Christmas Party

One thing the kids look forward to every year is my moms work Christmas party. The first time we went it was at the Talisman Center. They had it there for a couple of years then they switched to Heritage Park. They did it there for 2 years and changed it up again. Good thing because it wasn't my favorite place to go. This year it was at the BMO Center at the Stampede grounds. It was done really well and decorated nicely. The kids got animal balloons made, their faces painted, they got crafts, we had lunch, Jeff took them ice skating and they even met Santa and got presents. This is the first time I have ever forgotten my camera for the party. Of course it was the best one to have a camera for. Here are the pictures I took with my phone of the kids with Santa. I can't believe how big they look on Santa's lap (Jeff thinks it's time to tell Clara, but I don't want to crush her, or me)
I personally love the classic crying pictures. I know have one of all the kids. I just love them!

We look forward to next years party even if it's going back to the Talisman center. (I hate swimming)

Super Dad

I just wanted to get it out there, This man is amazing.

He is absolutely the greatest father and husband I could ever imagine. The past few days I have abandoned him and he has really stepped up. He has not only been taking care of the kids all by himself but he also baked 4 cakes for the ward Christmas party. I had signed up to do them but was unable to, so he took it upon himself to call his sister and find out what creaming butter and sugar meant so he could do it for me. Then he delivered the cakes and corn I was to cook for the party to the church. He never complains. He works so hard to provide for our family and takes such good care of us all. We are truly blessed to have him.

He sent me a picture of one of the cakes. I wish I could have eaten it!

I am thankful that he has been keeping me updated on what I have been missing, even if I wish I could be there for it all. Elliot has finally learned how to climb down the stairs on his own! This is life changing for us because often he climbs to the top and then screams right away to be brought back down. Donovan scored 5 goals in soccer today! He has turned into quite the athlete. He is so fast and works so hard. Clara lost her front tooth today. Now she is missing both her front teeth. She told me that it doesn't mean that's all she wants for Christmas though.

I am also told that both Clara and Donovan have brought home excellent report cards. I can't wait to see them!

Poor Dino

So the kids had This past Monday off. I had all these great plans to take them somewhere fun. Then I got really sick. I got hit with the worst cold I think I have ever had a few days before. So we ended up staying home. I planned on setting up Christmas in our house. Well I was too sick for that. Poor kids, another boring day for them. I figured to lighten the day I would let them pick anywhere they wanted for lunch. I put myself together and got everyone ready to go. I went into my room for one last thing and Donovan started crying. Now he has a tendency to whine and I have a tendency to ignore it. So when he came to me I basically told him to deal with it or we weren't going for lunch. He was holding his head and wouldn't stop crying so I decided to give him the attention he wanted. He was covered in blood. Probably more blood than I have ever seen before. My first thought was what a great mother I am. Second thought was oh no, what do I do? I cleaned the cut up enough to realize we were headed to the hospital, not lunch. So I patched him up really fast, trying to remain calm and we loaded in the truck. Poor Donovan. He was in so much pain. It was a long drive. We finally got to the hospital and checked in. The nurse told me he would probably need stitches. Of course I wanted to say duh, but I restrained. I mean, do you think I would really drag 3 kids to a disgusting, dirty, ER if I didn't have to? We waited about an hour, that's a perk to small towns as I'm sure in the city it would have been at least double that. We were all starving so we ate lunch from their vending machines while we waited. That's right, if you didn't already think I am mother of the year, perhaps our lunch of cheesiest, pop and crackers does. Anyways, Jeff managed to make it and save Clara and Elliot. Donovan saw a doctor and he decided that no stitches were needed because it was such a clean cut. They used that super glue stuff and put bandages over top. Donovan told me he was never going to become a doctor because he didn't want to have to hurt kids heads by taking old bandages off and putting new ones on. He decided he is going to teach kindergarten instead because that makes kids happy.

 Waiting for the Dr.

 I would say our day off was not as planned, that's for sure but I'm glad we got Donovan taken care of. He has had a terrible headache since but he's so brave and so strong. I was so proud of him when he saw the doctor, you could tell he was super scared but he acted so tough.

