Just another Morning

Here's a few photos from this morning. Even though Sarah has her jelous moments towards Calvin, she is loving towards him the majority of the time. It's funny, I've actually noticed that the only time she seems to be jelous is for about an hour or so after Calvin wakes up from his morning nap. Other than that she's full of love and kisses for her little baby brother.

Showing Calvin how to watch some morning TV Backyardigans.

Sarah has learned to enjoy looking at the flyers just like her mommy and daddy (especially her daddy). She likes to look for items that she knows (especially food). Here she was kissing and cheering for the pictures of pizza. I thought this scene was pretty funny and just had to get a few photos.

Little Calvin!

Tonight my mom arrives! I don't think I even mentioned that she was coming. It's actually a bit of a bonus trip. You could say it's meet the boyfriend weekend; that sounds so funny. Norm is already here on business, so we'll be spending the weekend with the two of them. Should be fun!

The thing with Blogging

Sometimes I really don't like having a blog...

-It's just one more thing on the to do list that always needs to be updated
-I feel bad when I fall behind
-It's effort
-People often feel like they know what's going on with us because of the blog and therefore sometimes don't seem to see the need for other forms of communication, conversation, etc, this can make me feel sad sometimes
-It's kind of depressing that we'll most likely have a family blog for a really long time since we probably won't live close to family again

However, the positives seem to outweigh the negatives (at least for now). Here's what I really like..

-Our family and friends can feel connected to us through the blog (more effective than mass e-mails)
-Those that don't live around us can watch our kids grow through posted photos and video clips, this is better than nothing.
-The blog is a place for me to share my thoughts and ideas on life, kids, our adventures, etc
-It has become a great reference point for our family. Even though we've only had the blog for 18 months we often go back to see what was happening at this time last year, what was Sarah doing when..., when did it snow, etc
-It's a great place to post photos that would otherwise have no place
-Is a great extra place to have photos backed up. As I was burning DVD photo backups the other day I realized that the blog is a great extra safety net for all our precious photos.
-It's become a wonderful family diary for us. Even David really appreciates it and makes sure I add certain things to the blog. I love how it visually tracks the growth of our children through photos and writing.

My previous co worker, Nancy recently gave me a link to a company that will actually print out your blog into a bound book (I have since learned that there are several companies that do this sort of thing). This is so exciting for me, since it has given me new motivation for blogging. I don't want to miss any milestones or happenings in our life. I think that we may get a book made at the end of every calendar year. The book even includes the photos on the blog and gives you the chance to edit add/ delete anything that you want before it's bound.

What an amazing keepsake for our family! Even if no one looked at our blog I think I would keep it going just for our own family So it looks like I won't be stopping blogging anytime soon. The positives seem to out weigh the negatives.

Goin' to a Gala!

Once again David has earned himself a ticket to the cuvee wine awards and gala. Only the top oenology/ viticulture student of each year gets to go, so it's quite an honour. The best part (for me), is that I get to go this year as well. One of the other students who earned a ticket isn't able to go, so she gave her ticket to me so that David and I could go together. These are $200 tickets (each), so we feel pretty blessed!

It's a black tie/ formal gala. So now the question is what am I going to wear? The event is in one month. I would love to tone my love handles a bit in that time, however something tells me that's not going to happen. The fact that Sarah has started squeezing them is actually pretty good motivation to get moving. It's just a little difficult with a bab, toddler and minimal childcare help. Not to mention my lack of motivation. Hmmm.

Anyways, we're both really excited... should be fun!

Valentines Photo Cards

I'm having a promotion on my site for Valentines Day that I'm so excited about that I wanted to share on our personal blog as well. I'm offering digital design (jpeg) Valentine images for just $10. This is a great deal to being with. However, the best part is that I'm donating $5 from each order to Haiti earthquake relief.

Haiti has been dear to my heart since I started working at MEI. Every year the school puts on a big fundraiser to raise money for Heart to Heart orphanage in Haiti. With the devestation that has occured there I really wanted to do something to help. Obviously I can't physically go there and help and we're not in a financial position to give right now.

So this is something that I can do for the people of Haiti, give my time and therefore money. I have no idea at all how many orders I will receive. Hopefully I can give more than $5. I've decided to donate the money on Valentines Day to FH Canada (Canada Food for the Hungry), www.fhcanada.org. This is the organization that my mom works for, so this just made sense to me.

Sarah and Calvin have been my models of choice for these cards. If anything, at least I'll have some card options for our family. Once Sarah goes to school/ preschool I look forward to her handing out cute Valentines photo cards to her little friends..so fun! For now, we'll give them to our family and some friends.

Calvin is 3 Months Old!

Calvin was three months yesterday; hard to believe. He continues to be a happy little guy. We're thrilled that he's on a great sleeping and nap routine. He eats well and usually only cries when he's hungry or tired out. Thankfully everybody in our house seems to be free of sickness for the moment.

