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.

I just liked this picture so I though I would post it, it is from about a month ago.

Well everybody is finally healthy again. Except for me of course. I feel like somebody hit me with a tonne of bricks, (maybe more then once).

Feeling ill

Half of our household is sick this week. Dan and Sara have come down with a nasty flu bug. Thankfully me and Hannah are unaffected at this point, but Dan has been sick since Friday morning, and Sara since this morning. Poor Sara, she has been puking everything she eats since five o'clock this morning. It is so hard to see her like this, she's so pale and tired. If she doesn't keep a meal down by tomorrow morning it will be off to the Doctors for us. I'm really hoping that Sara isn't as sick as long as Dan has been, she's too little to be sick that long. Everybody send healthy thoughts our way.

My Girls

Sara-Lyn

I have a hard time believing how much Sara has grown over the last five months. She has changed in so many ways. Five short months ago she was so small and delicate. That first night in the hospital the only way I could get her to sleep was curled up in a ball in my arm beside me. Now she is as long as my torso and can hold herself upright. Five months ago she would sleep making little squeaks as she snuggled against you, now she wants nothing more than to be awake, being part of whatever is happening. I'm amazed by her everyday. I love how graceful she is towards Hannah. She tolerates every hug, pat and kiss. She gives a smile to anybody who looks her way, but she is selective with who she will talk to. I love hearing her giggle, which only Hannah can invoke consistently. Sara is happiest when she is included in whatever is going on around her, she wants to sit at the table with us at meal times, when we read books or play on the floor. She watches Hannah so intently that I know she will be crawling soon enough to keep up with her big sister. When she is in her jolly jumper she puts her whole heart into, often jumping before I even have her in the thing. Everything gets thoroughly examined both with her hands and her mouth. I love how at night after I have fed her she will still snuggle, pushing her face against my neck. I love the smile she gives me when I walk into the room. There are so many things about Sara that amaze me it would take a month just to write them all down, and by then there would be so many more new ones.

Hannah

Hannah is my big little girl. She is becoming more of a big girl everyday. Each day she tries to gain a little more independence. I am so proud of how she: picks out her own clothes; puts on her own socks; goes potty by herself (sort of); Drinks from a big girl glass; reads books by herself; goes to bed easily; and the list goes on. Her recent discovery of the words "NO" and "mine" frustrate me, but I understand that she is becoming her own person, and this is all part of it. I love how thoughtful she can be of other people, concerned if they hurt themselves, and upset if somebody is missing out on something exciting. I love how concerned she gets when Sara is upset, and how helpful she is in giving Sara her toys back when she drops them. Her excitement about life is infectious and she can always cheer me up. I love how she still needs me to hug her when she hurts, and tuck her in at night. Hannah is my brave girl, she wants to try everything out. At the park she climbs to the top of the tallest slides, and runs across the swinging bridges without hesitation. She has learned to climb up various types of ladders including a rope ladder. She is shy of strangers but once she knows you, she is always willing to give away hugs. Hannah amazes me with her ability to find fun in anything, from running around in circles in the yard to reading a book by herself. She loves to smile, and I don't know anybody who can resist smiling back.

cooking disaster

Well I had my first true disaster last night with cooking. I essentially made dog food, it smelt like dog food, tasted like dog food, and I'm sure if I would have analysed it, it probly even had the molecular content as dog food. So I will drop that recipe and start completely fresh. Hopefully the next attemp taste a little better.

Parade

We went to the Santa Clause parade this weekend, it was an enjoyable experience we wondered around the staging grounds for a little while, and then took our places to wait for the parade. Hannah was fun to watch at the staging grounds she would slowly approach the various mascots until they noticed her and stuck their arms out for a hug, the she would shake her head and step back. When it was time to go find a place to sit though she didn't want to leave. She had a blast watching the parade itself too. I think she got the most fun out of the dogs, and a float that had two bucking horses on it. But what kid wouldn't love a whole bunch of people waving just at her. We rode the C-train to get downtown and back. It was Hannah's first time on Light Rail Transit. She got rather excited when we crossed the river. For her anyways it was a day with lots of new sights and sounds. Sara also enjoyed the parade, probably more for the fresh air and bright colors then anything else. But it just proves the point that you are never too old or too young to enjoy a parade.

