Friday, December 14, 2007

What a night ..

I went to check on Sara-lyn last night around 11:00pm and discovered that she was having a really difficult time breathing. I have never heard anything sounds so horrible before, she was wheezing with every breath and when she would try to make any kind of noise it would just come out as gasp. So we called health link and they listened to her, and told us to take her to the Alberta Children's hospital because it was probably croup and because she was having such a difficult time breathing they would want to give her something. So off we went at midnight to the childrens.

The health link nurse was right about it being croup and the triage nurse gave her some corticosteroids and gave us a bunch of papers on what to do with a child with croup. We then waited in a little room for just about two hours to see the Doctor who gave us some corticosteroids to take home and gave her some ibuprofen for her fever which had been slowly going up since we arrived at the hospital.

The poor girl is still sick this morning, although at least she can breath today, so I guess we will be taking it easy for the next week until this clears up.

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Happy Birthday Hannah

Christmas Naughty or Nice List
Naughty or Nice List
Christmas Naughty or Nice List

You are on the The Nice List
After checking the North Pole database we found you had :

2,402 nice entries
198 naughty entries

Check your name on the Christmas Naughty or Nice List at JokesUnlimited.com

Sunday, December 02, 2007

Christmas Spirit

We're getting into the christmas spirit at our house, what is everybody else doing?
Gingerbread house
Tree Decorating
And off to the Zoolights

Thursday, November 22, 2007

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Ultrasound

We had our 18 week ultrasound on Monday. And baby is doing great. We saw the babies heart, and spine, hands and feet. Got some great pictures, a few you can actually see the babies nose, and chin. It was a pretty routine ultrasound I'd have to say, Dan came with me, so that was nice for him to get to see the baby, he kind of misses out because he doesn't get to hear the heartbeat during my monthly trips to Doctor. I'm still waiting to see my OB to find out what I can expect for delivery of this baby, seeing how Sara got stuck. My family Doctor has already said she thinks I will need a c-section but I'm still holding out hope that the OB will be a little more relaxed about it. Anyways my next appointment is early December so hopefully I see the OB shortly after that.

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Monday, October 29, 2007

My daughter is amazing

I have often thought that Sara is above average in her ability to manipulate things, For example she has been stacking blocks long before most other kids her age, and she builds lego towers that are as high as she can reach. I have up to this point thought that her ability to do this is because she watches Hannah and so she thinks to do things sooner then other kids who don't have somebody to copy. But today I am convinced that Sara is just amazing. She ate her whole breakfast this morning with a spoon. I think this is absolutely amazing for a 16 month old. We have been giving her cereal with milk in it for about a month now, And up until today she has always eaten with her hands, which is kind of messy, but today she ate every bite in her bowl and then seconds with her spoon. Dan saw her using the spoon yesterday but I didn't see it, so I didn't understand how good she was actually at it, but the whole bowl of cereal including milk, and she only spilled a few drops. Now I would like to believe that this means she will always eat with a spoon from now on, but as I have a three year old who still occasionally decides that her hands work better, I know better.

Thursday, October 18, 2007

playdate

well I just hosted my first play date since moving, and I have to say it went better then I thought it would. I was a little worried that with it being so open on the main floor, that with 15 kids and 6 adults that the noise would be a little overwhelming. But it actually worked out well as the kids spent most of their time in the playroom, and I moved the rug and some toys out to the living room for the babies. With the food on the island it was actually a really efficient layout for entertaining. I think though if it had been any bigger I would have had to open up the upstairs to send some of the bigger kids up there, which actually isn't a problem for me, the biggest issue is the kids getting around the gates as we keep gates permanently installed at both the top and bottom of our main set of stairs. Well anyways it went well, Hannah and Sara both had a good time, and once again I get to enjoy other people's baked goods for a few days, hmmm .... brownies, and cupcakes.

Monday, October 15, 2007

Our announcement!

Well, I figure I will finally make it official and tell the whole world our news.

We're pregnant!

