Christmas in London and Paris

Jason, Lucas and I were very lucky to enjoy a trip to London, England and Paris, France just before Christmas.  This was a very special trip because it was Lucas' first to Europe and we had been planning it for quite a while.  It would have been perfect if only Sophie had been able to be there too.

A little Christmas for you....

Covent Garden

Everything was done up for Christmas and I just loved that.  It reminded me of when we lived in England so many years ago.

Christmas Carols every night in Trafalgar Square

 

We found a number of traditional Christmas markets and they were amazing to wander through.  The Southbank Christmas Market was near Big Ben and the London Eye on the Thames.  It was gorgeous to walk along the river with the sights and smells of the market.  Chestnuts roasting, mulled wine, it was so much fun to experience.  We had a dinner in one of the little restaurants and I ordered my favourite from my childhood, Welsh rarebit.  Yum.

Before we knew it we were on our way to Paris.  We took the Chunnel and Lucas thought it was great.  He didn't realize that we were already in Paris when we arrived, it was pretty cute seeing him figure it out.

Christmas markets were everywhere in Paris as well, the boys were very patient as we strolled through them. The french cheeses and chocolates, dried fruits, nougat and macaroons were just beautiful the way they were displayed.

As we walked along near Notre Dame we came across this beautiful Creche, it was in the street in front of a restaurant that has been in business since 1594.  Seven hundred years, it was magical to see.

There were two storey carousels all over Paris and Lucas decided he wanted to try one out our first night.  It was a bit slower than he anticipated but it was still fun for him.  They played the most beautiful french songs, I could have listened all night.

Everywhere you turned there were little touches of Christmas.  I loved this cupcake tree!

 

 

 

We saw so many different traditional french foods, drinks and gifts, it was amazing, even if it did rain pretty much every day!  Walking along the Champs Elysees with the trees all lit up, the carousels in the distance, it really felt like Christmas in Paris.

Time flew by and it was time for me to head home to spend a few days with Sophie, just us girls, before Jason and Lucas came home in time for Christmas a few days later.  Lucas was very excited when he saw it was a white Christmas on the morning of the 25th.

Merry Christmas

 

Merry Christmas! 

 

We are having fun in the land of matching pj's this year :)  There is so much to blog about, but it will have to wait as my sleep deprived body is calling for my pillow.

 

 

Songboards, what's not to love.

This past Friday there was no nurse available for Sophie at school so she had to have a home day with me.  We had a fun day and did some computer switch work and we also pulled out one of her favourite items, her songboards.

We have an Old MacDonald songboard and a Wheels on the Bus songboard that are on loan to us.  We use these pretty much every day because she loves them so much.  The songboards are an excellent way for us to incorporate symbols into Sophie's day.  She responds very well to music and songs so it is a wonderful way to keep her engaged while using the symbols with her.

This songboard folds in half, on the back side it has a strip of velcro where I can put symbols for her to make a choice.  We keep it to two choices for Sophie and she lets us know which animal she wants to sing about next by giving a smile, a look or a touch to the symbol she wants.

She LOVES it so much, I think she would have us sing these to her all day if she had her way.

I have found a few other songboards on Boardmaker Share, a wonderful online community where you can find other boards that people have made with Boardmaker.  I am still learning Boardmaker but it will be so awesome once I master it.  I will be able to make symbols for us at home for whatever subject I like.  For example, if we are heading to the beach I could make a board about that.

The school is working hard with symbols as well and it is just a matter of time before Sophie starts to memorize some of the symbols, then we move on to her having an usable language. 

Smiles to that!

Christmas games and crafts

Today was a stay in our jammies kind of day for Sophie, Lucas and I.  Jason was out of town for the day so we stayed inside while the rain poured down.  We made our own fun with some holiday games I had made.

A little while ago I found a Christmas bingo game on a great crafty blog I have been reading.  So I printed it all out and had it laminated.  I glued the calling cards to some card stock to make it sturdier and we used some of Sophie's glass beads for the pieces.  I am hoping to adapt this for Sophie soon, but for now I put each calling card on her game card as it was called and she seemed to like that.

