poppy and Nana's place in time to sprinkle the Magic Dust Santa sent to Kieran, put Santa and reindeer snacks out, read a book and get to sleep.  A magical night awaits...

Sprinkling some of Santa's Magic Dust on our walkway

And up the stairs...

A letter to Santa with some cookies and chocolates for Santa, pistachios for the reindeer.  Amazingly enough we awoke to find pistachio shells littering our walkway on Christmas morning.  Wow!

CHRISTMAS EVE

The tradition continued with us spending Christmas Eve at Poppy and Nana's house with Jal and Great Grampa.  Jane always out does herself and puts on an incredible meal, thank you for all of your work.  Cocktails and appetizers, a beautiful meal with whistle hilarity and the exchange of gifts.   Thanks to Nana and Poppy for hosting us.
*  Quinn was on fire on Christmas Eve.  He was beyond hilarious.  Pics don't really do it justice, but funny none-the-less.*

Great Grampa arrives from Oakville.  The boys screamed, Santa is here!

Q

These little whistles were in the table crackers.  They definitely provided some laughs

Jal, Gramp and me

Quinn excited for his new PJ's from Nana opted to wear them on his head

Q equally excited for Poppy to open shaving cream!!!

New digger jammies

Thank you Nana, I love them!

Tired, but happy peeps

40

Three days after our 10th wedding anniversary we raised a glass in honour of Fitz's 40th.  Given the chaos of the season and choosing to prioritize our anniversary we had a severely low key family day and promised we will gather great people sometime in January when life is a little less busy for us all.  The boys were excited to serve Dave breakfast in bed (coffee, juice and muffins) and bring him his presies.  He finished the day off by playing his weekly Sunday night hockey with a bunch of guys and then hit the Sports Cafe for a few celebratory bevvy's after that.  Thankfully he woke up on Monday feeling not a day over 39!

Kieran was very excited for Dave's birthday!

Presies!  Cuff links, chocolates and two new French Cuff shirts

His card professing our love for him...

Yes, Kieran knew he was opening Ferraro Roches.  Both K and D LOVE these!  Happy boys!

Don't hit the panic button just yet...  We love you!

New shirts to go with his new sterling silver, engraved cuff links

10

December 20th marked Dave and my 10th wedding anniversary.  Hard to believe how fast it has gone by and yet when you stop to think and discuss all of the happenings in our world over the past 10 years we realize that we have accomplished a great deal, celebrated some truly incredible blessings and suffered a severe family loss when we said goodbye to Dave's mum, Mary.  Mix in a few houses, jobs, kids, dog and life in between and we are most grateful for the years we have been married to one another.  We celebrated by spending the night at The Royal York Hotel, which is where we stayed on our wedding night.  Wandering downtown at our leisure, dinner at Benihana was memorable, drinks at the Library Bar in the lobby of the hotel and a sleep in was heavenly.  Many thanks to Grams and Claw for having a sleep over with the boys that evening.

Pete, Jess, Me, Dave, Jally and Martin - Wedding Party Extraordinaire!  I am thrilled to be returning the favour by standing up for Jess on June 29, 2013.  Yahoo!

I've Had The Time of My Life...

MAGIC DUST

All Kieran has asked for this Christmas is some of Santa's Magic Dust!  This is seriously special stuff and extremely difficult to come by.  Amazingly, Santa sent a letter and he included some magic dust.  In the letter he asked Kieran to keep the magic dust in a special spot until Christmas Eve.  The last thing he is to do before going to bed on December 24th is sprinkle our walkway with this magic dust.  This will allow Santa to see the sparkling magic on the walkway in the moonlight as his sleigh flies through the sky.  Most importantly, Santa asked Kieran what he was hoping he would bring him.  Kieran's response, "I want him to surprise me".  We shall see what Santa opts to deliver...  Ho! Ho! Ho!

The Magic Dust to be sprinkled on our walk way on Christmas Eve