more pictures

Since coming home

It has been a rather hectic couple of days for us. I got home with Rebekah on Wednesday and we started to get settled in. On Thursday just as we were started to get settled in, the public health nurse stopped in for her visit. She decided that Rebekah looked a little jaundice and sent off a blood sample to the hospital. By 8:00pm on Thursday we were back at the hospital so Rebekah could go under the lights. It took a full 24 hours for her levels to come back down to a safe amount so we just got back from the hospital last night. Sara has been sick with a fever since Monday night. It bounces between 100 F to 104.5 F. So things have been a little rough for her over the last few days. And as she seems to have a tendency to puke whenever her fever spikes, Dan has had a lot of fun cleaning up puke, while I have been at the hospital. So we're hoping whatever it is that is causing Sara to be so sick will end soon so we can really get a chance to relax and find a routine that works for us. That pretty much sums up what has been happening here since Monday, I can definitely say it has been an exciting week.

Pictures

Birth story

On Tuesday morning around 8:00am my water broke. Thankfully by a whole bunch of coincidences Dan was only 5 minutes away from the house on his way to work when I called him, so he made his way back here, and I called our babysitter. Around 10:00am I was having contractions so we headed off to the hospital. I got a bed in triage and hooked up to the monitors around 12:00pm. The monitors showed that I was having contractions about every 10 minutes, but the babies heart beat was dropping off occasionally with the contractions so they were worried that the cord was pinched. They decided to keep me hooked up to the monitors to make sure it didn't get worse. Unfortunately this meant that I couldn't get up and walk around so the contractions I was having stopped. Once the contractions stopped the babies heart rate stabilized so they let me get up and walk around, which we did.

At 7:00pm because my contractions hadn't started again, I was given the option to go home and try to get them going again, but I had to come back in at 7:00am to be induced if they didn't start. Or I could get induced right now. I really didn't feel that going home was going to get the contractions started so we decided to get induced right away, with the stipulation that before they started the cytosine they would do an exam to make sure there wasn't a pocket of water. They did the exam at 8:20pm and found that I was 4 cm dilated and had a pocket of water, which they promptly broke. They agreed to wait another 2 hours before starting the cytosine to see if rebreaking the membrane would start labor naturally. At 11:00pm my contractions were getting to be intense but they were still 5 minutes apart, and the nurse really started to push me to start the cytosine to get things moving. I eventually agreed but I wanted to get the epidural put in first. So at 11:45pm I got my epidural, immediately after getting the epidural my contractions moved to being a minute apart, so we didn't end up using the cytosine after all.

At 12:45pm the babies heart rate starting dropping with each contraction again, so they did an exam to see if I was ready to push and I was 9.5 cm dilated, but the heart rate was becoming a concern so I was put on oxygen and an internal monitor was put in, we then started trying various positions to get the heart rate back up. We eventually got the heart rate to go back to normal by having me stay on my hands and knees. Shortly after getting into this position I started to feel the urge to push, but as they figured going back onto my back to push would cause the heart rate to drop again, they wanted to wait for the baby to move down more on it's own, so I stayed on my hands and knees for another 40 minutes while we waited for the urge to push to become pretty much unbearable.

At 1:35am I announced that I couldn't wait any longer and that this baby was coming out now. I rolled over and started to push pretty much right away. Things got a little hectic here, as she came a lot quicker then the nurse expected and after only three pushes the babies head had not only crowned but was out. At this point the nurse started calling frantically over the intercom for the somebody to get in there now! She also discovered at this point that the cord was wrapped around the babies neck and was causing the babies heart rate to drop. So while I think she might have wanted to take a quick break at this point and give the Dr. a chance to arrive we had to get the baby out right away. So the pushing resumed and she was out just in time for the Dr. to run in and catch her. She let out a big cry right away to let us know she was okay. So Rebekah Lauren was born at 1:45am, 7lbs 12 oz and 21 inches long.

She was perfectly healthy, except for being mucusy from being born so quickly, and she had bruises on her face because she was facing up when my labor started and in the process of turning she got some bruises on her face.

Off to the hospital...

