First Day of Kindergarten!

Happy kiddo -- he was very excited to start school. He will walk from his daycare to school (a few kids there will be in his class), but I thought the orange schoolbus made a nice background!
Marching them in...one little girl got a bit tearful...

Bright eyed and bushy tailed, ready to go in the morning. His shoes were ON, his jacket was ZIPPED, and his backpack was READY.

Sportball Soccer

Go Chance, go!

Stretching!!

Learning some footwork...

Listening to Coach.

Happy Son!

12 months went by so fast!

Well that was a pretty wild year. Karin is now a one year old, complete with 10 teeth and a budding vocabulary. She says things like "mum-mum" or "num-num" when I am near, or when there is food around. She's getting faster. Teeth coming through left right and centre (she has cut 3 molars in the last 3 weeks), and we've officially started her on teething tablets (they were awesome for Chance too). Our friends who have a daughter the same age is saying her sister's name and "duh-down" when she tumbles ("fall down"), so we might be on the cusp of starting to speak soon too!

Belated December Picture

Karin's only 10 days away from turning 1 year old. I didn't get around to composing the 11 month photo in with the rest until just now. Her messy hair looks funny now that she's had a haircut. Hopefully January's photo will be more carefully organized -- tsk tsk, Baby is wearing nearly the same outfit 2 months in a row, what a fashion faux pas!

10 months old already!

Well....10 1/2 months by now. The 10 month photo was taken on the first shot, all of the rest were crazy: Karin upside down, trying to jump from the rocking chair, covering her face with a puzzle piece. I gave up and called this one good enough. 10 months old and the girl is finally wearing shoes! They're necessary now, otherwise she yanks her socks off. Tights are pretty amusing...she gets frustrated after a while though.

Along with walking spans of about 10 feet like a little gun slinging cowboy...er...cowgirl, Karin's got a few more skills to add to her CV:

*Imitating noises (kissing, buzzing, etc.)

* "Words": Mammammam, ga?, doe doe doe

* Communicates that she wants a drink by flapping arms like a chicken and moaning

* Communicates dislike of weather (cold) by wrinkling nose and whining (don't we all do this??)

* Thinks anything her brother does is hilarious

* Capable of dealing without Mom for 1 hour at the neighbourhood pool babysitters while I either swim laps or do a deep water workout ("floaty class"). Chance is there so I think that helps.

* Starts daycare Dec. 1, 2 days a week (same days as Chance). I'm a wreck, stressed out, worried that she'll absolutely hate it & the professionally trained child minders will corrupt her behaviour leaving us to deal with a holy terror. Pretty much how I felt when Chance was starting daycare.

Dear Santa

9 month roundup

Yep, it's corny but true: babies grow up fast. Taking these monthly update photos has been getting trickier and trickier. You'll note that the latest photo shows the chair covered in drool. This is because our Darling Girl refused to sit still, instead she preferred to climb the back of the rocking chair like a chimpanzee and leaving a slug's trail behind her. Slime bucket.

Other new developments: Karin can stand now. Not only can she pull herself up to standing position using furniture, legs, Chance, etc. but she can freely bring herself up to standing in the middle of the room. And she can pick things up while doing it. A favorite is the diaper wipes box.

Also, she has moved on to finger food. She still has some favorite mushy foods that I am allowed to spoon feed her (butternut squash, oatmeal, etc.) but she LOVES to eat bread, cheese, tomatoes, finely diced chicken and fish, hamburger, pasta, etc. Also we have begun the weaning process. Karin now enjoys a sippy cup of whole milk just like Chance does during meal times and morning snack time. We'll likely be getting rid of the afternoon nursing in the near future and then she will be ready to start daycare in December.

8 month wrap up

Well, Karin has really been growing up these days. She is pulling up on chairs, legs, etc. as much as she can and is definitely starting to explore the house. She has now discovered that if she moves her hands and legs faster, she can get somewhere in a hurry. Like...for instance, to that remote control on the floor...or the X Box cords poking out of the bookshelf. She doesn't like sitting still for long. It's a miracle we got this month's picture taken at all.

She popped out 3 teeth in about 48 hours last week. She was a bit grumpy, but wouldn't we all be?

