Sunday, December 30, 2007

Christmas with fam and friends

MERRY late Christmas!
Jesus was born!!! I'm OH so glad about that.
We spent lots of time with our families this year. Much better than the regular quick visits here and there. We were at Derek's Dad and Rita's for 4 days at the weekend of the 15th,
Highlight: Getting snowed in on the snowy blowy Sunday, so we canceled both our work days and stayed til Monday.

We were at my parents place for 6 days! (Not Derek though, he had to go home to work Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, poor guy.) high
Highlight: the Mulder/Deal Christmas Competition Extravaganva. (pingpong, crochinols, (sp?) shoelbuck (sp?) (shuffleboard type deal), euchre, even sudoku. Rob was the grand champ, even though he lost to Mr. Deal (Dave's father in law) in ping pong. Favourite quote during pingo pong: "That was Asian!" I'd like to announce that I came in 5th place. :0)

Anyway, I wish I could say I took some real nice Christmassy pictures. It's always so busy, and I don't like being behind a camera the whole time. Would rather be spending time with people in person! So here are some of the shots I did get.


Abigail and Riley


Abigail and Geneva ready for the snowstorm. (it lasted about 3 minutes before they came back inside.)

Geneva took this one of her 'tousin' Travis

OOOOOH, a Dora bowl!

Geneva with her Opa.


Can't decide if we're really having fun out here or not...

My fam. (Nice jammies Rob.)

Brookie's favourite present! A touch and feel, movable doggie book.

Ok, NOT a good picture of me. This is us watching the amazing curling video Bri made of us to highlight the annual Mulder and friends curling. Dave curled with a broken wrist, and Derek curled with a torn quad. They both did rather well, and no further injuries, so that's good.


I even got to see my friends from high school, Debbie and Mariah! I got to meet baby Luke for the first time too, that was very exciting. SO nice to see you girls! We'll have to try to meet up again next year, k?

Terrible Dutch pronunciation, I'm sure... but fun nonetheless...

My God is so BIG!

Leroy the Great



Zach Zerfzminsky reporting for the Midland Daily Snooze:

Neighbours have awarded trophies for it, visitors from afar have requested pictures next to it, children have been afraid of it. It is Leroy, the annual towering snow creature created by the Mulder brothers.

Brian James Mulder, the brains behind the project, said he wanted to go above and beyond the average snowman.

"He's beautiful." says the creator as he looks lovingly upon his sculpture which took hours of rolling snow, and an assembly line of sorts in which the brothers rolled large snowballs, broke them into chunks, and tossed them up to Brian who sat on the top of the structure.

"He might not be that good-looking, but he's big. And that's what counts," says youngest brother Rob.

The brothers all worked together including bil (brother in law) Derek Huisman, and eldest brother Dave, who with a broken wrist was only able to use his foot to pack down the snow.

"He gets bigger every year," said an astonished Nelly Mulder, mother of snowbuilder masterminds, and co-owner of the home at 2308 Parkwood Drive. "I'm just worried he'll still be on my front lawn in April."

The Leroy tradition began three years ago, when the Mulder brothers created a 7 foot snowman with outstretched arms on the Mulder front porch. "I felt like I was being welcomed to the neighborhood with a big hug." says past resident Jim Schreck, now residing in Lake City, MN.

Two years ago Leroy was bigger and better than the year before, sporting hockey pucks for eyes, a tie, and a mop for hair. In 2006 Leroy was non-existent due to a green Christmas.

The annual Leroy the snowman event took place at the Mulder household on December 22nd, 2007. Please watch next year for pictures of another amazing snowman.

The Mulder-Huisman clan in action as Leroy begins to take shape.

Getting bigger.

Brian Mulder, snow artist in action.

WOW.



Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Art day!


Brooke loves colouring SOOOO much. Colour wonder markers are an amazing invention; otherwise we'd have marker alll over hands, faces, not to mention clothes and table!

We made lotsa Christmas ornaments!

Decorating the ornaments (more sparkles on hands than ornaments!)

Windows and such

The big girls playing outside while the babies stay in. Too wet and cold for the babes. Also, the mom/babysitter is too lazy to get all 4 of them bundled and such.


Hey, where'd she go?

No idea how Brookie got this scratch. However, Geneva was found with a big scratch on her nose the very same day, thus a cat-fight is suspected. I think the two of them swore a secret pact that they wouldn't tell Mommy what happened so they wouldn't get in trouble.


Fun with windows