Happy Birthday Hannah

Well I know it is a little late but I guess late is better then never. Hannah's birthday was on December 10th, and we hosted a small party for her. Everybody had a great time, and Hannah enjoyed opening her presents and eating chocolate cake.

This last month has been an exciting one for Hannah, she has learned how to crawl, clap her hands, wave hello and goodbye, and my favorite. She can stack her blocks four high. She is sleeping her own bed without a peep until 6:00am most nights. She would sleep straight until 8:00 if Dan getting up for work didn't wake her up. She is weaned off of the bottle other then at bedtime. I think that pretty much sums up everything she has started doing in the last month. We're still arguing over whether she actually knows the words momma and Dadda or if she just likes the sound of those words.

In other news, not a whole lot has been happening in my and Dan's world. I feel like we've been supper busy lately, mostly because we've been helping Dan's sister get settled into her new home. And of course in between everything else there is Christmas shopping. I was so proud of my myself last month I was so organized and I wasn't going to leave anything to the last minute. Well that was a joke I still haven't bought for half of the people on my list, and stocking stuffers could really use a boost. But there is still one weekend before Christmas, and I know what I will be doing.

Well to get back to my original post, Happy birthday Hannah, I can hardly believe it has been a year.

Dan's Christmas Carol: All I want for Christmas

You Are "All I Want for Christmas Is You"

I just want you for my own More than you could ever know Make my wish come true... All I want for Christmas is You You only want one thing for Christmas Love from one special person - and you've got it!

What Christmas Carol Are You?

Well I guess it is about time I post. I can't even use the excuse that nothing exciting has happened. My sister Angela came and visited me last week. We had a productive week of shopping and getting the transmission flushed on the van. (which is a story in itself) Over the weekend we went to Saskatchewan, to celebrate my Dad's birthday. (Happy Birthday Dad), And now we're back home, and it has been a pretty boring week. But perhaps I will pad this post with two amusing stories from last week.

1. After meeting Dan for lunch downtown one day last week, Angela and I decided to wonder through the mall in hopes of finding Christmas gifts. We discovered a brand new dollarama and walked excitedly through, finding great stocking stuffer ideas. Well I was parked in spot that turns into a tow away at 3:30pm. I checked my watch at 3:20 and realized we had just enough time to pay for our stuff and get back to the van. We head to the check out and discover to our amazement, this wonderful place that was the answer to all our stocking stuffer woes, only takes cash. As I am not to keen on having my car towed we had to abandon our finds, and rescue my van. A whole afternoon of shopping completely wasted.

2. Back to the transmission flush story. My husband phones me early Friday morning and says go take the van to a Mr. Lube it needs a transmission flush before we go to Saskatchewan. So that afternoon we head to Mr. Lube, and begin what should only be a one hour service. Well an hour goes by, and the mechanic explains to me some problems he is having and how he is going to fix it, (free of charge) and then he can start part two of the transmission flush. Half an hour later another guy approaches us and asks us our opinion on the engagement ring he is going to present to his girlfriend. Yes at this point we have all become the best of buds seeing how we have held captive by them for what seems like forever. Finally 2 and half hours into this adventure we are instructed to pull outside and they will begin the last stage. We pull outside wait patiently for 15 min. Only to discover that some hose has broken and all of our transmission fluid has burst all over their parking lot. Well now they need to push the van back into the garage, fix the hose and refill the transmission. As you can imagine Hannah who has been in the van for just about 3 hours is getting a little impatient. So we abandon our post and head over to another dollar store. (Which was a waste of our time, nothing can compare to a dollarama). Finally after 3 and half hours we get back into the van and drive away, only to make it home just in time to cook supper and head out to look at houses with our real estate agent. Perhaps this story only seems funny to me, as you had to be there. I did however forget to mention the fun of discovering that our cell phone was broken. At some point in the middle of this, I phoned Dan only to discover the speaker on our phone was dead, after several rounds of "hello" "HELLO" I gave up calling him and settled back into my long wait. But of course Dan was curios now and begins phoning me, but needless to say the speaker still doesn't work. He continued to phone us periodically right up until we drove into the driveway at 5:15pm.

well I think of have padded this post enough with my long winded stories.

Happy Halloween

Yeah, it's been a long time since we posted any pictures of Hannah, so here are some of the better ones of her in her Halloween costume:

Remember to click on the image to see more pictures

How very interesting...

You fit in with: Humanism Your ideals mostly resemble that of a Humanist. Although you do not have a lot of faith, you are devoted to making this world better, in the short time that you have to live. Humanists do not generally believe in an afterlife, and therefore, are committed to making the world a better place for themselves and future generations. 20% scientific. 80% reason-oriented.

Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com

She's teasing me

When I went to pick Hannah up this morning, she reached out her arms and proudly proclaimed "Momma". My heart skipped a beat and I couldn't help but want to jump for joy, but then she dashed my hopes when she continued with a whole stream of "Momma"s. All morning every time I looked at her she was saying "Momma", to her toys, her food, her soother. I think perhaps she knows that I am Mom, but hasn't decided to grace me with that title yet. Oh well I guess it will happen soon enough.

