Christmas Eve at Granny's, nativity and pinata

See the kids up between the bars, waiting for their turn at the pinata. Austin and Nathan each drew a face on the pinata. Nathan drew a nice Wal-Mart happy face and Austin drew a cross-eyed deranged face.

The cast of the 2009 Christmas Eve nativity. Preston declined to be in it.

Christmas Eve at Granny's, blankets and cousin gift exchange

All the counsins in a circle after opening their cousin gifts.

Three boys. Three bionicles.

Would you believe that Mark liked his music card that came with his gift from Hemsleys? Well, he did, ...for a minute....

Alyssa and Kaylene with their matching blankets from the pinata. Thank you, Granny. So cute.

Nathan, Austin and Preston with their matching blankets. Thanks, Granny.

Alyssa posing with her jewelry from Kaylene from the cousin gift exchange. Thank you, Kaylene.

Christmas morning at the Doigs

It was nice to have Christmas morning at our own house this year. We even opened presents at a civilized hour; the kids were allowed out of bed at 7:30. That way Mark could be part of Christmas morning. As usual it was neat to see the wonder and excitement in the kids' eyes as they first saw the tree and their presents. Mark was pretty cute. He got a few new music toys and he got a strange look on his face when the new toy was played. Then he hit the button and made the music, then stuck out his tongue, as if to say, "This is weird. I don't know this toy." After a little while he lost it and started crying, but he was pretty intrigued for a while.

Let it snow, let it snow.....no, please, really MAKE IT STOP SNOWING!

and since there's no place we can go......

Check out the results of the blizzard we've been having here! It started Friday afternoon and its still snowing. Also winds of 50-70 clicks at times! Good day to stay home by the fire in your pajamas.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Rob likes us to wait until December 1 to put up the Christmas decorations. This year I decided to jump the gun in the smallest way and set up the tree for Family Home Evening on Monday, November 30th. That day the weather had been very windy, and somewhere around the time we started decorating, it began to snow outside. That snow marked a drastic change in weather from very mild fall-like weather to a massive blast of winter.

At least it's warm and cozy and festive in the house (which is now clean, mostly) with a toasty warm fire going in the fireplace....now if I can just find some time to sit in on the couch by that fireplace and read a good book!

ALPA Christmas Party

Raffle items we won!

Austin with his best little person friend, Andrew, who lives in Edmonton and also happens to be LDS.

Chinese gift exchange.

Chinese gift exchange gifts.

Austin and Andrew

Today was the Association of Little People of Alberta Christmas Party in Calgary & we were lucky enough to attend. It was a fun day. When we got there we realized that though I had brought the camera, I had forgotten to put the memory card back in. Rob went and bought one, but Santa came while he was gone. Did you know Santa is a little person. Speaking of which can anyone tell me how to get pictures off my phone? Because it has some cute Santa pics, but I don't know how to get them on the computer.

In addition to Santa's visit, we did a Chinese gift exchange among the adults. I included above a terrible picture of me so that you could see in the background some of the little people and their families at the party. We also had a potluck dinner and a raffle. Our family cleaned house on the raffle. There were about 20-25 items and a few were extremely popular (itunes card, etc) but I put tickets in items that no one else seemed to want. We also got lucky on a couple of popular items and ended up winning 6 different things!

Austin and Andrew did several running races, arm wrestling competitions and in this video a pushup contest. Andrew is by far the more athletic of the two boys, but hopefully the friendly competition with someone his own size will help motivate Austin to get out there and be active!

Bread, Buns, Cinnamon Rolls and "Dough" for the Pool

Recently a certain sister-in-law, not to name names, Sherylee, told me how hurt she was that I haven't posted more on my blog recently. I told her that's because nothing interesting has been happening. I decided that I'd better try to assuage her hurt feelings with more posts. But, I warned you....it doesn't mean I have anything interesting to post about.

