Sara-Lyn has arrived!

Sara-Lyn Marie Legge came into this world with flair at 11:18 am on June 17th. She weighed in an astonishing 7lbs 7.7oz four weeks ahead of schedule measuring 20 3/4" in length. Mom and baby are home and resting comfortably after a hospital stay that was anything but ordinary. Here is the play-by play of how this little miracle came into the world:

June 16th
6:00 am	Carmen's Water begins leaking (slowly)
8:00 am	Call health link and confirm that we should go the hospital
11:00 am	Arrive at foothills general hospital and check-in at labour and delivery
11:20 am	Get a bed
12:00 pm	Nurses hook Carmen up to a fetal monitor
12:20 pm	Daniel asks a nurse why the monitor is printing blank paper instead of pulse and contraction lines - Nurses fix the monitor
1:00 pm	Nurses turn8 the monitor off
1:30 pm	Doctor comes to examine Carmen - "No labour yet, try walking around for a while to try and get things moving"
7:00 pm	Give up on walking around and retire back to the triage area of the labour and delivery ward Nurses say that Carmen should be induced in a couple of hours Carmen gets some rest, Daniel goes home to help Nana put Hannah to bed and to get some rest himself.
9:00 pm	Daniel returns to the hospital expecting Carmen to be resting or in the early stages of labour - She's playing solitaire, nurses say that Carmen may be induced sometimg tomorrow morning - Daniel asks if we can both go home to get some rest and come back in the morning - Nurse goes to ask doc if this is acceptable
9:30 pm	Nurse returns with a tentative time of 12:00 am for inducing Carmen - We can't go home
June 17th
12:30 am	We get moved to a delivery room and they begin administering synthetic Oxytocin to start labour
7:00 am	Doctor checks the cervix and discovers that labour has stalled at 4cm (no clue how long she'd been stuck there for) because there is a large volume of fluid trapped below the baby - Membranes are re-reruptured and labour resumes without the aid of the Oxytocin
11:00 am	Nurse says that it's time for Carmen to start pushing
11:17 am	Baby's head comes out and doctor discovers that the baby has a shoulder dystocia (Shoulder is stuck) and all hell breaks loose. Doctor instructs Carmen to start making short gentle pushes as he grabs the baby by the head and shoulders (yes, the shoulders are still inside - use your imagination a little here) and begins pulling and twisting on the baby trying to get it out Daniel and Carmen start to panic as we realize that something isn't right
11:18 am	Sara-Lyn Marie makes her entrance into the world!

Oh yeah, and here are the pictures for those of you who are only interested in seeing the pics:

(Remember to click on the pictures to see more)

Dan is still alive, honest!

Wow, talk about taking a break from posting, two months and change since my last post!

The new job has certainly been interesting. I had worked with the government before when I was at 5D, but I have now experienced the full effect of the speed of government while working at SAIT, if you want more details, you'll have to catch me on MSN or over email... On the bright side, while waiting to actually receive the servers that I was supposed to configure, I have been having a lot of fun tuning their code. One of the best results took a job that ran in two and half hours down to 4 minutes. Yes, you heard me right, from hours to minutes!

If there's anybody out there that knows anything about gravel and tar roofing, please make yourself known as our new place seems to have a bit of a leaking problem (unless of course you think that a kiddie pool in the basement is a good thing...)

Rain, Rain,

The sudden rain after weeks of hot weather is truly the most exciting thing I have to post about. It has been an exceptionally uneventful week, at least in our world. Hannah is teething again, I don't believe I mentioned it but two weeks ago one of the molars on the top of her mouth came in. And now the teeth that are supposed to be coming in, the next set on the bottom, are poking through. I am a little worried though, usually teeth come in pairs and so far I have only seen the molar on the right side with no sign of it's mate on the left. Well that is the most exciting news I could come up with, I am going to go and have lunch, feel free to COMMENT about your exciting news.

Toddler Bed

I am starting to feel a little optimistic that we may have actually got this toddler bed thing figured out. We put Hannah into a toddler bed last Monday night. The first two nights went off without a hitch, but then she figured out that she could get out of the bed and drive us insane, and things went downhill from there. It was taking anywhere from 30 to 90 minutes to get her to fall asleep and everyone was exhausted by the end. Last night however was only 30 minutes, and today during her nap she only got up twice, and finally tonight she went to sleep without getting up once. I wont be naive enough to believe that she will go to bed like this every night but it is somewhat comforting to believe that the worst is over.