Quack!

You Are A: Duck!
	Found in many lakes and ponds, ducks are a common site the world over. Known for their famous quack, ducks tend to congregate in flocks or go off on their own in pairs. As a duck, you may seem friendly at times but will not hesitate to bite if someone is bothering you. Your love for travel and your ability to swim are some reasons why you are a duck.
You were almost a: Monkey or a Bear Cub You are least like a: Bunny or a Chipmunk Cute Animals Quiz

Thanksgiving stories

Well it appears on our trip to Saskatchewan for thanksgiving we traded up on Hannah's cold. We went there with Hannah recovering from a pretty minor cold, and came home with the beginning of a horrific cold. She has been pretty miserable since Tuesday evening. She is in a little bit better mood right now, but I know it can't last. We had a great time over thanksgiving, the food was terrific, and it was great to see everyone again. The first year me and Dan buy a bigger house we will host thanksgiving and hopefully it will be as big a success. I played my very first game of poker over the weekend, and of course I used my beginners luck to my advantage and walked away with lots of money. Unfortunately I can never play again, as my beginners luck will have abandoned me. Oh well I may have to rely on my intellect next time.

Trivia Tournament

I just had to creat my own trivia tournament. The rules are pretty simple, play once a day and after 20 days the person with the highest score wins. Carmen's Quiz! Make sure you play daily! Good luck!

Time to Retire

I think it is time for me to retire from the midnight diaper changes. When I went to change Hannah this morning, I discovered that she was wearing not one but two diapers. Apparently in the middle of the night I forgot to pull the old diaper out from inside her sleeper. But it gets better on the one side I used the tab from the new diaper and did it up correctly, but on the other I grabbed the tab from the outside (the dirty diaper) and attached it to the new diaper. And just incase anybody is worried neither diaper contained any poop. Hannah didn't seem to care she slept through the night wearing two diapers, and neither one on correctly. Of course she may have just been happy because she was sleeping in our bed, and thought she shouldn't push her luck.

tagged?

Thanks Angela, and I noticed you took all the easy people. Here is the deal: 1. Go into your archive. 2. Find your 23rd post. 3. Find the fifth sentence (or closest to). 4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions. 5. Tag five other people to do the same. Okay, from November 22 2004 "When the previous owners laid tile in the kitchen, the thickness of the new sub-floor plus the thickness of the tile and grout reduced the height of the door from the bottom." We finally put in the door at the end of August that we discussing almost a year ago. Talk about procrastionating. and I guess we will tag .... Kelly and Kara, Mike, and Tim and Holly,

Blogging Hiatus

As many of you have probably noticed, I have been somewhat absent from the blogosphere for the last few weeks... Rest assured I am still alive. I have undertaken some web-design work one of my mother-in-law's businesses which has snowballed to the point where I am in the process of building/configuring an OpenBSD web-server. This has been largely successful which means that I should be back to web-design soon, and after that hopefully I'll be back to blogging on a regular basis, although perhaps I'll have to move to my own domain... I guess we'll just have to wait and see...

Crossword mania

Well, I certainly can't complain about not being busy enough. Last weekend was a quick trip down to Edson, to go to a bowling reunion, and then this weekend a wedding. (Congratulations to Kerri and Jay). And the fun doesn't end, next weekend is Thanksgiving so we're off to Saskatoon. I have had a cold for about a week now, and now it seems that Hannah may have finally caught it. So I am hoping everybody is healthy by Friday.

It is funny how things can seem to change so quickly, when I was pregnant with Hannah, it seems I knew very few people who were, either pregnant, trying, or had recently had a baby. Now everybody I talk to is in one of those stages. It is like the world has gone baby crazy. Even our neighbor is pregnant.

I wish I had more exciting things to write about, but I don't. I have become a crossword fanatic lately, so that is all I do all day. I do about half a puzzle get mad look at the answers, and then start the next one. I am finding that having a vocabulary that has lots of big words in it, doesn't help when all of the answers are three or four letters. Except of course for a few, in which I think they make up most of the words.

Hmm well that is all I can think of for now, I am off to have a bath in hopes of encouraging my cold to go away.

Please take a moment...

From the Share A Little Magic site (With thanks from EZ Rock 104.9):

To celebrate Big Brother Big Sister month, MasterCard has put forth a challenge to get 25,000 hits to this site on September 23rd. If successful, MasterCard will donate $75,000 to Big Brothers Big Sisters of Canada. On Sept 23rd, tell your friends that Magic is just a click away...at http://www.ShareaLittleMagic.ca!

yeaaaah!

Hannah has started experimenting with different constanent sounds. It is quite fun listening to her experiment with y, w and g sounds. She has become quite the chatterbox often laughing at herself after a particularity intriguing combination. Her second tooth has come in, and she is a much happier girl now. She was having a particularity rough time with the second tooth. For the last few days anyways she has been back to her usual happy self, and has discovered a new way to move around. She rocks forward putting her weight on her legs and then scooches her bum forward. I find it rather difficult to watch as I keep on expecting her to fall flat on her face.

