Blog Update

So this blog is pretty much dead at this point, but it has so much history from our Girl's births that we need to try and maintain it until we migrate the content and contents out to some kind of scrapbook or other permanent home.  Sadly, every time I look at it, the comments have gone wonky in some ways.  The most recent issue centers around Blogger changing our domain to .ca because we're Canadian, but Disqus not being able to make complete sense of it.  I think I have it fixed for most of the threads, but a few seem to be missing the "comments" link.  Posting this more to see if comments work for new posts going forward or not...

Getting Closer!

As our professional team gets closer to having all of the necessary pieces in place, it is finally time to get shovels into the ground for the next chapter of our family's life.  Ahead of getting equipment on the ground to start installing underground utilities, we are pleased to announce that we will be holding a ground-breaking ceremony next Saturday (May 11).

Modernizing...

It's funny how far behind the times we had gotten...  Since Christmas we have upgraded the main PC to something capable of playing modern games, a new vaio laptop, an iPad mini, and a full sized iPad (4th Gen).  It has taken some getting used to, but we are quickly discovering the appeal of modern tech...

Success!!!

After countless months of the comments being AWOL following the closure of the Echo comments platform, I have managed to recover every comment and have loaded them into Disqus.  Hopefully, with this restoration, we will be motivated to post more often!

Transitioning to a better way of life

As many of our friends and family area already aware, we are working with a group of fantastic folks to build a new home for our family. The project is called Dragonfly Cohousing and you can read all about us here.

As part of this project, we have just recently sold our home and moved into a rental property to allow us the necessary liquidity to purchase our unit when construction completes (Currently looking to be Fall of 2013).

Yesterday, we received the exciting news that our development permit application had been resubmitted to the City of Calgary for assessment.

Another Year

It is hard to believe that it has been another year since I posted. Rebekah just had her 3rd birthday last week. I'm finding it hard to accept that my littlest baby is 3 already. In the fall she will be starting 3 day a week pre-school. She is so excited to go to preschool. I don't think I have to worry about first day jitters with her. Not that any of my other kids had a problem. I told her before Christmas that if she went pee in the potty and wore big girl panties she could go to preschool. She very gladly took me up on the offer and when Santa brought her panties for Christmas she refused to wear diapers. She succeeded though, so now we go to a parented preschool one day a week, and she loves it. It is so cute when she sings along in the class, as she sings her own words whenever she feels like it, and louder then everybody else.

Hannah turned 6 back in December. We had a swimming/bowling party with some of her school friends. It is amazing how independent she is getting. I can often rely on her for help now, and can trust her to do things on her own. Sometimes it is difficult to let her go, but when I give her my trust she generally does even better then I hoped. She is enjoying Grade 1. It was a rough start to begin with. She was really tired by the end of the day, and while she was loving going by the time we saw her at the end of the day she was a bit of a grouch. Things are better now though, and a earlier bed time has helped with waking up in the morning. She is doing amazing in math, and reading. Struggling a bit in talking french, but her teacher has assured us that, Hannah is just being lazy. She has an amazing french vocabulary, but generally chooses English because it's easier. Personally I can barely count to 10 in french, so for me what she knows already is amazing, and she gets great amusement out of listening to me try to read her books.

M has been with us for almost 2 years now, in fact it will be 2 years at the end of April. She turned 4 in December, and is currently going to a preschool 5 days a week. We are hoping to hold her back a year, so next year she will be going to a modified kindergarten so that the year after she can do a full kindergarten before attending grade 1. She loves going to school and is doing great there. We work on learning the alphabet and counting at home, and she is starting to be able to recognize her letters. But while she doesn't really like sitting to learn her alphabet she loves running around. M has the most fun when moving, whether it is running from one end of the house and back, pretending to be a horse or just jumping on the couch, she loves to move. We joke that she's going to be our Olympian. Soccer starts in a couple of weeks for all the girls, but I'm confident it will be M who will enjoy it the most.

