Neglected Blog

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

Happy Birthday Sara-Lyn

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

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

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

Happy birthday Rebekah

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

Busy month

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

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

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

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

Happy Birthday Hannah!

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

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

Speech assesment

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

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

Halloween

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

six month stats

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

Six months already

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

more firsts

At Rebekah's appointment she weighed 14 lbs 7 ounces, which is exactly average for her age. She was also exactly average in length and head size as well. Otherwise she was perfectly healthy as expected of course. Sara has decided that she needed to have a first this month as well, so she took it upon herself to go to the potty all by herself, twice in two days. My goal is to have her potty trained in time for preschool next sept. so I definitly think we're on the right track. Sara has also discovered that she can turn the light on in her room, so bedtime has now become a new game, where instead of coming out of the room a dozen times, she gets up and turns her light on, and if we don't check her and Hannah will play for hours. I think that is everything for now, and I'll post some pictures just to make everybody happy.

Firsts

My poor neglected blog, I think it was starting to feel a little abandoned. Well I haven't given up on it yet, I just took a little break while our life was so hectic. It has been a months of first for the kids. Hannah started her first day of preschool on Monday. The Friday before was a brief 1 hr long orientation where I stayed with her, and she pretty much ignored me. I was the parent standing off to the side awkwardly looking around wondering what I was supposed to do with myself. Of course better that then the parent desperately trying to unglue their child from their leg. Monday was her first day by herself, and she did great, she was excited for me to leave, and excited when I came and picked her up. I feel a little bit sad that there wasn't a little bit of a moment where I could be the loving Mom and reassure her that preshcool was as much fun as it promised to be. But I guess I am glad that she has the self-confidence to run head long into each new experience. Hannah also had her first day of dance school today. It was perhaps an even bigger event as we had to buy a whole dance outfit and two pairs of shoes, so she has been waiting for dance school all week. I would have loved to stay and watch her for the dance class as I just know she was adorable in her little outfit, dancing with all the other pink princesses, but the class has a strict closed door policy, so I have to trust Hannah's big smile to say that she had a good time.

Rebakah has also had a few first this month as well. She rolled over two weeks ago for the first time, she was on her stomach one minute I looked away and there she was on her back. It was quite exciting other then the fact that I completely missed it. She has also started spending sometime in her jolly jumper. She is growing like crazy, she has her shots tomorrow so we will find out exactly how much she has grown.

I'm feeling bad for Sara-Lyn that there isn't a whole list of things for me to say about her, but I'm afraid she isn't in any exciting classes, and as she has achieved all the majoy milestones already there isn't much I can say. Of course that doesn't mean Sara isn't doing stuff. She is learning words everyday, and is starting to use them in a very forceful manner. Her favorite expression right now is to cross her arms, stick her lip out, and go "hmphf" with this ridiclous frown on her face. She is becoming a little dare devil at the park. She makes me cringe lots, when she insists on following Hannah up everything.

Well I guess that is everything, perhaps if I remember I will post the results of Rebekah's shots tomorrow, or maybe some pictures.

Back to work

Dan went back to work last Monday. So it has just been me alone with the kids for the last week and a half. It actually hasn't been as bad as I though it might be. I've actually ventured out of the house a few times. I've been to the mall twice, for Dr. appointments, and we went grocery shopping, and the park twice. Really I think we're doing pretty good considering I am now outnumbered. I've been meeting with people for my dayhome, so hopefully I will have some more kids soon to add to the numbers. Then it will really be an adventure to get out of the house.

Summer Vacation

We went to little bear lake this year for our summer vacation. We were lucky enough to gets lots of hot sunny days, and only one really rainy day. The girls had a blast hanging out at the beach, and playing in the dirt at our campsite. And when we got tired of playing outside we were lucky enough to be able to retreat to Grampa's cabin for some edible food, and television. It was great visiting with everybody who made it out to the lake. We even got adventuresome one day and took Hannah and Sara tubing. They both had a great time and I wish we would have had more time to take them again. Sara unfortunately got dunked when we were forced to abandon ship. She seemed to recover pretty quickly though and I bet she would get back on again. Rebekah mostly just hung out in her car seat and took lots of naps, but I guess that is what babies are supposed to do, so no surprises there. She did however capture every bodies hearts with her constant smiles and giggles.

Happy Birthday Sara-Lyn

Sara-Lyn is two today, and there is no denying that she is a two year old. She is becoming more and more independent everyday. One minute demanding that she do everything herself, and then next wanting to be picked up and cuddled when things don't go quite as planned. Sara loves to take care of other people giving out lots of hugs and kisses to those she deems acceptable. Sara loves to be a big girl, and to do everything the way Hannah does it. From eating with a spoon to climbing the play structure at the park. Her favorite toys right now are her babies, and sneaking Hannah's jewels whenever Hannah puts them down. Her newest words are butterfly and flower, and she is learning new ones everyday. She likes to give Rebekah hugs and wipes her face with any blanket on hand.

Dan's Personality/Intelligence Profile

Pictures

Congratulations Angela and Marc

Six weeks already

Wow, how time flies. I can't believe that Rebekah is six weeks already. And it has been a very busy six weeks. I think Rebekah is probably one of the most well traveled six weeks old babies out there. We've travelled to Edmonton, stayed at a condo on the Shuswap, and then travelled on to Vancouver to visit some University friends and Dan's cousins. Then the weekend after we arrived home we packed up again and headed off to Edson for the long weekend. We're off to Edmonton this weekend and then Edson again on the 21st for Dan's sister's wedding. After which we will make our way to Saskatchewan for some camping.

Somewhere in all of this we had Rebekah's six week appointment and she is doing great, she weighs 10 lbs 12 ounces. and is 21.5 inches long. Her neck is getting stronger everyday and she is starting to smile at anybody who looks her way, at least when she isn't sleeping.

more pictures