Today would be the day we could take the bandages off. Well, last night while the kids were getting ready for bed, Donovan came running up to us and asked why his head was bleeding. Sure enough, more blood. Poor guy. I called healthlink just to see if it was worth the drive. She told me to take the bandage off, Donovan started crying and yelling "no, don't touch my bandage". I talked him into it and thankfully it was so soaked in blood it almost fell off. It seemed the corner of it was not healing and was quite swollen. So back to the ER. Donovan wanted his dad to take him cause he didn't want to get blood in my car. Ha! He got right in at the hospital (small town blessings) and I'm told he was brave again. They glued him back together and now we hope it heals. Poor guy had to miss soccer on Monday, and again tomorrow. (Soccer and Wii are the two things he is most passionate about, so that is a big sacrifice for him).

This is a picture of his reopened wound. These pictures aren't great, they were taken on my phone. I guess I was too worried about getting him to the hospital to take better pictures. Maybe that scores me some mom points?

What cut his head open you ask? The couch! Of all things. Clara and him were goofing around and she pushed him. He fell into the couch and ended up with a wound about 1.5" long and about a cm wide. I could not tell how deep the wound was, I did not see the end of it, but I know it was pretty deep for a couch wound. Clara felt terrible and cried with Donovan all the way to the hospital. Thankfully we don't visit the hospital very often which is why Donovan is excited to bring his hospital bands and head wound to show and tell later today. It just happens to be his day for show and tell today, so at least he gets something out of the hole in his head, as he likes to call it.

Halloween 2011

Introducing our princess kitty (with her hockey super fan cousin)....

and our monster crew....

We started our Halloween weekend with trunk or treating at Jeff's brothers ward. The kids loved it. They had a parade around the gym, which kids always love. Then we all headed outside to do some trunk or treating. We have never been to a ward with so few primary children, so it was funny to see the kids finish visiting all vehicles after 15 minutes. I think my kids ended up visiting all the vehicles 3 times. Hopefully the ward didn't mind that we crashed their party and took advantage of them...

This is my nephew in the parade.

 

Elliot hung out with me in the back of the truck while I passed out candy. I couldn't resist posting another picture of this adorable face.

I went to Clara's school to watch the Halloween parade. It was a bit of a joke and nothing compared to Chaparral's, but the kids enjoyed it. We barely saw Clara as she ran right past us to catch up to her class, so I caught her in the hall afterwards and took a picture of her and her friend.

 

Elliot and I joined Donovan in his classroom for a small party they had. I don't have any great pictures of that, but I wanted to mention it so you don't think I left Donovan out.

So this is obviously our first Halloween in our new house and new town, which was pretty exciting. You always here how small towns are the best for trick or treating. However, we have this tradition of trick or treating with the cousins, we can't forget about that. It wasn't a unanimous decision, but we trekked to Chaparral for one last year of trick or treating there.

Who would want to miss out on trick or treating with their cousins when they have this much fun? The hockey superfan is missing from this picture, he kept falling off the stairs and I guess I didn't get a good picture of him. 

Stacey fed us a yummy dinner, as always and the kids headed out. Elliot made it to one house and he scored a full size box of Smarties. The kids went trick or treating for a good hour or so and made out like bandits with their loot. We left a little early so we could trick or treat around our block. They went to a few houses here, but by the time we made it a lot of houses had already turned off their lights for the night. We look forward to trick or treating here next year, as we heard some great stories. Most houses decorate like crazy here, and there are a few haunted houses as well. There are some streets that were so packed with kids we couldn't drive through if we wanted to. It all seems very exciting and makes me look forward to seeing what the neighbourhood has in store for Christmas decorating.

Elliot is 1, Clara is 7!!

I can't believe my baby is one! Elliot turned one on October 14th. I have to admit, things have changed in our family with him being the third. We didn't have a birthday party, we did have my family over for a dinner, that was well overdue anyways. I'm sad to say, I didn't even attempt to make Elliot a birthday cake. I bought a cake that I knew I would love to eat and realized there was no way he could blow out a candle on that cake, so I sent Jeff to the store to buy him a little cupcake or something. He came home with a mini cheesecake. Not quite what an average child would want, but he has no way to complain, so it's what he got. He actually enjoyed eating it surprisingly.

