Thomas' Christmas 09

Boxing Day we celebrated Christmas with Ken's family. Melissa instantly fell in love with her new sock monkey from Aunt Gayle & Uncle Dennis.

Melissa was excited for Nana & Pop to open their presents from us...

Clipping the hair on her new Rapunzel Barbie doll...

There were many more presents... I just wasn't quite on the ball with taking pics!

Klassen's Christmas 09

Christmas afternoon we celebrated Christmas with my Klassen family. Xander came with his new DSI which certainly intrigued Melissa...

Melissa posing with her new instrument which she fondly refered to as her "guitar"...

Lexi & Melissa playing in Lexi's new clubhouse...

Melissa's latest addition to her "Littlest Petshop" pets...

Christmas at our place 09

Christmas was a very fun time again for us this year. So much anticipation and celebrations to enjoy! The first big present opening we had was just the three of us on Christmas morning before heading to my family's (Klassens) in the afternoon.

Before going to bed on Christmas Eve our tree didn't have very many presents under it, just a few for others. When Melissa got up in the morning it was surrounded by new presents...

Melissa & her stocking...

Housecoat Melissa has been asking for...

New scarf & touque and Perler beads & boards...

Crash and his Christmas present... a motorized mouse with a ball. He wasn't too sure if this was supposed to be fun or not!

Merry Christmas!

Hope you had a wonderful Christmas celebrating with your friends & family. I know we did! As soon as things get back to some sort of normal here I'll post some pics.

We had our family photos done in November and they are posted on the Revival Arts Studio blog here.

Preschool Christmas Play

This morning was Melissa's preschool Christmas play. Melissa's debut performance! I was a little nervous that she wouldn't perform, as lately she has become emotional when I am present at any of her classes. But to my surprise she pulled through and even delivered her lines as you'll see!

Our angel's entrance!

Found us in the audience... mind you I wasn't hard to spot standing a few rows back double fisting cameras!

The performance begins, actions and all...

Away in a manger....

Melissa's line "We got great news so don't be afraid"

Finishing with "We wish you a Merry Christmas"...

Almost the whole cast, didn't manage to get the three wisemen in this photo...

Mini Christmas tree & our giant

We have just begun setting up some Christmas decorations this weekend and Melissa has been very excited to set up our 3' fiber optic tree... and most importantly get her picture taken with it (as she has the last three years: 2008, 2007 & 2006).

Kinda of an illusion with the mini tree & the wall rail... makes her look like a giant!

Dino Dig

This morning Melissa's preschool when on a paleontologist adventure as they are studying dinosaurs this month. They walked to a local student's backyard where various bones were buried for the kids to dig up, and then later take back to their class to clean & put back together.

The wet rope walk...

There were "clues" along the way... dinosaur tracks!

Digging for bones...

One of many bones Melissa uncovered!

Art

Melissa has become very interested in writing & drawing since preschool has started again. It has been fun to watch her art progress into what it is today.

Here is a picture of herself (bottom left) out trick-or-treating, (house bottom right) thinking of me at home with a chair. There seems to be some sort of snake on the ground in front of her.

Here is a picture of Melissa gardening, planting a seed. She says that is the house behind her, where I am looking for clippers for the tall plants in front of her.

This is another picture of Melissa gardening, this time planting sunflower seeds with Pepper (our cat).

Costume Day at Dance Class

A few days before Halloween, Melissa's dance class had costume day.

Doing their warm-up rounds with the magical wands...

The choo-choo train...

Individual technique development...

Keeping her knee high...

Class photo (a couple of girls were missing this day)

Silly photo!

Boo Shoot

On Halloween Melissa had her photos taken in costume by Revival Arts Studio.

Halloween

Yesterday was a much anticipated day!

Nana & Pop came by with a bag of goodies for Melissa... a very abundant bag of loot! Here she is examining item by item with great responses for each favorite :)

Sitting (at times rolling) in the pile of goodies...

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As dusk settled in, we were joined by some friends to trick-or-treat in our neighborhood. One of our first stops was Kim's house, where Melissa (Munchkin as he calls her) was treated to a special bag of candy!

Riley (the cow), Kiera (Snow White) and Melissa (the cat) on the move...

Melissa & Kiera certainly had evolved from years past, they were ahead of the pack, running from door to door...

I had to stop them from time to time for photo-ops to let the littler ones catch up...

It didn't take too long for Chase to see what the girls were up to, and he did his best to keep up with them...

Batman and a tuckered "Robina"... she had had enough candy pimping!

Back home the kids dumped out their loot, and did a little sampling!

First Visit to Dentist

So we may be a little behind on this one, but I didn't have any dental concerns for Melissa & I know her personality enough to know that going sooner wouldn't have produced a good scene. So today we took baby-steps and Melissa got her teeth counted at the dentist's! She was very excited by all the loot she came home with, a Piglet toothbrush, tootie-fruitie dental floss and a ring. She was rewarded for her good behavior with lunch at ('Old' as she calls it) McDonalds.

Here is Melissa on the chair with Shawna, getting the low-down on all her dental gear...

Pumpkin Carving

Melissa digs in for the first time, not really sure about this...

Excited about all the seeds...

She didn't like the feel of the pumpkin goo all over her hands & arms, so she opted for the spoon...

The final masterpieces...

Lit up...