Sara-Lyn will be 5 in December and she has already told me her birthday party is going to be at Stir Crazy. I'm not sure if that will work out for her, but she can always dream. She is absolutely loving preschool, and is looking forward to going to kindergarten next year. She is doing really well with her speech and we no longer worry about her at all. The speech therapist that we are working with this year has assured us that Sara-Lyn wont even need to see anybody next year. She has caught up to her peers. She has started learning how to read, and I am always shocked by how many sight words she has. She is just starting to be able to sound words out, but she has 100s of sight words and can read many books by herself.

Our last one is J, he has been with us 9 months now, and will soon be leaving us. He is being adopted and should be moving from our home by mid-May. We are going to miss him, but it will be good for him to be with his sisters and forever family. He has recently figured out how to move chairs around to reach things that he shouldn't have, and I have to say for the first week I am just going to enjoy not having to put the chairs on the table after each meal.

Drop-side cribs banned...

Drop-side cribs kill 46 kids over the past 10 years and they ban them (millions upon millions of them), while the CDC reports that 77 children aged 1-3 died between 2000 and 2007 from accidental firearm discharges and every American is still allowed to own a gun... Why not put the onus on the companies that manufacture the sub-par rails and guides to provide quality parts, perhaps by getting rid of the cheap plastic and go back to good old fashioned metal? And where does a parent's responsibility end? We had a guide break on our crib (right around the time of the recall, and after 3 kids had already outgrown it) because I leaned on it with most of my weight while trying to get Rebekah out of the back corner. What did we do about it? Took the side with the broken rail off, used the crib as a toddler bed and ordered a replacement part for when the next baby came along... There are so many things wrong with this new "initiative" that I'm not even sure where to start...

1. We have recently been considering our impact on our world and have begun following The Story of Stuff and I can't help but think that somewhere, somebody is more worried about how they can force people to buy new cribs instead of buying them from garage sales, hanging on to them for generations, or passing them on to other new parents
2. I also am forced to think about how widely the same poor quality plastics that created the broken guide dilemma are used in other consumer products and how much of a backlash it would cause if they forced crib manufacturers to use a higher-quality (read as more expensive) replacement, both in terms of increased manufacturing costs and in terms of consumers realizing that there are options to the cheap plastics that have become pervasive in consumer goods...
3. Wondering about the intelligence of forcing new parents (who already may be struggling to make ends meet) to go buy a brand new crib because they can't get a used one any more...

Summer 2010

Our summer started with Sara-Lyn's 4th birthday in June at Riley park. We had a pit of confusion to start with as the pool we had initially chosen was under renovations. But it all got sorted out and we had a great time wading in the pool and then playing at the part. Thanks to everybody who came out to celebrate her birthday with us.

I'm in a bit of shock that Sara is 4 already. I am not ready for her to be starting her second year of preschool already. Her speech has been doing great and she is loving her gymnastics. Her first year of preschool went great and she is sad that it is over and that she has to say goodbye to her teacher.

Summer was very busy for us, I can't even remember everything we did. I made a few trips to the farm with just me and the kids, and we made a trip to the lake as a family. It was a busy summer but a memorable one.

Fall is now here and everybody has started school again. Hannah is in grade one and doing great. In fact she is doing better about it then I am. I am having a hard time with her being gone all day. Some days I am glad for the quite but I wish I had the opportunity to spend a little more time with her. But she likes her teacher and the friends she has made. She is also making huge progress in Reading and Writing French and English. In fact now we can send the other kids to her to have a book read :)

Sara-Lyn is loving her pre-school again. She goes 3 afternoons a week, and wants to go everyday. She is also taking speech through her preschool. They've gone on their first field trip already to the Calgary corn maze, and Sara was in heaven to get to ride a school bus like the other kids.

M has been doing really great as well. She is going to a special needs preschool 5 days a week and has been really enjoying that. In fact she probably asks twice a day on the weekends when her bus is coming. She is getting help with socializing and speech here at the house once every two weeks. She has been making a lot of progress with expressing herself.