Our renovations are finally done, and it was defiantly a learning experience. I am just glad we got everything done on time, and our tenant was able to move in without any problems. It is different sharing our house with a complete stranger, but the money is nice, and I am sure I will adjust.

Dan and I just got home from Peace River a few hours ago, and once again it is nice to be home. We met our friends Colleen, and Kara and Kelly there. It was nice to visit with them, as with everybody being so busy, we haven't seen them for anything longer then a meal in at least a year. It was a great weekend, we stayed in a hotel called the Third Mission, which was a renovated mission. Our suite had two bedrooms, a kitchen sitting area, and of course a full bath. And all that for only 125$/night.

We got home just in time to have a quick visit with Dan's parents before they headed off on their trip to Vegas. Lynne and Cliff - We hope you have a great time, and congratulations on renewing your vows. The next 25 years will surely be even more exciting then the last. I think that is everything, I will bug Dan to post some pictures of Hannah and our renovations.

We Passed!

Whew! What a relief. The city inspector came by today to check on our all-new plumbing and gave us a little green sticker indicating that the upgraded plumbing was inspected and meets city plumbing codes. We have been taking some pictures as work on the house has progressed, so hopefully we'll have some time to put them up closer to the end of the week.

For those who weren't aware, we made a snap decision to replace all of the plumbing in our house. For those of you who have had the misfortune of staying at our place, you understand why, for the rest of our readers, a brief explanation:

Prior to the 1960s, most homes were build with galvanized steel pipes - Our house was built in 1953). Over time, these pipes began to corrode, restricting the flow of water. On top of that, there were generally only a few lines that ran throughout the house and any fixtures simply tapped into this central line. As a result, the further down the line a fixture was located, the worse the pressure. As a final problem, most of the cold water fixtures were tied in BEFORE the hot-water heater, meaning the cold water fixtures had significantly more pressure than the hot (No so hot).

Okay, maybe that wasn't so brief...

In order to replace most of this old plumbing, we had to tear off the drywall from the basement bathroom and punch several holes in the upstairs bathroom - Photos of the chaos will be forthcoming.

As with any project I take on, here's where things start going haywire...

We knew that the main-line shut-off was a little finicky (i.e. leaked in some positions), but was still workable (Keyword being was). After one of our pressure tests, the shut-off insisted on dripping continually. So now I have the (mis)fortune of manufacturing a long weekend so that I can phone the city and have my water shut off from the street so I can replace the tap. With the water off, I remove the old cartridge and go to Rona (Home Depot is the Devil) to see about getting a replacement:

Rona plumbing guy: WOW! That's really old! I haven't even seen one of these in YEARS!.

Me: So you don't carry replacements?

Plumbing guy: (laughs)

Okay, so I cant replace the cartridge for the valve, so we decide to finish the job right and replace the whole works - If only I could have actually REMOVED the old valve. Darned steel pipes, who told you that you were allowed to rust up? - Guess we patch the old cartridge up and hope for the best...

When we removed the toilet from the basement, we discovered that it had been leaking into the sub-floor for quite some time. As a result, the sub-floor in the basement bathroom now needs to be replaced. (That's our current project - Also to be completed by Thursday evening)

First Tooth!

You guessed it! At a little over 8 months old, Hannah's first tooth has erupted. Despite the nearly 6 months of her chewing on absolutely everything, there is only a single tooth that has erupted, the bottom right side (so no, she's not even cross-cutting...). Perhaps this explains some of the rough nights that we've been having lately...

Hellooooo???? We're down here!

Wow, 3 weeks since our last post. Guess this little rut is more like a canyon, or perhaps even a crater... The good news is that there's nothing exciting happening in our lives right now. The bad news, there's nothing exciting happening in our lives right now. Perhaps it's the refusal to acknowledge that another (miserable) summer has come and gone, and we only finished a small fraction of the goals that we had set out to achieve. Perhaps it's just that we've grown too content in our cozy little existence. Either way, we have quite a bit coming up in the next little while, so hopefully that will help get us out of this rut...

Guilt post

I am feeling guilty for not posting in two weeks. So here I am with very little to say. Hannah had an allergist appointment last week. We found out she is allergic to eggs and milk. She however does have extremely sensitive skin, and might be getting rashes from eating things like soy, but she isn't actually allergic to it. The Dr. Is pretty confident that she will outgrow both allergies, and we will be doing a challenge in December. But for now I still can't eat milk and now eggs, and we will be weaning her onto a soy formula. She also had an appointment with an optometrist, and it turns out she does have problems with her eyes, but it isn't bad enough to warrant wearing glasses. We have an appointment to go back when she is 18 months. Hopefully her eyes have gotten better, or he may suggest glasses then. Well that is most of the news with Hannah, she has started rolling over every once and a while. She is having great fun experimenting with new sounds, her latest one kind of reminded me of a lizard, so we've been calling her lizard girl this last week. hmm I think that is it, and I don't have anything exciting that has happened to me.