I will say, there is no lack of love for this child. We love him so much and are so grateful we have him in our family. He has been such a joy to have around. We got off to a rough start. For the first 3 months or so all he did was cry all day. He was not a happy baby. I will be forever grateful for my mother in law who would come over for a couple of hours every week and hold him so I could do stuff, or even just have a break. I remember her coming over and baking me bread when Elliot was born, how spoiled can a person get? I also remember my sister in law Stacey taking Clara and Donovan for me whenever she could. She is a very busy person, and it was amazing that she used her free time to help me out. I can remember feeling so happy that I got to enjoy Elliot, even if he wasn't always happy. At least I got to hold him and cuddle him and love him while he was so small and not feel guilty that I was neglecting my older children.
Elliot has always been a good sleeper. I rarely remember waking up with him through the night, even in the very beginning. I think he did that so he could prepare me for the daytime, when there was no way I could put him down.
Now, Elliot is a busy 1 year old. He was crawling by the time he was 5 months old. He was pulling himself up by 6 months. Thankfully he didn't start walking until he was 11 months old. He sure is a curious baby. I've never really had to child proof anything, until he came along. Everything needs to be childproofed with him around. Toilets are his favorite thing to play in. A close second is the cupboards, he loves pulling stuff out of them. I often find random measuring spoons and cups throughout my house. He loves to eat, and he will eat pretty much anything. I think he would sit in his highchair all day eating food if I let him. He's still a thumb sucker. It's hard for me to watch, but I tried to stop him, he just would not give it up. I am glad he only does it when he is tired, so hopefully he won't go to kindergarten sucking his thumb. He loves Bella. I can't believe how much he loves her. His first word was Bella, after he mastered the phrase uh oh. Now all he says is uh oh and Bella. Everytime he sees a dog, or anything furry, he says Bella. I admit, it's pretty cute when he says it, but I sure wish he would say mama or something. We are working on that, and I think he is close.

I am excited to watch him grow up. He is definitely going to keep me on my toes, but I just love being around him. He brings so much excitement to my life. I love how Clara and Donovan take such good care of him and love him so much. I can't imagine my life without him.

Today is Clara's birthday! She turns 7. I can't believe my baby is 7. Time sure flies. I remember holding my sweet baby girl for the first time like it was yesterday. She is so perfect.

I love having her around. She is such a good helper. She is so amazingly smart. She is so talented. She loves to draw and color and she is really good at it. She started piano lessons this year. For some one who doesn't have parents who are musical, she sure picks piano up well. She continues with her dancing, it will be her 5th year dancing and she is so good at it. This year she will be doing competition dancing. Even though it is more money than I would like to spend, I am excited for her. She has struggled with our big move, and dancing seems to be her outlet. I am so grateful for that. She goes to dance and nothing else seems to matter.

I continue to pray that she will settle into her new school and make some good friends like she had in our old house and I hope that it happens soon for her. I had no idea it would be so hard on her moving here, and I am constantly thinking about her and hoping for her happiness.

For her birthday we gave her tickets to the Selena Gomez concert. I went with her and we had so much fun. We didn't make it to the end, but it was an amazing night. Clara loves Selena Gomez and wants to be like her so bad.

Her birthday party is coming up this weekend. She wanted to go to Chuck E Cheese. She was allowed to invite 6 friends and chose them carefully. She picked mostly old friends, but invited our new neighbour as well. Then she decided there was a girl in her class she wanted to invite. So I'm pretty happy that she is inviting 2 people from here to go to her party. She will have 3 cousins there and 1 of my best friends daughters. While I don't enjoy Chuck E Cheese at all, I am happy to do what I can to make her birthday special.
I just love all of my children. They bring me so much joy. While I miss snuggling with my brand new babies, I sure enjoy watching them grow and learn. It is so satisfying to see them turn into the people they are becoming. I am so proud of each of them and I feel so blessed to be their mom.