Apparently this baby has a mind of it's own and doesn't want anybody to tell it when it should come... my water broke this morning, so we will be off to the hospital soon. Check back soon to find out about baby.

baby.. baby.. where are you?

Oh wait I remember now, still in my stomach. I saw my Dr. on Wednesday and she feels that I will probably go into labor any day. She even went so far to suggest that Friday worked well for her, as she is on call that day. But if I don't go into labor soon, when I see her next Wednesday she will break my water, and I will be off to the hospital. I am excited to have an end date to this pregnancy as it seems to be dragging on forever, but I can't help but hope that her first prediction that it would be sooner rather then later was true. So for those who haven't put in a guess yet for the birth of this baby, I just narrowed the field so you might want to throw a day out there before they're all gone.

Ultrasound

I know some people are actually wondering about the results of my ultrasound on Thursday so I guess I can take the time to write it down. The baby was measuring exactly average for how far along I am. They are guessing around 6 and 1/2 lbs, although ultrasounds are plus or minus a pound so really that weight means nothing. I am actually very happy to hear that this baby isn't ridiculously large like the last two were. I was getting worried that I was going to end up delivering a 10 lb baby. Of course the bad news is, that so far this pregnancy has been exactly average, which means if I continue on this trend of averageness I wont have this baby for another two weeks. I think I will go crazy if I have to wait another two weeks, or even possibly longer. I have officially carried this baby one week longer then I did with Sara and it feels like I should just have this one any day now.

In other news we celebrated Dan's birthday last night by having a few friends over, it was fun although it seemed that this has been a long week for everybody so we kept it pretty mellow. And well let's face facts I'm as big as a house how much fun can I possibly be. Sara and Hannah are doing great as always. Sara is starting to slowly expand her vocabulary. Although I have to admit that her grunting is amazingly effective. Hannah is eagerly awaiting the arrival of the baby, which she has nicknamed 'Tickely'. She has predicted that Tickely will arrive on Wednesday. I am predicting Saturday the 5th. Anybody else care to wager a guess....

Easter Weekend

Well Easter is officially past, and I am still pregnant. I really thought that I would have had this baby by Easter, but it appears that this baby has decided it needs to be full term. I will officially be 37 weeks pregnant tomorrow, which is considered a full term baby. I am glad that I made it this far, because it means that we don't have to worry about any complications from having an early baby. However I am starting to get a little impatient and I would be just as happy to have this baby any day now. I have an ultrasound on Thursday to check on the size of this baby, seeing how I have a tendency to have really big babies they want to check and make sure this one isn't going to 10 lbs.

Easter was fun, we had Dan's sister and her family visit us from Edmonton. So the kids did the easter egg hunt in the morning, then colored eggs. The weather was beautiful so we made our way to the park in the afternoon. I cooked a turkey complete with stuffing and everything. Last Christmas I made a pre-stuffed turkey, so this was my first attempt at doing turkey and stuffing completely from scratch. And I think it turned out pretty good. Next time will be better though. The kids had a great time finding eggs. and then eating them of course. Hmm well I can't think of anything else of importance to write about, and to be honest I'm kind of tired today after all the excitement over the weekend so I think I am going to go back to sitting on the couch like a big lump.

Preschool Registration

It is preschool registration night tonight, and Dan has been nice enough to volunteer to go register her. This is actually a bigger deal then it may seem as we live in a city that is growing much faster then it's infrastructure. So Dan is going to go stand in line at 5:30pm for a registration that doesn't even start until 7:00pm just to ensure that Hannah actually gets into the program of our choice. We actually have it easier then most people as we are trying to get into a location that is opening for the first time in September, which means that after the preregistration for siblings of already registered kids, there are 11 spots open, and not the 2 or 3 that most locations are boosting. Well wish us luck.

sleep please ...

