New Pictures

Cute Laugh

Doesn't my baby have the cutest laugh ever?

Happy Halloween!

Uh-Oh

This is a video of Malcolm this morning.

Nephews

Gab is in town this week. So I've been spending a lot of time with these little guys. And boy has it been fun:)

Early Crawling

A new blog

I've been toying around with the idea of a new blog for a while now. So I started it today. It's called "Karen's Kitchen". As I'm sure you can guess, it's a cooking and recipe blog. I'll add a link and you can look at it if you like:)
http://karens-kitchen.blogspot.com/

Morning

This is Malcolm after waking up every 1 1/2 -2 hours all night long to eat. We drove daddy to work this morning, and he's still sleeping in his car seat.



This is mommy after waking up every 1 1/2-2 hours all night long to feed baby. I couldn't nap with Malcolm, as I had to get ready for the day. Soooooo tired!

Family

I got this in an e-mail today and thought it was nice.

F A M I L Y

I ran into a stranger as he passed by,
'Oh excuse me please' was my reply.

He said, 'Please excuse me too;
I wasn't watching for you.'

We were very polite, this stranger and I.  
We went on our way and we said goodbye.

But at home a different story is told,
How we treat our loved ones, young and old.

Later that day, cooking the evening meal,
My son stood beside me very still.

When I turned, I nearly knocked him down.
'Move out of the way,' I said with a frown.

He walked away, his little heart broken.
I didn't realize how harshly I'd spoken.

While I lay awake in bed, God's still small voice came to me and said,

'While dealing with a stranger,
common courtesy you use,
but the family you love, you seem to abuse.

Go and look on the kitchen floor,
You'll find some flowers there by the door.

Those are the flowers he brought for you.
He picked them himself: pink, yellow and blue.

He stood very quietly not to spoil the surprise,
you never saw the tears that filled his little eyes.'

By this time, I felt very small,
And now my tears began to fall.

I quietly went and knelt by his bed;
'Wake up, little one, wake up,' I said.

'Are these the flowers you picked for me?'
He smiled, 'I found 'em, out by the tree.

I picked 'em because they're pretty like you.
I knew you'd like 'em, especially the blue.'

I said, 'Son, I'm very sorry for the way I acted today;
I shouldn't have yelled at you that way.'
He said, 'Oh, Mom, that's okay.
I love you anyway.'

I said, 'Son, I love you too,
and I do like the flowers, especially the blue.'

FAMILY
Are you aware that if we died tomorrow, the company
that we are working for could easily replace us in
a matter of days.
But the family we left behind will feel the loss  
for the rest of their lives.

And come to think of it, we pour ourselves more
into work than into our own family,
an unwise investment indeed,
don't you think?

I know, I know . . .

I've been a bad blogger lately. Sorry it's been so boring to look at my blog. I just find myself busy with other things right now, and I don't make the time to blog. I do make the time to read other people's blogs, and then when they don't blog I sure notice. So I guess it's time for me to update.
What's new in the world of Malcolm you may ask? Well we have our first tooth, on the bottom front. It took a little while, but it finally made an appearance about a week and a half ago. And judging by all the slobbering going on, we are well on our way to tooth number two. Which has been felt on the top, but went back down. We have also had our first real full cold. You may remember we had colds (Malcolm and I) back in July when Jeff was out of town. The bad thing about that cold was that we both got pink-eye. But the cold itself was manageable. This cold, not so much. We are talking full out snotty noses, cough's, sleepless nights. Malcolm is improving, but I have bronchitis now. But thank the good Lord above that Jeff was home this time.
September was vacation month for us. We started off with September Long weekend in Waskesiu. We stayed in a cabin, my dad and step-mom came and stayed in another cabin. Jeff and I were able to get away to do things like Canoe the Waskesiu River with no baby. And we went to my friend Sarah's wedding reception. It was a really nice relaxing weekend.


