Uh Oh

Now we are in trouble...

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Making the best of a rather rainy day

We had a bit of a downpour yesterday while Grandma and Grandpa H were in town. This meant we couldn't do all the standard outside stuff that Matthew likes to do... or could we. Matthew loves puddles, and he has a full body rain suite, so he doesn't care. So Grandpa and Matthew got all suited up and out they went to explore the puddles. The question is, who had more fun?

The lake in front of our house

good thing that wagon has high suspension

Height

We have a wall at the cottage where we have been marking the heights of various family and friends for quite a number of years now. Matthew has been added twice, but this is Rachel's first time. It is really fun to see how tall the kids are in relation to their cousins at a give age or even each other.

Matthew, not so sure about the whole process

Rachel required some assistance

Standing

Rachel is making good progress. Standing now, more or less on her own. She won't do it for long, but she can stand without holding on to things. We are pretty sure walking is right around the corner.

Rachel Standing

Reading

There was a time when Matthew wouldn't sit still for stories. We couldn't even get through a Sandra Boynton book. I thought he would never like books and that was a terrible thought for me, as a teacher, to have a kid who didn't like reading. Of course, he was only a few months old at the time. Rachel is still at this point. I can't get any stories into her...yet.

So you can imagine my joy at witnessing this today at naptime. Matthew has taken to reading some of his own bedtime stories. Usually this involves him looking at either his Cars or Thomas the Train Look and Find books and pointing out all the characters he knows or finding the objects. Definitely interested in books, but not exactly quality literature.

Today he read The Monster At The End Of This Book all by himself.

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Location:Sedgeley Ct,Winnipeg,Canada

Family Christmas in Brandon

Every year, Kristine's extended family gathers to celebrate Christmas.  If you got us all together, there would be about 50 of us. That rarely happens, though, because a whole bunch live on the west coast.  With just the Manitoba crew, there is still about 35 and so we are much too large a group for someone's house. For the last couple of years, we have been meeting at a hotel in Brandon for the weekend and it is a nice way to celebrate the season, have some fun and stay in touch with everyone.  Here are some pictures of some of our activities...

We had a sleigh ride on Saturday. It was a pretty cold wind, but fun.

Matthew enjoyed his first sleigh ride. Rachel slept through it.

Matthew's 2nd birthday also fell on this weekend so we got him a cake to celebrate.

He did pretty good blowing out his own candles, with only a little help from Dad.

He had no problem eating it all by himself!

Rachel hanging out with another Auntie Trisha!

Swimming in the hotel pool. Always a good time.

Father-Son Bonding Time

For his birthday, Matthew got a Lego Star Wars Advent Calendar from Grandma Gerhard.  Because he is too little yet for the tiny pieces, it was also a gift for Daddy. The two of them have been diligently opening a little door every night and building the Lego together. Matthew looks forward to it. During the day, he will periodically point to the box sitting on the piano and tell me "wait Daddy".

You can tell they are working hard...see the tongue sticking out?

teamwork

 

The finished product.