Antz

I finally found what could be considered a toddler park in our neighborhood yesterday. It is still a little old for Hannah as it just has a slide (which is too big), a teeter tooter, one of those horses on a spring, and of course baby swings. Despite finally locating a park within walkable distance I don't think me and Hannah will be going back though, this particular park seems to be infested with red ants. Calgary seems to have decided that sand isn't good for parks so all of the parks I have come across anyways have had the sand removed and filled in with gravel. This apparently seems to be prime living conditions for ants. The wood surrounding the park and the rocks themselves were infested. I of course didn't realize this until Hannah decided to sit on the wood, and instantly became covered in little red ants. I think this was actually more traumatizing for me then her, as she hadn't even noticed yet. Thankfully I was able to get them off of her pretty quickly and she only got bit twice. But I made the mistake of running her to the middle of the park which I thought would be ant free. It wasn't and they continued to crawl up her legs as I was scooping them off of her upper body and face. Needless to say we didn't stay there very long, and probably wont go back, at least until Hannah is past the age where she finds it fun to sit in the rocks and just push them around.

Happy Mother's day, and a trip to the Zoo

Happy Mother's day to all us mothers, hopefully everybody had the opportunity to relax and do something special for themselves today. We decided to take a trip to the Zoo today, and it was a very enjoyable time. The aftermath of course is complete exhaustion, but it was worth it. In the four hours we were there we only saw maybe a quarter of what was available so more trips in the future are defiantly in order. Hannah seemed to enjoy herself although she didn't seem to know what to make of the bigger animals, like the elephants.

Ultrasound

We had what should be our last ultrasound on Wednesday, and I am glad to say everything is looking perfectly normal. Although my Doctor's suspicion that this baby is measuring large was confirmed. According to the ultrasound this baby is measuring 4 lbs and 2 ounces. Of course those ultrasounds are only so accurate. But assuming it's correct then this baby is measuring two weeks early. I have said since the start of this pregnancy that it would be born in the 35th week, which puts it between June 4 and 10. And I'm guessing another girl 7lbs 2ounces. I'm going to ignore Lynne's comment about a 9lb baby as that is just not going to happen.

Babies, Babies everywhere

It has certainly been an exciting week. Me and Dan became aunt and uncle twice over and Hannah has two new cousins to play with. (Or as her nana likes to say, boss around.)

Congratulations to Angela and Marc on the birth of their son Hayden Scott Hoffort, born 12:01 AM, May 1st 2006. He was 2lbs 8oz. As he was born 10 weeks early he will have to spend some extra time at the hospital doing some more growing. However he is doing great and taking small steps towards going home everyday.

Congratulations to Katy and Steve on the birth of their daughter Jayda Rain Winjet, born 1:38 PM, May 6th 2006. She was 7lbs 7oz and 20 inches. She has her mother's chin and somebody's very cute but big feet. Keep checking back and when I track down my camera I might even post a picture.

And last but definatly not least us, Our baby is still kicking my ribs and jumping on my bladder. However I am quite content to be able to still complain about being pregnant. Our household is starting to become a little stressed as the time when Hannah was born approaches. I think that Dan is convinced this baby is just going to fall out, every time I sneeze his blood pressure raises a little. So far we have no reason to worry though, the last ultrasound was good, and my only complaints are all a part of normal pregnancy. (although I think somebody played a cruel joke on me when they made all the signs of preterm labor symptoms of normal pregnancy). At my last appointment the Doctor nicely informed us that this baby is starting to measure on the very large side of average, and we have another ultrasound sometime this week to make sure everything is still going great.

And of course I have to say something about Hannah, She is learning the art of maximizing mess. I find her toys absolutely everywhere, and of course she doesn't like to play with big toys anymore only little ones that come in sets, like fridge magnets or puzzle pieces. She carries them around in containers and then dumps them out whenever the whim hits her. Her favorite spot of course is on the stairs. She has also discovered that she has both teeth and nails. At this point I like to think that she is just experimenting and will soon learn what is apropiate. Until then be a little wary. We went to a toddler park the other day and she had great fun discovering the slide. She isn't quite brave enough to go down on her bum yet, she insists on turning around and going down on her stomach. But I must end this post she has decided that she has had enough of me being on the computer.

Pictures of our babies

Hannah at 16 months Our newest bundle of joy at -12 weeks (Remember to click on the pictures to see more - If the ultrasound pictures don't flip, try pressing the Refresh button to download the newest javascript)

We made it!