I think we might have actually told most people already but for those of you who didn't find out in person, I apologize, but we have actually been pretty low key about this pregnancy only telling people in the last few weeks, and in most cases we have only told people we have actually seen in person. But anways on with the details. We are 13 weeks pregnant now, and happy to be out of the first trimester. I heard the heart beat a fews ago at my 11 week appointment, it was 160 bpm. So far this pregnancy has been absolutely miserable and has been more then enough to convince me that this will be our last pregnancy. I have been suffering from really bad morning sickness which seeing how I have two other children to look after I have been heavily medicating in order to be able to function. Unfortunately the side effect of the medication is drowsiness, which leaves me in kind of a constant daze. But I have hope that the morning sickness will end soon and then I can start feeling normal again, at least until I start being the size of a house. I am actually showing very little with this pregnancy with Sara I was in maternity pants by 8 weeks, I just started wearing maternity pants the other day, and to be honest it was more of a lack of clean laundry then anything else. I will admit they are more comfortable, so I will probably stick with them, I do have a few pairs of regular pants that were still fitting fine. hmm... what else to say, we are planning on finding out the sex of this one so wait for the post in about 5 weeks. Hopefully the baby will cooperate and we can get a good look.

Monday, October 01, 2007

Potty training

Well I think I can safely say without jinxing it that Hannah is finally potty trained. Well at least pee trained. She has been doing so good with going to the potty for pee. Although she has a habit of waiting until the absolute last minute to say anything, so she ends up just standing there with her legs crossed saying she has to go to the potty. It is actually quite comical. Unfortunately poop hasn't been going so well, and to be honest I am at a loss as to what to do next. I have done a lot of reading on potty training recently and the general consensus is that poop training is easier because 1. kids poop on a regular schedule, and 2. most kids have visible cues such as squatting in a corner that they are pooping. Well I think after doing this and watching her like a hawk for two weeks I can safely say 1. Hannah has absolutely no schedule, and 2. She has absolutely no visible cues. She could be going poop at absolutely any moment of the day, and the only sign is the smell. So anyways seeing how I never know for sure when she has to go I am completely reliant on her telling me honestly whether or not she has too, and well that isn't going so well. At the moment I am actually attempting to bribe her with icecream if she goes on the potty. Well anyways that is my current frustration.

Doctors appointments

I took the kids to our family doctor the other day just for a quick checkup, and well nothing is wrong with them, but it was interesting to find out that both Hannah and Sara weigh exactly 11.9 kg (27 lbs). Hannah is 90 cm tall, and Sara 81 cm.

Moved in!

Okay we moved into our new house over a month ago, but better a post late then never. The move went off without a hitch. (At least a month later I can't remember any) Thanks everybody for all your help. We are really enjoying out new house. Hannah loves the park that is so close, and our company is enjoying the fact that we actually have a spare bedroom. The kids are doing well sharing a room, in fact since we moved here, Sara has started sleeping through the night. Before we moved she was waking up at least twice and I was giving her water one time and some milk the second. The open floor plan and high ceilings means that everything tends to echo, so there are not too many parts of the house that are actually quit when the kids are awake anyways. I love having a dishwasher. I don't know how I survived so long without one, seriously I think I have already forgotten how to wash dishes. But my tetris skills have probably improved. It is great being so close to a superstore here, I never realized how much time I wasted driving to and from the grocery store at our old house, but it is great having both a Sobeys and Superstore so close. I haven't really had too many opportunities to take full advantage of our 4 piece en suite, I'm afraid the tub is probably feeling a little neglected since we moved in. But I do have visions of one day actually relaxing in our huge soaker tub. Well anyways that pretty much sums up our life in our new house.

Thursday, August 16, 2007

back from our vacation

we're back from a week long camping trip at little bear lake. It was great to get a chance to visit with family and the kids had a great time playing at the beach, and going boating. Well Hannah really enjoyed the boating anyways, Sara fell asleep. Hannah was actually pretty unwilling to go into the water mostly because it was too cold, but nothing could turn Sara away, she ventured in every chance she got. The only problem we have now is that every time we drive by a lake Hannah decides she wants to go play at the beach. And funnily enough Calgary is full of little lakes. I showed Sara how to pick blueberries on our last day, and as we were packing up, she sat in a blueberry patch just munching away. Perhaps I will post a few pictures when I track down our camera.

Since we got back I have been slowly packing, unfortunately it is going slower then I would like, thankfully next week I will have a some help looking after the kids. I got around to getting our utilities switched today, and if anybody wants to hear a long rant about incompetent people just ask me about that. But for now lets just say it took two hours, and not because I was on hold the whole time, and I still have to phone back in a couple days to confirm that the gas will be hooked up for sure. We're debating whether or not we should switch to Telus when we move, because it is cheaper and we can get a plan that is a little more attuned to what we need, but unfortunately we have had some very back experiences with Telus in the past, so if anybody is currently using Telus and can give us their opinion on the service, please do leave a comment. In particular we are wondering about their internet service and the new tv programing they are offering. (we are currently using shaw for everything).