I have to thank another sister-in-law, Haylee, for teaching me how to make fabulous 100% whole (white) wheat bread as seen above. The bread pictured above turned out like a dream, don't you think? I don't know how it tasted though, because I sold it.

Which brings me to the other aspect of this post which is that I've been doing a lot of fundraising lately for the Pals of the Pool, trying to raise money and awareness for an improved pool in Magrath. Our group has done 3 concessions so far at the Rodeo grounds. On the day the above pictures were taken, there was a craft/bake sale at the agriplex along with team sorting rodeo. We did both the concession and a bakesale and sold my cinnamon buns both individually and in fours and the bread among other things. Profit on the evening$450.

The following weekend (last weekend) we did a concession for the Chinook Rodeo, which is as big a rodeo as comes to our little town.We did concessions during the day for the slack and again in the evening for the performance. We also had people man the doors and got 1/3 of the gate money. Total profit on the day $1200.

We've done some other events too, and are selling punch and cookies at the town Christmas program next Friday. So far our total funds are about $5500.

So, we are nickel and diming our way toward a contribution to the pool. I just hope the town is also inching its way toward a plan.

Better Late then Never: The Doig Family 2009 Halloween

Preston as Snake eyes from GI JOE
Our Halloween Ghost pumpkin( well oone of them anyways)

The whole crew. MArk as a Bear Austin as Bumblebee Alyssa as Sleeping Beauty( I didn't want to wear a dress so hey why not wear PJ's)

Bumblebee and Snake eys reporting for duty!!

The Cute bear munching on his costume

Sorry my Mother is a little slow on the draw. So here are my family pictures at Halloween. Alyssa was too OLD to go trick or treating so I handed out candy. Austin and preston went out for half an hour and were done so that's about it.

Everybody's favorite principal?

One of the things you fear when you are the principal of a school, is that someone will take out his or her wrath for a disciplinary measure, or unpopular decision on you or your family personally. One time in Rocky Mountain House, when we were living in a row of grey townhouses, our next door neighbour got egged. Since she was a single mom working at an oil company with one daughter, I couldn't help wondering if the egging was meant for us.

On Friday, October 30th, when I came out of the school after the elementary costume parade, this is what I saw--Rob's car covered in toilet paper. I thought it was pretty funny. Rob was too busy to be amused, but not particularly upset, either. Still, he was interested to know who the culprits were.

Later, a teacher came in Rob's office looking a little guilty and wanting to make sure Rob didn't have anywhere important to go...this sparked a confession that the teacher and three Gr. 7 girls were responsible for the toilet papering....and I won't say if one of those girls was in our very own family... Looks like the jr. high dance taking place at the same time wasn't holding these girls' attention...but I'm sure they didn't really want to t.p. the principal's car, but what are they to do when the week before basketball tryouts, their basketball coach asks them to do it?

Too close to call

We've reached that moment I knew would eventually come when Preston and Austin are the same height! If Mark could stand up next to them, you'd see that his height is also very similar, although I believe he's a bit shorter.

If you want to donate...

I mentioned in the previous blog posting that Austin is doing a hike-a-thon next Tuesday for cubs. I believe the money is going towards the women's shelter, though I'm not positive.

A few people have asked how they can contribute to the cause. On the pledge formit indicates that people can either donate by the km or a preset amount. Either way, if you are going to be seeing us in the next week or two, you could just give him cash or a cheque. If you are not local, you could just tell me how much you want to pledge and send me a cheque in my name (since it might take a while to arrive). I would then just give the cub leaders the equivalent money in the meantime.

Thank you for supporting our little cubber.

Austin the Amazing Cubber

Tonight was investiture at cubs and Austin was made a Seconder in his pack. He got special epaulets that designate him as a seconder. He was also presented with the cub badges he has earned lately. He earned 2 badges and one star at Cubs so far this year, but at home, he has earned 7 more badges and one more star. We have several others nearly done too! After the investiture, I got out the sewing machine and put everything on Austin's cub sash. It is looking official. I'm proud of Austin's hard work in cubs.