Thanksgiving Weekend 2011

Thanksgiving weekend was a little crazy for us. Jeff headed down to Cardston with Clara and Donovan on Friday night to spend some time with his family. That left me and Elliot all alone. When I woke up Saturday, I cleaned a bit and then admittedly, I was so bored!! It's crazy how going from 3 kids to 1 can be a huge adjustment! So I dragged my parents to the mall with me and went shopping. That evening I left Elliot with my parents and headed to one of my best friends (Alysha) houses for a surprise birthday party. It was great to see her, as we certainly don't see enough of each other. It was a good night, and I sure love that girl.
When we woke up on Sunday, I packed up and we drove down to Cardston to join Jeff and his family. His whole family was there at one point (minus 2 grandchildren, one who is on a mission). It was a big weekend for the family because it was a sort of reunion before Jeff's parents head on their mission for 18 months. They leave this Sunday and are going to the London, England mission. We are very excited for them, but words can't even describe how much we will miss them.
The weekend was very busy. Imagine having 11 siblings, their spouses and 34 grandchildren all in one house at a time. Thankfully the weather was nice so we weren't confined to being inside the whole time.
I love Jeff's family, and I am thankful to be a part of it. I am thankful for so many cousins for my kids to play with, they love seeing them and look up to the older cousins. I am thankful for so many sister in laws that I can rely on, and I am especially thankful for the ones that I have become such great friends with. I am also thankful for Jeff's parents. They do so much for the family. Imagine having 36 grandchildren (and more on the way) and remembering birthdays and special events. I feel so blessed that my kids love their grandparents and have such a strong attachment to them.
It was a bittersweet weekend. It was great to see everyone, but it was sad to say goodbye to Jeff's parents as it was the last time we will see them before they leave. We spend a lot of time with them and that time is very important to our family. Clara and Donovan were so sad to say goodbye and cried on the drive home until they fell asleep. We used it as an opportunity to teach them about missions and to teach them about blessings that come from sacrifice, but it was still a tough drive. As much as we will miss them and especially during special events, we look forward to hearing their stories and learning from their experiences. What a great example they are to their family. Jeff's mom has said a few times that this is the hardest thing she has ever had to do, but she knows it will be worth it.

In all the hustle and bustle of the weekend, we didn't get to do Thanksgiving with my family. We haven't forgotten about them, we will make up for it this weekend as we celebrate Thanksgiving and Elliot's first birthday. It's crazy to me that my baby is 1 but if the next year goes as fast as this past year has gone, I figure Jeff's parents will be home in no time!!

10 Years!!!

 It was 10 years ago today that I married the love of my life. We have had an incredible journey so far and I am excited to see what the future holds for us. Here are some highlights of our marriage.

- The most obvious and most important, we have 3 beautiful children who bring us so much joy. They add so much excitement to our lives

- We have moved 10 times in our marriage, so it's not a good thing that we are moving one more time next month! 11 times in 10 years!

- The first place we ever bought was an apartment condo in Rocky Ridge, we lived in it for maybe 6 months...who would of thought that that $5000 down payment would turn into the house we are moving into now?! Good luck finding anything with a $5000 down payment now! I think that condo cost us $125,000. Crazy how times have changed!

- We had a dog, Sabey, she was a crazy dog, but she was a good dog. We had to give her back because our lives weren't suited for her. It was a very sad day. It was the first time I ever saw Jeff cry.

- We have been to Mexico twice without children. Once was our honeymoon but we have no pictures because our camera was stolen.

- Jeff completed 1 year of university before we were married and 3 years after. He worked like a dog. Full time in university and at one point he held 2 jobs, neither were glamorous. Thankfully he landed a job at First Calgary part way through his 2nd year of university.

- We got a rejection letter from the U of C business school after his second year of university. We had no idea what we were going to do with ourselves. Luckily, a few weeks later they couriered a letter of acceptance to us!

- Jeff completed his designation as a CA and it has been an incredible blessing to our family. He has been blessed with great jobs that allow him to be home with the family instead of drowning in work.

- We have traveled to Disneyland or Disneyworld 5 times with our children and I see many more trips to come!!

- 5 years after giving Sabey back, we were in a better position and found Bella. I swore we would never have a dog, but caved and I am so glad we did because she brings a lot of happiness to our family.


- Jeff had the opportunity to work for a company that took him across the world many times. He was able to travel to Singapore on numerous occasions, and Paris twice with this company. He always said he would take me but never did. In all fairness the timing was never right. I have told him he has to take me there at some point in our lives.