Thursday, July 19, 2007

W bought a house!

Well we actually bought it two weeks ago, but I have been shockingly lazy the last little while with posting stuff, but anyways it is a three bedroom two storey house in the Coventry area of Calgary. It was built in 2005 so it doesn't have a finished basement, or a finished back yard. So I guess we're going to have a little bit of work over the next few years finishing it off. We're moving on the 25th of August, so if anybody is available that weekend and wants free food, we would really appreciate the help.

In other news, Sara is almost walking she will take 5 or 6 steps away from furniture quite often, she is also becoming my climbing dare devil. She can climb up the slide part of the slide in our back yard all by herself. I find this a little scary, since Hannah has difficulty accomplishing this, while Sara can get up there in a matter of seconds. Well anyways lots has happened in the last few weeks but I am feeling a little lazy today so maybe I will write about it some other time.

Monday, June 18, 2007

Happy Birthday Sara

I can't believe it has been a year already. Every time I look at her she is changing in some way. She started crawling up the stairs a couple of weeks ago, and has been cruising around furniture for about two weeks. She has more and more sounds, and is starting to communicate what she wants quite effectively. When I watch her play I am always amazed by the new things she is trying. Today she put the rings onto the pole of one of her toys, last week she started stacking blocks. But her favorite thing is to rock her favorite doll. She gives it a nice hug puts it in the rocking chair and then goes off and plays, but she always comes back to check on her doll every 15 minutes or so.

Friday, June 01, 2007

happy thoughts

Today I have decided to write about two things that happed this week that made me glad to be a mom. I could probably think of more then just two but two is a good start. The first one was when I picked Sara up a couple of days ago and she gave me a big hug complete with patting me on the back. The second was yesterday when I was walking down some rather steep stairs with Sara on one arm, and holding Hannah's hand with the other. When I trip and started to fall down the stairs, in an attempt to not smash Sara's head into the concrete floor I caused myself to fall backwards onto my butt. Unfortunately this caused Hannah to fall down as well, and severely twisted my ankle. As I had pulled on Hannah's arm rather hard I fully expected her to start crying, so I turned ready to offer my comfort, when she looked at me quite earnestly and said "Oh no! Are you alright" she then promptly offered me a hug and kiss, and asked if I was all better.

Well those two things made me happy this week and I wrote about them because I am actually having a rather bad week this week, but I'm afraid if I write about how miserable I am I will continue to be miserable. So here is my best attempt at remembering why this was a good week. And of course it is promising to be a nice relaxing weekend here in Calgary with beautiful weather, so hopefully that will go a long way to improving my mood.

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Dork

I can admit to being a dork, I read the owners manual for our van from start to finish. I may have quickly scanned a few areas, but in general I read every word. And to be honest I think it was time well spent, I would recommend it has a good read for everybody who has a relatively new vehicle. I found out some really interesting things about our van that I never would have known otherwise. For example

- you can roll all 4 windows down/up using the key and the drivers door lock.

- you can also roll all four window down using the remote

- you can program the auto lock/unlock

- if you hold down the eject button for a couple of seconds you can eject all six cds automatically

- the same applies to loading

- the auto defogger uses A/C - even if your using the heat

- so yes you can have both the A/C and heat going at the same time

- Our window wipers are speed sensing

- The auto scan button 0n the radio remembers your hometown stations so you can autoscan when your away from home to set you preset stations, and then go back to your original settings when you get home.

- The passenger airbag turns off if somebody who weighs less then 60 lbs is sitting there. - and there is a light that tells you it is off.

- Our seatbelt indicator is really annoying, if either you or your passenger doesn't put on their seatbelt it beeps every 15 seconds until you do it up

And that is just some of the things I found out from reading the owners manual. I'm sure some of those features would have taken me years to figure out, if I ever did. The only problem I have now is that my head is full of so much information about the million buttons in my van that half the time I don't use them because I can't remember what does what. But I'll get there eventually. For now I'm enjoying playing with the auto open doors. I get great fun in opening the doors to the van from inside the house.

