a weekend of FUN

last weekend was like two weekends packed into one. lots going on and barely enough time to do it all! it started out friday night with going to get a Christmas tree. i love decorating the tree, i love the tree smell, i love the cosy way it makes the house feel. we got one from the nursery near our house. we have never been organized enough to go and chop our own, but i did enough of that growing up so it doesn't bother me too much. plus, i feel sort of sad for these precut trees, since they just go in the chipper if no one buys them.

i spent the rest of friday night and saturday morning finishing my book club book for the month, Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. we had some lively discussion over eggs benedict at Oscar's in Kitchener. good way to start off the morning. then i headed home to tidy and grocery shop before my friend mike came over. alex and i took a load of stuff to the dump, we are really trying to get our garage cleaned out! we can barely move in there!

when mike arrived we went to the theatre to see The Golden Compass. i was a little disappointed when it ended abruptly and mike told me there are supposed to be two more movies :( but i am happy they are finally starting to make more fantasy series into movies, i am looking forward to the Dark is Rising movie coming soon as well.

after the movie we went back to our place to make about 200 cookies. gill joined us for dinner, and then we got to work. we made Spicy Cardamom Crisps (my fave), Molasses Sugar Cookies, Cranberry and Almond Biscotti and Lemon Shortbread Cookies.

From THIS To THIS

the cookie extravaganza took us about 4 hours and gill mixed up a few minty martinis to get us in the christmas spirit. even mike and alex helped after they got their fix of need for speed on the xbox 360 :)

sunday was also quite busy. we woke to about a foot of snow, which meant we had to shovel ourselves out. gill headed over to her house and i loaded up the borrowed van with some of our old furniture to take to gills new house. once we shoveled out i took the long snowy drive to guelph and spent the day helping gill paint her new house (see pic below).

once it started to get dark i drove home so that we could finish decorating the Christmas tree, and we spent 2 hours wrapping all of our gifts. I want to post a pic of that too.....and i will next week. I asked for a little wee camera for Christmas so if i get it, it will be easier to post pics. not that we don't already have enough cameras at our house, but i want something teeny that i can put in my pocket. as much as i love the pics from the SLR, it is a pain to lug it around and i've already got carpel tunnel from WOW.