I think at this point I would gladly pay to have one night of completely uninterrupted sleep. Tuesday night I woke up at 3:00am to the sound of Hannah puking, two hours later and another two puking episodes I finally got back to sleep only to have Dan's alarm go off. Wednesday night I woke up at 4:00am because of Hannah coughing. And for those who have experienced Hannah's coughing you already know that to ignore her is just asking for another puking episode. So I was up getting her propped up on a pillow and waiting for her current coughing fit to subside. This of course woke Sara up who then decided that getting in and out of bed until 5:30am was a good idea. So finally at 5:30 with Hannah no longer coughing and Sara asleep I went back to bed, and then Dan's alarm went off. Last night at 3:30am Hannah woke me crying because her stomach hurt. I tried to calm her down for 20 minutes in her room, succeeding in mostly just waking up Sara. Finally I woke Dan up and sent him downstairs to watch the fire with her. Unfortunately though Sara would have nothing to do with going back to sleep without Hannah, so we all ended up downstairs. 40 minutes later Hannah's stomach finally stopped hurting and we were able to get both of them back asleep in their beds. Of course it was now 5:00am, and does anybody want to guess what happened at 5:45am. A big gold star for anybody that guessed that Dan's alarm went off. I have to admit that I am starting to have violent feelings towards Dan's alarm. Well anyways that has been my last few nights, lets all hope the weekend goes a little better. On the bright side Dan's alarm wont be going off.

All In!

Well last night was certainly fun! Carmen and I got to participate in my Company's annual No-Limit Texas Hold'em Poker Tournament at the Stampede Casino last night.

Despite a good start, I had a hard time making hands and was pushed out sometime around 7:30, surviving longer than about half of the other competitors. After some well timed heckling once I was out, I won a gift certificate to the local malls as a door prize. But that's none of that is the fun (or really all that interesting) part.

Carmen was the real star of our household (and the show in my not-so-objective opinion). When I was pushed out, Carmen was the short stack at her table, and we both were thinking "Oh well, at least we had a fun evening out"... And then Carmen started winning. Within about 30 minutes, she had massacred half of the table, leaving a trail of shattered dreams and wounded pride as she eliminated player after player, sometimes two at a time...

Before all was said and done, she was the last woman in the game, she was at the final table and she was one of the final two to not have gotten up from her seat even once. (considering the fact that she is six months pregnant, I think she should have won a prize for not even needing a bathroom break). Her run of good play lasted for a while, but as other tables started paring down, a few big stacks joined her table (which hadn't seem any new blood, er chips all evening) and the sudden shift in play, combined with a run of mediocre cards, starting eroding the big stack.

In the end, Carmen placed 6th out of 71 people, taking home a purse of $100, so all-in-all, an evening well spent :)

Ultrasound

We had another ultrasound today, and everything is fine with the baby. We finally know the sex of the baby after waiting what seems like forever. I'm feeling a little mean today though so I'm not telling what it is. You'll have to phone us or wait another 10 weeks to find out. I didn't get any pictures from this ultrasound because the baby was positioned with it's feet up by it's head so the pictures all would have been a mess of random limbs. Baby was measuring exactly average for size, which really doesn't surprise me, because Sara measured exactly average as well until I was into 34 weeks then she all of a sudden grew like crazy. But at least I can still hope for a small baby this time.

Our Weekend

We have had very busy weekend. It started with Hannah's sportball lessons with Dan on Saturday morning. Me and Sara decided to tag along as we were going to stop at home depot on the way home in order to pick up paint for Hannah and Sara's bedroom. Well of course as much fun as Hannah was having playing sportball Sara was not happy to sit and watch so we left the gym to wander around the rec center, possibly stopping at the library. Unfortunately we never made it to the library because I was unfortunate enough to fall down a set of horrible scary looking concrete stairs. It was a rather nasty fall too, as I was holding Sara in one arm and the railing with the other hand. I fell forward, which means that I fell forward and into the railing, as I wasn't letting go of the railing for anything. Unfortunately though without another free hand to catch myself my forward momentum continued to propel me forwards and downwards. So I was forced to let go of the railing as I continued my trip down the stairs in a very awkward backwards sideways somersault. Anybody who has ever fallen while carrying a child knows that absolutely no attempt can be made to save oneself any pain as all effort is being put into stopping your child from cracking their head on the horrible scary not rounded stairs. So while I may have managed this trip down the stairs without any injury to myself had I been by myself, I have to console myself with the knowledge that by some amazing miracle I did make it down the stairs without injuring Sara.

