I spy

a tire, Ernie, a bag of peas, a green ear, a bag of diapers, 5 shoes, a bowl of salsa, a red "Donald Duck" and a baby ....   What can you find?

Cooking

I decided to try using a set of recipes where you do all the prep work for 22 meals all at once and then you only have to actually cook them when the time comes. The instructions say it will take 4 hours, but it took me more like 8, so I am a little tired and I find it hard to believe that it will actually be time saving in the end. But I guess I will have to see how easy it is to make the actual dishes. I think it would be much better if a few people got together and made 2 or 3 sets all at once. So if anybody wants to assemble meals with me in about a month let me know and we can set up a date.

Since we got back

It has been an interesting week since we got back, the first thing that happened was on Sunday at midnight after a very long drive, I fell down the stairs, because I was holding Sara at the time I made no effort to protect myself and ended fall straight onto my tailbone, and it still hurts and it has been over a week. It was kind of frustrating last week when all I wanted to do was go to bed, but laying down hurt. Then on Monday night our hot water tank began to leak. Thankfully our landlady acted quickly and we had hot water again by Tuesday evening. Then over the weekend we attended Dan's cousin's wedding in Camrose. It was a nice ceremony and reception with good food and good company.

Saskatchewan

We had a great time in Saskatchewan last week, the weather was perfect giving us a few opportunities to hang out at the beach. Hannah had a great time, she spent most of the time inventing ways to get dirty. Her favorite was to sit in a pile of sand and dump handfuls down her clothes and into her hair. Sara enjoyed the fresh air and started to sleep on a more regular schedule. Dan had fun demolishing the roof on my Dad's cabin, he came a away with a few bruises, and a few stories. The most exciting being that of falling through the ceiling. It was great seeing everybody again and we're already looking forward to the next trip.

Off to Saskatchewan

Well we are off to Saskatchewan for a week, but before we go I though I better do an update on the Doctors appointment we went to on Monday. The appointment was for Sara-Lyn, and she is perfectly healthy, as expected. She seems to be suffering from reflux, which I kind of suspected, so from now on she sleeps with her head elevated and hopefully that will help her relax at night. I think I need to bottle my breastmilk and sell it on eBay as a growth serum. My guess of 9 lbs, for Sara was way off. The person to guess the closest was Dan's Mom at 10 lbs, but even she guessed low. Sara weighed in at a whopping 11 lbs and 15 ounces. She has gained 4 1/2 lbs in 5 weeks. She also grew 2 1/4 inches to make her 23 inches long. So no wonder I'm not getting any sleep at night, she is to busy eating to support her massive growth to sleep.

Monster Poop!

I just have to tell everybody about the horrendous poop My youngest daughter had. Yes it was that large that it deserves a post. It leaked out both legs and the back of her diaper. (Try cleaning that one up without making a mess) I take back my estimate that she is 9 lbs now, after that poop I have to say she is down to somewhere around 8 lbs and 10 ounces.

Time Flies

Wow, I can't believe it has been almost six weeks already. It seems like just last week we brought Sara-Lyn home. I have a hard time when I look at Sara coming to terms with how quickly she's growing. When Hannah was a baby I didn't realize how quick babies grow, so I looked forward to each new development, but with Sara I know how quickly things change so I want to slow things down so I can appreciate each moment more. But of course that is impossible and she has continued to grow despite my objections, and boy is she growing fast. We have a Doctor's appointment next week so we will have some real stats, but I am sure she is close to 9 lbs. Hannah is also growing, lately I have noticed that she can reach things previously out of reach, and can climb onto furniture with a little more ease. Of course with her ability to climb, comes falls, and she defiantly knows how to fall. I am almost afraid to go out in public with her, for fear someone will call child services on us. Currently I can count 3 bruises on her face, and six on her legs. Ironically the biggest one on her face she got while we were at the Doctor's office on Monday. Hannah has decided that Sara is her own personal toy, which makes it difficult for Sara to get any tummy time, or just time by herself, every time I try to put Sara on the floor, Hannah is there within moments to hug, poke, and take whatever toy I have given to Sara. But I hear Sara crying and I am assuming she is probably hungry, so I must go feed her.

3 weeks

Well it has been three weeks since Sara-Lyn was born, so I guess it is about time that we posted and let everybody know how things are going. It has been a very busy three weeks for Sara. The first few days of Sara being home went smoother then I could have hoped. Hannah was more fascinated with Sara than any thing and was a great little helper bringing diapers and giving Sara hugs. Sara however seemed to be having problems settling the first few days and was continually waking up in what seemed like pain. So we took her to the chiropractor when she was only three days old, we saw a pediatric chiropractor and she made a minor adjustment (Sara didn't even wake up) and ever since Sara has been sleeping soundly.

When Sara was only 8 days old we drove to Edmonton in order to see the pediatrician. It was an exciting trip, we went to the zoo with Nana and Papa; Katy, Steve and Jayda; and Kerri and Jay. We stopped in for supper at our friends, who still live back in Edmonton, house. Hannah had a great time playing with their son, in their wading pool, and well Sara slept.

A few days after returning to Calgary we had more visitors and we made another trip to the zoo, Hannah slept and well so did Sara.

And lastly this last weekend we decided to take Hannah and Sara to the Calgary stampede. We watched the supper dogs and Hannah danced and sang along with Strawberry Shortcake, It was a fun but tiring day.

That catches us up to now, I think. For being only three weeks old Sara has had a pretty exciting time. Hannah is still being a helpful big sister, she takes the diapers to the garbage whenever she spots them, and pushes Sara in her swing when Sara cries. We have had a few misunderstandings where Hannah has gotten mad, but mostly things have been going pretty smoothly. I wish I had a picture of Hannah giving Sara one of her hugs, but I'm always afraid to grab the camera incase, Hannah gets a little over zealous with her hugs.

The only thing I would like to grumble about at this point is the lack of sleep. Now that Sara's jaundice has cleared up, I have discovered that she is an around the clock eater, she eats every two hours day and night. This means that I never get any more then one hour of sleep at a time. It is getting to be a little tiring. So you will have to forgive my bad grammar and disjointed thoughts, but my brain is only functioning at half capacity. Sara does have one three hour block, but it coincides with Hannah's wake up time, so it does me little good. But I'm done complaining now, after all getting no sleep is what being a parent is all about, right?

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: