Merry Christmas

Traditionally I have mailed out a bazillion Christmas cards with a letter inside updating everyone on our year.  In an attempt to be slightly greener (as I am still sending out Chistmas cards) I thought I would post our letter for this year.

Hello to all our friends and Merry Christmas,


2009 has been a very busy year for our family as usual.  We have been adjusting to life in Winnipeg, MB as that is where Richard has been stationed with his job in Search and Rescue with the Canadian Armed Forces.  I do have to say that the temperatures here are something to get used to. Crazy hot in the summer and insanely cold in the winter. HA!HA!  However, the wonderful friends that we have made, the cultural opportunities we have been taking advantage of, and the fact that we are now living in a large city with all the amenities that go with it has made up for it.  We of course miss our families and friends and look forward to seeing them.  We had my mom come out in Feb/09 and then again in Oct/09.  It was great to see her and I know it makes it easier to have the separation when you can visualize things better, like the inside of the house, where the kids go to school etc.  We also vacationed in Alberta this summer with Richard's parents and had a great time.  We drove which was interesting but much more cost effective and then Richard flew back in November to do some hunting with his dad and spend some time in the evenings hanging out with his mom.


Richard is still busy with work.  He has had some really neat experiences esecially in the last few months.  Just before remembrance day there was a 17 year old Inuit boy from up North that got stranded on an ice flow.  Some of you may have seen it on the news or in the newspapers.  Richard was actually flying the plane that found him and that the Search and Rescue Technicians jumped from in order to perform the necessary medical treatment.  As I am posting this he is just on his way home from a trip to Key West, Florida.  He is still very busy with church as the 2nd counsellor in the Bishopric and playing ball hockey on the side.  We bought a digital piano for Christmas this year and he is thoroughly enjoying practicing that as well.

Alex is in Grade 2 in a French Immersion Program.  He is thriving which isn't a surprise and enjoys his new teachers and friends that he has made.  He loves playing outside, riding his bike, running and now with the weather we have snow boarding is his vehicle of choice.  He joined the youth choir at school and also really enjoys the craft club.  The things he invents and comes home with, made from recycled materials is quite amazing.  Great imagination which he definately got from his dad.

Kristin just started school this year and is in Kindergarten.  Here in Manitoba it is only 1/2 days so she attends in the morning and then is home with Nathan and I in the afternoons.  She is also in french Immersion and is picking it up quite quickly.  She loves her teacher and has always been quite social so she is enjoying her new friends too.  She is in her 2nd year of dance class taking a combined ballet/Tap class on Friday afternoons and it is a lot of fun.  She LOVES to dance and put on plays etc so it is really up her alley.  Her favorite games are guess the animal and charades type things.

Nathan just clebrated his 2nd birthday although you would never know it from just meeting him.  He has a vocabulary of a 3-4 year old which helps with the communication issues but sometimes is too smart for his own good. HA!HA!  He is a generally content little boy who is full of hugs and kisses.  He is so busy exploring and following around his older siblings and trying to do everything that they do.  He loves to color, play with playdoh, but most especially cars and trucks and trains.  He also LOVES babies.  He is drawn to them and always wants to hold them.  He is also definately a south paw.  I have tried giving him his pens/pencils etc in his right hand but he will inevitably switch to his left hand so we'll see how that goes.  I read in a Today's parenting magazine that left handed athletes have much higher chances of receiving athletic scholarships so maybe he'll be able to earn his way through college. HA!HA!  Only 2 and I already have him at college. HA!HA!

As for me, I am still a stay at home mom.  Hardest job I have ever had but also the most rewarding.  Some days I think I would trade it to get a days worth of sanity but I only have to spend one afternoon in rush hour traffic or seeing the awful weather outside and I feel so blessed to be able to stay home.  I started playing soccer again this summer and had a great time.  I have missed it terribly but met some great girls and look forward to playing again next summer.  I am planning on taking piano lessons as well and will really enjoy that.  I am keeping busy as our Ward Activities Chair at our church which means I plan all the social activities that take place.  We just finished with our annual Christmas dinner where we had a full turkey dinner for about 140-160 people.  It was challenging but fun too. 

Well, I hope this letter finds everyone happy and healthy this year and we wish you all the best of 2010.  Keep in touch and we look forward to hearing from you.

Love,

The Kinners

Sweet Jane Bows Giveaway

http://sweetjanebows.blogspot.com/


Kristi has posted another giveaway from  Sweet Jane Bows website. Go check out both blogs there are loads of great things on both of them- and go enter the give away, maybe it'll be your lucky day!!


I have tried to put a picture on but not working at tme moment so I guess you'll just have to go check it out yourself! HA!HA!

Under Construction

This Blog is under construction!


Bare with the designer........she's a frazzle brain!

GIVE AWAY

Hello all,

I am making this post especially for my cousin who is having a draw for a free blog makeover or design. Her site is Visible Voice and she is really good at what she does. I hope you take the opportunity to check it out.

www.visiblevoice.ca

Alberta Summer Fun

Well I am back from the long lost bloggers. HA!HA! I don't know how everyone has time to do this on a regular basis but I love keeping up to date with everyone.

We just returned from spending 2 weeks at Richard's parents place in Watervalley, AB. It was such a wonderful time for all of us. We decided to drive which had its moments but overall went really well. I am including some pictures of the trip and hopefully will do a little better at keeping up.

All the cousins....Alex, Kristin and Nathan with Camryn and Carter (Richard's sister Sandra's little ones)



Going for a ride on the Quad with Opa. We had a major wind storm and some trees came down on the fencing so they were in repair mode.