Saturday, May 19, 2007

"NO, me do it"

If you come visit me, I'm sure you will hear that screeched at you at least a dozen times. I am not liking this new phase. While I'm glad Hannah wants to be independent, she is trying my patience. And I think I have pretty good patience, so if I'm starting to lose it, you know it's bad. The simplest thing takes forever as I first have to convince her she wants to do it, then I have to wait while she does it herself. And yes watching her try to put on her own diaper for 20 minutes before bedtime is really frustrating. But god forbid if you should attempt to help, as this will bring on instant meltdown. The type of meltdown that takes 5 minutes of hugging to recover from, then another five to convince her to put her diaper on, and then your back to 20 minutes of watching her try to put it on. and that is just the start, she has to do everything from getting dressed, to climbing into her carseat, turning off the tv, to putting her own diaper on all by herself.

If anybody has some spare patience lying around they should send it his way because I am very much in need of it.

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

A fond farewell

As many of you know, we have been nursing our `95 Ford Windstar along since shortly after we moved to Calgary. No really serious problems, just a frustrating string of small problem after small problem. The most disturbing of which has been an intermittent stalling problem that has come and gone with the summer heat. The most likely culprit is a slowly failing fuel pump. Last Saturday it had a really bad stalling episode on the first really hot day of the year. This after we had just had it serviced a week or so ago... With both kids in tow, we made the decision that perhaps it was time to let go. So on that note, it with a heavy heart that I must announce that, with 239237 Kilometers on the odometer, our first baby has been retired...

Now for the exciting news, photos of our new baby:

Here you can see a couple of our favorite features:

  • Dual power sliding doors
  • Sliding door windows that roll down
  • Onboard DVD
  • Power moon roof

Here's a head on view of the new addition to our family (Please pardon the bugs, we've already taken it for a highway joyride).

And yes, it is a Honda:

Honda

We looked at the different North American models, I really tried to convince myself that they were just as good.... But the GM vans (Montana/Uplander) didn't have the towing capacity that we were looking for, the Grand Caravan interior just didn't line up with the price tag and while we really liked the Ford Freestar (no surprises there), Ford's announcement that they are dropping out of the minivan market after the 2007 model year does not bode well for long term maintenance...

So at that point we started looking at the big players in the import market: Toyota and Honda. The Toyota Sienna offered the option of all-wheel-drive for a steep price and I wasn't terribly fond of the body styling, which left us with the beautiful machine that eventually selected...

Sunday, April 29, 2007

We did it! We did it!

Sing the above title to the theme song at the end of Dora, and you know what the inside of my head sounds like right now. For the first time since me and Dan got together we actually filed our tax returns on time. Of course the only reason we got it done on time this year was the threat that we might actually owe money. But we didn't so Yippee not only is it done on time, but we actually have some unexpected money coming!

Friday, April 27, 2007

Last Weekend

I know it has taken me a week t write about last weekend, but I think it is worth posting about so here it goes a week late. Last Saturday Dan's parents came down so me and Dan could go out for supper and then to the opera. We went to a restaurant called "The Belvedere" It is rated as one of the top restaurants in Canada. And I now know why. The food was so good, I can't even adequately describe how good it was. I have never had anything that even compares. The only dilemma I seemed to be faced with now is that I feel completely uninspired to do any cooking myself because I know it wont even register on the same scale. But I guess we all have to come back to reality eventually. After supper we went to the opera "Carmen" We had a great time there as well. Before going to the show my knowledge of the plot was that it was a tragic love story. And while that describes the plot in one sense it really doesn't do it justice, so there as actually some surprises in the story line. They had a screen at the top of the stage that translated what the actors were saying so it was just like watching a movie with subtitles. So that was our night out.

Sunday, April 15, 2007

Easter holidays

Well we are back. From a week long holiday to Saskatchewan. We did a tour visiting family, eating turkey and collecting baskets of chocolate. We started our trip in P.A. visiting my Mom, Hannah had a great time playing with Crystal and Arianna, and Sara decided that Hayden was a great prop to help her stand up. Hayden was not impressed. We went to a rec center and tried out bowling and bumber cars. Everybody enjoyed bowling, and Hannah loved the bumber cars. She had absolutely no fear. She sat on my lap, and there were times I felt things were getting a little rough, but she just laughed. We went to Choiceland next to visit Great Gramma and Grampa. And I'm sure Gramma and Grampa had a blast visiting with all three of their grandchildren at once. From there we headed back to P.A. to visit with my Dad. Where Hannah continued her tirade on Angela's poor dog Gizmo. Hayden started trying to crawl to keep up with Sara, and his progress in one short week was remarkable. Our last stop was back to Saskatoon where we went to a consignment sale. Both me and Angela entered items into the consignment sale so we could get tickets to the presale. And I have to say I will never waste my time attending a public sale again. Absolutely everything worth buying was gone within half an hour of the presale opening, and main sale open to the public wasn't even until the next day. I bought Hannah a tricycle ($15), a Snuggli (like new $10), a toy bar ($7) and 12 outfits ($50). I got some awesome deals, and the best part is that I probably made at least 50$ selling my items, so the stuff I bought is already paid for. Next time I go to something like that I will definitely bring somebody with me though. I found some great clothes for Sara but by the time I got to Hannah's size, all the great stuff was gone. Well anyways I think I am going to go play our new Wii ...