- We have been very fortunate to travel with my office a few times without kids. Once on a Caribbean cruise, once to Las Vegas and once to Victoria. We have an amazing family who is so willing to help us out so we can take advantage of these amazing vacations.

- As a 10 year anniversary celebration we took our kids on a Disney cruise with my parents and his parents. Turned out to be THE BEST VACATION ever!! I do need to blog about that trip so I don't forget about what an amazing time that was!

- We bought a timeshare in Fairmont, which we haven't used yet, but we are VERY excited to use it next year!

For my 10 year anniversary gift he spoiled me and we upgraded my diamond in my wedding ring. It's not like I ended up with a 2 carat diamond or anything, and its not something that will get noticed, but it is something that means so much to me!

 As you can tell, we have both gained some weight since our wedding day...what can I say, we were young then and I love my husband even more now then I did then. We were so young when we got married but I am so happy we have embarked on this journey together. There is not one other person I would rather spend my life with and I am so grateful for this man! He is an amazing father and an amazing husband. I could not ask for anything more in my life!

SOLD

Our house is SOLD!! That means we have sold 2 houses in 1 month!! We feel very fortunate to have had this happen, and are very excited for this new chapter of our lives.
We are headed to Langdon and have bought a house that is not too far from the school there and that will be a great house for our family.

Here are a couple of teaser pictures of the new house...you will have to come visit to see the rest.

 
The house is listed as a bungalow with a loft. It's a pretty interesting layout. The house has a huge main floor with everything you would expect on the main floor, including a decent size laundry room with a sink! Which if you know me is a huge plus. I LOVE having a sink in my laundry room and think of it as a necessity. The main level also has the master bedroom with a nice closet and decent en suite. The en suite has a large shower with 2 shower heads! We are pretty excited about that. The walk out basement is unfinished and I am pretty excited to develop that the way we would want it done. Where are the kids bedrooms you ask? Well, there is a small upstairs in the house. All that you find up there is a full bathroom, 2 bedrooms and a small loft area. Perfect for the kids. They have their own level. I see no reason for us to go up there except to put the kids to bed. Although we do plan on putting 2 bedrooms in the basement to eventually move Clara and Donovan down there. I guess Elliot will have a whole floor to himself, who would complain about that, right?
And then there is the yard. We can't complain about that, it's huge! The house is on a lot that is just shy of 1/4 of an acre, which is about what our house is on now. This house has not much front yard, so that land is all back yard. I wish I had a better picture, but I don't. Even more reason for visitors! I do want to point out the huge stamped concrete patio. We first saw this type of cement patio at Jeff's aunts house. I thought it was cool there, and now we get to enjoy it at our own house.

The house has some interesting features about it that you wouldn't pay extra for, but we are pretty excited to have them. Jeff is excited about the underground sprinklers. We don't have them in our yard and he struggles to water our yard cause it's so big there is no water pressure by the time it gets through the hose to the sprinkler in the yard. I am excited about the cool blinds the house has on the huge windows. I am excited that our master bedroom is on the main level. I am so excited for my laundry room sink and a bigger kitchen. I love the look of the rounded corners in the house, such a simple thing that usually costs too much to be worth paying for.

We will definitely miss Chaparral. Jeff has a brother here and we are good friends with their family. It is hard to leave that behind and it was the hardest thing to overcome when making this decision. We love the people in our ward and we love having a lake. We have great neighbours and it's scary to trade them in not knowing what we will be getting. Clara is so sad to leave her friends and her school. I sure hope this works out for us because I will feel really bad if we end up hating life in Langdon. I don't anticipate that happening, but we won't know until we get there.

We have just over a month to pack up the house and move into the new place. I am SO excited!!!

Teacher Gift

First, I just have to say that today there is reason to celebrate!! I never have to make lunches for Clara in grade 1 ever again!! Tomorrow is a pizza lunch for the school and Monday is only a half day, so no more lunches!!! I know there are some people out there who understand...I can't be the only one who hates doing it, can I?