Then two weeks later we went to Waskesiu again for the Outter Limits Fun Run. It's a 5km run/walk or 10km run. My father in law has taken up running, and although I don't run a lot, I do walk a lot. So I started jogging just a bit. So I did a walk/jog on the 5k. Kevin did the first 5k with me, then ran the second 5k on his own. I did it in about 49 minutes. So I was pretty proud of myself. That weekend we went with Jeff's parents, and again just had a nice time.


That Sunday we came home and my brother was in town. For those of you who don't know, the New York Islanders were in town for training camp. And were hosting some pre-season games here. So they were playing against the Edmonton OIlers, and we went to that game. My dad, my brother, Jeff and I. It was a good time:)
Then the very next day, Jeff went to work, and my brother and I drove out to Clear Lake, Manitoba for a weeks long vacation. My dad and Chris drove in another car, and my sister and 2 nephews came up as well. My brother in law came on Wednesday and Jeff came on Thursday. Well we had a fabulous vacation. I taught my oldest nephew swimming lessons. We took him to see buffalo. We went into the little town often to play at the playground and on the beach. We went into Brandon to the airport museum for Indiana's birthday. I made Indiana a Lightening McQueen birthday cake. We took him canoeing for the first time. Gab, Chris and I got to have some quality time at the spa:) (no treatments, just floating around in the mineral pool, but whatever, it was still awesome). The guys went golfing one day. It was a very nice vacation:)
And the weather in September was wonderful! It was hot the whole time we were on vacation, and got cold the day we drove home. Now it is October, so I guess it's time I gave up thinking we could have more warm weather. But geez Louise were we lucky to have such nice weather for our vacations.
So you are now all caught up, and hopefully I don't go this long without blogging again:)

Classic video

My brother captured this video on our vacation. He didn't realize until later what he had actually gotten on tape. I will point out though that Jeff did realize what was going on and picked Malcolm up.
You will notice the confused look on Malcolm's face, then the hurt feelings look. And then Aleksei just looks like "what happened? where is he going?" Pretty cute.

Getting older

I used to love my birthday. I loved making a big deal out of it and I wanted everyone to know it was my birthday. When I was 16. As I got older, well I started to realize I was getting older, and every year I started to think, oh I used to think so and so was so old when they were this age. And you know, it really wasn't that cool any more to expect the world to stop for my birthday. When I turned 20 I remember thinking, there is no way Star Wars can be 20 years old, I saw it in the theatres. Yeah I saw at least one of the Star Wars movies in the theatre, when I was 3. The original came out the year I was born. And there were all these kids I knew that coudln't believe I had seen it in the theatre, because it was SO LONG AGO. After that it didn't seem like I should make such a huge deal out of my birthday any more. Now granted I still liked to go out with friends for a few more years. But now I would really not do anything outside of just Jeff and I going out for my birthday. It's just another reminder to everyone out there that yes, I am a year older. And although I don't mind when people tell me I'm young, I do mind when they tell me I'm old.
Well today I had a moment. A moment when it wasn't my birthday, but someone made me feel really really old.
We took Malcolm to get his passport picture taken. We go to the store and a nice girl takes probably 40 pictures before we get one that should work. As I'm paying I made the comment that I was so glad we have digital cameras now. Could you imagine doing this with a film camera? The girl working there said, "oh I know that would be hard. My mom was telling me you didn't used to need a picture for ID. Could you imagine that? Like even for a Saskatchewan drivers license, you just had to give your signature, and it was on the honour system. Could you imagine that?"
I looked at her in disbelief and said "no, no I can't". Then I left the store thikning, this girl who looks like she's about 18-20, just equated me with her mom. Because you know what, I had a SK drivers license when you didn't need a picture for it. Now what this girl probably didn't know is that it really wasn't that long ago. It was only in 2003 that it was mandatory to have photo ID with your drivers license in SK. Before that you had just the card that you signed. I think starting in 2001 or 2000 was when they started phasing in photo ID. I think you could get an "optional photo ID" around 1997 or something. And of course I got one right away, since there were certain places that would prefer you had it. But really it's only 6 years ago that it was made mandatory in our province. I won't tell you when I got my first license, however, it was beofre 6 years ago. And some girl in a photo store can't remember that far back anyway.