Saturday, March 31, 2007

Happy Birthday Dan

In honor of Dan's birthday today, we had some friends over for supper last night. It was a very enjoyable evening, with good food (thanks to me) and fun board games. Okay the board games may have taxed some of our brains a little (he he). Today has been a pretty quite day, so far we went for breakfast this morning, and then Dan went and picked up an outdoor play gym that a co-worker was nice enough to give us. Hannah had great fun until we dragged her inside for nap time. Unfortunately our yard isn't really designed for a play gym, because it is a rather steep hill, so I keep on thinking the poor thing is going to fall over. Oh well, we may have to do some work later this spring to level the yard a little. Well anyways, Happy Birthday Dan.

Monday, March 26, 2007

Eject! Eject! Eject!

So I went skiing at Sunshine Village with some friends from University this weekend...

It was a whole lot of fun and really good exercise for me.

There was a good mix of black, blue and green runs (at least for my taste) and we even did a little bit of glading (Skiing in the bush). We also developed a fun little slingshot maneuver to help Jen along flat spots - Kip and I would let Jen get ahead of us, then as we would go zipping by, she would grab our outstretched poles and get a sudden burst of speed to help her along...

The best wipeout for me had to be when I just about killed my good pal Mike (Kip) Kehler. The picture below was taken from the position where Mike stopped after I nearly ran him over. Jen (the girl in the right hand side of the picture), is holding up one of my skis from where they stopped. I was skiing between the trees on the right (only one is in the picture) looking for good powder and sweet jumps while Kip decided to go around the tree in the picture through the nice big opening visible just behind and above Jen. Apparently Kip saw a flash of my jacket and heard a quick curse as I slammed on the brakes to avoid running him over. Due to the foot of powder I was skiing in, my skis stopped a little too abruptly and ejected me from the bindings. This is where things get a little fuzzy for me. As near as I can remember, I clipped Kip's backpack as I was thrown from my skis. How I wound up face-first with my head uphill from my feet is completely beyond me.

If anybody knows how to do 3D Modeling and is looking for a fun side-project, I would love to see how this would have looked since Jen was too far back to witness the accident and Kip was too busy trying to stay on his own skis.

Saturday, March 24, 2007

Me generous?

Apperently I had a generous streak I didn't know about, as in the last 24 hours I have donated to over 25 different charities amounts ranging anywhere from $500 - $1200. I have complained a few times about Visa locking down my card when I have had transactions that vary from my usual pattern, but I was thankful today when they locked my card down after a mere $3000 dollars was charged to it, in a matter of minutes. The remaining transactions remained in limbo waiting approval from me. Of course poor Dan was stranded in Banff with no Visa. So anyways after going through a very lengthy list of purchases to confirm what was mine and what wasn't Visa will be refunding us for the approved transactions, and then investigating how this happened. So now I know why fraud protection is so important on a credit card, and I will never complain when my card gets locked down again.

Update!

I apologize for my lack of posting but it has just been one of those weeks when nothing interesting is really happening. But I figure I will catch everybody up to speed on how Sara and Hannah are doing. First off Sara had her pediatrician appointment on Monday and she weighed 22 lbs and was 27 3/4 inches long. She was perfectly healthy and developing normally. She has been crawling for about a week now. She can go from her back to her stomach to her butt without any help. She does crawl around the room now, but she is still pretty slow about it, although I'm sure it wont be long and she will an expert crawler. She has got two teeth, both just poking out a little bit. I just noticed them yesterday, and was surprised that they had both already come through. Hannah seemed like she was teething forever before she got her first tooth. Where as I barely even noticed that Sara was teething. She had really red cheeks, and she was waking up a few extra times at night but otherwise she has been pretty relaxed. Hannah is learning new words like crazy, and starting to really enjoy more physical activities like running around in circle, and throwing and kicking balls. She loves going out for playdates, and gets excited whenever I mention that were going to visit our friends, or that our friends are coming to our house. Hmm I think that is about it, Maybe something interesting will happen this weekend.