Food wise, she has entered a new realm: I've been whizzing up mostly what we're eating for dinner in the food processor. The girl loves potatoes and veggies. And meat. And yogurt. And fish. And cereal. And juice and water from a cup, just like Chance.

Tomorrow she gets her "6 month" shots. We are a bit behind schedule, partly due to vacation and partly due to backlogs in the public health offices. They must have had staff cuts or something, as now they are booking immunizations about 5 weeks in advance. I'm not sure whether they will allow the shots tomorrow or not, as she seems to have come down with a bit of diarrhea in the last 24 hours. At first I wasn't sure if it was just due to all the extra food lately, but tonight was clearly not very healthy. She's happy though, and no fever or vomitting. Likely we'll be going on a repetitive diet of baby cereal and bananas, apples and yogurt for a few days.

5 months until birthday cake!

Karin is 7 months old today!

Happy Half Birthday, Karin!

The girl has grown a lot in the last 2 months...she now

reaches the top buttons on the rocking chair!!

Karin turned 6 months old this month. She celebrated the day in style, with a couple of naps and an evening meal of apple sauce and barley cereal. Only 6 more months and the girl can eat cake!

Crawling (Inching) & First Food Pictures & Crawling (Inching) Pictures

Trying so hard to crawl....she is more inch-worming / rolling around to get to where she wants though.

"Aw, hi mom".

Rice cereal: "What IS this???"

Yuck.

Trying again....but she really doesn't care for it. Probably just not ready for food yet.

Morning Conversation

While eating cereal at breakfast:



Chance: Look! Mommy! A castle is in my cereal! (points to cereal flakes in the shape of the Walt Disney castle). Look...4 flags, and the door, and here's the garden!

Me: Oh! Are you the big dragon that is going to eat this castle all up?

Chance: (rolls eys) Silly Mommy. I am not a dragon. I am a boy.




While doing the dishes, later:

Me: We are moving in two weeks! Can you believe it Chance? This has been your home your whole life and now we are moving to a new house.

Chance: Yeah, cause this house is too dirty.

Me: It's not dirty.

Chance: Yes it is, there's crumbs all over the place!

3 Months Old

Difference from 1 month to 2 months: big weight gain, huge length gain and her hair lies down a little bit.
Difference from 2 months to 3 months: weight gain, she can sit up now, and smile! Oh...and her hair lies down all the way now (sometimes)!

Height & Weight Update

We had Karin's shots today and she did quite well. Chance accompanied us and he was also very brave and reassuring for Karin. She fell asleep within a few moments of getting her shots, all three of them.

They weighed her and she is now 11 lbs 10 oz (5275 g) and an amazing 60 cm long (23.5 inches)!! She is progressing very well on her growth chart and I'm so proud of my growing babe!

While we were at the public health office I got Chance to step on the scale -- he is weighing in at 36.5 lbs (but he was wearing his new transformers shoes, good luck trying to get them off his feet!).

Chance has had a fever the last 2 days and a runny nose but is dealing well with it. He was not feverish today until bedtime, it is low though, I didn't even dose him with Tylenol as I figure his body is just fighting a bug.

March 18th rolled around quickly...

Karin has really grown!! There is no newborn photo in the chair as I had not thought to do it, but wow, just look how she's filled out!! Her hair is (somewhat) tamer too (on one side, anyways)...

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).

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!

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!

Chance is learning quickly...

In the last few minutes of the day before Cam gets home, Chance and I have been sitting down at the kitchen table with crayons, markers, etc. He has really been taking an interest in the alphabet, especially since we have been watching Sesame Street together. So the other day we started learning to draw ABC's.

This is the placemat I showed him with all the ABC's on it as a template. I bought it last Christmas when a deaf woman showed up at our doorstep, selling them. She had lost her job due to the downturn in the economy and this was her means of raising money for Christmas gifts for her four children. She was wearing a laminated photo of her 4 boys around her neck. I bawled like a baby, blubbering tears all over the cheque I wrote her.

Not bad!! First attempts at A and C (C is sideways). You can see the purple lines which I think is a copy of what is shown on the placemat (rows).

First attempt at the letter "B". This was a tricky one.