A Visit with Santa

Happy Holidays!

Christmas is Coming!

Kiera and  I decorated the tree on the first of December (the boys fell asleep on us) and we've been to a few other events to get in the Christmas spirit.

The Candlelight Santa Parade was a hit - two thumbs up! 

Kiera's favourite part was collecting the loot.

Kiera made her stage debut in 'Wonderland'.  The performance was put on by her preschool which is part of a fine arts school with music, theatre and dance classes.  The story of Alice in Wonderland wove together acts from each of the classes - everything from Swan Lake to Cher.  Kiera's class was DISCO.  (Unfortunately, we had not one, but two video cameras die on us so you will have to add the 'Staying Alive' soundtrack yourself.)

Looking to see if she can spot us out in the audience.

It took a little time to warm up, but then she started grooving.

The whole cast (and that is just for the second show!)  A huge undertaking and very well done.

Birthday Boy!

Kiera helped me do some holiday baking before Riley's party.  Riley was quick to catch onto climbing on the stool to see and 'help'.  Now he loves to climb and will drag chairs or boxes around to climb on to get into things (namely trouble).

  

November

At the park

SuperSunday at the Vancouver Art Gallery

Kiera is making and testing her mermaid shadow puppet.  

Hemlock

We wanted to go for a hike one Sunday.  The snow caught us by surprise.  Luckily Kiera had her boots in the van.

   

Halloween

Princesses Kiera and Melissa waiting for the Bobs and Lolo concert to start.

  

SuperRiley

Trick or Treating later in the day.  (Melissa's made a costume change.)

October 'Field Trips'

This is a longer post about some of the fun places we've been this month.

We stumbled onto the multicultural festival one Saturday early in October.  There were no fewer than 5 bouncy castles and Kiera was in 4 of them.  She had to line up for the Disney princess bouncy castle, but one of the others she had to herself for a while.  Kiera keeps hoping we will turn a corner and run into this festival again. 

The fire hall had an open house one evening.  We met our friends Melissa and Donna there.  Kiera had fun playing on the fire truck (directing other kids 'comon, this is serious people, this is an emergency!') and using the fire extinguisher which she kept going back to line up for.

One of Kiera's favourite things to do on the weekend is go swimming.  On this day, Kiera and Ken went for a swim while Riley napped.  He woke up in enough time for a little shopping before we picked them up at the pool.

Kiera is looking forward to Halloween.  I made her these leg warmers just for fun.

We've been enjoying some beautiful fall afternoons at the park.

We've also been to a couple of pumpkin patches.   Kiera's first preschool field trip took us to Willow View Farms.  We took a hay ride, picked a mini pumpkin (Kiera choose a Wee B Little as she wanted a smooth one), learned about pumpkins and dwarf apple trees, visited the petting barn (where Kiera got to pet week old bunnies and chicks), and sampled some fresh apple juice.

    

Kiera and her new preschool friend Connor rode together on the hay ride and the tractor.

A few days later, we went to the Applebarn.   The jumping pillow was a huge hit again this year and the tractor course and slides were a lot of fun too.  Of course, there was also the pre-requisite hay ride and petting zoo.

This year, Dayne joined in on the bouncy pillow fun. 

These two hooligans even started pummelling an older kid, the official story is the older boy was showing them some 'moves' but I remain to be convinced! 

Riley and Taya are still a little small for jumping but they had fun on the tractors.

Kiera and Dayne had a blast together

3'2" (a few inches on last year)

and 2'2"

Our most recent filed trip was out to the Othello tunnels which are just 'beyond hope'.  A nice walk and the first tunnel is sufficiently spooky for this time of year.