Sunday, March 18, 2007

Saturday, March 17, 2007

Now being hosted in a basement near you:

I have officially delved into the web hosting arena (well, on a small scale anyways).

I have just begun hosting my sister in-law's photography website on a server in my basement!

For those that are interested in the technical details it's not much of a server:

Processor:Pentium II 333Mhz
Memory:512MB RAM (Motherboard maximum)
Operating System:Centos 4.4
Space:
  • 18GB maximum non-redundant storage
  • 2GB mirrored storage
NetworkSingle Dedicated NIC with a manual failover

For those not in the "know", CentOS is the publicly distributed, freely available repackaged edition of an Enterprise Linux distribution (I don't know if I can actually make the direct reference, so to be safe, I'm leaving it out...)

I have been running multiple OpenBSD boxes crunching SETI work-units for a few years now and have recently become somewhat experienced with setting up Red Hat Enterprise Linux through work so the actual install wasn't too tricky.

The only hurdle that I had to overcome turned out to be an overzealous attempt to max out the memory in the machine. Apparently the motherboard I'm using can recognize more memory that it can reliably use. As a result, whenever I loaded more than 512MB of memory into the machine, the memory read/write performance would tank - and yes, I did run a memory test using the tool provided on the CentOS installation media. This took me three days and a few phone calls to associates to figure out... Thanks Dave!

As a side note, I will be building a second, fail-over server that will be nearly a mirror image of the first (only with less memory and disk space....) so that any hosted sites don't remain down long in the even of a catastrophic hardware failure.

Not too bad for the low low price of $0, if you ask me... Everything is either retired personal or hand-me-down hardware, or discarded equipment from my days at 5D

P.S. Sorry for the crazy linking, but I'm hoping that I can boost the blog's Google rating and thereby improve Angela's new photography website's rating - Anybody that has ideas/suggestions on how else to do that, please leave a comment, Thanks!

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Shopping Spree 2

I'm afraid we are off to buy more pedialyte. Hannah started puking again on the way to her dentist appointment. So we're back home and watching cartoons.

busy, busy, and more busy

It has been a busy week for us. On Thursday I hosted a playdate here. And it was lots of fun, started at 9:00 and went until 1:00pm. It was another full house with lots of kids running everywhere. Then Friday afternoon we headed out for a playdate. It was at a house we had been to before, and there is a really big dollhouse in one of the bedrooms upstairs. I had to hold Hannah back so I could get her shoes and jacket off, and then she just made a beeline for this dollhouse. It was rather cute, as usually Hannah makes a beeline for the food. Then Friday evening we headed to Edmonton, Saturday we went to the Mom Pop and Tots show, Hannah got to take a ride on the ponies, and bounce in a bouncy house. She had a great time. Sunday we went to the shriners circus. And then a barbecue before we headed home. But it doesn't end there, on Monday Hannah, Sara and I headed off to the zoo for the morning. I think that pretty much sums up our week. What did you guys do this weekend?

Monday, March 12, 2007

W00t! I talk good English!

Your Language Arts Grade: 100%

Way to go! You know not to trust the MS Grammar Check and you know "no" from "know." Now, go forth and spread the good word (or at least, the proper use of apostrophes).

Are You Gooder at Grammar?
Make a Quiz

(And yes that was on my first try - with no cheating, either...)

Saturday, March 03, 2007

Shopping Spree

Items on the receipt from my last shopping trip: Children's Tylenol; Children's Motrin; Infant Motrin; Pedialyte; Pedialyte pops.

Sunday, February 25, 2007

Restock The Diaper Bag!

That is the note that I need to stick to our front door, in big bold letters. We decided to go to the Devonian gardens today and walk around a bit, let Hannah play at the playground, and then go to the OSF (Old Spagetti Factory) for supper. Well halfway through playing we realized that Hannah had a stinky bum. But whoops there are no diapers. But we can fix this right we're in a big mall. So we find a shoppers drugmart, and buy some pull-ups, walking out just as they're locking the doors. So now the trick is finding a washroom. Unfortunately there are no washrooms on the floor that we are on so Dan decides to take Hannah up the escalator to the nearest washroom while I wait with Sara, instead of tracking down an elevator.