Pictures

Superstore

I have offically given up on Superstore. I had decided that I would try shopping at Superstore more often, not because they're cheap, but because their carts fit both my kids without having to worry about somebody sitting on the bread. So today I went there early in the morning to avoid the craziness that is Superstore. I had three types of beans that I wanted to purchase, but as I walked by the beans section, I grumpily discovered that they were sold out of all three types of beans I wished to purchase. This was rather annoying as it meant I had to go somewhere else to buy beans, and honestly how do you run out of beans. I was so annoyed I grabbed milk and cheese, paid for the stocking stuffers I had picked up for Hannah and Sara and left. Of course after getting home I realized that I still needed all the stuff on my list so I spent the afternoon at Safeway grocery shopping for a second time. But at least I was able to find everything on my list, and in most cases actually had multiple brands to choose from.

Undecided

I am undecided whether this last weekend was a good weekend or not. On the fun side we went to Edmonton and enjoyed some time just relaxing and visiting with family. We also went to the Waterpark and had a great time splashing in the waves and going down slides. Even Sara got into the fun and spent some time frolicking in the water. Hannah loved the slides and showed great fortitude even when facing foot high waves. Both kids behaved well during most of the trip, and even on the drive both ways they were both phenomenal. But as mentioned above, this weekend was not all peaches and cream. It started on the way down to Edmonton with our van misbehaving. It wouldn't shift out of 2nd, at least not consistently anyways. So it took us a little longer then expected to get there as we couldn't go above 70. We were hoping to get it fixed on Saturday but remembrance day made short work of that idea. The second mishap was that because of the CFR, there were no hotel rooms to be had in Edmonton, (We booked a week in advance) So we were forced to accept smoking rooms, and were lucky to get those. But this meant that I had to listen to Dan cough and snore all night. Thankfully after the waterpark I was so tired I pretty much passed out and was dead to the world for a few hours at least. Then of course there was Hannah's cold which had been pretty much gone when we headed down there, but the swimming and smoking have given the bugs new strength. And last was the drive home which started out fine, we had hope for about 45 min. the van ran great but then we dropped into second and that was it. At least until Red Deer when after stopping for supper it gifted us with another half hour of 110 km/hr. So now we are home faced with fixing our transmission (praying it is just a sensor) but fun memories of the waterpark. I think I will concentrate on the fun parts and write it down as an enjoyable weekend.

Playdate

Well I successfully hosted my first playdate today. Who would've guessed there was room for 10 kids and 7 adults in my house. apparently there is, and I have enough toys to amuse 10 kids ranging from 4 1/2 months to 4 years. The other thing I learned today is that my table is not tall enough to stop little wandering hands from finding the snacks. And hosting a playdate is a great way to restock your baked goods supply.

Happy Halloween

Volunteers?

I am sending out a request for some volunteers to try some recipes I have created. The job is pretty simple, buy ingredients, make recipe, eat food, email me your opinion on taste, looks, ease of preparation, and any suggestions for improvements. If your interested let me know, and I will be glad to provide you with a little more information.

Procrastinating

Yesterday I went shopping and bought a really neat seat protector for the van, it goes under the carseat, has a toy box attached, drink holders and just random pouches. I was so impressed with this find, that I decided to clean and vacuum the whole van, so I dressed up Sara and Hannah and went out into the relatively nice weather and cleaned out the van, and I took everything out, even stuff the belongs in the van. I couldn't vacuum however with Hannah running around our front yard as I doubted my ability to watch her and vacuum simotanously, (I am only human after all). So my plan was to vacuum after they were in bed, and then reassemble the van. But well bedtime came and I no longer felt like vacuuming. So I procrastinated, and now I wake up today and it is snowing, and not just snowing a little, but the ground is covered, the van is covered, the trees are covered, and it is still snowing. I think the universe has turned against me and is teaching me a lesson about procrastination. Well I get the point, so if the snow could just melt I will go outside and finish what I started. (Sorry about my little rant, but I really wanted to try out my new seat protector)