It's to hot!

Edmonton is in the midst of its first heat wave this week, and I'm dreaming of air conditioners and ice baths. Since getting back from our imprompto trip to Saskatchewan on the long weekend it has been unbearably hot, and Hannah has been unbearable grumpy. I don't know what to think of her new found sleeping habits. When in her own bed she wakes up continually and wont fall back asleep without alot of work on my part. But the moment I move her to my bed she lets out a nice contented sigh and promptly falls into a deep undisturbed sleep until morning. I would like to blame this behavior on the heat, but seeing how my room is actually hotter then hers this theory doesn't really hold water. I am lost for ideas on how to get her back to sleeping in her bed, so if anybody has any suggestions please feel free to comment. I had a very enjoyable weekend visiting my family, it felt great to just get away from Edmonton and do nothing but lay around on the beach. We took Hannah swimming in the lake and while I can't say she had a great time, she didn't seem to mind the experience, despite the coldness of the water. But it's back to everyday life, cleaning, shopping (I like to shop) and taking naps with Hannah.

New Toy!

I feel sorry for the poor toy that had to take this picture, as I'm sure it will very quickly be phased out in favor of our new one...

And NO, it did not come from the evil, nasty, vile Future Shop (although the extra tapes did...

This is one of those weeks when I really should have posted daily, now I have so many things to say I don't even really know where to start. My mother and grandmother were in Edmonton this weekend, it was nice to be able to visit family without always having to travel 8 hours. Our good friends Kelly and Kara were also in Edmonton this weekend so we all went out to supper at Eastbound. I particularity enjoy Eastbound as they serve a variety of sushi at exceptional prices. I have to poke fun at Kelly though who I'm sure greatly enjoyed his Tim hortons on the way back to Edson. To add to an already busy weekend it was Father's day on Sunday. To accommodate all of the people visiting on Sunday I took Dan out for supper on Friday night and we enjoyed a nice breakfast on Saturday morning. Hannah (with a little help from me) made Dan a poster featuring foot prints and some very original finger painting.

There is of course always more to say about Hannah, She had a particularity bad cold last week so she was pretty grumpy, but it was mostly gone by the weekend. Of course she gave me her cold so I was sick all weekend. We tried her on the hypo allergenic formula that the Doctor recommended. Of course we discovered that she is also allergic to the hypoallergenic formula. I talked to her Doctor this morning, and he said that at this point he suggests we wait to see the allergist to find out what exactly it is she is allergic to. There is one more type of formula we can try but it is 50$ for a can that only makes 10 to 15 bottles. A little pricey when you consider she would need 6 bottles a day. Unfortunately it is going to take two months to get in to see the allergist so for now it is back to breastfeeding. Except now every time she has any kind of reaction I have to write down what I ate.

On a more positive note, Hannah rolled over this weekend. I think she was showing off to her great grandmother. She was lying on her stomach and she got about half way rolled over stopped to make sure everybody was looking, then fell onto her back. I think she surprised even herself, as she almost immediately started crying.

Well I think that sort of sums everything up, I know there has been more happening but I can't seem to think of anything right now.

Here are the high(er)-quality videos

DISCLAIMER These will take a LONG time to load on dial-up

I have also provided links so that people can download the videos to their machines for viewing later (and so that people with browsers that still don't work can see the videos if the really want to.

Video 0	Link
Video 1	Link
Video 2	Link
Video 3	Link

Do I sense a dancer?

Here's a little sample of just how much Hannah enjoys her newest toy - No, the video is not playing at double-speed, that is how fast her feed are actually moving.

To accomodate our many family and friends that are on dial-up, the video will not download automatically. To start downloading the video, click on the text below the video player.

Click here to start video (Sorry, no audio)

P.S. If there is enough interest in these videos, I can put up more (better quality) videos for those of you with High Speed (or lots of patience)

EDIT: I have removed any references to Windows Media Player, so the video should work in any browser now...

Six Months, Already!

It is hard to believe that Hannah is already six months old. I have to say that she may have become just the littliest bit spoiled. For her six month birthday she got a jolly jumper, and a couple of teething toys. It took me six months to learn this lesson but yesterday I came to the conclusion that as far as babies are concerned everything is a teething toy. I put Hannah in her jolly jumper yesterday for the first time, and of course for the first 10 minutes all she did was chew on the strap. It is a rather expensive teether. She did eventually get bored of chewing on the strap and had great fun discovering how to bounce. Just a side note to those who are interested, but Hannah weighed in at 16lbs and 3 ounces at her six month shots on June the 3rd.

Hannah - 4 - 6 Months

Remember to click on the image to see more pictures

Swimming

Me and Hannah went swimming this morning. I decided to take her to a pool after she soaked me during her last bath. As I expected she very much enjoyed herself. She enthusiastically splashed water everywhere using all four limbs. We also tried dunking her head completely under water, and although she didn't seem to particularly enjoy this she didn't complain either. When she became tired and resorted to chewing on her hand, I took her to the change room where she proceeded to enchant a whole change room full of aquasizers with her smiles and gurgles. This was Hannah's second time swimming, but the first was a few months ago and while she enjoyed her herself, she played herself out very quickly and it was a fairly short visit.

