Here marks the pre-Christmas festivity post!
To kick off the season we attended the Edmonton Cerebral Palsy Association Christmas party.
They always have great crafts and activities for the kids.
We dug out the Christmas decoration boxes from the basement and had a fun evening of decking the halls.
Claire supervised us in a very proper manner, pinky up.
Merry Christmas!
Our little home-made tree, heavily decorated where Madeline could reach.
Under the tree is a very good place to play, indeed.
As a child, I used to love laying underneath our tree, looking up at the lights and daydreaming about presents.
Our living room has been home to countless dance parties, usually instigated by Madeline. She's become a real fan of They Might Be Giants and Michael Jackson lately. :)
One of the best parts of December was the new additions to our family! Drew was born to Steph and Greg, and Kooper was born to Steph and Brandon, way over in New Zealand. We got to meet Drew at the hospital and are excited to meet Kooper when they can make their way over here or vice versa!
Madeline was only a little excited to meet one of her new cousins.
Claire was excited too, but I had to help her be gentle while she greeted him and so I couldn't take a picture at the same time.
A fun tradition we started last year was going to see the Christmas lights turned on at the Legislature. Natalie came with me and the girls this year and we had lots of fun, even though it was a bit too cold to stay outside for long.
Madeline, the queen, in her fanciest snow pants.
I think she enjoyed being up there!
Claire loved the lights and the choir music.
The decorations were beautiful.
The company was...hilarious.
I love catching Claire's happy moments...
...and Madeline's crazy ones, which seem to be the norm these days...ha ha.
We were wondering about the big hubbub on the stairs once we got outside, but then Premier Redford appeared and made a little speech. We just listened from afar, but noticed that she chose not to wear a coat. I guess it doesn't look good to be too bundled up for the photo ops....ha ha.
The best part was the countdown.
The anticipation is delicious and then, bam, lights galore!
I love this picture - you can barely see Claire under all her layers.
We wandered around a bit before we got too cold, but it was a great evening.
Madeline got some easy-to-use paint tattoos for a gift a while ago and decided to use them all up at once. She looked like she was ready for war...and then was ready for a bath.
We enjoyed Madeline's kindergarten Christmas concert. The English and French classes sang together and then did special numbers themselves. She was so excited to have us all there.
When Madeline caught Ryan taking pictures, she adopted this strange victory-like pose and wouldn't stop until he sat back down. What an interesting child we have. :) It was so fun to watch all the kids as they sang.
After the concert we had two rounds of family photo attempts and this was the best result.
I'll take it.
Madeline has had lots of fun with gymnastics these past few months.
She's fearless!
She was very proud of her accomplishments.
And she's cute as a button. :)
Please excuse the nudity in this post, but I just had to show you Claire's new bath chair. It lifts her up and down, in and out of the water and saves our backs when we transfer her. Now we just need to get an extra large jacuzzi tub for her to really stretch out in. She soaks the entire bathroom with her long-legged splashes. :)
We had a fun time at Claire's school winter celebration. It's always a very well-attended event so we rushed to the sleigh ride before it got too busy and managed to snap a nice picture of all of us during the ride.
Other family festivities included a Chinese food birthday dinner for Dad and attending our ward Christmas party.
Ryan is always helping friends with computer issues and continued doing that this month. He also went on a leadership retreat with the school, did some awesome framing work in our basement with Trevor and continued his great work on his masters.
I helped out with a popcorn fundraiser and hot lunch at Claire's school, had to get a couple of fillings at the dentist (I swear I floss!), sold Oil Kings tickets at a local craft sale for the LeeRidge park project, had a fun girl's night with Kathy and attended to all the usual day-to-day stuff of life.
Claire got a sled frame this month, which we're trying to fit a seat on for her to use on the hills. She also had an appointment with her Glenrose neurologist. We're going to be making the rounds to several specialists in the future to establish a baseline for certain aspects of her condition in order to further the research about atypical Rett Syndrome. Hopefully we can contribute to a greater knowledge of it - she's such a good sport when I volunteer her for things. :)
Madeline had a neat in-class presentation at school about bread from "The Bread Lady" and attended uncle Robbie's Christmas concert in Wetaskiwin with me.
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