Sophie thought it was pretty darn funny to mix up all the pieces as we were playing.  I had adapted another item with magnets that morning and Lucas suggested that I should make her pieces magnetic and she could play on a magnet board.  Brilliant.  I knew I kept him around for a reason. ;)

Lucas and Sophie both got right into it and I think this could be a great time waster in an airport or for long car rides.  It is a great way to introduce symbols for Sophie while having fun too.  Now that we have boardmaker I can use similar symbols for her communication boards.

 

After we had played Bingo for a while, Lucas wanted to do the Advent calendar for today.  He knew what he wanted to draw right away.

We don't have a door that can hang a wreath very easily so Lucas wanted to draw a wreath for the front door.  I thought that was an awesome idea and his drawing is now the centre piece of our door's window.

As we were about to start Sophie's drawing our friend Claudia came to help me out for the afternoon.  So the two of them dug out a canvas and some paint and got messy.  Sophie loves painting and she loves Claudia even more so she had a blast.  They did some fingerpainting and created a Christmas masterpiece together that I will be able to show when it is all dry.

We managed to fill the day and had a fun weekend despite having these yucky colds.  Hopefully the sun will be out tomorrow, it always makes me feel better. 

Holiday glitter

This morning we weren't up to much, Lucas and I woke up sick and Jason and Sophie are just getting over colds.  Sophie and I also spent a couple hours at urgent care yesterday having her foot x-rayed to see if it was broken.  It has been hurting her for a week and we thought it should be better by now, it never bruised and we think it must be a muscle thing since the bones looked perfect.

 

Since it is December first we broke out the Advent calendars.  A little while back Jason picked one up from Ikea, it is very cute with little re-usable boxes that you can put little treats and treasures in.  I love having little traditions like these for Christmas. 

My mom and dad always made a special effort for the holidays and it is what formed many of my childhood memories. It doesn't have to cost alot of money for it to be special. It truly is the thought that counts.  Lucas and Sophie have always enjoyed opening the little windows to find a treat counting down the days until Christmas too.

As December has been approaching I have been browsing Pinterest for different Advent calendar ideas.  I found one that has been really fun to make.  Each day has a different activity that you can do with your family.  I ended up making a mini-album calendar, one page for each day until Christmas.

 

In the afternoon we decorated the tree, it was a fun start to December.  Sophie was happy to help and Lucas watched from the couch and helped us hang the special ornaments when we he was feeling up to it.  Lucas is a very sentimental boy and he loves seeing the ornaments from when he was a baby.  I love that about him.

Even Riley joined in and found his spot under the tree as soon as we started. 

I have so much planned for the next few weeks, time to get our holiday glitter on.

Gingerbread men and Santa on the lightpad

Lucas and Sophie are in for it.  I got a new camera.  They are going to be the subject of ALOT of photos in the next little while, luckily Christmas is on the way so I have a better reason to shoot away than just getting a new camera!  My old camera was having issues with banding and it was going to be too expensive to justify fixing it.  Sooooo, I had to get a new one.  So sad. ;)

I ran out of photo space on blogger though so I have had to reduce the pixels that I upload photos at, I hope it doesn't make the photos look grainy.



As always Sophie has been happy to oblige and is giving me lots and lots of smiles. 

Lucas wanted to do some weird robot dance so I could test the continuous shooting setting.  He was pretty good.

He wore these glasses for 3 days straight, at school and everywhere :)

 

 A couple nights ago I set up the lightpad with a Christmas theme for Sophie.  I had some new gel clings that I found for her in the dollar section at Target. She thought it was great, although she liked trying to grab my new camera strap even more, she was constantly trying to catch it and thought it was hilarious when she did.

 

 

I also found some transparent overlays on clearance at a craft store and I cut them down to the size of the lightpad.  I found blue, red and green and the red and green were perfect for our Christmas setup.  The overlays also reduced the brightness of the lightpad a bit which was nice.

 

And because Sophie wouldn't be Sophie if she weren't a little monkey, by the end of our playtime all she wanted to do was rip the overlay and clings off the lightpad.  She did have fun checking out all the gel clings and we are going to do a winter theme next.

 

 Now I just have to figure out all the settings on my new camera.  It only took me an hour to figure out how to upload the pictures onto the computer. :P

Here comes the weekend!