What amazes me about this whole experience though, and perhaps the reason why I have decided to post about it, is the absolute indifference that other people showed to our plight. There is one person in particular who I am wishing at least three weeks of bad karma on. This is the person who passed us on the stairs just moments before I fell. This man actually continued on his way exiting the building while I was still laying at the bottom of the stairs trying to figure out if I was going to pass out from the incredible pain coming from the back of my head. I heard two sounds as I assessed my situation, Sara crying, and the click of the door at the top of the stairs opening. Some people may of course excuse this guy's behavior with the assumption that he wasn't aware that I fell down the stairs, but I have to dismiss this as I let out a small audible yell as I began to fall, and there is no way a pregnant women and a toddler gracefully fall down a set of stairs without making a sound, and come on, the toddler was screaming. So anyways I have to wonder how it is that anyone could possibly ignore a pregnant lady carrying a toddler who has just fallen down the stairs, I always thought that the image of motherhood was supposed to evoke the utmost generosity in people. So anyways enough about that guy there was a nice woman with a child of her own coming from the other direction who stopped to ask if I was okay, and so I hope she has a really good three weeks, and for the other half a dozen people who looked right at me sitting at the bottom of the stairs with a screaming toddler and didn't stop I wish them two weeks of bad karma.

Just to reassure everybody I did go to a medicenter mostly because my head hurt like you wouldn't believe and well I am pregnant and I did roll down a set of concrete stairs. Of course I later discovered that the reason my head hurt so bad was because I had hit it not in one place but three, and I just couldn't narrow down the sources of pain until the main one started to subside. So I have two goose eggs on the back of my head and a bruise above my one eye. and of course more bruises then I care to count going from my shins all the way up to my head. But hey Sara doesn't have any!

After this whole excursion we decided not to attempt to paint the kid's room on Saturday and instead finished organizing our basement after the kids went to bed Saturday evening. But Sunday we felt a little at a loss as what to do with ourselves so we went to home depot and picked out the paint for the kids room anyways, and I am glad to say that it is over half way done. Hopefully we will have it finished tonight and the kids back in their room by Tuesday night.

Swimming Lessons

Hannah started her swimming lessons on Wednesday and she seemed to really enjoy them. I have to say that I do not envy the instructor for a class of 6 three year olds. There was a few moments where he a little difficulty keeping one or two from wandering off. Hannah enjoyed the splashing and floating on a kick board and can't wait to go back next week. Me and Sara paid to go to the Parent and tot swim time which was available during Hannah's lessons so we got to go swimming as well, and Sara really enjoyed swimming, although she seems to have no concept of her own safety. She ducked her own head more times then I can count, first when she was using the kick board in the shallow water, and then when she was walking in the deep water. The whole outing was a success anyways and we will definitely continue to take advantage of the parent and tot swim time during Hannah's lessons.

Christmas Summary

I know Christmas was a month ago, but I can't help but feel that it is important enough to warrant a post even if it is ridiculously late. We started our Christmas holidays by traveling to Edson to relax for a few days and then celebrate Christmas. It was of course enjoyable with lots of good food. Hannah had a blast as she got into the Christmas spirit, she enjoyed Papa's lights and took great offense when the blowup figures weren't turned on. She decorated cookies and of course was ecstatic with the phone call she received from Santa on Christmas eve. Sara was a little more mellow about the whole Christmas thing, mostly wanting to play with other people's toys rather then open her own presents but she enjoyed torturing her cousins, looking for cars out the window and riding on her dump truck that she got for Christmas.

We then traveled on to Saskatoon where we spent the rest of our holidays celebrating two more Christmases and New Years. Once again we really enjoyed ourselves in Saskatoon. Hannah really enjoyed playing with her two aunts and well opening more presents. Sara continued torturing her cousin, and her two aunts. Me and Dan got to play lots of board games which always puts us in a good mood so the whole visit was a success.

We headed home on New's Year day and spent the next two weeks relaxing after our vacation.

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.

Hannah's Artwork

Happy Birthday Hannah

Christmas 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

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

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.

Happy Halloween

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

"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.

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:

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...

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!

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.

My kids have good taste in clothes

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 ...

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.

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.

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.