Sarah is obviously having the toughest time these days. She seems to keep injuring herself, is often jealous of Calvin and seems to have entered those terrible two's a little early. We're hoping and praying that Sarah's just having an off week and that things will come around. That aside, we're feeling pretty blessed with our little ones.

Swollen Lip

So it seems that this just isn't Sarah's week. This morning David was home for a bit so I decided it would be a good time for me to head to the post office without the kids. I was going to take them for a walk, but it's snowing again today, so driving was a better option.

Calvin was having a nap so Sarah could have David all to herself. When I left she had a big fit. She's been especially clingy to me these days which is really strange for her and not very pleasant for us. Anyways, once I was gone she was banging at the door screaming and thrust herself against the door resulting in a puffy swollen lip. When I got home she was cuddling with David then wanted to get into my arms right away.

Let's hope that tomorrow is a better day...

From the Tent to the Dentist

Yesterday I thought we would set up Sarah's tent in the living room(Christmas gift from Michael and Rebecca). Since we don't have a huge living room, it pretty much took up the whole space. Sarah was loving it! She brought some toys in there and it was her own little fort.

The plan was just to set it up when we wanted to play in it and then take it down that day (so that we're not living in a campground).


Well, in the late afternoon Sarah got a little wild while playing in her tent. She moved it over and then fell into the wall of the tent, which just happened to be next to the coffee table. Turns out that she bumped her front teeth, AGAIN! The one tooth was a little loose and pushed a little forward.

So today I called the dentist and explained the situations. They wanted me to come in to get it checked. So Sarah and I headed off down the road (just a 7 min walk) while Calvin got babysat at home (David was in class). The dentist checked it out and said that she should be ok but that we need to keep a close eye on it to make sure she doesn't develop an infection. Good times!

Watching the TV in the dentist chair.

Another Week

Not much new going on around here. With the family being sick I haven't got many new photos either. Oh well, here's a few new ones from this week.

I'm happy that I've finally made some progress on the blog tonight. I tried a couple of times and things weren't working for me. So I let it rest a few days and came back to it with fresh eyes and a great tutorial blog. For some reason I don't want a template, I want to learn how to do all this stuff from scratch. I suppose it's more fun that way too. I can't believe that I'm actually learning how to edit html code, fun stuff! I still have quite a few things I want to do to the blog, oh well, another evening...I'm already up way past my bedtime. Ha ha.

Snow Stroller Giveaway at MommyBloggers

Through my business "research" the past couple of weeks I have discovered many wonderful sites full of giveaways, reviews, etc. This giveaway is compliments of www.sanki.ca through the www.mommybloggers.ca website. If you love giveaways and you haven't checked out the mommy blogger/ organic girl site I would recommend it.

I just entered the draw for the snow stroller. I thought that this would be the perfect thing for Sarah these days. We have had so much snow here in Ontario and it doesn't seem to be going anywhere. As with last year, I miss going for regular walks in the winter due to the amount of snow on the ground. The site says the company is working on creating a double stroller for 2010; that would be perfect at the moment.

Under Renovation

So I figured it was time to change up the look of this blog, so things may look a little different throughout the week as I tweek things and continue to learn how to get things looking like what I have visualized in my mind.

Should be interesting...

Not much new on the home front. We're all fighting sickenss still. It snowed all day today (again)! David went back to school today. I'm feeling really good about having good routines in place for the kids; wake up, meals, bed time, etc. Anways, hope you're day was good.

Calvin: 11 Weeks

Between Christmas, my birthday, guests coming for Christmas and a lack of internet service, I haven't posted anything for Calvin's two months. So I thought I better get something up before he's 3 months old. Time sure does go by fast!

This little guy is growing and changing so much each day. He just had his 2 month doctors appointment this week (late for the same reasons). He weighs 14.1 lbs, meaning he's gained 6 lbs since birth. He's 61.5cm long/24.5 inches, so he's grown 5 inches in the last 2 months.

We're pleased that both kids have had the same bedtime for the last few weeks already. Almost always, both kids go to bed at 7 and are sleeping by 7:30. We feel like we have reclaimed our evening, making us happier parents once again. Calvin has been getting up twice in the night and waking up at 7am. I wish he was only getting up once (he did a couple of times), but am thankful that he's doing as well as he is. When he gets up I feed and him and he goes right back to bed, so we're never up for long, thank goodness.

One of the biggest things we learned with Sarah was to encourage the baby to fall asleep on their own, so we started this right away with Calvin. We're both pleased that he has been able to fall asleep on his own (without us holding him or a soother) for quite some time already, especially in the night. We're hoping that this ability will make him sleep through the night sooner than later.

Calvin is such a content little guy. He's very alert and loves to smile. He seems to really enjoy laying across my lap cooing and smiling (I also really enjoy these moments with him.

Sarah continues to be a big fan of her baby brother. She gives him lots of kisses each day, sometimes being a little too loving to the little guy.