I figured I should let everybody know that we did successfully move to Calgary. The place we found is in a great neighborhood close to pretty much everything. Dan has been enjoying his walk to work this last week, and me and Hannah are enjoying all the many birds and squirrels.

The move here was pulled off with relatively little mishap, I think the biggest oops may have been that our electronic cooler full of food from our fridge accidently got set to heat instead of cool. Hannah was pretty sick with the flu the week before we moved and of course she was teething so she was pretty miserable, and then of course this last week she has had some kind of chest cold. But it seems to have pretty much cleared up and she is in a much better mood now.

Our new place has quite a few more stairs then our last so Hannah has had to learn how to navigate stairs. She fell a few times in the first couple of days so was a little wary of them last week but over the weekend she decided to give them another chance and now she is going up and down them so quick it scares me just watching her. She has also decided that walking isn't so bad after all and it wont be long before she is walking all time.

We had to buy a new washer and dryer for this place and I am defiantly liking this new set, you can barely hear it running and it is absolutely huge so I can do all of our laundry in two loads instead of 4. And of course it has a million settings that I am sure I will never use, and because their front load the energy savings our supposed to pay for the set in 5 years. I don't know if I believe that but, it helps to justify the cost so I wont argue too much.

We also bought a new bedroom set, but it hasn't arrived yet so I don't have much to say about it. I am however looking forward to finally having some drawers to put my clothes in. Dan is kind of a drawer hog, so I have been forced to fold my clothes on shelves for the last 2 years, and before that I had a hideous blue and yellow dresser, which I painted myself when I was 15.

Well I guess that is all there is say, so feel free to comment lots.

We're Moving!

Yup, you guessed it! We're moving to Calgary. Starting April 3rd, I am an employee of CGI

As I'm sure most of you can imagine, we're crazy busy trying to get everything organized for our big move. Our biggest stress point at the moment is what in the world to do with our house here in the city. Should we sell it or rent it out? We're looking for all the pros and cons of both options, so please share your thoughts...

In case anybody is wondering about why the sudden move, the company that I am currently working for is suffering some financial difficulties and it doesn't look like I'm going to have a job much longer. When this particular opportunity popped up, it was simply too hard to pass up.

We spent yesterday looking for (And thankfully found) a nice place to live. It's within walking distance of my first consulting position at SAIT, so I won't have many opportunities to ride their super-cool version of the LRT, the C-Train (At least I think that's what they call it...).

The people there all seem really friendly, and it sounds like I may have a lot of opportunities to improve my existing skills as well as developing a lot of new ones...

Pictures!

Yes, we know these are old. Perhaps in a few weeks we'll post some newer ones, but for now, these are professional photos taken when Hannah was 11 months old:

And here is our first picture of Hannah's new little brother or sister:

Ultrasound and then some

Well I guess seeing how my ultrasound was a week and a half ago, it is about time I posted some details. It was exciting to actually get to see this baby, while I have been feeling it kick for quite a while now, this was Dan's first opportunity to come to grips that yes there is a baby growing in my stomach. The baby seemed quite content to stay curled in a ball on one side of my stomach so we didn't get too many action shots, but it did suck on it's hand at one point. Exactly like it's sister, Hannah has never been a thumb sucker, she has always preferred all of her fingers if she was going to suck on anything. We do have a picture which has been scanned into our computer so if anybody wants to see it just email me, and I will send you a copy.

In other news, Hannah has decided she isn't interested in walking. I think she may have figured out that walking means she will lose her free ride everywhere. We're hoping seeing some other kids her age will prompt her to give it another shot. Her current new word is "baby". She calls all of her stuffed animals and several other things baby all the time now. She may have also started saying "Give me" or "Gimmmee", but I don't think this is actually a new word for her just a better pronouncement that is actually understandable as anything more then "Geh".

I learned the other day that letting a toddler feed themselves red jello is not necessarily a good idea. Apparently red jello stains skin, who knew? So that is my relevation for the week, be prepared to have a red baby if you wish give them red jello. Hannah has also developed rather picky eating habits, the other day I gave her a stir fry of broccoli and chicken over spaghetti, and she actually picked out every piece of spaghetti and left the chicken and broccoli. If any broccoli did end up in her mouth it promptly came back out. Oh well I guess every kid goes through a picky stage, at least she will still eat cucumber.

Well I guess it is about time I post. I am sure after six weeks I can come up with a few interesting things to write about. Well I guess I will start with the news about Hannah, seeing how that is all anybody really wants to hear anyways.