Of course as they are walking off, and I study the map a little more, I realize that we have to walk right by a washroom on our way through the pedway system. But they are already on the escalator. Shortly after that I realize that Dan has forgotten the diaper bag, and therefor the wipes.

So Dan comes back from the washroom, rather annoyed and with Hannah barely cleaner then when he left. We head for the bathroom that I had located, and here I take over and change Hannah again. But it is now that I realize that, hey, we only have two wipes left. So I sparingly use one wipe, and figure we'll be good for the evening as both girls have already pooped once now.

We went off to the restaurant, and enjoyed our supper. As we're waiting for desert the inevitable happens. Hannah poops, and a really smelly one too. It is at this point that I have to admit to having used the last wipe to clean off Sara's face. But oh wait, we keep wipes in the van, all will be saved. So Dan runs out to the van to grab the wipes and another diaper. He comes back in with the nicest smirk and drops a brick of wipes onto the table.

I pick up the brick of frozen wipes, and head off to the washroom, which is of course down a very long flight of stairs which Hannah insists on walking down herself. We get to the washroom, I bend down to pick up her up to put her on the change table and narrowly miss putting my hand into a gigantic blob of poop, that has popped out the back of her diaper. There is poop everywhere, on her clothes, up her back. I turn my attention to the wipes hoping they will some how have magically melted, but they haven't, and the only thing I seem to be able to do with them is rip off little pieces of dried cold wipes. So I attempt to clean Hannah up with wet paper towel, and wet change table covers, that the OSF has nicely kept stocked in their change table. Needless to say I didn't do a very good job. and so we trudged back to the table with a still smelling Hannah, and me also smelling cause at some point I put my knee into a blob of poop that had fallen out of her diaper.

So that was our day. It was actually quite an enjoyable outing despite my complaining, but I think I might have finally learned my lesson about keeping the wipes and diapers stocked in the diaper bag.

Thursday, February 22, 2007

Puppy?

I'm sure every kid does this at some point but it is still cute. We had Macaroni and hotdogs for supper tonight. And you guessed it halfway through supper Hannah asked for more puppies.

We were supposed to go to a restaurant for supper tonight, but when I went outside to warm up the van, I accidentally locked myself out. So supper plans were ruined and I had to throw something together. So we had macaroni and cheesewiz with hotdogs.

In other news I hosted another playdate today. We all had a great time. It was a little bit smaller then normal, with only 4 other moms. I actually found it to be a little more enjoyable with the smaller group 5 adults and 9 kids is a little more manageable then the group I usually have. Hannah and 3 of the other kids spent about 30 minutes just running circles around our house, up the stairs in the kitchen, then they slid down the stairs at the entrance on their bellies and then back up to the kitchen. It was really great to watch Hannah actually playing with the other kids. Usually she just picks a toy and plays with it by herself. She is actually quite anti-social, but I guess that is pretty much normal for her age. Sara had a blast too, I put her in her exersaucer (so she wouldn't get run over) and she sat and watched all the other kids play. When they all came into the kitchen for snacks, she got quite upset. Of course some of the boys were kind enough to show Hannah that she could slide down the main set of stairs on her belly too.

Monday, February 19, 2007

Pay no attention to the monkey behind the other keyboard....

First of all, yes.... I'm still alive....

Secondly, I didn't believe that I could cut through the table... As scientifically minded people, we were simply testing an admittedly weak hypothesis based on Hannah's attempts to cut through our table with a plastic butter knife...

For the record, plastic utensils are no match for a 30 year old pine table...

Take a guess ...

How long do you think Dan tried to cut through our coffee table with a plastic knife. He of course was attempting to prove me wrong after I stated that it couldn't be done as the knife would wear down to nothing first.

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Six month shots

Sara had her six month shots today. Yes, I know she is 8 months old. She weighed in at a whopping 21 lbs, and 27 inches. She wasn't even on the charts any more for weight. And she was in the 75th percentile for length. She is definitely my big girl. At this rate it wont be long and she will be heavier then Hannah. She took the shots well although her legs are sore this evening, and she was pretty tired.

Happy valentines day to everybody. Dan surprised me with a dozen roses this afternoon, and we went out for supper. Of course supper can't be too romantic with two kids, but it was fun none the less.