Happy Anniversary!

So it's our 4 year anniversary. 1 year and 1 day ago (as in the day beofre our 3rd anniversary), we found out we were pregnant. And now here we are with a four month old baby. He is such a blessing, and we had been waiting so long for him! I still remember how incredibly shocked we were to finally have a positive pregnancy test. And then when we went out for our anniversary dinner we were giggling over how I couldn't have a glass of wine.
This year we were able to leave Malcolm at my dad's for a few hours while we enjoyed a nice dinner out at the Granary, and a movie (the new Harry Potter).
And you know, I'm not bored with my husband. I still love him, and want to spend time with him. Granted we don't have to do everything together, but we like to. We can go on trips alone, or out with friends alone, but we miss each other and we still like to tell each other about our days, and the things we think the other person would have enjoyed. I like just spending time with Jeff still. I think that's good:)

Indiana and the ABC's

I talk to Gab on the phone pretty much everyday. Which means I also talk to Indiana on the phone that often. Sometimes I call them, sometimes they call me, but usually one of the first things I do in the morning is talk with my sister and Indiana.
The last couple of days he has called me in the morning to sing me the ABC's. We start off good, "abcdefghijk" now it gets cute "oooop" then he finishes the rest of correctly. Then he sings "Now, Know, C's, Time You Me". So mostly I just hear Gab during that part since she sings all the words. Indiana is not quite 3 yet, so even if he adds some extra o's, I still think he's pretty smart:)

Bree vs. the Thistles.

Bailey and Bree came running in yesterday, COVERED in thistles. Bailey wasn't so bad, but Bree was a mess. We spent over an hour washing and brushing her last night. And will probably do the same tonight.

Summer Project #1

This is our house when we bought it.


We had College Pro come and paint our house. We are pretty happy with the results. This picture actually is from day 3 of painting, they weren't quite done with the second coat etc. but you get the idea anyway.

Swimming

I finally had the opportunity to try out Malcolm's life jacket. We ordered it from MEC and it's special for babies. Click here to see the website.
Well, it's definitely cute, and it seems to work well. He was a little unsure of it, so we will have to keep trying until he gets a bit more comfortable in it:) He spent most of the time chewing on the buckle. Cute.

Weeding made easy

So I have always hated weeding, and have bought many things to help make it easier. Such as the garden claw which by the way, is not a whole lot easier. Well I was on the GCC website one day (see link to the left), and I saw this video for a Hula Hoe. I showed it to Jeff and he said we had a similar tool in our shed. Well I used it and it worked so well! Two minutes every day and my weeding is done. Now if the weed is really close to a plant, you do have to weed it by hand, but this sure helps for the in between areas.

Once again, Click HERE to see a video of the tool in use.

More Canada Day

Malcom and Mommy, with the stage in the background.
Malcolm with Grandpa Gonyou and Mama Kiss
Grandpa Gonyou and Malcolm hanging out.

So we had fun at the park today. We got there just at the end of the program. Just in time to re-affirm our Canadian citizenship. I think Malcolm really enjoyed that part;)
Then we got in line for cake, and that's what I was the most excited about. All the dignitaries that had been on stage were serving cake, so people like the mayor.
And then we bought some lunch and found a quite shady place to eat. And then we walked around a bit. Next year when Malcolm is a little older I think we will do a lot more there. They had all kinds of kids things set up. And of course the fireworks will be tonight. But I think that's a little much for a 3 month old to handle.

Happy Canada Day

I swear he was smiling right before I took this picture.

Today is Malcolm's first Canada Day. Unfortunately daddy is away on a business trip. So we are hanging out with Grandpa Gonyou and Grandma Chris (or Mama Kiss as Indiana likes to call her). In a little while we will be heading down to Deifenbaker Park for the celebrations:) More pictures to follow.