I need some sympathy!

I don't usually engage in self pity, but I think both me and Hannah deserve a little sympathy right now. This is mostly Hannah's problem, but at this point in her life anything that affects her, in some way or other affects me. Everything started last Friday when Hannah broke out in hives after drinking a bottle of formula. This was quit a scary experience as her bottom lip became very large, and I suspected her tongue was becoming swollen also. I saw the Doctor today, and well as you've probly guessed Hannah is allergic to cow's milk. Before today I didn't realize exactly what an allergy to cow's milk means (It is not the same as being lactose intolerant). It means she is allergic to practically everything. Milk, or some milk derivative is used in virtually everything we eat. Of course this doesn't really concern Hannah at this point as she is only eating breast milk and rice cereal. But I also learned today that Hannah is developing a sensitivity to the cow's milk proteins in my milk. Which means I have to stop eating milk products too, or Hannah will start having allergic reactions to my breast milk (I know this to be true as just the other day I noticed a few hives on her face after I fed her).

Okay, so you might be thinking to yourself that the obvious solution to all this is to put her on soy formula. I get to eat what I want and she remains allergy free, well at least until she starts eating a more varied diet. The Doctor also suggested this possibility to me, although he did warn me that 15% of babies with cow's milk allergies are also allergic to soy milk, so introduce it very slowly.

I took his advice, this evening we tried one teaspoon of a formula made from soy. And yes Hannah is also allergic to soy proteins. So I guess I am back on the no milk diet. The one ray of hope in this story is that 80% of babies outgrow cow's milk allergies by the time they are 2, and 95% by the time they are 3. Until then though she has to avoid all milk products. Unfortunately with the type of allergy she has, it isn't even that she can't eat anything with milk, she can't touch it either. And one of the things about allergies is that with each exposure the reaction gets worse. The Doctor mentioned the possibility that after 7 or 8 exposures she may start having breathing difficulties associated with a reaction.

I guess on the bright side, we probly discovered the source of her eczema. By eliminating dairy from my diet, her eczema should theoretically clear up. (Let's hope anyways). Her six month check up is in early June, and I believe I will ask for a referral to a nutrionalist to figure out what kinds of things she can eat.

In with the new!

Well it took the entire weekend, but it's finally finished (well, at least sort of...) Our new fence is up, and WHAT A DIFFERENCE!!! We actually have a private yard. While construction went relatively well, we did experience our fair share of problems...

1. Drilling post holes is a LOT harder than it sounds (even with a gas powered 2-man auger
2. Our lift of cedar was soaked
   Since wet wood takes no stain, the cedar went up without it. Guess we'll be having a painting bee in a few weeks...
3. And of course, since everything comes in threes:
   
   In an attempt to save ourselves the headache of transporting extra 12' lengths of Sonotube in our minivan, we chose to test our luck with the Sonotube and stain at Home Depot - BIG MISTAKE
   Not only did they not want to help cut the Sonotube, but some rookie staff member took our paint requirements, and completely fudged them. If anybody knows what an oil-latex paint is and how well it stands up to Canadian weather, please fell free to drop a comment

Out with the old:

Wow...

Who would have imagined that a busted down old fence could detract from the appearance of the yard more than having no fence at all...

Yep, that's right. I finally got around to ripping down the nasty old fence that the previous owner so carelessly erected 15 years ago.

Now I don't know a whole lot about fencing or how long treated fence posts are supposed to last, but seems to me that they should last more than 15 years... About 1/3 of the posts were already broken off within 2" of the ground, another 1/3 snapped off at about the same spot when I tried to pull them out, and the remaining 1/3 were so rotten that it's a wonder that they didn't snap off. My guess is that the previous owner didn't bother to spend the extra cash to get treated fence posts...

In all, it took me about 2 1/2 hours to rip the entire fence down, about another hour to clean up the mess, and a mind-blowing 1 1/2 hours at the Totem lumber desk. Not that I'm going to complain, I did change my order on the poor guy twice and insist on two separate invoices so I could charge 50% of half the fence to my neighbor...

Somebody get me some ear plugs

Hannah has officially discovered how to squeal, and I am going crazy. She squeals to express happiness, discomfort, anger and of course to tell me that she doesn't want to have a nap. I can't wait until she discovers some new amusing sound so we can leave this one far behind. On another note, tonight is the season finale of Enterprise. The end of a craze that has lasted over 40 years. Or do you think they will come out with another Star trek? Although I would love to see another series, I think they may have worn out their welcome. I would recommend watching this episode though, they've even brought in some of the crew from "The Next Generation".

Happy Mother's Day

Happy belated Mother's day.

I hope everybody enjoyed their mother's day. I know I certainly did. I had a wonderfully relaxing weekend. I started my weekend with a massage on Saturday and then ended it with a wonderful supper at Spagos on Sunday. It was a truly enjoyable weekend. I felt a little weird though, to be on the receiving end on mother's day. It made me feel old.

