Movie Night!

Friday night is movie night! After supper, we get the kids in jammies and make popcorn. Chance likes to monitor the microwave to make sure the popcorn isn't burning. If Chance is rammy, tonight's movie selection will be Chralotte's Web. If it looks like he can keep calm, we'll entertain the idea of watching The Fantastic Four.

My How You've Grown, Little Boy!!

It will be fun to compare Karin in this jammie bag one day. It is the largest one we own (we have 3, and the first one I ever made). The colour has changed somewhat (it's been washed a lot), but you can see how when Chance originally wore it (probably June-ish 2007 til mid 2008) his feet had a long way to go. Now his toes reach the end of the bag (in fact, he needs to fold his legs in order to get his arms through the holes & zip up the zipper).

Sleeping hard

This is how Karin sleeps most of the time - arms stretched right over her head. "I can fly!"

Fun Weekend

Karin received a trio of cute pink shirts on the weekend & we are loving dressing her up! She doesn't really seem to care what she wears though...she's just as happy in her brother's hand me downs! This weekend she put on the blue Cammo Dogs sleeper that was so notorious for blow outs with Chance (every time he wore this outfit his diaper would blow out, and curiously enough, lots and lots of blow outs later, this sleeper is not even stained!!). Well, the Cammo Dogs didn't let us down -- while she didn't manage to have a blow out while wearing them, she did poop all over her crib blanket while getting changed. Poor Bunnykins may never be the same again! We'll have to see if it comes out in the wash or not...


Speaking of poo...there's a new video on our Youtube channel - Chance's reaction to Karin doing a Number Two while he's holding her.

We had a great weekend. On Saturday we had visitors over for tea. Chance was an absolute angel - sat down to have tea with us, then disappeared and played all by himself happily when he got bored. While Karin napped, Chance and I made a quiche, while Cam did the dishes. So I guess that makes me the chef, Chance the sous-chef, and Cam the plongeur (garbage boy). In the afternoon we went out for a walk as a family and discovered a perfectly fine black cast iron portable fire pit that was sitting next to a dumpster (we have one but we knew someone who would want it!) Cam and Chance went back with the truck to pick it up. I know what you're thinking, when will the craziness ever end??

On Sunday we went out for groceries and did something I think we'll be doing for a long time. In the past we have usually gone out for groceries as a family on the weekend, usually around 10 AM (ie. when EVERYONE ELSE IN THE ENTIRE CITY goes for groceries). It usually takes about an hour and a half, but sometimes up to 2 hours, depending on how big the list is, parking, lineups, whether I can find what I want, temper tantrums, etc.) This time, though, I had an epiphany while watching a movie called The Hurt Locker. I had to stop the DVD I was so excited to tell Cam about this idea. At the end (I don't think this is a spoiler) - a guy is shopping and then bumps into a lady and says "I'm about done, what about you" and she says "just get some cereal and we'll meet you at the till". They're shopping TOGETHER, but with SEPARATE CARTS. Wow. Wow wow wow. So we tried it: one list for me and one list for Cam and guess what? We had left the house, gassed up the car, parked, shopped, packed everything back in the car, gotten everything into the house, with two kids in tow, in UNDER 1 HOUR. Now - we did get to the grocery store sooner than usual (9ish). But. I'm never going back to the dark ages. Ever.

What's for supper...?

You should make these carrots! You really should! They're yummy!

Roasted Rosemary Carrots

Preheat oven to 400°F

Peel and cut up as many carrots as you think you need for your family. Put them in a casserole dish that has a lid that is oven safe. Toss carrots with olive oil (enough to coat), a finely diced or sliced clove of garlic, and rosemary (fresh if you have it but I used dried), salt (coarse if you have it, I used kosher) and pepper.

Put the lid on and bake for 30 mins. Remove from oven, stir up carrots a bit and then return to oven for another 15-30 mins (depends on your carrots, amount, etc.) with the lid off. Take 'em out when you're happy with their colour and texture.

When the carrots are fresh out of the oven, add about 1 tbsp of butter and let the heat of the carrots melt it, sprinkle with about 1 tbsp of brown sugar, stir to dissolve the sugar and ENJOY!