In the Snow

Today everyone seems to be doing a little better so we bundled up and headed outside to play this morning.

Keisha loves running through the snow!

Love this kid!

I guess we need to get some kind of sled or crazy carpet. David was pulling Sarah along on the snow shovel, oh well, it kind of worked.

Sick Kids

Well both kids have been sick all week. We're now experiencing the joys of having one kid get sick and then give it to the other. Fun times.

I took Calvin to the walk in clinic on Saturday since he had a bad cough. The doctor said his chest sounded great and he seemed really happy even though his cough sounded terrible. On Monday Calvin had his 2 month shots, good thing they only give 2 in Ontario vs the 4 that Sarah got at 2 months. We also wanted to have the doctor take another look at Sarah's skin and set up a specialist appointment for us with a dermatologist since she has constantly itchy skin and dry spots that don't seem to be relieved with any cream, etc.

Well, the noses continue to run and the kids continue to cough. And now Calvin's eye's have become goopy. So it was off to the doctor office again today. So now he has eye drops to hopefully make that better.

Both kids went to sleep well and were sleeping by 7:30, then at 8:30 Sarah woke up and had thrown up in her crib. So we cleaned her up, threw her bedding in the wash, changed the sheets and put her back to bed. Poor girl.

Now it's the end of the day, and we're both feeling pretty much ready for bed ourselves. Some days are indeed long and difficult. Parenting sure isn't easy!

That said, the snow continues to fall. Now the forecast calls for snow daily until Saturday. It's actually quite unbelieveable and almost wierd to see it falling all day and night and then wake up to it still falling. Hopefully we can get out and enjoy it at some point. Three doctors visits in four days is more than enough for me! We're sure hoping both kids get better asap, it's sure a horrible thing to see your babies sick and miserable, especially when there is so little that you can do to help them.

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow

It's been snowing since the morning of January 1st with no sign of stopping in the near future. The forecast calls for snow until Wednesday with a little break and then more snow. I tried to get a little clip to show the blustery conditions yesterday, however the clip just doesn't capture the wind and snow. This morning there is a lot more snow since it snowed throughout the night as well.

At the moment David is shovelling the driveway since we're feeling the need to get out of the house since we've been home for the last three days. It's also time to get some milk and bread. It looks like winter has finally arrived!

First Day in 2010

Being the photo lover that I am, I had to take photos throughout the day to document the first day of 2010 as a family. Sarah spent part of the day wearing a reindeer costume that was sent to us along with a FULL suitcase of baby clothes for Calvin from an old friend, Katharine, in Abbotsford.

As with most other days, the kids were both up at 7am, no sleeping in for me. That has got to be what I miss most about our "before children" days. So I took down the Christmas tree and decided to move Sarah's table and chair set to that spot in the living room. We ope that the table will get more use if it's in the main room, we also hope this will give her some table space so that she won't see the need to use the coffee table so much. So far so good, she has been loving sitting at her table and playing with her tea set.

Little Calvin is always up for cuddles.

Sarah and Keisha spent some time squirrel watching from our front window. I got lots of great shots of this cute little creature. There were actually three in the tree at one point. For lunch we had some yummy nachos in the living room. Sarah seemed to think it was pretty strange to eat in the living room. She was a big fan of the nacho chips and particularly enjoyed dipping them in the sour cream...no surprise there.

Cheese!

It started snowing yesterday and has been pretty much snowing ever since. It's supposed to continue until about Wednesday. So I decided to take Sarah outside for a little bit in the early evening. She was actually a little freaked out and started crying. I don't think she liked it that it was still snowing on her face. So we'll go outside again once the snow stops and the wind calms down. Keisha was a big fan of running through the snow.

What am I doing out here?

New Years Eve

What time is it? It's midnight, that means we actually all stayed up to New Years, amazing! Matt is just a little excited! He was very proud of the fact that it was 2010 (that's what the paper says, can't read it very well though)

At this moment Libby had more energy than she had the rest of the week, go Libby!

Believe it or not, we had a really quiet evening. Both kids were in bed and sleeping by 7:10. We had appies for dinner and broke out the games, we enjoyed playing Alambra, Blokus, Boggle and who knows what else.

I have to write a disclaimer for the following two photos before you're scared away or think we are the boozing type of family. Matt and David thought it would be funny to take some mock shots like the real ones we often see on facebook, etc after New Years and other people's special occasions. The funny thing is that we didn't have any alcohol on New Years, just Iced Tea, bubbly grape juice and Ginger Ale (not that there's anything wrong with drinking alcohol). Anyways, they seemed to get a little carried away with the idea, especially Matt.

What a bunch of crazies!

Matt thought that the idea of "drinking" 3 bottles at once was particularly funny. I know these are pretty bad looking photos, but the moment was just too funny.

Gotta love the first kiss of the New Year!

We hope you all had a safe and happy New Years eve!