The Week in Review

This is actually only Wednesday to Saturday, but I seriously can't remember back past that.

On Wednesday Kathi looked after Davey for the afternoon while me, Andrew and Elisabeth all went to Vancouver. We decided to try driving Lougheed Highway all the way to Hastings. Never having done it before and with no map in the car. Twenty minutes before Andrew's appointment we were somewhere over by Science World. And Andrew is no help when you're lost. He's hopeless at making decisions at the best of times (which now that I think about it is probably why once he has made a decision it's impossible to get him to rethink it.)

Anyway, we eventually found what we were looking for, and Elisabeth and I settled into our favorite coffee shop (on Hastings and Boundary anyway) for lunch.

This little coffee shop is owned by an Italian family - mother and I think two sons. It does coffee and lunch fare, has a HUGE television which is always blaring shows like the Simpsons or King of Queens and a little dance floor. So on Wednesday Elisabeth and I were happily watching That Seventies Show when a group of four showed up for Salsa lessons. Elisabeth loved watching them. She insisted on standing the whole time and trying to groove along with them. It was hilarious, but totally distracting for the 'class'. So I eventually decided we'd move outside and enjoy some sun instead.

On our way back to Langley we had another appointment but some time to kill in between. So we stopped at the new Starbucks near the highway and gave Elisabeth second lunch.


She's a little wired from the caffeine here!




I think it was Thursday that I met Kathi at a park near her house to let the kids run off some energy.



Today we decided to grab some food and go for a drive. We ended up at this Elementary school, it has the most awesome grounds. I guess a lot of newer schools are sharing their grounds with neighborhood parks (awesome idea!) so this is Andrew and Elisabeth sitting on the side of the school parking lot, but the park behind them has baseball diamonds and another playground (love the trees!)
And this is the playground immediately beside the school.

Elisabeth loved that there were so many things for her to stand beside. She's really into standing these days, and has started being more adventurous and trying to walk along them with one hand.

See, one handed standing and even a little wave!

Meanwhile, Davey is totally into climbing everything. He's pretty timid though and will often wait for us to show him how to do something before he'll try it himself. He recently tried a bendy slide (one of those corkscrew types) and it scared him a little so for the past few weeks he would only go down small straight slides. Today I went down the corkscrew one at this park and after that I had a hard time getting him to leave the slide!



While we were at one of the playgrounds, two women showed up with about eight nine year olds and a toddler. The seven year olds swarmed the playground and were not at all careful about our kids. I know that we have to share the playgrounds, but I was really irritated that these moms wouldn't even try to get these kids to be careful around two smaller ones. Davey was super excited to have that many kids to play with, but it was obvious they would just trample him so we had to leave.

It was a beautiful day for a drive and a tour of a new park. Plus, we met some really nice people while we were out so it was a good day! SO loving the sunshine!

Three Quarter Birthday

Yesterday was Elisabeth's 3/4 birthday. For those of you who don't understand my math, that means she's nine months old now. To celebrate we went to church, and then to Ikea for lunch.

For the first time that I know of, Davey actually stopped playing with the trains at church and willing participated in everything they put on for the 'older' kids in the nursery. Hah, that's funny thinking of him as an older kid! Anyway, it seems to have made a huge impression on him as he keeps talking about Silas (Siwas) and Jesus. And he's also insisted on leaving his class materials in the car so he can read and reread them while we drive about. So fun!

On a semi related note, my mum bought a whole bunch of Psalty CDs for the grandkids and we've been listening to them this weekend. They are SO good! Forget having them for the kids, I'm learning so much through them. About loving people who are difficult to love, and about forgiveness and even that when Christians slip up and make mistakes, how other Christians should treat them. GOOD stuff! You can buy them here if you're interested.

Anyhoo, in light of Tinky's birthday, we had a photo shoot:

Elisabeth is getting really good at crawling backwards and can move from crawl position to sitting and back to crawl. She can fall from standing on to her bottom (instead of her head!) and she can scoot and walk around furniture. But she still doesn't roll over, sit up on her own or pull herself to standing. I guess these things will come and since we still have her in the bassinet (which as my sister says, she fills from top to bottom with her little head squished to the top and her feet practically hanging out the bottom...) I don't want her to get tooooooo advanced before we figure out how to get her to like her crib.

She also says dada and mama and knows when to use each. She makes the sounds lala, ttttt tttttt, and various other wordy sounds. If you sing to her, she'll try to imitate. One thing I hate though is that she's discovered screeching. Davey went through a phase where he thought screeching was singing, but I think Tink is just trying out her vocal chords.

Here she is having her first every corn on the cob. This is her beating it with a carrot stick:

And her reaction to actually eating it. She didn't seem too sure at first, but it grew on her.

Elisabeth is down to three bottles a day, which is WAY less than Davey was doing at this age. I was still nursing him at this point, but if I would let him NOW he would have two to three bottles a day still. I have a feeling that's just cause it's easier to drink a bottle than stop playing to come EAT.

I thought I had so much more to say about the kids, but I can't remember so I guess that's it.

hey dad, you should post some pictures of your new house on your blog. Though I guess you'll have to start a new one since you can't really have fraser lake house pictures on cariboo green lake or skyline....

Yesterday

Yesterday Andrew took the day off work to help me get some yardwork done around here. We took a quick break for lunch, then while Andrew was feeding Elisabeth her lunch I tried to get Davey to take a nap. Since he hasn't been responding well to being thrown in his crib (despite being obviously exhausted) I thought I'd try tricking him into napping with me. Well, apparently I was the one being tricked.

