Jinx

We're finally all healthy around here. It was a full week of fevers and coughs, all three kids at the same time, and I had a milder case of it along with them. Cam was quite helpful through it, and he never even caught it. I'm wondering if it was H1N1, the whole town seems to have it. Hopefully it's done and over with now.

We cut our cable service recently. I'm really enjoying it actually, the kids and I are being much more crafty (literally), and I'm reading more. We also watch a lot of movies :)

Winter is definitely here, we've had a lot of snow the past few days. I welcome winter this year, I want to get a lot of scrapbooking done.

Carson just dropped down to one nap, much to my chagrin. He is totally miserable around suppertime but the only thing that makes it worthwhile is that he has begun sleeping through the night! I hate writing that to jinx myself. I wrote about it in my journal last night, and of course he was up at least 7 times. But I don't care, I'm gonna mention it here too. He has been sleeping a good 12 hrs at a time. I really notice how much more rested I feel.

New Moon comes out in theatres this week!

11 months

Battle of the bulge

I'm sitting in bed blogging, with 2 sick children, and not feeling so great myself. I had a horrible night last night! Mistake #1, I stayed up reading "Eclipse" until 1:30am. Actually, I finished it. It was intense enough that I was not feeling drowsy. I hate to admit how much I love this Twilight series. I don't want to join the millions of teenage girls all bubbling about this vampire love story, but I can't help it! I'm hooked. It makes me feel a bit better knowing quite a few "ladies", and even some men that enjoy it too :) Of course, Carson and Leah were intermittently getting up through the night, needing Advil and back rubs. By 3am I think I started to drift off. At 5:56 I was woke abruptly by Carson crying, and then I had insomnia again, so I never did get back to sleep.

Cam and I had a wonderful time in San Diego for my shareholders conference. The week consisted of one 3hr shareholders meeting, and the rest was just pure fun. All the meals were provided, the food was amazing! The wine flowed freely. Our highlights were doing a bike tour on Coronado Island, eating at Candela's there, touring the USS Midway, going to Balboa Park and the zoo. Yes, we did all the touristy things. It was so fun to get away, just the 2 of us. I got to meet up with my cousin Heidi and her boys at the zoo for a bit. It was nice to catch up. Another highlight was staying at the Fairmont in Vancouver on our way home. It happened to be Thanksgiving Sunday, so we ate at the restaurant there and indulged in the Thanksgiving special. It was $55/plate for a turkey dinner! (I'm getting reimbursed from my store). It was delicious...definitely not worth $55 but that made it so much more fun. Oh, and as we're sitting there, at the table next to us is 3 other girls from FSJ. Kinda wierd.

Now I'm going to vent for a minute. I'm really battling with the "last 10 lbs" this time. I'm annoyed with myself. Both times when I quit nursing my girls, I gained 7lbs over a period of a few months. I hated this, but I just cured it by getting pregnant again, and eventually the flabby gut would turn into a hard basketball, and I felt much better. This time, I am on the same track. I weaned Carson in July and I'm gradually gaining weight. My jelly belly is very embarrassing. I do not want to ever be pregnant again, so now I've got to work hard to fix this! I have no willpower when it comes to good food. When I say "good" I mean tasty, as in burgers and fries. And I eat more than necessary. So my goal is to work on portion control, and exercise. I'll try to get on my elliptical trainer more consistently. I think I need to snack more too. For me, if I get too hungry, I really crave greasy food. So a healthy snack between meals is what I'll try. Overall I'd say I eat pretty healthy, but Cam and I definitely give in to our cravings too often. And no more going on holidays with free food and wine. Not good for the body!

Better late than never, I've posted Carson's 10 month picture. He is walking well now. Just about impossible to get him to lay on his blanket, which is why my leg is holding him down! Such a fun little guy.

From the mouths of babes...

Leah has been saying some funny things lately. I'm going to post as much as I can remember.

*In Walmart, she was standing in the cart, wiggling and giggling, when she said "God is tickling me!"

*Reminiscing about when she had sore/bleeding gums with canker sores, she said, "I don't have Deuteromonies on them anymore". (I meant to spell it that way, she mixes up the m and n). She had these sores while Kelsey was learning a memory verse from Deuteronomy. Somehow she associates this with her sore mouth.

*Yesterday as I was putting her ballet shoes on before her dance class, she whispered to herself "I'm going to be famous."

*Leah to Cam- "Daddy, when you went to work, you turned the toaster onto burn, and you didn't turn it back. When I made toast (now her eyebrows got really angry), they got BURNTED!" Cam started to laugh, which really hurt her, and she ran down the hall with a quivering lip on the verge of tears.

There's so much more, of course i just can't remember...

Carson is walking! He took his first steps last week at 9.5 months. He can't stand up on his own, so he always needs to pull himself up onto something first, so he's still got some learning to do. :)

Kelsey loves kindergarten! This is an answer to prayer for sure.

