Meeting Oscar

Michaelia and Oscar arrived at our house on Friday. We were so excited to finally meet our very first nephew and cousin, Oscar! Lewis and Jaina both adored him (as did his Auntie and Uncle), and Oscar was smiling at them too. Auntie Michaelia took Jaina to see her very first movie, Enchanted. They had a great time, and Michelle and Lewis had fun hanging out with Oscar. Here's a video of Lewis kissing Oscar:


Jason arrived Friday night, and Saturday we met up with Matt and Jason's parents at Heritage Park for the 12 Days of Christmas. It was a delicious brunch and a fun morning. Here are some photos:

Jaina and Papa Olfert playing with the hay

Lewis and Grandma Olfert Jaina and her decorated cookie (there is in fact a cookie under there!) Michaelia also took a photo of the whole family:
We are now looking forward to celebrating Christmas in Lethbridge and then Taber with family.

Festival of Lights

On Friday night we went to the Festival of Lights out in Airdrie with my sister Veronica and her hubby Chris. We had never been before and thought we'd check it out. It ended up being quite chilly, but beautiful and we had a good time. Here are some pictures:Jaina and Auntie Veronica

Christmas Party

On Sunday, we took the kids to Matt's work Christmas party. Just like last year, they had awesome activities for the kids. We all had a good time, here are some pictures:
Jaina and Matt with one of Santa's reindeer:

Family photo (sans photographer):
Cookie decorating:

Trying to grab cookie:
Santa was there to see the kids. Jaina was great this year (after all, how can you tell Santa what you want for Christmas if you don't sit on his lap??), but Lewis freaked, so we got a family photo done: Santa brought gifts!

Lewis remembers what to do with them...

First Real Snow

Yesterday afternoon we went outside to enjoy the first substantial snow of the season. I think we may have almost spent longer putting all the winter clothes on than we were outside! It was quite fun and I took lots of pictures because this is Lewis' first real winter, last year we either played outside while he was napping or he was in the bucket carseat so covered up that he couldn't even see out the blankets. At first he wasn't sure what to do but then he was crawling around and of course, trying to eat the snow. Here is a slideshow, and then a video of him laughing his funny little laugh as Jaina throws snow up in the air.

And, for your amusement, a video of our little Guitar Hero singing a song, complete with the moves she must have picked up from watching Matt play:

Party Time

Happy Birthday to Matt and his Dad! They both celebrated their birthdays on the 20th of this month, Matt is now a triple threat at 33 and his dad celebrated a milestone birthday (but I won't say which one, it's not my business to...) We will be celebrating with Matt's Dad when we see his parents tomorrow, but here are some pictures of Matt's birthday, which we celebrated the day after his real day, since he went to a hockey game Tuesday night (and the Flames gave him a victory as his birthday gift!).

Jaina and I made him a Flames cake:

Lewis enjoyed eating Daddy's cake:

and hamming it up for the camera:

The Guitar Hero:

Lewis is changing very quickly these days, he now stands up holding on to furniture and is just beginning to take tentative cruising steps while holding on to something. He is starting to talk, although there are about 10 things he could be referring to when he says some version of "baba": bottle, soother, Jaina, Daddy, bye-bye, apple, etc. He is, however, quite the climber, we both know that we will soon have our hands very full, even fuller than now! Here's a picture of him after having climbed on top of his Little People Garage (while watching Matt try out Guitar Hero, Lewis was really rockin' out, it was quite the site). He happily practiced climbing up and even putting his hands out in front of him to brace himself as he fell forward to get off of it.

He broke a big chunk off one of his front teeth at the beginning of the month, and he was only crawling and slipped and smashed his face on the floor. (Took him to the dentist so they could check it, she said it looks harmless and to come back in a month to be sure, but otherwise they just leave it because it's just a baby tooth. So now he has a fang). I'm scared to imagine what will come since he's discovered how much he likes climbing! See the broken tooth? (Top middle)

Congratulations to my friend Rachel who got married a few weeks ago! They were married in a small family wedding before Tapan was due to return to India, and will have a big wedding in the summer over there with his family. She had a bunch of us girls over 2 days before the wedding to catch up and celebrate while her friend from med school did mehendi (Indian henna) on her hands and feet for the ceremony. We also at some very yummy Indian food. (Tapan did the cooking for us, what a nice guy and a good cook!) We all had the chance to get some mehendi too, so of course we did. It was so beautiful I thought it was blog-worthy. You leave it on to dry, even overnight, then brush off the dried paste and it leaves a nice reddish-brown print on your skin. It lasts for a week or two, depending of course what you do after (too bad, I spent the weekend repainting Lewis' room so mine was quite worn off after all the washing).