Some 90 minutes or more later, I wake up to Kathi in my room...I fell asleep with Davey sitting on my pillow. At some point he got up and turned on the TV (which we keep on treehouse since he knows how to turn the TVs on) and got back on the bed to happily watch TV while I dozed. Meanwhile, Andrew had brought Elisabeth and her playpen upstairs, enlisted Ashlie to watch her (unknown to mum and Kathi who just suddenly realised that Elisabeth was upstairs!) and he was outside mowing the lawn!!!

I guess I was really tired.

Anyway, Elisabeth was happy as a clam to be up with Ashlie (now we know who to get to babysit!) and Davey apparently is happy to babysit mumma.

Once I finally woke up, I brought the playpen outside so I could some yard work too. Here's Tinky LOVING being in her playpen:

Both of them watching Daddy mow the lawn:
Davey mugging for the camera:

And kissing Tinky's teddybear:

She was so excited. I found out later that she'd been trying and trying to pull herself up to standing in here, but couldn't get a good enough grip. So she was so excited that I stood her up to watch daddy. She also started crawling this week and laughs hysterically the whole time. I don't know if she's mad with power or just thinks it's hilarious to be able to move...

Goofing off with her big bro:


Later, we stopped for a popsicle break. As a joke, Andrew gave Tinky a popsicle. She LOVED it and screamed at me when I tried to take it away. So she polished off the whole thing...



Davey: "Take a picture of my popsicle mumma."

Eating the wrong end...
Yesterday evening we decided that the wind was just too good and we drove to Crescent Beach to try out this kite. We bought it at the Cloverdale Flea Market when we still lived in our little cottage, so probably in our first year of marriage...but we'd never tried it out. So here we are...

That's Andrew and Davey waaaaaay down there, but where's the kite?

Wow. Higher than the eagle even. That eagle must have been huge. He kept flying up to our kite and soaring alongside it (looked almost like he wanted to land on it) and they looked the same size. Scary.


Meanwhile, Tinky decided the food she had before we left, the popsicle, the food I gave her when we first arrived at the beach, the popcorn she stole from Davey and the bottle we fed her here weren't enough and resorted to eating sticks.


Andrew reigning the kite in for the night.

And this is my furniture project I started on while Andrew was out tonight. I'm stripping the paint off my night stands and going to paint them. I just can't decide whether to do them really dark brown or white...

Last night I got a phone call from the walk in clinic we took Elisabeth to.

"We need you to bring Elisabeth in as soon as possible. It's about her test results."

"Do you mean her xrays?"

"uhm" Flipping of paper, "Yes, that's right"

"Do you realise we've been in with her regarding that?"

"Oh, really? When was that?"

"Hmnnn....about ten...or was it eleven days..."

"Oh yes, I see here that the results were faxed in. Disregard." Click.

Instills a lot faith in the system, doesn't it? Especially since I had to (finally) get rude for them to call the Xray clinic and get those results in the first place...

And we're back...

Yes, it's been a while since I posted last. Honestly, I go through phases with Blogger and lately I just haven't felt much like posting. Specially since my computer is being so annoying lately.

Anyway, guess what Andrew is doing in this picture?!

That's right! Playing Tennis on his Wii!!

Chadya, you asked for pictures...here are our Miis. And unfortunately (fortunately?) it's been so nice out and we've been so busy, we've hardly had time to play on it. I've only used it once. I think Dave and Alexis have played more than Andrew has.

Anyway, this is his birthday present. I ordered it with Airmiles. That's while it took so goshygolliedlong to get here. Better late than never though, right?

Elisabeth riding her car. She loves this thing and will play on it for ages. She can actually keep herself balanced on it fine too. But she doesn't like walking behind it. Figures.

Chatting with Davey.
I had to get a picture of her with the nebulizer. She's actually singing behind the mask which is why the funny face. We only used it for four days. Then the steroids were giving her a rash on her face so we quit. She seems mostly better now anyway.

One day last week we had a picnic outside. Davey was really excited to be outside with food again. But who am I kidding? *I* am excited that it's picnic weather again too! YAY for spring summer!!

Tinky does this great little face these days. She wrinkles up her nose and the Schlappi in her totally comes out.



Davey does not like spiders. Like he freaks out whenever he sees one and will cry till you get rid of it. Uncle Dave is like that too. (Yes, even the crying). So Dave decided to teach Davey to be brave around spiders so that he won't embarrass himself in his adulthood. Here Davey is using a broom to get rid of them all before he climbs up into the fort.




Okay, those were all random pictures from the last week. The following are all from yesterday. We decided to have lunch on the beach at Crescent Beach. OH YUMMY. Sandwiches, watermelon and later icecream in the fresh air. SO perfect! (And then we got home and Dave and Alexis were making pizza for dinner. So a TRULY PERFECT day!)

Here Davey is pointing out all the kites on the beach. There were a LOT! One guy had a kite kind of like the kind you do the kite surfing with and he was flying it from the beach. He was often lying with his head about a foot from the ground with his body perfectly straight while the kite tried to pull away, but what really scared me was when he'd be frantically diggin his heels in the sand and the kite fighting to pull him away for real. I don't know if anyone was close enough to grab his heels and save him...

Tinky loved her first try of watermelon.

And her first time paddling in the water...
In fact, she cried if you wouldn't let her walk on the sand/water...

Watching bubbles appear in the water.

Later we all built a rock pile. Well, Davey supervised.


Tinky does this thing with her arm. It's almost like she's practicing ballet poses and all the arm positions. Very cute.


Ice cream face.



And back home again, the kids wanted to sit together and talk while they ate.