Weekend Fun!

I love spending time outside with my family. This last weekend we spent most of the time outside enjoying the sun! We went to White Rock beach, which is one of my favorite places to spend time. Both Chris and I just love the sounds and smells of the beach! It seems that our children enjoy it also. We had a wonderful time, we walked along the beach, looked at a big sandcastle, watched the planes fly by, had a picnic and ice cream. David has been asking everyday since if we can go back. I think that we will be making more trips to the beach this summer. We also went for a walk to a park. Chris and I are going to try and go for a walk with the kids every day that it is not raining so that we can all enjoy the weather and parks around here. It is wonderful that Jaclyn and David are getting older and both enjoy getting outside more to play.

Jaclyn's first time putting her feet in the ocean.

David playing in the water and watching a plane fly by.

Playing at the park

Picnic time

Running in the field

"Flower for mom"

Weekend Fun!

David's Eyes

Well David has been wearing glasses now for about 4 months. He didn't like them at first because he couldn't understand why he was wearing them. He is doing really good now and wears them all the time.

When we first started the process of finding out that he needing glasses, how strong his prescription would be and how his eyes are developing. We also started talking to his Dr's about if he was going to need surgery on his eyes to correct his cross-eyes. After more tests last Friday they decided that he would need the corrective surgery. They said that he will still need his glasses but he would be able to focus better when his eyes are straight.

His surgery is booked for April 3o (thirteen days after they told me he would need it). It is only a day surgery, if fact the procedure is about 25 minutes and the rest of the time we will be there will be in prep time or recovery time. In all it will be about 4 hours.

I have started to talk to David about the fact that we are going to the hospital to have a nap so that the Dr's can look at his eyes. At the moment he thinks that the whole thing will be an adventure and today even told a lady at the store "the Bob & Larry book is for when I go to the hospital to have a nap so that the Dr's can look at my eyes". The saleswoman had no idea what he was talking about but it shows me that he is starting to understand what is going to happen.

Although he seems to understand it now I hope that he still looks at it as an adventure after his surgery! I can't help but be a little concerned as his mother, even though it is only a little surgery.

David's Eyes

Spring is here.....

Life around our house has been crazy these last few weeks. With Chris finishing up his semester (he is taking his Masters degree in Christian studies) as well as the kids both being sick earlier this month. David with tonsillitis and Jaclyn with the flu and she is teething. They are both doing much better now.

The weather here has started to clear up which means more time outside playing and walking. We are all looking forward to many more days outside enjoying the beautiful sun.

Tomorrow is Chris's last day of school which means that next week he is going to be looking for a job to support us for the next few months. We are also looking into our future and have to decide if he is going to finish his Masters degree in the next two years or if we are going to look into working in a church again and then finishing his degree over the next 5-7 years. If you are the praying type please pray that Chris finds a job soon and that we follow the path in which God has prepared for us.

Here are a few pictures of the kids from the last few weeks!

They love to spend time together.

Our little angel.
My future paintball player.

Jaclyn's first time on the swings.

Cheese!!!

Spring is here.....

Jaclyn's 1st Birthday

I can't believe that my baby girl is one years old.

This last year has gone by so fast (actually it has gone by too fast). I found myself trying to savor every bit of Jaclyn's babyhood. She is our last baby and I wanted to remember everything about it, not that I don't remember what David was like as a baby but the time went so fast.

Jaclyn is such a wonderful addition to our family and we feel that our family is complete. For those of you who haven't met her, she is a very serious baby (I believe I blogged about that in an earlier post) however she has so much more to her personality already that we wonder what kind of lady she will grow into. She is funny, sneaky (she surprises David all the time), stubborn, active, noisy and loves to make faces. We have really enjoyed this last year with her in our lives and David adores her.

Some highlights of our weekend are:

We took the sky train into Vancouver on Friday to go shopping in Metrotown with David and Jaclyn's grandparents. It was the first time we have taken the kids on the sky train and they both loved it and it was nice to share that first with their grandparents.

We had an open house party for her on Saturday and some of her aunts, uncles and grandparents were here. Some of her great aunts and uncles were able to be here as well.