Hannah is doing wonderful with solid foods. She was an expert right from the first spoonfuls. Although I don't think you can really consider rice cereal to be a solid food. More like a rather bland paste. I did notice a small patch of eczema forming on her chest today, but it is hard to tell whether that is an allergic reaction to the food, or her skin just doing what it does. Seeing how today was the 5th day she has had rice cereal I am going to go with it being just a coincidence for now.

I feel the need to comment on Canadian politics. I usually keep my thoughts to myself, but lately I have been particularity disappointed by our government. I refuse to support Steven Harper, as he has become obsessed with over-turning the government despite the majority of people wanting to wait until the conclusion of the inquiry. But even more I am disappointed by Paul Martins "dithering", He has acted patheticaly this past week, desperately trying to hold onto his career. Perhaps if he had admitted defeat and gone out gracefully he could have kept his dignity, but I am afraid he doesn't even have that left. So I guess that leaves Jack Layton, the only one who has actually tried to make the minority government work.

At the last election the Canadian people chose a minority government. I am ashamed that instead of trying to make it work, Paul Martin and Steven Harper have just made a mockery of our parliamentary system.

Another busy couple of weeks

Well once again we let a couple of weeks go by before we posted, so I have an overwhelming amount of things that have happened.

Hannah got a play center and although she didn't like it to much at first, she now gets great pleasure out of sitting in it and drooling all over her hands and whichever toys you move into range.

Since her 4 months shots all of the concerns the health nurse had have been pretty much resolved, she is holding her head up, has become more interactive, and her head shape has rounded out. I saw her Doctor on Tuesday, and he had absolutely no concerns. She is now 14lbs, and 13 oz. Up from 13 lbs 5 oz at her 4 months shot. Yes, she is a very large baby. When corrected for her prematurely, her weight is off the charts.

She hasn't been sleeping very well lately, which is my excuse for not posting. So we are going to start her on solid food. Tonight we will make the plunge into rice cereal. Hopefully this will help her to sleep better and I can get more then 45 minutes of sleep at one time.

With the arrival of summer we have turned out attention to the sorry excuse of a fence in our backyard. In a few weeks we will start building a new fence, so I will be sure to post on the comical experience that us building a fence is sure to be. We have already picked out the type of fence and will be ordering it from totem in the next few day. I personally prefer totem to home depot or Rona, because they have free popcorn. and it's good popcorn too. Always fresh and taste just like theatre popcorn. Yummy.

Dan will be getting his appliance to stop his grinding today. We can all laugh at him now, because he needs to wear a piece of plastic over his bottom teeth all the time. Okay perhaps that isn't that funny, especially as that piece of plastic is costing us a fortune. Stupid TMJ disorder.

hmm well I think that is everything, I am sure I will think of something else in five minutes, but for now that is it.

Hannah - Compliments of mommy shutterbug

Remember to click on the image to see more pictures

Tears, laughter and yard work

Tears - Hannah got her second set of shots on the 8th. I think I am more upset about the experience then she is. While she has probably long since forgotten about the whole thing, I am terrified of the next set. I feel like an absolute monster holding her leg still so they can cruelly jab her muscle with this horrendous looking needle. and not just once but three times. The health nurse also raised some concerns about the shape of Hannah's head. She may have to see a specialist, but I was supposed to get a phone call early this week, and so far the phone has been silent.

Laughter - Hannah laughed for the first time on the Monday (11th). Definitely a moment I will treasure for a long time to come. Once she figured it out she just kept on laughing over and over again for about five minutes. Each time she laughed she would just have this huge smile on her face. I think she shocked herself at the sounds she was making. She hasn't laughed again, but now that she has it figured out I am sure she will use it again when she wants to charm us into playing with her.

yard work - This one is pretty self explanatory, With spring comes yard work. We spent last weekend getting our yard ready for the summer. I raked while Dan pruned our apple tree and attempted to level the ground in the back of our yard where I am hoping to have a garden this summer. I was hoping to have one last summer too, so ask me again in August about my garden.

My wife: The ultimate hostess

Well somebody sure had been busy in the last few weeks...

Carmen planned a pleasant little surprise dinner party for my 25th birthday!

And what a dinner it was:

1. White Bean dip
2. Stuffed Mushrooms
3. Mushroom and Leek soup
4. Lasagna with Ceasar Salad
5. Gourmet French Vanilla ice cream strawbery and balsamic vinegar topping
6. Chocolate Mocha Cheesecake

If you think that this sounds like an elaborate meal, it certainly was! Even more incredible is that Carmen made EVERY dish from scratch. For those of you that missed out on the Mocha Cheescake: Boy did you ever miss out! Oh well, more for me I guess :)

Birthday Blues

There once was a time when I used to laugh at all of those silly people that made such a big deal about getting another year older. I could never really understand what exactly their problem was with having been on this earth for yet another year.

Over the past few days, that shoe has managed to find itself snugly in place on the other foot. Today marks my 25th birthday and I am finding myself surprisingly unhappy about this unavoidable incident.