In January we went back to her allergist and he decided to challenge her milk allergy. That was a disaster and a waste of time, if you phone me and ask I will have a nice long rant about this particular allergist, but for now we will stick with the facts. She is still allergic to milk and eggs and must avoid all consumption, or physical contact with either, until she is at least two, at which point we will probly challenge them again.

Hannah has begun the process of learning how to walk, she pulls herself up to standing using the furniture and then makes her way around the room. Recently she has gotten braver and has starting letting go of the furniture and standing stationary until she inevitably falls over. Her periods of standing are getting longer though and it wont be long before she takes her first steps. She moved into the imitation phase and enjoys doing the things that me and Daddy do. She talks on the phone, brushes her hair, hugs her teddy bears, and my personal favorite she will sit in her chair and read her books. It is cute though because she keeps a constant monologue going while pointing at the pictures in the book. One day I plan on recording this, and showing it off to anybody who will watch my home videos. Her talking is also getting better, I have heard and am pretty sure she understands the words Mommy, Daddy, Thankyou, gently, go, see, yeah, wow and perhaps okay. She may not understand the exact meaning of these words but she seems to sort of understand them, I suspect that she may think "go" has anything to do with outside as she will often point out the window and say "go". And she has a word that seems to mean "get me that" because she will point at things and say "geeeay" and then "thankyou" if you oblige her. hmmmm other things Hannah has started doing, Some not so nice things are her recent decision to not eat green vegetables, standing up in her crib instead of napping, and the realization that she can throw things like new toilet paper rolls into the toilet.

Okay but moving on, I had an appointment with my OB early this weeks and of course I got to hear the heartbeat again. It was quit fun this time, because the Dr. would just locate the heartbeat and start counting and there would be a bunch of static, and no more heartbeat. So she would find it again and then the same thing would happen. The doctor was getting rather frustrated as it took her 4 or 5 times before she was able to determine the rate of the babies heartbeat. I however was quit amused by these antics. Our ultrasound is Tuesday, so I imagine we will have more fun stories to tell after that.

It seems like nothing exciting ever happens to me or Dan. We are the same as before. This weekend we are planning a trip to Jasper. We will be leaving Hannah in Edson for one night. We needed to start slow with leaving her behind, I couldn't imagine doing more then one night at this point. And the only other exciting thing that has happened to me and Dan is that we bought a new set of phones. So no more phones dyeing every time we're talking to people. They were quit expensive so hopefully they last a looooong time.

Okay well I think that sums up all the news for the last six weeks, feel free to leave lots of comments or suggestions on things I may have missed mentioning.

What a month!

First of all, to our faithful readers (if there's any of you left), our apologies for our month long absence... As with most people during this season, our lives have been hectic.

So anyways, here's what's been happening:

Survived first round of lay-offs at work - Phew!
The 16th was Carmen's Birthday - Happy Birthday Carmen
The following week we were both knocked out by the flu.
Hannah started crawling (Thankfully we were recovered by the time this started)
Picked up additional responsibilities after substantial lay-offs
traveled to Edson to visit my family for Christmas Did our standard marathon through Choiceland, Snowden (Too small for a website of their own), and Prince Albert to visit Carmen's family

Now for some of the details...

The flu was actually pretty scary. For those that don't already know (we tried to tell as much family as possible in person before posting here), Carmen is pregnant. Pregnancy and the flu are not very compatible and we wound up spending the better part of the night in the Royal Alexandra Hospital's emergency room. They pumped Carmen full of anti-nauseants and fluids and sent us back on our way.

Hannah's crawling was pretty exciting, she seems to be getting pretty good at following people around the house. The crawling, however was almost immediately followed by climbing. Not too high (yet), but she can get onto her knees and reach stuff that was previously out reach. She quickly learned that climbing wasn't restricted to the living room floor and started climbing everywhere - Out of Mom and Dad's bed (no more leaving her alone after she falls asleep for her naps), up against the rails of her crib (Amazing how cute she looked sobbing with her chin on the top rail / Time to drop the mattress down to the lowest setting...)

Christmas vacation was pretty fun, Hannah got to spend a lot of time with her Grandparents and Great-Grandparents, Mom and Dad got a little bit of R&R time, and got to catch up with family that we don't talk too nearly enough...

I'm sure I've missed lots, so there will probably be more updates to come...

Happy Birthday Hannah

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

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

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

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

Dan's Christmas Carol: All I want for Christmas

You Are "All I Want for Christmas Is You"

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

What Christmas Carol Are You?

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

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

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

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

Happy Halloween

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

Remember to click on the image to see more pictures

How very interesting...

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

Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com