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!

Christmas Newsletter 2008

This year has been a whirlwind and I have no idea where the time has gone but wanted to take a few moments to share some of the exciting events that have happened this past year. It is the one time of year that we really try to reach out to all those we love and especially those who haven’t heard from us in some time.

I am sure that most of you know now that we have been posted to Winnipeg, Manitoba. We rec’d the posting message in March and should have been in Winnipeg by July but there were apparently other plans for us as it took almost 6 months to the day to sell our house in Greenwood. Trying times! HA!HA! We closed the sale on the house and headed out here mid-September and adjusted to life in a hotel room for a little over a week. Very interesting with the 3 kids that’s for sure. I thought I would love going out to restaurants to eat and having someone clean our room but it sounded more glamourous than it actually was. HA!HA! We have since settled into our wonderful new home. We knew that it was meant for us from the moment we stepped foot inside and it has been a wonderful blessing ever since. We live in a quiet neighborhood in the South end of the city called Lindenwoods. We have been welcomed very warmly by our new church friends here and have been blessed by many invitations to dinner and social functions.

Alex is 6 ½ now, in Grade One and has continued in a French Immersion program. He is loving it and I am amazed at how easily he adjusted to new friends and a new school. He is losing teeth like crazy and already has 4 of his grown up teeth in with 3 more on the way. He’s missing his 2 front top teeth which I think is just perfect for this time of year! HA!HA!

Kristin will be 5 end of Jan/09 and has started a dance class where she is learning Tap, Jazz and Ballet and she is really enjoying it. That girl was born to dance! We decided against preschool as it was a little late to register and it is really nice to have her home for a little bit longer. She has a friend Amy who comes to play once or twice a week and she really looks forward to that too.

Nathan celebrated his first birthday in October and has been a pure joy. He has 12 teeth already and is trying to talk up a storm. Over the last few days he has been really trying to take a lot more steps so I think the walking phase will be just around the corner. He has started a screaming phase lately so we are working on Baby Signing with him to see if we can reduce the frustration levels and tone things down a bit. HA!HA!

We were able to have a little company as Richards parents were able to come and celebrate Nathans birthday with us and visited for a week. We look forward to many more visits from friends and family.

Richard has been working like crazy. He is still flying the Hercules C-130 in Search and Rescue and they have a very busy squadron here. He is lucky to have a number of guys on the squadron that he has known for a long time so that made the transition for him a little easier. He is enjoying a little hockey on the side with some of the guys from church and we have been busy with renovation plans for the basement.

I am adjusting to life in the prairies. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a little bit homesick but to be expected after having lived my whole life in NS. The temperatures here are crazy and tonight for instance it is –26 with a windchill of –41. So glad for a nice warm house! HA!HA! I am enjoying having no commitments as I had a very busy volunteer life in Greenwood but have been able to just enjoy settling in and spending time with the kids and Richard. I know it provides a greater stability and the kids are really responding well to it.

We have enclosed a photo and apologize for the quality. The cropping and copying went awry at some point but at least it is a current photo taken Nov 28th at our church Christmas dinner.

We hope that everyone is healthy and happy and has enjoyed a wonderful year as well. We look forward to the New Year and all that 2009 has to bring and wish you and your loved ones a wonderful new year.

Love,Tanya, Richard, Alex, Kristin & Nathan