Traditionally, birthdays are supposed to be a day to look back on the previous year and reflect on everything that has happened. When I look back on the past year, I can't help but realize how truly blessed I have been. Carmen and I were blessed with a beautiful, happy and healthy baby girl. I accepted a new job that has given me more time and energy to spend on my new family. And most importantly, I remain in good health.

So why am I so glum? I really have no idea. Perhaps it's the knowledge that I am now a quarter of a century old. Maybe it's the thought that at 25, there is no longer any mistaking that I am, in fact, an adult (Never mind me being proud about owning a house and a minivan). Or maybe it's just my head playing some kind of a nasty little trick on me. Well, whatever the case, I'm sure that this feeling will pass in a few more days and stay gone until that dreaded 40th birthday (or perhaps the somewhat less stressful 30)...

Home sweet, home

As much as I enjoyed visiting with my family I'm not going to complain about being home again. I hope everybody had a good weekend, I now we sure did. Hannah did surprisingly well with the travelling. She slept the whole way going there, although she was some what fussy on the way home, who wouldn't be after such an exciting weekend. Well I guess now that Easter is over it is time to plan for Dan's birthdat, anybody got any ideas on how we should celebrate him being around a quarter of a century.

Snow snow, go away

I just have to make a complaint about the never ending snow. Just last week I was telling my Mother what wonderful weather we were having here in Alberta. I think I jinxed it because the next day it started snowing and forgot to stop. I had hopes that yesterday was the end of it, but I woke up this morning to a blizzard that is stronger then ever. The worst part of all this snow is it has caused the air in our house to reach a new level of dryness. Hannah suffers from ecyzema, a trait passed down from her father, the dry air in the house has caused her to break out into one big giant rash. Well perhaps a slight exaggeration but not to far off. While her legs and back are still clear, her chest, face, and arms are looking quite sore.

Three months already?

I read somewhere that babies sleep better when they can hear their mothers breathing, because it more closely resembles being in the womb. I think that person got it wrong, and it's the mother's who sleep better. Since moving her to her own room, I have caught myself waking up in the middle of the night trying to hear the sound of her breathing. When my memory returns and I realize that she is all the way across the hall, I can't help but feel lonely. She is growing up to fast. It has only been three short months, and she has doubled in size, begun sleeping through the night, and has adjusted to sleeping in her own room. I can't even begin to imagine how much change another three months will bring. While I am looking forward to each new milestone Hannah reaches, I also can't help but want to go back to those first few weeks and just take things a little slower.

Hannah - Circa 3 Months

Remember to click on the image to see more pictures

Sorry

I must apologize for my horrible neglect of this site. It is amazing how quickly time can fly by. I find it hard to believe it has been three weeks since we last updated. So I guess I will give a quick update as to what has happened since Feb. 19;

Hannah came off her Caffeine on the 23rd, and then had a sleep test on the 28th. In order to pass the sleep test she could only be 15% periodic. (Periodic meaning she has periods where she holds her breath temporarily causing her oxygen levels to decline) Hannah actually failed the test as she was 19% periodic, however the Dr. decided against putting her back on the caffeine as she has grown so much and appears to be thriving despite being periodic.

We went to Edson this last weekend, it was an enjoyable weekend, and I think Hannah got to meet the whole town of Edson. We got some great pictures which hopefully Dan will post tonight, I've been bugging him since we got back.

Since coming back from Edson we have been putting Hannah in her own crib instead of the bassinet. The transition was actually a lot easier then I thought it would be. She almost seems more relaxed in the crib, and has actually started sleeping right through the night. I still have to get up and give her her soother occasionally but she has been going 10-11 hrs without eating these last few nights. Hopefully as she adjusts to not getting fed in the middle of the night, I wont have to get up so often to plunk her soother back into her mouth.

And that brings us to today. Hannah had her three month appointment today, and I am glad to say she is doing great. She is 12lbs 2ounces, and 56cm. Developmentally the Doctor placed her closer to one month old instead of three, but he said he would expect that seeing how she was two months early. Size wise it is hard to tell she was early, but when considering her behavior there are still signs of prematurity.

Hannah - Circa 2 months

Remember to click on the image to see more pictures

blaaahh

That is what i have to say about the flu. I have been suffering from the never ending flu since Tuesday. I was debated as to whether it was the flu or food poisenning, i have now settled on the flu, as i have apperently passed it onto Hannah, judging from her extremely grumpy behavior. This a scenario I never thought about pre-parenthood. Here i am trying to nurse myself back to health, but instead of relaxing I am doing twice as much trying to comfort Hannah. While I am complaining, I don't really mind as Dan was great and took over the night time feedings when i was at my worst. So if anybody has information as to how long this flu lasts, let me know so I can have somthing to set my sights on.