Funny

I took his 9 month pictures at bedtime, and he sure thought something was funny. No chance of him sitting still on the blanket either. What a sweetie.

A ballerina and.. girl with attitude.

Hiking in the Beatton hills.

Beautiful Kelsey

Leah's first day of preschool. I'm distracted by that clip in her hair, but she couldn't imagine going to school that day without it :) She also dressed herself, so I didn't bother telling her that her shoes were on the wrong feet.

My lovely family.

Cam and a ghostly Jeff working hard.

Leah with her favourite person.

Who needs sleep? Well you're never gonna get it...

Those are lyrics to a song by one of my favourite bands- the Barenaked Ladies. And it's also the theme of my life. The last week reminds me of Carson's first week of life, he can barely go 2hrs without crying in the night. Often every 45 min. I'm slowly going crazy, and I'm getting better at just ignoring it, because at this point there's nothing else to do. So while I'm still waking up several times, at least I'm not getting up several times. It's not a blood curdling scream, just a sleepy wail. Actually the last 2 nights were a tiny bit better. I'm trying to look at it from a positive perspective. Some people have ALL there babies do this. Thankfully, this is my first experience. He's very happy in the day, especially since he's cruising. He quietly makes his way around the house exploring. The bathroom is definitely one of his favourite spots as of late. Loves pulling the toilet paper and playing in the water. Trying to teach the girls to keep the door shut.

No renters downstairs yet. Cam and I were seriously considering selling the house last week, and we were actually excited about downsizing. I called the bank because I knew there would be a fee for getting out of our 5 yr mortgage too soon. Turns out the penalty is $26, 675. Ridiculous, almost humorous! No thanks. We'll stay here. I'm enjoying the freedom of the house to ourselves for the moment, too. We're just budgeting more carefully, at least until January when we should have some students!

Kelsey starts Kindergarten in 2 days. Is that word German? What does it even mean? It just looks so silly now that I'm staring at it and repeating it in my head. She'll be all decked out in her Disney princess backpack along with all the princess accessories.

Leah is in preschool 1 day/week, and also ballet/tap lessons 1/week. Kelsey is expressing a lot of interest in gymnastics. I might register her in the next session after Christmas.

I'll add some pictures to show what else we've been up to. I want to get to bed and continue reading "Twilight". I'm hooked.

Oh hungry?

I think I may have found something that makes Carson sleep better. It has worked twice now, but I know that doesn't warrant it as "fixed". I've been feeding him more before bed, a banana, or cereal, on top of his bottle. Seems so simple, I don't know why I hadn't thought of that. I also just feed him more altogether throughout the day. He is one hungry, growing boy. Anyway, he has had 2 really good nights, not needing to feed again until 7am. He still wakes up, but I've been ignoring him, and he usually falls back asleep within a couple minutes. Last night he was very upset at 3am, I couldn't ignore it, so I gave him his soother and he was out til 7am. This is improvement. I hope he'll sleep through the night soon. Oh, and he also has his first tooth, FINALLY! I'm sure it helps to have that pesky pain out of the way.

We're all fighting some kind of mild flu/cold around here, even the renter. I took Leah to the doctor on Monday because her gums have been red and swollen since Saturday, fevering, and sores on her tongue. She couldn't eat, definitely couldn't brush her sensitive teeth/gums. Turns out to be a good ol' case of herpes simplex. Her first outbreak of coldsores, and it should be the worst one. Poor kid. To know that she'll suffer from that like me ( I get canker sores a lot, especially from stress), I feel for her. Doc gave her an anti-viral and it's almost healed.

We're in transition. Only 1 girl living downstairs at the moment, and she's leaving in 2 days. I've had an ad out looking for renters but there's barely a response! Sometimes we really regret moving into this house. It was a bit of a rushed decision (our realtor had made a BIG mistake by making us sign off the papers to our old house, guaranteeing us that our offer had gone through on a different one. But it hadn't. Now there was a bid war, and we lost, and we had to be out of our house in 3 weeks). So we bought this house and we love it, but it's at the top end of what we can afford. 3 weeks after moving in, Cam gets laid off from his job at Points North, going back to ArcTech, thankfully!, but also back to $1000 less per month. So now we do rely on renters to keep us in this house. We've been blessed to be in connection with Maple Education, who has been supplying us with Nigerian students, even 3 at a time. But right now, they don't have enough students to share with us:) Can we hold out til January (when there will be students), should we sell and downsize, wait for a renter? These are the options. We're praying about it. Last night I got a reply from a female teacher from Kelowna needing a room to rent, which is an answer to prayer.

The kids are all up now, and impatiently waiting for breakfast. Here goes another day.

8 months!

He can pull himself up onto things now...still doesn't have great balance though. Here he is watching daddy and Kelsey bike riding.