We finished Clara's teachers gift and I am so happy with it. I have to tell you how much I appreciate Clara's teacher. We started the year with a different teacher and while she was a great teacher her teacher as of January has really left a lasting impression on Clara. It was hard not being able to get out and volunteer in the class. So much of me wants to do that and be involved in Clara's school life, but with Donovan and Elliot at home, it's just too hard. The one thing I loved about this teacher was that she always kept in touch with us. Teachers always say to email them, but when you do, you never hear back. Not Mrs.MacKenzie. She always emails back and often within an hour or so. Even on weekends she will answer questions. She has always offered me feedback and always made me comfortable with how Clara is doing in class. I finally had an opportunity to volunteer last week and I got to see her in action. After watching her as a teacher, I can see why Clara adores her. So I wanted to do something special for her and thought this was the perfect idea for her.

We made her a book. It is titled "What will Mrs.MacKenzie Do This Summer?"

"She might...get a coffee"
There is a Tim Horton's gift card
"and read a book."
With a gift card for Chapters
"Maybe she will make crafts" (cont'd below)
There is a gift card for Michaels on this page.
"while eating ice cream."

"I hope she won't forget about me,
I know I won't forget her.
Love, Clara Kearl"
Then Clara glued a wordle to the back. Mrs.MacKenzie taught her class how to do these and now my kids are addicted to them. It definitely made sense to add one to her teacher gift. Now we all know this is not a professionals job, but Clara is in grade 1, so I think her teacher will be thrilled.

I know I have already said this, but I am so very grateful for Clara's teacher. I am so lucky that we have some one so great in our lives. It takes some one special to be a teacher but it's amazing when you get some one like Mrs. MacKenzie! So thank you Mrs.MacKenzie!

News

Well....I have so much to catch up on but I figure I will start with the new stuff and work my way backwards. My mother in law informed me the other day that I don't update my blog enough, so I figured it was a push to do so.

We have lots going on in our lives right now. Our biggest news....in a month and a bit we will officially be a 1 house family!! I can't believe it, we FINALLY sold our Tuscany house!!! I can't even tell you how good it feels. It was a stressful sale, but it worked out in the end. The purchasers low balled us in the beginning but our realtor held strong and got us really close to our asking price. We were very happy. Then they had a home inspector that was a little bit ridiculous. He took 8 hours to complete the home inspection. We already knew this house was a wild card with a home inspection, the last thing we needed was an extremely thorough inspection! (Good for purchasers, bad for us). Well, they emailed us after the home inspection asking for $38,000 off the price because that's how much work the house needed. (Turns out it didn't, they were just trying to scam us). We figured we were back to the drawing board and told them to take a hike. Well, literally, 5 minutes before the offer was supposed to be void, they decided to sign the waiver at the price we originally agreed on. Can you believe it? We had already accepted that we were not going to sell the house and we were going to be stuck with it forever, and then they pulled this! So thankfully, come August 5, the house will no longer be ours!!!

So long Tuscany!! We will miss your 3 car garage and my favorite kitchen we have had so far, but not enough to want you back!!!

So...now that Tuscany is out of our lives, we need to shake it up a bit, right? We decided we wanted a clean slate, and now we have listed our Chaparral house. The hard thing about leaving this house is leaving the yard. Our yard is AMAZING!! It is so big. You just don't get a yard like this in the city very often. So we decided that if we want to trade our house without trading our yard, we would look in Langdon (a small town east of the city). I feel very good about this decision. We have taken a lot of thought and prayer to come to this decision. I do think that Jeff does not feel the same about this move as I do, but he is not great with change, and I hope that's why. So...if we do sell our current house, we will be moving to Langdon. I've heard it all, "why?", "are you crazy?", "do you realize how much driving you will have to do?" . In answer to all of these question and any you might have, YES, I realize it all, we have thought this through. We would not pick up our kids and move them to a small town, away from their favorite cousins, all their friends and our excellent ward if we didn't think it was the right decision for our family. There are lots of kids in Langdon, there is a K-9 school with another school opening next year, the lots are HUGE, every person we have met there is nice, the ward is different, but we think we will like it and it's not that far from the city! We aren't moving to another country, it's only 25 minutes from our current house. Plus, Jeff's sister lives in Chestermere which is the same ward as ours. They live in his parents house while they go on a mission, so if they leave, hopefully his parents come back after their mission. Now, of course this move will only happen if we can sell our current house, so who knows?!