P.S. Austin is taking part in a hike-a-thon at cubs next week. If you would like to sponsor him, he would appreciate it. His pack is hiking 5 km, but he will hike as far as he can, and scooter the rest. We figure his legs are about 1/3 the length of the other boys so if he can go 1.7-2 km he will have done as much as everyone else.

Why we love Granny

10. birthday cards with money

9. pinata

8. pajamas @Christmas

7. Christmas lights so bright you need sunglasses

6. "Got your bags packed?"

5. Miraculously still 20 when her son just turned 41.

4. The skating rink

3. almost "free" haircuts--ask how much a hug and kiss to a grandma costs a teenage boy?

2. Awesome dinners, obviously

1. Because she's our granny and we love her!

Happy Birthday Granny!

Fundraising for the Magrath Pool

Any of the readers of this blog who have visited the Magrath pool know that it is in sad shape. And, any of you who have visited the Raymond pool, in the next town over, know that their new pool is beautiful and fun and amazing. This summer, a lot of people I know have been talking about the need for Magrath to upgrade the pool. The other talk is that without upgrades to the filtration system, the pool may not be allowed to open next year.

So, a few friends and I decided to hold a meeting and invite anyone we happened to be talking to and form an organization that would fundraise for pool upgrades, and encourage the town to support a massive renovation. The above picture is of my kids and the Hoy kids bottledriving. We decided to do monthly fundraisers and the bottle drive is our first one. If any of you reading this are from Magrath, please note that you can take your bottles, cans, milk jugs, etc. to the bottle depot on an ongoing basis and specify that you would like the money to go to the Pals of the Pool. We don't have quite enough manpower to get the whole town, but we've had 3 or 4 truckloads of bottles so far and we'll be back at it this Saturday, again.

In October, we want to do a haunted house at the swimming pool. I think that will be really fun, and will hopefully help us to continue to raise money.

Tonight I made a presentation to town council. I went into the meeting having read the local newspaper reports which made it sound like town council had been looking at the pool renos of other towns and that the pool was important to them, yadda, yadda, yadda. I thought we'd be on the same page. And, on the first two sections of the presentation why we need a pool, and what elements we would like to contain, they almost mocked me like I was miles behind them.

But, on the 3rd section of what we'd like them to do, things fell apart. Yeah, they want a pool (all councillors agree), and for it to have great features (again everyone, some even want it to be covered--Trevor Thomson), but they can't allocate money now (Sam Johnston), and they don't know about the future (Sam Johnston), and there is no plan in place, and they will not commit publicly to doing anything (Dennis Quinton). And, that committing town money to the pool is forced fundraising from the citizens and that if the town wants the pool, the citizens should fundraise it (Sam Johnston). Each councillor said something different and the answers were not necessarily consistent. I had to call Sam Johnston on the argument that funding the pool is forced fundraising, reminding him that it is the duty of municipal governments to provide services to the citizens and that most, if not all, communities include recreation facilities in that mandate.

Now in fairness, I know the town council is up against the wall. They specifically mentioned the Water Treatment plant as a big capital project that has to be done by 2012 or we won't have potable water. My thing though is that if they can't, then don't pretend! But they talk like there is going to be a major pool renovation, but that it will happen by some miracle without any advance planning on their part.

So, what does this boil down to? I think they were hoping I was going to come in and volunteer to fundraise the entire amount for a new pool--or our group fundraises heavily, then get the Lion's Club also donate heavily, then get all the labor donated, then apply all that to try to get matching grants from the provincial government. Then build a makeshift pool with whatever we are able to put together, and not do it anytime soon.

I am willing to work really hard, and try to get others on board with fundraising, but since these pools cost $1.5-$3.5 million--just for an outdoor pool--I think the town is right, we do need a miracle!

Number 1

Just thought you all should know...................................................................................................................................................... MY VOLLEY BALL TEAM WON OUR FIRST TOURNMENT
I will post pictures later