They Are Revolutionizing the Blanket Industry

Christmas Day

Mom and Dad's wake up call came at 6:30 am. Lil' Lefty and MacDaddy were

quite anxious to get downstairs to get to down to business...opening presents.Santa came. No coal in these stockings! A-mac stocking and presents

off to side. Not everything would fit under the tree.Lululemon sweatshirt and pants for Lil' LeftyCoach bag for A-mac.I think he likes it!

Fried turkey for dinner.

Lil'Lefty and MacDaddy say our dinner blessing.

Happy Birthday Baby Jesus!

Christmas Eve

One gift to open and cookies for Santa.

Christmas Eve Skate

I spent seven (7), I said "seven", hours earlier today driving around to find the "perfect gift". I hate to report there is not a lot of selection in Canada. Even thought about driving to Buffalo. Oh well. The weather report predicts rain tomorrow and temperatures above freezing for a few days. It was nice all three kids got in a skate before summer hits. I figure if we live in Canada at least we could have a white Christmas.

Believe!

MacDaddy's new message on his dry erase board in his bedroom.

Christmas Tree Pizza

A-mac and Lil' Lefty make a pepperoni Christmas Tree pizza for lunch.

Christmas Card Pictures - UNCUT

The cost to mail a Christmas Card to the US from Canada has continued to increase. We started a tradition three years ago to mail Christmas Cards from Cleveland while visiting for Thanksgiving. This means we have to have the pictures taken, cards made and envelopes addressed before we get to Cleveland so we can buy stamps at the US Post Office and mail them. Our tradition had been that our kids, our "presents", are our Christmas Card.

I heard MacMom say it takes 200 pictures to get one good picture. The weather was nice today so we went to the Credit River to take some pictures. I captured all the excitement of a professional photo shoot with by candid, behind-the-scenes, unauthorized pictures... you get the idea.

New York Mets in Port St. Lucie

We drove 90 miles to Port St. Lucie to see the New York Mets play the Houston Astros. We had great seats to get autographs. I saw no Mets players signing autographs from 1 1/2 before the game to the end of the game. Both MacDaddy and A-mac got baseballs.

Former Milwaukee Brewer great Cecil Copper is the manager of the Houston Astros.

All tool - All Star Jose Reyes had two line drive doubles before being removed in the 4th inning. I especially liked the way it looked like he was having fun during his warm-ups.

See video below

Spring Training - Marlins

A-mac, MacDaddy and I drove an hour to Jupiter, Florida to see the Florida Marlins play the Washington Nationals. Even though we were in Jupiter we didn't see any obvious aliens. It took us over two hours to drive back to Ft. Lauderdale because of an accident on I95. Lil Lefty and MacMom stayed on our home planet and went to the beach.

Christmas and Cameras

The morning of Christmas Eve we found a mortal problem with our small pocket camera. It has taken its last picture.

I remember asking Santa for a camera many years ago. I was fortunate to receive a Kodak 110 with a built in flash. You didn't have to load the film in a dark room or attach it to a spindle; just drop it in the back of the camera.

Even better than the camera, and probably just as expensive, I received two 24 picture packs of film. They were more economical than the 12 picture packs. I carefully weighed the merits of each picture I shot and after a few weeks had finished the rolls and brought them to be developed. Another few days went by and we went to pick up the prints. After paying $12.56 to get the pictures developed I was surprised at some of the pictures I had taken. They couldn't have come from me. They were not good.

This year both Lil Lefty and MacDaddy got digital cameras for Christmas, from Santa. One is pink, for Lil Lefty, and the other is blue, for MacDaddy of course. They have both spent a good bit of time the last couple days playing with their digital cameras and I am happy to report that the cameras work. We have pictures of our Christmas decorations. There are pictures that I have posed for, and picture of the turkey frying. Coco, the dog, is a favorite model and if you look closely you can occasionally see a picture of MacMom.

Happy Christmas!

HO!HO! HO! Merry Christmas!

and

Happy Birthday Baby JESUS!

10

Lil' Lefty celebrates the big 10...her first birthday of double digits.

Big D made our birthday girl sausage and eggs for breakfast before heading off to work. I suprised her with french onion soup for lunch (sorry Lil' Lefty...no La Madeleine here) and she shared a birthday treat of ice cream cone cupcakes with her classmates. She ate her favorite take out dinner of teryaki chicken and rice with extra soy sauce and a DQ cake.

She went to make a wish and blow out her candles and MacDaddy blew out 5 of them. She didn't think it was funny. Thus, we had to relight all the candles and re sing Happy Birthday! She took 3 tries to blow out all 10 candles because she said she had 3 wishes to make and each wish needed a few candles to blow out. Needless to say, by the time all the candle were extinguished her cake was smoking and I am surprised it didn't set off our very sensitive fire alarm.

Happy Birthday Lil' Lefty! We hope all three of your wishes come true.

SHH....It's a Surprise!

Make a Smilebox postcard

Lil' Lefty celebrated her 10th Birthday early with a Surprise Skating Party this past Sunday. Friends from school, softball and our neighborhood joined her in her celebration. I was amazed that her friends were able to keep the party a secret.

Christmas Tree

On Saturday, we jumped in the Macbus and took a 20 minute ride to a local Christmas tree farm in search of the Mac Christmas Tree. Can you tell who are the kids and which are painted logs made to look like snowmen singing Christmas carols?






My Mom was here visiting and was able to take a picture of the entire family. The person in the middle is "MacMom"... usually camera shy.


We returned to the same tree farm that we got our tree from last year. It is located in Ontario's Niagara Escarpment.



Last year, there was a foot of snow on the ground. This year, none! MacDaddy and Lil' Lefty scrounged for tree pieces to put in the farm's campfire. They wanted a roaring fire instead of the neglected, dying, smokey fire the farm had going. There may not have been an accumulation of snow, but it was cold and snowing while we were there visiting the farm.


Lil' Lefty is the "unofficial" tree expert in the family and picked the tree again this year. After our hayride that MacDaddy insisted we go on (imagine a hayride in 20 degrees), we walked around the back of the barn and saw the "secret stash" of trees. Once Lil' Lefty picked our tree and the entire family approved of her tree choice, our tree began its journey up the elevator to the barn and then down the conveyor belt to be shaken, trimmed and wrapped up in twine.


We strapped the tree to the top of MacBus and drove home in the snow. We had to make a pit stop at Tim Horton's for hot cocoa (the tree farm had run out of hot cocoa), but by the time we arrived the kids decided donut holes was the better choice to warm them up. You figure that one out?