Here's Rachel with her hands and feet done. The pictures don't do it justice, there was even green and silver glitter to fill in some of the design.

My hand (and the artist was so talented it took her all of 5 minutes to do it):

The happy couple, Rachel and Tapan:

Well anyways that's it for now. I guess if I blogged more often each post could be shorter, but oh well. We will be very busy getting ready for Christmas over the next few weeks but hopefully will have time to at least put up some pictures of all the fun craziness.

October Occurences

Well, October was a very busy month for our family (so much so that I'm just posting about it now). We made a trip down to Taber to celebrate Thanksgiving and our brother-in-law's birthday. Happy October birthday to Chris! We were very thankful that we were all healthy enough to celebrate together. A couple of weeks later we began celebrating Jaina's 4th birthday, a perhaps too-long series of celebrations that stretched out over a week (and made our little princess feel like she was, in fact, a real live princess. But I think we're over it now). Our little girl is now 4, and still changing and amazing us all the time. And as soon as the birthday excitement died down, it was Halloween! So we are looking forward now to a couple more quiet weeks before we begin with Matt and his dad's birthdays, and the beginnings of preparation for the Christmas season. I was planning on making the rest of this post short on words, and long on pictures, which tell of some of the excitement themselves. So, here goes:

The weekend before Jaina's birthday, we celebrated her birthday, and Papa Klemen's with a family dinner and birthday cake. Jaina insisted on wearing her Snow White costume, which we had bought for Halloween but told her she could wear for her (kid's) birthday party. But she just couldn't wait, so...

Celebrating the next day with Grandpa and Grandma Olfert (upon their return from visiting Jason, Michaelia and Oscar in NY):
Making "Monster Mash" cupcakes for birthday treats at preschool:

Jaina's actual birthday. New princess scooter! Birthday present from Mom and Dad:
Birthday cake at the "friend party" (note her brother's excitement in the background!)

Jaina and Matt carving pumpkins, and the results:

Halloween night, all ready to go trick-or-treating:Lewis, the man-eating monkey:It was an exhausting, but wonderful, month!

Sylvan Lake, School, and September

I have been meaning to post for a long time about our holiday to Sylvan Lake at the beginning of September. But since it has taken me so long, I will also have to include the activities of the rest of the month as well. So here goes, a hopefully not-too-wordy post, with lots of pictures of the month's events.

We enjoyed a wonderful 5 nights at a cottage in Sylvan Lake at the beginning of this month. The weather was nice the first couple of days and then ended up being a little cool, but it was nice to get away as a family and spend some quality time together. Matt would have been able to do a lot more if he was not still on his crutches, but still enjoyed the get-away. The cabin was really cute, and the bunk beds were possibly the highlight of the whole experience for Jaina. She also loved exploring and playing at the beach. Here are some pictures:

Jaina started preschool this week. She is going 2 mornings a week. She's only been two days, and always claims to "forget" what they did all morning (we're sure it's because they have been going to the jungle gym for the last half hour and it's so exciting that it's all she can think about). She will tell us with a little prompting. It's interesting to be the parent and not the teacher, and be hearing our rambunctious little girl described as being "very quiet" at school. But we can tell she loves it because she has been playing school for the past few days, lining up all her imaginary students to explain rules to them and take them to the jungle gym. Here are some pictures of her this first week:

The first day of school:
Ready to go:
At school:
New school dress:
Here are some other pictures from the past week or so.

Cool clouds that came in one night before a rainstorm:Jaina and the "big mountain" at the Zoo:
Using the homemade "binoculars" at the Zoo (Devun is in the background):