Rachel's birthday

Here Rachel takes her new trike out for a spin. Rachel also received a new car for her birthday - a Mazda 5 - although she will let her parents chauffeur her around on occasion. It's not everyday a three year old gets a car for her birthday. We told her not to expect a car for her 16th birthday.
We were very lucky to have Nana and Papa help us to celebrate Rachel's birthday with us. Dennis cooked up a wonderful birthday dinner that we all enjoyed. In this picture, Rachel is holding the Cabbage Patch doll her grandparents gave her - especially picked out by her Papa from the Patch. Nana remembered the time that she was almost killed in a near riot at Zellers when buying a Cabbage Patch doll for Jeanette when she was a little girl.
Here is Elliot enjoying some of Rachel's birthday cupcakes. He also tried to catch a ride on Rachel's trike when we weren't looking. He was very quick to get up on it and try to scoot away.

Rachel's third birthday

Today is Rachel's third birthday! It is hard to believe that three years have flown by so quickly. We can't imagine what our lives were like before you arrived - you are so special to us.
As you can see, the folks at daycare treated her like a princess - including a crown and some lovely face paint. We also let her pick out a dress to wear to complete the ensemble for the day.
Here is Rachel blowing out her candle with a little help from her dad. This is actually her second chance at blowing out the candles - she was quite upset that we did not let her lick the icing off the candles the first time.
Here is Rachel opening up some of her gifts. You can tell by her winning smile that she is grateful to have them.

Dashing through the snow

Rachel and Elliot have been getting some good use out of their sleds this year. Rachel can even pull Elliot in the sled a bit (as long as he is pointed down hill).

The Snowfort

We have been blessed with a ton of snow this year (the glass IS half full) and so we have had a lot of fun playing in it. We built a three-room snow fort that is the envy of the neighbourhood.

Opening gifts

Here are some of the gifts the kids received this year - a pirate hat, a beautiful dress (thank you auntie Gloria and Uncle John), some shakey eggs and of course, books. This does not even begin to cover the mountain of gifts under the tree...thank you to all the very generous grandparents, aunties and uncles and cousins. It really is appreciated.

Santa arrives!

Santa was worried about Dennis and Jeanette schlepping toys all the way from Stratford to Ottawa. He thought a few things might get lost along the way. So he kindly left everything wrapped under the tree in Ottawa, and a nice letter explaining all of this in Stratford. So, when we got back to Ottawa from our trip, we spent a morning unwrapping gifts.
As you can see Elliot is quite delighted by the process. Here he is saying "yay" with Dennis.
Rachel was our Santa elf. She fetched the gifts from under the tree and presented them to the person they were for (and often was quite helpful in unwrapping the gift as well!).
We thought this might also be a good opportunity to teach Rachel the difference between R (for Rachel) and E (for Elliot). So Dennis drew this helpful diagram.

The cousins

Rachel and Elliot had a wonderful visit with their cousins Shannon, Nicole, Erin and Leigha. The Blaine girls were great with the kids, sharing their bedrooms and toys with them. Here they are having Boxing day breakfast together.

Van Staalduinen Family Christmas

Each year, the Van Staalduinen clan gets together for Christmas dinner. This year 51 people sat down to celebrate together (after a pre-dinner floor hockey and volley ball game to get the apetite ready). Folks came to Stratford from as far away as Ottawa, New Jersey and Kuwait. Special thanks to the Blaines who were the key organizers of this year's feast. Rachel and Elliot really enjoyed meeting their extended family - many of whom they were meeting for the first time.

Elves in the shelves

Our house became infested with elves this Christmas. Here are two specimens we managed to flush out by leaving out some gingerbread and egg nog.

Christmas Pageant 2008

Here is the cast for the Ascension Christmas Pageant 2008. Dennis is producer, writer, director, musician, and all round child wrangler. Jeanett is a sheperd. And this is appropriate as both Rachel and Elliot were sheep this year.
Rachel really wanted to be an angel this year (she also wanted to have her own dressing room with a bowl full of Smarties with the brown ones picked out). However, it was decided that the sheep really needed her talent.
Elliot, who had just started walking, was also a sheep. He made it down the aisle (with the help of Nana Rule) but things kind of got out of hand at the front of the church. So he watched the rest of the festivities from the second row. Next year, he will be a star sheep.
Here is the manger scene for the pageant. You can see Rachel-as-sheep sitting with the other sheperds (Mom-sheperd is taking the picutre) with her fashionable winter boots on. It gets cold in the winter in Bethlehem.

Gingerbread house

Here are Rachel and Elliot eating their first gingerbread house. Nana Rule bought it for them at a church bakesale. Rachel's favourite part were the jelly beans. The look a little like Hansel and Gretel, non?

The Nutcracker

Nana Rule treated Rachel and Jeanette to see the Nutcracker this year at Centrepointe theatre. It was Rachel's first visit to a ballet, and live theatre show. She really enjoyed it and sat captivated through the whole thing. She found the mice a "little bit scary" but loved the Snow Queen fairy and magically growing Christmas tree. As for Jeanette, she had never seen quite so many little girls in glittery twirly dresses packed into a theatre. There was one in every second seat!