Consider this our family Christmas card

It’s that time of year when Christmas cards arrive in the mail from loved ones and companies you may have done business with in the past. Sometimes the cards contain a cute write-up, with pictures, detailing what said family has been up to for the past year: the triumphs, the trips and the tedious parts in between (please edit those out of future letters).

Blake and I have never sent Christmas cards (this explains why the number we receive seems to dwindle annually), but I like receiving them, with a caveat: if you’re taking the time to mail me a letter, would it kill you to write a personal note atop the picture of your cute kids? Just sayin’. (But please not too much information, unless you’re going to write the inappropriate bits.)

And now, not only am I going to show you cute photos of my kids, I’m going to write stuff too.

The Kadane-Ford family Christmas card

Avery (age seven), Lisa, Santa (ageless), Blake and Bennett (age five).

Dear family, friends and followers,

2012 was an interesting and exciting year for our family. We started off on the right note with a ski weekend in Fernie, B.C. that enabled us to dump the children in ski lessons/childcare and carve freshies grow closer as a family while enjoying powder snow and the great outdoors.

The only bandito we saw: don’t mess with Hello Kitty!

A trip to Ixtapa, Mexico soon followed, despite warnings from friends and family that there were, possibly, banditos laying in wait to kidnap/execute us upon arrival. Fortunately, the only dangers we encountered were roaming crocodiles, stinging jellyfish, beach salesmen hawking hideous Aztec-patterned area rugs, a  wicked hangover after too many margaritas at the swim-up bar while the children were at Kids Camp, and a rogue wave that almost carried Bennett off to sea.

Hearing my little girl sing her first solo brought a tear to my eye. So proud!

Avery, age seven, performed her first choir solo in May, singing a verse from Puff the Magic Dragon. She also enjoyed several summer camps with friends including an art camp at the Calgary Zoo where she learned about tortoises and made, like, 10 paintings of them, which I have since recycled.

It was a year of firsts for Bennett, age five. He achieved potty training success a mere week before he lost his first tooth in June. He also enjoyed his first trip to Texas to attend the Chromosome 18 Registry & Research Society’s annual conference. The highlight? “Eating guacamole.” Finally, Bennett also learned how to ski at Canada Olympic Park. He’s still working on his “pizza” stance and I worry he may plow into small toddlers on the bunny hill at New Years and we’re excited to ski together as a family.

Stopping is over-rated, right?

We made it!

Blake and Lisa spent the summer hiking in preparation for climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania in September to raise money for Bennett’s special needs school, Renfrew Educational Services. The climb and following safari was a life-highlight and we are currently scheming ways to escape the children in 2013 we look forward to another African adventure sometime in the future.

Finally, it was been a year of growth for all of us. Avery is reading chapter books and doing math problems, Bennett is singing Christmas carols and sounding out letters, and Blake and I have become more patient parents — it must be all those cocktails Lisa keeps mixing up for her columns!. We love our kids dearly, but are going stir-crazy trapped indoors with them so far this holiday and love being around them this time of year when they are so excited about Christmas. If we could ask Santa for anything this year it would be continued good health, lots of travel, another record snow year in Fernie and a new Christmas tree box for the kids to play in — the old one is busted. Merry Christmas and all the best in 2013!

Boxes still make the best toys.