Rebekah is going to gymnastics along with the other kids, while she would like to go everyday I'm afraid she is stuck with just once a week. She wants to go to her own preschool, and we've made a deal that when she pees in the potty she can go to school. Her speech is amazing she has such a big vocabulary. Unfortunately many of her words are difficult to understand and she may have some of the same problems as Sara-Lyn. At this point I'm not going to worry too much as I'm confident she isn't as bad as Sara was. She is also my very stubborn girl, who definitely likes being the baby of the family. After all everybody has to cater to her every whim. While she likes to be the baby she is also very determined to be a big girl, she swings in the big swings, goes down the big slides and tries to climb everything at the park. There is no holding her back.

Our newest addition J came to us in July and he was 6 months old. He is now 10 months old. He is crawling, and getting ready to start walking. Hopefully he will be moving on from our home to his forever home in the next few weeks. This would be very exciting for him and we are all waiting anxiously to find out what the plan for him will be.

Happy Birthday Rebekah

2 years old already... It doesn't seem like it was that long ago that we welcomed our third bundle of joy into this world, but alas, it has.

Rebekah seems to be growing up a little more each day. She now has enough words that she can effectively communicate most basic needs and wants, which is a welcome relief. I think her favorite work right now is probably "HEY!", which we hear whenever something she wants get put away, or whenever she wants something another kid has, or when somebody new walks into the room

30 years in the making

Well, it's official. I'm no longer a twenty-something. Looking back on the last 10 years, I can definitely say that I am happy with how things have turned out so far. I have been married to the love of my life for nearly 7 years, have 4 beautiful children, am working at a job that never seems to run out of new and interesting challenges, and am living in one of the most amazing, family-friendly cities in the country. As my 30th year on this world begins, I remember how I felt 5 years ago on my 25th birthday, when I was far less happy about getting another year older. I had begun to realize that time was passing at that my childhood (and what I thought of as my youth) was officially over. 5 years later, I have come to grips with the fact that, like it or not, I am now an adult, but also that "youth" is not something that can be tracked on a calendar. It is how we feel about ourselves. It is about how we interact with the world around us. We choose to feel old. As my children begin going to school, and we move into yet another new phase in our family, I am looking forward to the challenges ahead.

Christmas is coming

It's hard to believe that Christmas is almost here again. It has sure been a busy year.

• Hannah
  • Finished pre-school
  • Finished her first dance class, complete with a recital at a big fancy theatre
  • Started French Immersion Kindergarten, complete with a really exciting first day that found her in Grade 1 by accident
  • Started Sparks
• Sara-Lyn
  • Completed her first round of speech therapy and is doing much better
  • Started preschool and dance class and seems to really enjoy doing all of the big kids things that Hannah gets to do.
• Rebekah
  • Continues to grow like a bad weed, and is starting to use a few scattered words
• Carmen
  • Continues to be active on our Community Association board of Directors
  • Has become a Sparks leader
  • Has been working with her sister and mother to build up their sweet little startup: Bedard Creek Acres

As many of our faithful readers are already aware, we have started working with the Boys and Girls Clubs of Calgary as Foster Parents. We received our first placement within days of our home opening, a beautiful and charming little 2 year old girl, who has been with us ever since. Unfortunately, I can't say too much more due to privacy regulations, but feel free to catch me online or drop me an email and I would be happy to tell you all about her.

As for me, I haven't had much of a chance to do anything other than work for as long as I can remember. A few movies with the kids here and there, and few quick trips out of town to visit family, but otherwise not a lot new. On the topic of work, things have been good. My job continues to provide me with enough of a challenge to keep things interesting while affording me the latitude necessary for me to be an active participant in our family. Despite the sagging economy, CGI has done a lot to try and keep their employees engaged and happy, and I am happy to say that I am still glad to be working there today.

I think the single biggest event, other than essentially becoming new parents again, is that my parent's celebrated their 30^th wedding Anniversary in November, and my Sister, my aunt and I (well, Carmen really) put together a little surprise party for them back home. It was really great seeing so many of our family members and our closest family friends come out to celebrate. I want to send a special shout out to the Swartz family for helping pull the thing off and to the Yaehne family for their help and (more importantly) not whisking my parents off to Las Vegas on a last minute flight.

I am sure that there was lots more that happened this year that was blog worthy, but with facebook, twitter and more recently Google Wave blogs seem to be less and less of the place of choice for people to to stay connected. Hopefully with the new year, we can muster a new sense of commitment and start keeping our faithful few more up-to-date...