We planned our trip so late in the summer so that we would have a chance to meet some of Richards relatives that were visiting from Germany. We had a great visit with Opa's cousins and enjoyed learning more German. Even Nathan got in on the action pronouncing some words better than the grown ups. HA!HA!

Nathan enjoying our ride home in the van. The trip was over 15 hours of just driving which in a 5 point harness car seat is not the most fun not that you would know it from this picture.

Here are the 2 other munchkins in the back. They were in their glory as thay had a portable DVD player and movies the whole way.

The Winnipeg Opera presents Madama Butterfly

What a magical night. One of the women in my ward at church invited me to go to the Opera with her. I have never been before and I promised myself that while I was in Winnipeg I would experience as many cultural things as possible so it was another check mark on my list. It was amazing! I was thankful for the english subtitles as it helped me so much to understand the characters better as my italian is a little rusty. HA!HA! Our seats were great and I would highly recommend it to anyone.

Popsicles

At the beginning of May we had some really nice weather where it would go up to 18 or 20 degrees. Only lasted maybe a week and since has been rotten weather and COLD but we enjoyed it while it lasted. Here is Nathan enjoying his very first popsicle. He was sitting on some landscaping tiles in the back yard having a grand time and he thought that was great. He is getting so big so fast I wish I could freeze time.

Yahtzee

We have a Disney children's yahtzee game and we were all playing it together. Nathan was sooooooooo excited about rolling the dice that he hogged them the whole time and we ended up letting him roll for most of us. Then after the game was over I let him go to town with the dice. He thought it was too fun and watching him was a riot!

Richard's Birthday

Well I am going to throw some random posts at you as they become available. HA!HA! Our computer was in need of some TLC and now we are back up and running so let the posting begin!



Richard opening his big surprise present ( it is always very difficult to get him something he likes but doesn't know about in advance!)

Rich and the kids with his annual Black Forest Cake.

Rich and his new firepit. Plan was that we like to have bonfinres and now even though we have to live in the city we can still enjoy the outdoors in our little backyard.

The kids of course thought this was great!!


Nathan got in on the eating marshmallows but not roasting them.

Kristin loves smores...


But not as much as Alex! HA!HA!

Fine line between enjoying the marshmallows and dealing with the sticky mess it creates. Nathan was having no enjoyment of the mess! TUB TIME!

Kristin's 5th Birthday

One of Kristin's gift openings and a run in with Alex. True life at the Kinners! HA!HA!

The Ball Popper

One of Nathan's favorite gifts from Christmas.

Back In Time...Christmas morning Santa Came!

Here is a video of the kids on Christmas morning just after they discovered Santa had come!

The tree on Christmas Eve

Here are a bunch of photos from Christmas morning....

Nathan and the hat

I have neglected my blogging for quite some time and, although I still enjoy reading everyone else's fairly often, I felt the need to update ours as well. Having said this, be prepared for multiple posts. HA!HA!

First up is Nathan. He is so cute as all children are at his age. Discovering new things and having their own quirky characteristics. One of Nathan's is that he loves to put everything on his head. In this particular video it is Daddy's hat which does indeed go on a head. However, it does not need to be something that belongs there, just anything in general from receiving blankets to the kids underwear (when he is helping mommy fold laundry) to toys. He did eventually get the hat on properly but I missed it in the video. He was about 14 months old at this point.

Another one of his favorite things is drawing. Not sure which hand is dominant yet as Daddy keeps switching it to his right but I know he does like to use his left. Here is a photo of all three kids using their creative talents.

Alex's creativity led him to adorn our dining room walls like an exhibit at an art gallery of his Pokemon drawings. Below are only a small sampling of the artwork created. HA!HA!

Royal Winnipeg Ballet presents Peter Pan

With the generous support of my mom, we were able to surprise Alex and Kristin with a night at the Ballet. Kristin started taking dance classes since we have arrived here in Winnipeg and her dance school was offering the opportunity to purchase tickets at a group rate so we thought about it and decided to go. IT WAS MAGICAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We have wonderful friends, Allison and Chris who babysat Nathan as no babies are allowed. We got the kids all dressed up and they had no idea where they were going. The drive downtown was beautiful as all the street lights were up and they go ALL out for Christmas here. (Gotta have something to be excited about in these temperatures. Ha!Ha!) When we arrived at the concert hall and they saw the posters we told them what we were doing and they were so excited! It was so much fun to hear Kristin whisper "Wow" and "I wish I could dance like that". By the middle of the first act, Alex asked Richard if we could come again sometime. I knew Kristin would enjoy it but I wasn't sure about Alex but he loved it too. We weren't allowed to take any pictures of the performance but took a few before it started to try to have something to remember it by.


Just before the curtains opened


All of us anxiously awaiting the beginning.

Almost time!!

Up on A Housetop

Our first event of the Christmas Season was Alex's school Christmas Concert. It was called Once on a Housetop and they put on quite a performance. The school that Alex attends is extremely ethnically diverse with maybe even 6 or 7 different ethnicities in his classroom. The play was about Chimney Sweeps peeking in and seeing many of the different celebrations that take place this time of year from Chinese New Year to Kwanza. Alex's class sang 2 songs, 1 English and 1 French. I have included some of the French one in the form of a video here and just the one picture. He is in the middle row, closest to the conductor in the photo and the one having trouble with his Santa Hat in the video. HA!HA!