Happy 3rd Birthday Chance!!

We had a busy day on Saturday Oct. 31! It all started before 8, when Chance woke up. It didn't take him long to discover his presents waiting for him in the living room. He received a new, bigger toy box from his great grandmas and some Spiderman wall decals and night light from Auntie Lynne and Uncle Drover. From Mommy and Daddy: a couple of dinosaur pictures for his new bedroom, a silver truck and a beta fish that has been named "Fin". From Gramma and Grampa: a play mat and 8 new small cars to drive around on the mat. From Grandma and Grandpa: a dinosaur story book as well as some Transformers toys & colouring books. From the baby: a Spiderman pillow case. From his birthday guests: too many Spiderman action figures and Transformers to count, 2 puzzles and a Diego doll. Thank you to all for your very nice gifts and thank you for being part of Chance's birthday!

After the birthday party, everyone had a nap. I woke up 1 1/2 hours later eye to eye with Chance, it was the first time he has ever gotten up quietly from his bed and come to our bedroom after he's done his nap. It was quite the shock to wake up with his face 2 inches from mine! I remember waking up my own mom like this. Usually I would get hauled into bed with her for a cuddle. Now I understand why!

We had a quick supper of birthday party leftovers (pizza, veggies, guacamole) and then went trick or treating with next door neighbours, he was out for more than 2 hours! I could only do the first 45 mins as my bladder was killing me. So switched with Cam and watched the Amityville Horror (original) while tending to trick or treats.

Cam and Chance got home around 8 PM and we quickly went through Chance's haul and got rid of any toddler unfriendly candies (hard small candies, gum, etc.) and let him choose 2 to eat before bed. He chose rockets and a lime flavoured Tootsie Roll. We were about to brush his teeth and read him a story when some more neighbours showed up with their twin boys and so we had a good visit with them instead, so Chance even got to stay up late on his birthday. The next day he was a bit tired around 6 PM but not too crabby.

Near Drowning

Today at lunch I nearly drowned in front of 9 senior citizens and a fitness instructor. I decided to join an aquasize class at the Y as it is such good exercise for pregnancy. The YMCA downtown has a lap pool and a training pool, where they do the aquasize classes. It has an adjustable bottom, so that when the kids come in, it is only 2 feet deep, and it gets deeper with adult classes.

Today's class was shallow water aquasize, so in 4 feet of water. I went down the ladder and then jumped off, fully expecting to land on my feet. NOPE! The pool bottom was WAY over my head and I went right down...actually never even felt the bottom so must have been 7 feet deep or something. When I came up I had water streaming out of my eyes, nose, everywhere!! And everyone was laughing at me! (Myself included). Must have read the schedule wrong and this week was deep water work out!

The class was great and once I got a pool noodle between my legs for flotation I was off & running. After the class was over the instructor stayed with me for a bit and we tried out the different styles of bands they have in the supply closet, so next time instead of just grabbing a pool noodle from the pool deck I can use one of those and it should be more comfy.

Happy Thanksgiving

Chance shooting our Thanksgiving supper guests after dinner. Not very polite! Dripping windows are because of the humidifier we installed to help keep our hardwood floors in shape during dry Alberta winters -- evidently, we had it cranked too high!! A bonus though: have to water houseplants less frequently and entire family's skin is in better shape than usual (less eczema, dry skin, etc).

Chance totally posing next to his Halloween craft that we made this weekend. He really enjoyed making the ghosts (2 kleenexes balled up in a paper towel).

Chance and his buddy Jordan, who lives down the street. Jordan's mom is kind enough to pass on Jordan's hand-me-downs, Chance can't wait till Jordan grows out of the size 4 Cars fleece sweater...as you can see both boys are growing quickly so it shouldn't be long!

Birthday and Christmas wish list. We spent Sunday afternoon going through the Sears Wish Book and cut out all the things that Chance said he'd like from Santa or for his birthday. The toy box is something that we think he needs for his new bedroom, as he gets bigger, his toys are getting bigger and made of harder plastic, metal, etc. so not as "packable" as his baby toys. I ordered the box shown from Sears. All others are Chance's personal suggestions, I think you see a trend (robots/machines/etc.) What surprised me was the castle set, as he generally does not talk about castles, horses, etc.

Some long-due photos

Chance has really changed into a little boy this year. I realized how big a change when we took him in for family photos last weekend and I compared last year's picture to this year's. Right now all we have is a black and white printed version from the studio but the real pictures will be ready by the end of the month. I am excited to get them as we took a family picture and we have never done that (last year I had to sit with Chance for a few photos because the camera terrified him), and it was nice to have a picture of him and I together. So this year we decided everyone would get in the picture. And I guess that means everyone, because even our baby is in this photo (even though they are still inside of me, for now). We haven't actually announced it on the blog and it seems silly to do it now because everyone knows already, but we are expecting again, the baby is due in late December or early January. Before we started having troubles with this blog I didn't really want to come out with the news yet and then it has been impossible to log on until now. So far I have not gained as much weight as with Chance, and yet I still feel huge. Lynne is expecting too, 7 weeks behind me. Picture is from mid-September when I headed out there, me at 25 weeks, she at 18.

We hired a birth doula last night and hope that this makes labour a little less crazy this time around. We will be meeting an obstetrician on Oct. 15th to discuss our options for birth, at this point in time we would like to try for a VBAC and our doula thinks that there shouldn't be a problem with at least trying. I don't think that a c-section is the worst way in the world to have a baby or anything but I get nervous just thinking about having to undergo surgery when it is possible to at least try to get the baby out the good old fashioned way. Because Chance was born more than 3 years ago there likely won't be a problem.

Chance's birthday party is coming up quickly and I still need to send out some invites. We will be carving pumpkins and maybe even trying to play a few games as the kids will be older this year and have lunch with birthday cake. Chance has requested a chocolate cake with blue icing and ghosts.

Fixed!

All that was needed was a new browser. Last week spent 3 hours with Shaw and Norton trying to figure out the problem. Norton suggested a $100 US consultant to "diagnose" the computer. What a bunch of scam artists.

Thinking of our family tonight back home in Saskatchewan & thankful that Nana made it through her surgery. Got up at 4 AM this morning as Chance had wet the bed & then was too keyed up to do anything other than just lay in bed. Badly needing a night of sleep so will sign off for now.

No writing for a long time...

So something is set wrong on our computer because I can't log in at home but can while I'm at my friend Lynne's house (that is where I'm writing from now). Sorry, no photos (there are lots), but will look into getting home computer security settings fixed up when I get home from my trip to Halifax.

Quick Post

No time to post....just pictures! Have to go to bed!