Jaclyn shares her birthday with my grandfather as well as my bother. So March 8th is a great celebration for our family.

This year my grandfather (Jaclyn's great-grandfather) turned 75 and my mom had a birthday party for him on Sunday (their actually birthday) which is why some of her extended family was in town. Jaclyn's uncle turned 17 that day as well.

This past weekend was a fun party weekend!!
David and Jaclyn slept hard and long every night this weekend.

Jaclyn loved her ice cream cake!!

I am looking forward to what this year will bring. I expect her to be walking on her own soon and I am looking forward to having her talk more. I am also excited to see how the interaction between David and Jaclyn develops.

Jaclyn's 1st Birthday

Vomit

I really don't like vomit!!

I know most, if not everyone, doesn't like it. The reason I am saying this is because this afternoon the little boy that I look after got sick after nap time. The boys were sitting at the kids table starting their snack and I turned around for just a moment when David started to yell at me. You could here the panic in his voice as he yelled "mom, puke, Preston puked.....gross!" I thought that David was going to cry because the puke was in front of him on his table and all over Preston. I ran over to Preston to clean him up and get Jaclyn before she got into it. Because David was not in a sharing mood he had been holding the snack close even before the vomit began. (This is one time I was happy that he didn't share.) I started to clean up Preston as I moved Jaclyn out of the area ( I ended up distracting her with my foot), all well David is yelling gross!!

Well, I finally had Preston stripped down to his diaper so that I could get him cleaned up. Oh yeah, the reason I had turned around before this all happened was because I needed a diaper. Preston had pooed! So while cleaning up all the vomit I was also cleaning up a very stinky diarea filled diaper. GROSS!!!

I had, during this time, contacted his mother so she could come and pick him up since he was quite obviously sick. By this time, I had all three kids cleaned and calm and started to disinfect the area in which was contaminated. His mother had come to get him. Unfortunately before they left my house he had vomited two more times. After he was clean the last time he they left before it happened again. As soon as I closed the door I put a movie on for my kids and started the job of disinfecting everything three feet and lower. Yes everything! This little boy has the ability to touch and even put almost everything the kids have in his mouth. So this afternoon and mostly this evening Chris and I will be disinfecting everything we can think of. I will also be washing everything that is able to go into the laundry this evening.

So much for a quiet, calm evening.....sigh!

Vomit

I Love You Day!!

Today is Valentines day and we have been celebrating all week. Earlier this week we did crafts with some friends of ours. A good friend of mine lives in this complex with her family and we get together regularly so that our children can play together. Her son is eleven months older then David and her daughter is eleven months older then Jaclyn. They all play so well together.

We made a heart tree craft that the kids coloured and then we put together for them, both of the boys love doing crafts. The next day they were over again and we made heart cookies together.

I have been telling my kids that this weekend is "I Love You Day" and that means that we get to spend the day together as a family and love each other lots. David thinks that it is a wonderful idea and he has been telling Chris, Jaclyn and myself all week that he loves us.......so cute!

Last night I put out a little something special for the kids to wake up to this morning and I blew up some red balloons for them. I like the idea of spending a day or week and tell the kids just how much we love them. They know that we love them but I think that this is a way to make such fun memories for them. (Its also an excuse for me to spoil them a little)

Yesterday I took the kids grocery shopping and they got Chris a special balloon and chocolates that David picked out and he was so excited to give them to his daddy when we came home. We then had a family picnic for dinner.

Tonight we are having a quite night as a family. We will be having Chinese food and after the kids go to bed Chris and I will be staying home and watching The Notebook together.

I hope that everyone has a wonderful day today and don't forget to tell the ones you love just how much you love them!!

I Love You Day!!

Differences

I never really realized when I was pregnant just how different my children would be, its not that I thought they would be the exact same its just that I never thought about it much. For instance the crib that I am using for Jaclyn is the same crib I had for David. A family in our old church fixed up one of there old cribs and gave it to us. It was a real blessing to us and worked very well for David. Jaclyn has been sleeping in it as well and it has been really good for her, until two days ago. I was in her room and noticed that Jaclyn broke her crib. One of the corners was just hanging there. She wasn't hurt or anything but we did take it down and moved her into the playpen for now.

Now back to what I was saying about my kids being different. When David was in the crib he would just play in it when he was awake or try and figure out a way to climb out of it. Jaclyn however as soon as she is awake she is standing in her crib jumping with everything she has, hence her crib being broken. Chris and I have also talked about how David tried to figure out a way to climb out of his crib that his thought was linear and logical and he never did figured out a way that would make sense to him. Where as Jaclyn is trying as well to get out of her crib and when I caught her one day she was climbing the bars and trying to jump out without thinking about what would happen when she did that.

Chris and I have talked about how we want to move Jaclyn into a big girl bed sooner then we had initially planed on because of her trying to get out. Well now we are thinking that we will be moving her into one even sooner now. Chris will be fixing her crib tonight so that she can sleep in it again, we are hoping that she doesn't break it again. Once she has learned how to climb on and off of Davids bed (she is already trying to get on it) we will be moving her into her own bed. Mostly likely this summer. Its crazy to be thinking about moving her when she is not even one yet. David was almost twenty months old when he moved into his big boy bed. I think that Jaclyn will be about 15 months old when she moves into her big girl bed.

They are such different kids!!

Differences

Dreams!!

David is two and a half now and is really beginning to use his imagination. He also likes routine, what can I say he is like me that way.

In the morning we have been having a quiet time together when he wakes up. We will lay in his bed together and talk about what we want to do that day or what is on our schedule. Over the last few weeks we have been talking about what he dreamed about. It started by me asking him what he dreamed about and then I explained to him what a dream was. He looked at me and said "um.......McQueen, Mater, Sally, Ramon and David were playing together" (character from the movie Cars)

I then asked if he had fun and he said: "yup"!!!

We then went on with our day.

Since that day I ask him what he dreamed about and we will then talk about his dreams from the night before. I love discovering what he will say each day. Mostly it has been about Buzz Lightyear and Woody from the Toy Story movies.

This morning he told me that Lightyear, Woody, McQueen, Sally, Mater and some of his other favorite Disney characters cleaned my house. (to bad these characters don't actually clean my house when I sleep. Hahaha)

Dreams!!

Funny Faces

Most children when they are out will smile at strangers......well not my Jaclyn. There will be people, perfect strangers smiling at her and making funny noises or faces just to get a reaction from her and she will just stare at them. As some of you know she won't even smile for a photographer when having a family picture taken. Chris and I have come to laugh at the seriousness of our little girl.

The funnest thing to us is that at home when it is just the four of us she will make so many funny faces and she laughs and smiles all the time. She is a very silly girl.

Here is a seres of pictures I took of her well she was playing by herself at the table.

Funny Faces

Christmas Pictures.......Better Late Then Never

Christmas was a few weeks ago now and I have been meaning to post some pictures. This was a fun Christmas for us. It was Jaclyn's first Christmas and David's third Christmas this year. David was really getting into opening the presents. Every time someone would be opening a gift he was right there asking "David helping open presents", it was very cute. Jaclyn was starting to get sick but she still seemed to enjoy herself. After opening some of the toys she would just sit there and play with whatever was opened last.

We decided the first Christmas we had with David that we would buy our kids new Christmas p.j.'s that they would wear on Christmas Eve. This year we bought them matching p.j.'s.....hehe!

Jaclyn and her daddy!

David in his new spiderman p.j.'s.
David got a doctors kit for Christmas from his aunt. It has become one of his favorite toys. We call him Doctor David, he loves it!

Playing with their new toys.

Playtime

We tried to get a good picture of the kids for Christmas. Maybe next time they will smile for us.

Happy New Year!!

Christmas Pictures.......Better Late Then Never

Teeth

Every night after David brushes his teeth he comes out with Chris and tells me all about it. First he will tell me if he had his water and then that he brushed his teeth. Then one night he started to show me his teeth. It was so cute that I had to take a picture of him.

Pictures of Christmas to come!

Teeth

My Sick Baby

Well it has been awhile since I last blogged. I hope that everyone had a wonderful Christmas!!

We had a nice Christmas here, it was quiet and wonderful. Well most of it was..............you see Jaclyn got sick, very sick. For the last seven weeks or so one of my kids has been sick. They have both had colds and flu's and have past them back and forth. David even had a chest infection at one point. When one of them starts to get better the other one gets sick again and the cycle starts again. Well David is finally healthy again and Jaclyn was starting to get better or so I thought.

On Christmas eve Jaclyn started to show signs of getting sick again. So I made sure she got extra rest in hopes of beating whatever was coming. Then on Christmas day she had less energy and started to get worse. Boxing day she wanted me to hold her all day and she was coughing more. That evening she spent most of the night sleeping in my arms. She was having problems breathing and was coughing more. I think I slept under two hours that night. On Saturday morning I brought her to the clinic and the doctor told me she had a throat infection and the beginnings of a chest infection. He put her on penicillin. This morning I brought her into my doctor and he agreed that she has a throat and chest infection. He also sent her for a chest x-ray. They are now watching her for signs of pneumonia. I should be getting some answers this week. They are also waiting to see how the penicillin helps her. It has been a struggle to get fluids and medicine in her. She doesn't want to drink very much right now or eat anything and she really hates the whole medicine idea.

Over the last few nights I have had Jaclyn sleep in our room. She seems to be the worst at night and I feel better having her close so I can monitor her breathing. Unfortunately I have had very little sleep since Christmas. So I am tired!

On a happier note Jaclyn said "dada" on Christmas eve. And on boxing day she said "mama" which has now turned into "mom". Its really cute when she says "dada" she will look everywhere for Chris and once she sees him she will smile. If I put her down to get something she will follow me crying and saying "mom-mom". She is also trying really hard to walk, well she was before she got sick this week.

My Sick Baby

Davids New Glasses

Well, David had a big week this past week. I had written a post about how David was going to need glasses. Last Thursday we took David into a specialist to see what his prescription was going to be. The Doctor put eye drops into his eyes to open up his pupils to see deep into his eyes. He discover that David is farsighted, actually he is very farsighted.

Have you ever heard the term coke bottle glasses? Well if they still made lens that thick he would have them. The prescription he was given is called 300+. Which means that he has a really hard time seeing things that are close to him. I am not sure as to how much he can see without his glasses. I think that he can see shapes and colours but most things are blurry to him. It was neat for me to see him interact with his toys after having his glasses. He seemed to be fascinated by little details on the toys. I am excited to see how life will be different for him in the future with the ability to see everything around.

We had the hardest time finding glasses that fit him. He has a small face and needs one of the smallest sizes out there. Most of the frames that we found were pink or purple. After going to four different places we found the pair that we bought. They fit him the best and he didn't try to take them off. Both Chris and I are very happy with how they look on him. Now are challenge will be to convince him to wear them all the time.

I think that he is so cute with his new glasses!

Davids New Glasses

Seattle Trip

For those of you that don't know, Chris took me away last weekend to Seattle. We had a wonderful time away together. Some of the things we did over the weekend were sleep whenever we wanted, some shopping and walking around the downtown area. Chris also brought me a Starbucks breakfast every morning as well as booking me for a in-room massage which was wonderful.

One evening we went to this steak house restaurant which also had a live jazz band. We both love jazz music and it was great to listen to it during an amazing dinner. Between the jazz sets this man came in with a saxophone case and the staff all got excited. During the second music set he came up and played, they introduced him as a big name (I don't remember now) from New York. He was very good and we both really enjoyed listening to him.

This is a chair that was in a corner of our room. I loved this chair it was so comfortable and I spent a lot of time sitting here reading and just enjoying the sights of Seattle.

This is the view out of one of our windows.
This is one of the other windows.

Here is a picture of us before we went out for our fancy dinner.

One of the mornings we went for a walk to Pike Place Market. This market is famous for a few things; one is the fish throwing, which I got to say is neat to see. It is also famous for lots of booths run by hippies.(or at least it should be famous for that) My favourite part of Pike Place Market is that it is the place of the original Starbucks. Of course we had to go there and take some pictures.

Our new mugs for home to remind us of our trip.

Seattle Trip