Life has been pretty routine around here lately so I haven't got much to say, we're heading out to a play date tomorrow morning, which is going to be great, seeing how we've been house bound for the last week, thanks to the snow. I will now take a moment to complain about the roads in Calgary. Their idea of snow removal is a joke. I went out last night and got a shot of adrenaline a couple of times, and it was only a 3 km drive. Not once on my trip did I find any gravel, not at any intersections, or on the huge hill that I came down. (You try stopping on a huge hill that is a sheet of ice without the aid of gravel) . Personally I love driving in Calgary, when the roads are nice, it is easily the best city I have ever been in for driving. People behave logically and the roads are fast. But waiting for the Next Chinook doesn't count as snow removal in my mind. But enough of that. Hope everybody had a great valentine, and eat lots of chocolate, it will get your endorphins going.

Saturday, February 10, 2007

A penny spent, is a penny spent

We learned an important lesson today, if you go to just check out something that sounds like a good idea, you will probably end up buying it. So with that said check out our new purchase.

Thursday, February 08, 2007

This is Funny

Congratulations

Congratulations are in order for Kelly and Kara Tuftin. If you want to know why, check out their website The Tuftins

Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Question

What does a dinosaur, Pokemon, Scooby-doo, the Letter W, Spongebob, Winnie the pooh, and a tiger all have in common?

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

company, feeling ill, bandaids, exercise and poker.

The weekend before last weekend we had company. It was friends from way way up north. It was great to see them again as we rarely get to see them, and usually have to be satisfied with quick visits once or twice a year. They stayed the weekend and we got more then our fill of board games. We also took a day trip to Edmonton in the midst of all that to try Bridesmaids dresses on for a wedding this summer. It was a rather hectic trip as just me and Kara drove there and back with two kids in just one day but it was a fun day and worth the drive. (Thanks Katy for babysitting) Since the weekend, and well to be honest starting the weekend I have had a really bad cough. Dan got sick not far behind me, and unfortunately for him seems to be really taking it hard. He has had to take a few days off work. He did go see the Doctor today and got antibiotics and a steroid puffer. I will be seeing my Doctor on Friday so I guess I will be asking for antibiotics too. The doctor Dan saw said that without antibiotics this particular bug will takes the average person 60 days to run its course. (Yuck) So if anybody I've come in contact with in the last two weeks has a cough, just go to your Doctor and get the drugs. Onto to band aids. I discovered this week that 20 band aids for a kid is nothing. I though a box of twenty would last us forever, well I was wrong. Hannah cut her finger on Monday, quit badly actually probably should have had stitches, but since Monday I have gone through most of her band aids and a fair number of the non fun adult band aids. She insists on playing with it, but then gets mad when it falls off, so I have to go dig out a new one, I think we're going through 5 band aids a day. I joined an exercise program. It is very exciting and I am trying to make it there three times a week. Dan has been great putting Hannah to bed by himself so I can get out of the house at a reasonable time. I have really enjoyed the two times I have gone so far, although this cough kinds of suck. I'm not really interested in losing weight (although I wont complain) but I would like to have more energy, and just maybe get my ab muscles back. Apparently two pregnancies, turn your abdominal muscles to mush. and Last, poker, me and Dan were supposed to go to a poker tournament hosted by his work this evening, but well since Dan missed work, we couldn't exactly go to the tournament. It was kind of disappointing as I am sure I would have won first place. Okay maybe not first place, but I like to think I would have placed in the top ten anyways. (fifty people signed up) Oh well next time.

Saturday, January 13, 2007

Friday, January 05, 2007

Pictures

back to normal

Well everything is back to normal, well as normal as it gets. Dan is back to work, and my house has been returned to its original pre-Christmas state, with the addition of a couple dozen new toys. Hannah and Sara have decided to bring in the new year by developing new skills. Hannah is learning new words like crazy, and Sara has decided that she can sit now.

New Years

We went to the zoo for New years eve. It was a lot of fun, they have a huge walk through light show, and then fireworks at 8:30, Hannah really enjoyed the lights, and was mesmerized buy the fireworks. She almost made it to bring in the new year, but fell asleep at 11:45. A pretty late night for her, but she did remarkably well. Sara on the other hand slept through most of the lights and the fireworks.

christmas

Well Christmas is officially over, and we had a great time, at all three of our Christmases. The kids got lots of clothes and toys, and me and Dan got everything we asked for. But more importantly we got to visit with lots of family, and eat lots of good food. Hannah was teething over the first part of Christmas so she was a little grouchier then normal, but the tooth has come through now, so she is feeling better. Other then that I think the first Christmas hosted at our house was a success.