Nap time

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
Network	Single 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!

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?

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...)

Shopping Spree

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

This is Funny

Poo warning, do not read if you are offended by poo.

Congratulations

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

Hint

Question

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

Family photo

What we did today

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.

playing together!

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.

Merry Christmas

It is almost Christmas, only two sleeps to go. I am excited about this year, it is the first year in our own home. At least the first where we actually planned to be here. Everything is ready, the presents are wrapped, the food is bought, company is on its way. Well I don't actually have a whole lot to write about, so I guess Merry Christmas to everybody. Drive safe and eat lots of turkey

New Bed

We bought Hannah a new bed over the weekend, and today I picked up new bedding, so tonight she is spending her first night in her new bed. We went to the store with the intention of buying a twin captains bed, but then we thought maybe we should buy bunk beds because we do eventually plan to have Sara and Hannah share a room. Of course then the thought came into our heads that we should purchase a double bed to accommodate guests. Hannah's room is quite large so it can easily handle a double bed and still have lots of room for playing. So this is exactly what we did we bought a double bed with a twin bunk. Perhaps a little over kill at this point. I was a little worried about the thought of moving my little Hannah to a double bed. But I actually am really glad that is how we did it. She looks really small in the bed, but there is lots of room for every stuffed animal she owns, and now when I sit on the bed or lay with her there is lots of room for me. And with all the stuffed animals, colorful sheets and bright yellow throw pillows we bought it looks like the perfect bed for a kid.

Bahummbug

I am never doing anything nice for anybody again. At least nothing that involves downloading music anyways. I set out to download three simple songs that is all I wanted to do. I quickly tried the illegal route, and gave up deciding that three bucks was worth the hassle of not having to search for these songs. First I tried to use MSN music, this didn't work as MSN no longer provides this service and reroutes you to ZUNE, I couldn't figure out how to get songs from Zune without becoming a member, so I tried Yahoo Music. This was my big mistake I guess. I decided to try out Yahoo's offer of seven days free membership to their site, including unlimited songs. I entered all my information then attempted to download Yahoo Jukebox. But unfortunately the Yahoo site is broken and you can't download the jukebox. So Dan found me a version of the Jukebox somewhere else on the internet and I downloaded that. But now for some reason Yahoo wasn't recognizing that I was a member. According to my account I was subscribed but the actual music program didn't recognize my subscription. So after two days of fighting with this, I canceled my subscription and tried to buy the songs the regular way for a dollar a piece. Then I encountered the problem that every time I tried to buy the songs, it would ask for my VISA number and then promptly tell me there was a problem with the purchase, and my purchase would be canceled. ARGHHH, I was starting to get frustrated. I emailed Yahoo Customer care, and got a reply which was pretty much useless. So I gave up on Yahoo music and downloaded itunes instead. This was a good experience, at least to start with anyways. I got the songs I needed with little fuss, and was happily playing them on my computer. Unfortunately just listening to the music was not my original intention of locating these songs, I actually wanted to use the songs in another program. Well the program I was using doesn't recognize itunes songs as a music file. So after researching the problem on the internet we were able to burn the songs to a cd in MP3 format. (a complete waste of a CD) and then rip them back onto the computer. So finally after all this I got my songs. But the story doesn't end there. I went to uninstall Yahoo music and discovered that it was a hacked version. Which means I most likely gave out both mine and Dan's VISA numbers to who knows who. So today I phoned VISA and canceled our VISA cards, which means that neither one of us has a VISA for the next 5 to 7 days. And well as I am sure you all realize it is almost Christmas, and who doesn't use their VISA the week before Christmas. So that is my story, and my conclusion is that I don't like yahoo music, or itunes and I never want to have anything to do with downloading music again. (SO don't ask)

TV Day

Hannah is sick again so today will be a TV day. She has a mild fever and a cough. Not the worst symptoms, but the fever seems to be making her really tired. So she will sit in front of the tv all day sipping on juice, and eating soup. Oh if only I could join her on the couch, but unfortunately with company coming this weekend I have too much to do.