Baby Shower

I would like to thank Maureen and Michelle Yaehne for hosting a baby shower for Hannah this last weekend. We had a great time, and we appreciate all of the hard work that went into making it such an enjoyable evening. I would also like to thank everybody for all of their great gifts, We our now completely outfitted for caring for an infant. I would also like to extend a thankyou to Lynne, Katy, and Colleen for their parts in arranging the shower.

immunizations :(

Well, Hannah got her two months immunizations today, and I have to say it wasn't as bad as I had imagined it would be. She was greatly upset by the first two shots, and exercised her very well developed lungs. But thankfully shortly after the third shot she calmed right down and went to sleep. So now I can expect a slightly crankier then usual daughter for the next few days. A fair trade off for the knowledge that she is safe from certain life threatening diseases. On a much more positive note, Hannah slept for a full seven hours last night. I view this as a pivotal moment in my attempts to get some real sleep, as just last week she was waking up every 2 to 3 hrs. Of course now the challenge is to convince her that night time is 8 to 8, and not 12 to 12. And for those people who like to keep up to date with Hannah's stats, she is now 10 lbs 2 oz, and 22 inches. I can't believe she has pretty much doubled her weight already.

Babies: The Forgotten Weed

It's funny how perspectives change once you have a child of your own. It's always amazed me how quickly people younger than myself have always seemed to grow up so fast. For instance, it's hard to believe that children that I remember from when they were in diapers are now in Junior high. Despite my amazement, I could always reason through it by thinking about how many years it has been since I had really SEEN them.

Now HANNAH on the other hand, is a completely different story. I do her morning change, and maybe her morning feeding, go to work and come home 8 1/2 hours later only to find that Hannah has gotten noticeable longer. (Kinda like all those weeds in my backyard in the summer...). Hardly any of the clothes that swam on her when she first came home from the hospital even FIT her anymore, and her awake times are becoming more and more entertaining as she starts to discover that her voice can be used for something other than crying.

Six week checkup

Tuesday was Hannah's six week checkup, and I am glad to say she is starting to look like any other six week old baby. According to the Doctor's chart, at 8lbs 12oz she is on the low end of normal for a six week old baby, but if corrected for the fact the she was 8 weeks premature, she is actually on the very high end of the scale. Despite her sizeable weight gain, at 50cm her length still shows that she is, in fact, a premature baby, which is normal if you correct for her prematurity but doesn't even register on the chart if for a full-term, six week old baby. This may make you think that she is a very fat baby, but I can assure you that she looks like a perfectly happy, healthy little girl - Just not quite as lanky as she used to be.

Website Update (Warning high Geek Factor)

The most obvious change is that I have added my all-time favorite picture as the background for the site - Please let me know what you think of it.

For all the geeks out there:

I have finally fixed that last nagging problems preventing the site from being XHTML 1.1 Compliant. There were two HTML 4.01 elements that aren't supported in XHTML 1.1:

1. The <strike> and/or <s> tags
2. The onerror attribute for the <img> tag

The fix to the <strike> problem was pretty straight forward, I just had to use the <em> tag with the appropriate style attributes.

The fix to the onerror attribute was a little more tricky and required some changes to the JavaScript behind my slideshow images. As a side-effect, I have also fixed the problem where all of the images shared a single index (so if you stopped viewing image set #1 after the third image, the next time you clicked on another image, it would load the fourth image of that series). Please feel free to take a look at the page source to see how I did it, it was really quite simple, but considering my limited Javascript experience, I was pretty happy about the outcome.

Once again, please fell free to share any advice or feedback you might have :)

Hannah - A Professional Take

For those of you who either wouldn't have known or haven't figured it out yet. Carmen's sister Angela and her husband Marc were out for the weekend. Having them here was great! I really enjoyed watching them with Hannah, and best of all, Angela brought her trusty camera and took about 100 pictures of her. The picture I posted yesterday is probably my favorite, but here are another bunch. One Two of these 17 18 images wasn't weren't taken by Angela or with her Camera, can you guess which one it is ones they are? ;)

It's nice to have a photographer in the family

Hannah - Images to satify the angry mob Mom

Hannah - Christmas photos

Where did the last week and half go?

Wow, it's hard to believe that it's been almost 2 weeks since our last post. Needless to say, lots has been happening in our little world. Christmas came, and Christmas went: Carmen's dad came out the day Hannah came home (talk about timing!), my family was here Christmas Day and Boxing Day, some friends from WAY out of town came in for New Year's Eve, and we had a social dinner with some friends tonight.

For those of you who were otherwise unaware (and those that simply don't care), I am smack in the middle of changing jobs. My last day at 5D was Friday, and I start at Global IQ tomorrow today. While I have every confidence that this move will be beneficial for our entire family, I still have that nagging little voice deep inside screaming at me for leaving a sure thing just to pursue a little bit of happiness in my career. Thankfully a supportive wife, friends, and a few sympathetic co-workers have helped in smothering suppressing the little bugger.

Hopefully the new job year and new job will give me more time, energy and patience to enjoy the more pleasant things in life: My wife, my daughter, and of course my computer ;)

The holidays saw a lot of nice photo opportunities, hopefully tomorrow I will have a chance to upload some more and post them for all to see.