The Poop Face

"Mommy? I think there's a poop in my pamper!"

Tiny Hands & Feet

We stamped Karin's hands and feet the other night. Chance did his too -- afterwards they both had baths to get the ink off. Amazing to compare the size difference between the kids. Chance's feet and hands are easily 4x the size of Karin's.

3 weeks 4 days old

Karin is now 9 lbs 1.3 oz (4.12 kg) and 54 cm (21.5 inches) long! Way to go, baby!

Making Peace

When people ask me how I feel, my response is positive: "great, really good, amazing, etc!" Sometimes people reply, with knitted eyebrows raised : "Really? 'Cause you just had a baby not too many days ago...(?)"

But now I have the proof that thing really, truly are going more smoothly this time.

Our first visitors were here today with it just being me and baby at home. I made a pot of coffee and a batch of apple scones. My friend brought her infant son (also her second child). We nursed the babies, chatted, nibbled, sipped and laughed - what a great way to spend the morning! I remember that when Chance was a baby and I was new to this mom thing, I waited until I felt human enough and then invited two moms over with their babies for a similar type of morning -- coffee, a snack, visiting. I remember I wrote down the date in the cookbook. I flipped to it this morning and saw that Chance was EIGHTEEN WEEKS OLD when I felt ready enough to have company over. Wow.

Both my friend and I agreed this AM that our second babies seem easier, more enjoyable. Maybe it is partly due to the fact that we are more experienced this time around, or because we didn't need to waste any time mourning the loss of our freedom, instead we are just cherishing every baby moment as we know they really don't last forever.

This friend is also sending her older child to day care and I found a lot of relief in sharing this with her. I have had mixed feelings of guilt and relief that Chance is away, but he is truly happier with his friends than being at home watching me nurse a baby. This allows a lot more time for Karin and I to bond and grow together as daughter and mom than if he was at home with us, and I have a lot more patience with him when he gets home. It's great to listen to his stories about artwork, the games he played and who hit who during Outside Time -- because these toddler moments don't last forever either!

No more video bar

Well after messing around with the settings on the video bar yesterday, for some reason random videos have been cropping up on my video bar, which is usually located on the right side of the page. I noticed a few days ago (who am I kidding, it could have been weeks ago) that instead of the most recent Chance videos being featured, the most popular Chance videos were being featured. So I tried to fix it so that the most recent ones were showing instead....well...whatever I did...now we get randomness from You Tube.

Since neither setting is actually doing what I want, I've deleted it for the mean time. You can visit our You Tube channel to check out the latest and greatest, unfortunately though the updates won't be automatic here.

Looks like I'll have to go back to learning how to embed files, how very 2008.

3 weeks old already

I can't believe how quickly the time has gone by - Karin is now 3 weeks old. She is staying awake for longer periods and has established more or less a night time / day time sleep pattern that thankfully includes more sleep during night and less during the day.

Each day we try to get out for some fresh air and today was a really nice day for a walk. The last few days have been very hoar frosty but overcast, today the sky was a brilliant blue, a welcome change! Looking forward to warmer spring days!

Movie Night: 20 minutes of Spiderman 2

start - 7:20 PM

What that is it?

What was that?

What is happened?

What is happened to there?

What is it?

It's a mean robot!

Is it not a robot?

What's happened?

Yest that is it.

What is happened?

Why there fire?

Mommy what is happened?

What is happened?

What's happened to fire?

Who put the fire on?

What that girl is it?

What is doing?

What are doing?

That's who?

What that boy is it? Oh...Henry.

I love the brown hockey game.

Is this -- is the black one go to the other hockey game -- but not the other one -- what...the heck? Who's walking?

Why running?

What happened to his back?

What's happened?

Peter Parker?

Are these the ones that are in?

I want to see the doctor. I want to see the hospital. What these are airplanes? Where are they going?

What are they having? What kind of coffee? English coffee? But not English chocolate milk?

What's that they got? What dos (read: "dooz"). Not for me? But she don't have one of these. Because she do.

What happened? What happened? What happened? What happened? What happened?

What that is it?

end - 7:40 PM