Another playdate

Well we just had another successful playdate, not quite as big as last time, 6 adults and 10 kids. Thankfully a 4 people canceled at the last minute or it would have been a madhouse in here. Hannah was a little possessive of her toys, but we have more then enough to go around so it wasn't too bad. And some how my house is actually cleaner now then before anybody arrived. well maybe not quite. Hannah had a good birthday yesterday, we had a little party with strawberry shortcake, and two gifts just from me and Dan. The big party will be next weekend when everyone comes to visit. Well everyone is sleeping so I think I am going to spend sometime relaxing. (sleeping)

Happy Birthday Hannah

Food Issues

We started Sara on solid food this week. It isn't going well, she isn't interested in it at all. She just stares at me like I'm crazy and refuses to open her mouth. Today I made a break through when I put the spoon next to her mouth and she reached out with her tongue and licked the spoon, but that is the closest I've gotten to getting food in her mouth. This afternoon every time I reached towards the spoon she started crying. I'm hoping that if I keep trying she will give it a chance, but if not we will be trying oatmeal on Monday, and then if she still wont eat it I guess we will take a break for a couple of weeks.

Hannah saw an allergist here in Calgary on Wednesday. He did a full allergy test on her back. Poor girl. She actually didn't do to bad considering he poked her two dozen times. The only allergies she showed are milk and eggs, and the milk is almost gone. He recommended we give her milk in baked goods, and try her out with cheese and yogurt every three months until there is no reaction and then give her straight milk every 3 months until she doesn't react to that. She is still quit allergic to eggs though, so he suggested only giving her eggs in baked goods and only as much as she tolerates without getting eczema. Once again with eggs we can try her out with whole eggs in six months or so. I liked this allergist much better then the last one, he was much more relaxed about what we could feed her. His opinion was as long as she isn't getting really bad hives or eczema give her whatever we feel comfortable with.

online shopping

I'm starting to really like online shopping. Two weeks ago I purchased a present for somebody. I sat on my butt, found the gift, researched the gift and compared prices at various shops. Now today I noticed that the gift was on sale for less then I purchased it for. So I phoned the place I bought it from pointed out this fact and got a refund for the difference. All without ever leaving the house. The only dilemma with online shopping I may have discovered is that I spent more then I probably would have otherwise because I found so many neat things. But because everything was at such good prices, I got more for the extra money I did spend, so I'm not going to complain.

You Are a Christmas Sweater!

Over the top, colorful, and totally flashy. You're not afraid to be a little tacky.

What Crappy Christmas Gift Are You?

Yep, that's me! Tacky! :)

Signs

I think our van is telling us something. On our way back from Edmonton tonight we were about halfway back when a very large rock hit our windshield. It left behind a series of cracks which span about 5 inches. Between this new incident, the check engine light coming on, and the recent trouble with the transmission sensors, I think our van is letting us know it is ready to be retired, at least from highway driving anyways. It seems to really enjoy city driving, even when the sensor was all wacky, it still drove perfectly within city limits. At this point we are seriously considering purchasing a new vehicle, but it is hard when we just put so much money into this one.

But in other news we went to Edmonton to attend the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra. It was an enjoyable experience something everybody should do at least once in their lives. It is something we will probably do again, although perhaps in Calgary. Me and Dan have very different taste in music though. We both enjoyed the performance, but where I really enjoyed the quieter more calm music, Dan preferred the more energetic, loud portions of the performance. Seeing how there was plenty of both we both walked away impressed.

Stats

We had an appointment at the pediatricians yesterday. Everybody is healthy although he was a little concerned that Hannah isn't gaining any weight. Hannah is now 33 inches, and 25 lbs 8 ounces. Sara-Lyn is 26 inches and 17 lbs 13 ounces. He figured that with Sara being so sick over the weekend that she probably lost up to half a pound. Which would have put her well into 18 lbs. In other news I am still sick. I would like to take a moment and indulge in some self pity. I feel awful, I don't think I have been this sick in years, I feel miserable, I can't talk, and I just plain hurt. The only thing that got me through last night was a heavy reliance on cough syrup, and Advil. Thankfully though I was able to go to bed at 8:00pm, so at least I don't feel so horrifically tired today. Well enough of that. Hopefully by tomorrow I will be feeling great again.