Clara is almost done grade 1! I can't believe it. She is growing so fast. She loves school and has lots of friends there. That's what gives me hope she will have no problems making friends in the new school. She auditioned for her school talent show that is this week and she made it! She's doing a dance routine and I am very excited to see her show the school her talent. She really is a great dancer, very poised and very graceful, plus she can drop down into the full splits (which is what I think separated her from the other kids in her class that auditioned and didn't make it). She is definitely a performer, that's for sure. She does very well in school, she reads well, she listens well, she is very creative. I sure am proud of her and I am excited to watch her grow and learn.
This is her after her dance recital which was last weekend.

Then there is Donovan, he's a ball of fire and he's my sidekick. He is so ready for kindergarten and has been for a while. He is dying for that social interaction. He waits all day for Clara to come home to play with him. Sometimes he tries to get Elliot to play with him until he realizes all Elliot wants to do is eat his toys, not play with him. Donovan is a good big brother though, he takes such good care of his baby brother and he helps me around the house so much. He doesn't always listen and you often have to tell him something 3 times before it actually sinks in, but it could be worse. He's an excellent reader and speller. I think he's almost as good as Clara is, and she is a pretty good reader herself. He's a lot of fun to have around.


Good old Elliot. He is 8 months old now. He is one busy boy. He's been crawling around for at least 2 months now, he's climbing the stairs, he tries to climb the ladder for the kids bunk bed and just yesterday he was trying to walk. He's crazy. He holds onto the couch, lets go and tries to get to the other side of the couch. Of course he just falls, but then he gets back up and tries again. I hope he gives up on this ambition soon, I don't think we are ready for him to start walking because I am pretty sure I won't be able to keep up with him. He's funny though because he will do something naughty and look over with the biggest, cutest smile and it makes it hard to do anything but smile back. He's a lot of fun and I am so glad we have him in our family, he sure adds a lot of excitement and happiness to our lives.

No matter what happens over the next few months for us, we are so blessed. I feel so fortunate and so grateful for what we have.

Elliot

*I wrote this before we left for our trip but must have forgotten to post it...oops





I sometimes wish we could freeze time. Elliot is 5 months old today and it's just crazy to me how fast time has gone by.
We sure love him and can't imagine our family without him.
We got off to a rough start with him. He was a very difficult baby for the first 2 months. He cried a lot and nothing could stop it. I will be forever grateful for the family that helped us out. My sister in law Stacey, who took Clara to the bus every morning for me and picked her up and brought her home. She took Donovan so many times so I could have alone time with Elliot, which was so wonderful. I am also grateful for my mother in law. She came over many times to just hold Elliot. There were times that I had enough of holding him but it broke my heart to hear him crying. I am so grateful for her. One day she even came over just to bake bread for us. We love her bread and my house smelt so good too!

Then one day, Elliot snapped out of it. It was so sudden. He became the best baby ever! I do have to admit that from day 2 Elliot slept 6 hours every night. He has always been a good sleeper, for that I am very grateful.

Now Elliot smiles and laughs all the time. It brings me so much happiness to see that huge wide open mouthed grin of his. His smile is so contagious. I just love it!

He rolls all over the place and I am sure it won't be long until he is crawling everywhere. He loves his tummy and getting up on his knees. I just hope he holds off for 3 more weeks. It will be no fun having a crawler on the cruise.

The kids love him. He loves them. They love to make each other laugh. Seeing them together makes me so happy. What a great family we have!

Then there is Bella. She LOVES Elliot. She is so curious and puts her nose in his face all the time. I will often catch her trying to lick his face (GROSS). When I tell her to stop, she moves to his feet. She loves to kiss his feet! Every time he cries, she runs to him. She lets him grab her face and he has a very tight grip. (I would know because his favorite thing to grab seems to be my hair) It's sweet how much she loves him. Who would have thought that a dog could bring so much joy to a family!

I love watching Elliot grow, but it's sure sad all at the same time. This time is so precious and I am loving every second of it.