Carpet adventures II

Well I decided I should post to update everybody on the result of my cleaning spree to my carpet. I did try the magic eraser on the chocolate soy milk, and it worked, but unfortunately it really chews up the eraser, and I ran out of eraser before I ran out of stain. I then tried a concentrated mixture of water and dish soap. And it actually worked, I was rather surprised by this as I have tried more powerful cleaners to no avail. So the two mystery stains are gone, and the chocolate soy milk stain, while it is substantially lighter has unfortunately come back, so it will be off to Walmart to buy the stuff suggested by Lynne. And I have actually not even touched the crayon yet, because well dragging out the iron sounds like a lot of work, and I am afraid water will just smear it.

Your know your tired when

Do you think I can safely blame this dumb moment on being sick:

As I was cleaning the livingroom, I put one of the fisherprice men into the fisherprice house. I of course used in the first available entrance, the chimeny. I go about putting books back into the book shelf, when I spot this man again, so I put him away again. I did this about 6 times, each time getting more annoyed at Hannah. Finally after putting it back into the chimney for the sixth time I realized that the chimeny just shoots the man back out the window on the side of the house.

I could perhaps pretend that I didn't know that that is how the house worked, but I've always known that, and usually I have enough sense to open the roof to put the men away.

BOO!

Somebody is taking this halloween thing to far. In the last hour I have been scared by:

a mouse in the garage

Freaskish hail suddenly hitting the window

two spiders jumping out of towel, in the basement, at me

I think I should just park myself on the couch under a blanket for the rest of the day, or I might end up with a bat in my hair.

Everybody loves a picture

Why I will never own a house with carpet?

I have some questions for my many faithful readers.

1. How do you get chocolate soy milk out of a carpet?

2. How do you get crayon out of a carpet?

3. How do you get the mysterious spot that just showed up one day out of your carpet?

Pictures

I finally got around to uploading all of my pictures to Walmart, so if you didn't already get an invite to view them, let me know and I will email you one.

Not much is happening in our world, Sara-Lyn is still growing, and Hannah is still opionated. We're off to Edson for Thanksgiving, which I am sure will be a perfectly enjoyable weekend, with lots of good food, and good company, and maybe just a few hours away from the kids. Well it is late and I am tired so I will keep this post short and end it with a picture of my two favorite people.

Bad hair day

She's lucky she's so cute!

Update

I guess it is time I give an update as to what has been happening in our lives. Starting with Sara-Lyn, we moved her to the crib two weeks ago, she seems to be sleeping better, which isn't surprising seeing how the bassinet is not really the most comfortable thing. She loves to talk if you sit down with her and have a conversation she will chat up a storm. She is funny though, she tries so hard to make each sound, that sometimes she forgets to breath and then has to gasp for air which means she makes this adorable little squeak. We have started the process of potty training Hannah, I was starting to become discouraged but it seems that something clicked for her during yesterday afternoon. Yesterday evening she went to the potty 4 out of 5 times and today she is 2 for 2. Unfortunately we still aren't getting the poops, but with the recent successes I have faith that she will start going to the potty for those ones too. Hannah broke her first tooth on Sunday, well she chipped it anyways. She fell off of the teeter totter and hit the center bar. She went to the dentist this morning with Dad, and he confirmed that it was just a surface chip, but he wants to see her again in two weeks to make sure there was no root damage. Apparently both me and Dan have to go to this appointment as he wants to show us the proper way of brushing her teeth. I am a little worried about this as he mentioned that it involves two people, one to hold her and the other to brush. I have to wonder if it is really worth traumatizing our child on a nightly basis just to possibly prevent a few cavities in her baby teeth. Currently Hannah brushes her own teeth, and I think she does a pretty good as she does her best to imitate us. hmmm I think that is all the current news, Me and Dan live a pretty boring life so there is nothing about us to mention, We had company this weekend, it was fun to visit with old friends, and play a game of settlers.

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:

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.