Neglected Blog

So how sad is it that it took me until today to realize that my birthday post for Sara-Lyn was only saved as a draft? It seems with all the business of life, and the convenience of Twitter and Facebook, we are never on our blog any more. Just out of curiosity, how many people are still checking us out over here? (Please leave a comment)

Happy Birthday Sara-Lyn

So Sara-Lyn is 3 now. One more of our babies who is no longer a baby. It's a little scary how fast they are growing up. We went to Calaway Park on the weekend with Katy and her family along with another family that Carmen is friends with through Calgary Moms.

For the record, my children are all absolute adrenaline junkies - Hannah and Sara-Lyn have both begun showing a major preference for the more intense rides, all of which require them to ride with an adult: ME (I have also discovered that I can't handle those rides as well as I could when I was younger...)

As icing on the cake, Auntie Kerri and Uncle Jay sent a balloon-o-gram today, and as luck would have it, Sara-Lyn was the one to answer the door

Happy birthday Rebekah

I know Rebekah actually turned one on Wednesday, but I am in denial. I don't want my littlest baby to be one already. We had cake on Wednesday for her, and she had a blast mushing it between her fingers, and then she opened a few presents on Monday. We have pictures, and I will post them soon. Just not today.

Busy month

It has definitely been a busy month for us, well more like two months, but whose counting. The holidays were great, I found them a little overwhelming this year with all the traveling we did, but it was well worth it to get a chance to visit with everybody. Hannah has been absolutely obsessed about Christmas since the beginning of December when people starting turning on their Christmas lights. Everyday she asked if tomorrow was Christmas for pretty much the whole month of December. Even on her birthday, the birthday barely distracted her from the goal of Christmas. I had hoped that when Christmas was over the onslaught would end, but it hasn't. She has been making decorations for next year's Christmas tree since the day we took this year's tree down. It doesn't matter how many times I try to explain how far away next Christmas is, she wont be deterred. I'm hoping valentines day may provide some relief. I find it hard to believe that Hannah is 4 already. Ever since her birthday it seems like she is growing up so fast, of course it probably doesn't help that I registered her for kindergarten the other day. Now I have to face the reality that in six months she will be off to school. It seems like too much for my little girl to handle. She is loving pre-school so much that I know she is going to love everything about kindergarten. She is even excited about getting to ride a school bus.

Sara has had a very exciting month as well. She enjoyed Christmas as well. In a different way then her sister though. Sara has been really enthralled with this Santa guy, even now she talks about Santa bringing her candy. Of course it probably doesn't help that Hannah is still jabbering on about Christmas. I think Sara's most exciting news for this month is that she is now officially a big girl. Complete with a big girl party at chucky cheese. We started potty training her last friday, and she was pretty much done within a week. Tomorrow will be two full weeks, and she is doing great. She is very proud of her new panties, and takes great pride in showing off the pictures on each pair. Of course Sara has to add her own brand of independence to everything, and she has already decided that she doesn't need help going potty anymore. When I try to help her she either tells me to go away, or that she wants privacy. While I am proud of her for being so independent, I just don't know if I am ready to let her handle the bathroom all by herself yet. Sara has also started speech therapy this month. It has been an interesting experience. The speech therapist was really impressed with how much Sara had improved from when she was assessed back in November. While she was labeled as severe at the assessment, she is almost into the moderate category now. It is difficult though going to the classes and watching Sara struggle so much with something that should be so simple.

Rebekah is a completely different baby from the last time I posted. Christmas was a big time for her. Over the holidays she perfected sitting by herself. she cut two teeth, and started making attempts at crawling. She still isn't crawling quite yet in the typical sense, but she is fully mobile now, she either pulls herself forward on her belly or scooches herself forward on her bum. Rebekah has also moved into the world of table food, and with a vengeance, she has become a very picky eater, and only wants what we are eating. Unfortunately she also doesn't like some of the typical finger foods you give to a baby such as cheerios, so sometimes finding her quick snacks can difficult. I pretty much have to cook a whole meal just to feed her. In the last week she has figured out how to pull herself into a sitting position from her belly, and she thinks it is very amusing to sit up and push on the bars of her crib, when she should be sleeping.

Me and Dan are doing great. I think the most important thing happening with us right now, is that we are finishing our basement. In the last 2 months we have put down a subfloor, framed in a bedroom, an office, rupus room, utility room, laundry room, and what will one day be a bathroom. We are also two thirds done the electrical. So hopefully we will be able to start putting up drywall soon, and then the fun really begins.

Happy Birthday Hannah!

It's hard to believe that Hannah turned 4 today. We had princess pool party for Hannah this weekend that Kara, Kelly, Elizabeth, Katy, Jayda, Noah and Nana all came to. It was a real splash with everybody:

After that we went back to the house for cake and the princess part of the princess pool party - All in all, a really good day, but looking back, I still can't figure out where the last 4 years went...

Speech assesment

Sara-Lyn had her speech assessment on Monday, and they diagnosed her with a phonological disorder. This is most likely the same thing I had as a child, but they didn't have a name for it back then. Essentially it means that her brain has difficulty organizing sounds into words. She has an amazing level of comprehension, she started getting the questions wrong when they were asking questions from the 5/6 year old set. But her spoken language skills are really low, she estimated that only about 10% of what Sara says is understandable by anybody other then me. Normally a 2.5 year old should be around 50% intelligible. She was pleased with how much Sara was attempting to talk, even if it wasn't understandable. Anyways they put her down as high priority for therapy and she should be starting in January.

Personally I am having a hard time with this diagnosis, I was really hoping to be able to go the speech assessment and have them just tell me that she was a little behind but not to worry she would catch up. Now I have to face the reality that there is something wrong, and while she will one day talk, after all I can talk, she may struggle for a long time with it. Personally I started speech therapy when I was three, and continued until the end of grade 4. I was still having difficulty pronouncing certain words well into highschool. I remember the frustration of not being understood as a child, and then mocked as I got older when I mispronounced words. This is something I really don't want Sara to have to go through. But it seems that I have very little choice in the matter, and she will most likely face the same scenarios. Especially seeing how I went and named her a name she that will probably be one of the last sounds she is able to pronounce correctly.

Halloween

Halloween was a success at our house this year. Hannah and Sara-Lyn both made it all the way around the block and through both cul-de-sacs, filling two full buckets of candy each. So they both now have a gigantic bulging bag of candy. Hannah went to her preschool Halloween party as Cinderella, and had fun decorating cookies, and eating them. Sara dressed as Snow White, and we went to a drop in gym time, where they had a halloween theme. Then of course we went trick or treating. For Trick or treating Hannah wore her Cinderella dress and a pretend pony on top of that. We had decorated pumpkins a couple of evenings prior to halloween, so I will post some pictures of those and their costumes.

six month stats

Rebekah weighed 16lbs and 3 ounces, and is 26 inches. She is in the 75% for everything. A rather boring appointment, the Doctor suggested we slowly introduce fruits and a few vegetables high in sugar to help her adjust better, and then introduce grains much later.

Six months already

It is hard to believe but Rebekah is six months old today. It is amazing how much a baby changes in six months. Her favorite things to do right now are jump in her jolly jumper and blow spit at everybody. She also really likes to say "dat dat dat dat" over and over again. Particularly at 6:00am when she should be sleeping. She is rolling over easily now, although she doesn't really like spending time on the floor, she doesn't get as much practise as she probably should. She loves pretty much anybody but both Hannah and Sara can get a giggle from her just by stopping to say "hi" or making a funny face. Our biggest concern with her right now is introducing solid food, we started about three weeks ago and have had nothing but problems. I'm hoping the Dr. can give us some suggestions this afternoon at her six month appointment, because at the moment I am at a loss as to what to try with her. The only thing I am giving her right now is pears because they are supposed to be high in fibre, and easy to digest, but even the pears seem to be making her sick. She loves to eat though. She eats two large meals a day, and if you even think about skipping them she gets a little orniery. She is definenitly a morning person, and wakes up each morning (way to early) with a gigantic smile, then she sticks her tongue out and blows some great bubbles. But I am off to pick up Hannah so we can go to Rebekah's apointment.