Just another day

Yesterday we went to floor hockey again. I managed to get Elijah to play for most of the session this time. I bribed him. Yes, I will admit to using that tactic when necessary. It was a cheap bribe; chocolate milk for floor hockey. Whatever works, right? He had a good time, so it was worth while.

After the session we were on the bleachers having a snack. I was holding Charlotte on my lap and opening a granola bar. She was grabbing for it and I joked to Yvette that she was looking hungry. Yvette offered me a baby MumMum for her since Avery was eating them. I thought I'd try it out, thinking Charlotte would just play with it or gag on it or something. Nope. She ate it so fast I couldn't believe it! Then she ate a second bar, holding it herself!! Crazy child. Guess I have to start buying some of those for her now.

The sun was out yesterday morning too, so when Elijah and Charlotte were finished their snacks we went outside. One of Elijah's favorite things to do is run. So, he ran for a while. We have a game in the dirt field outside of the community center. He picks a post to run to and I follow him with Charlotte in the stroller. He loves it. We ended up at the playground, which I thought would be wet. It wasn't so he played there for a bit on the slides.

After all that, we went home. In the car on the way home we passed someone walking. That led to a discussion about relative speeds of things. Cars are faster than people walking and riding bikes, but sometimes motorcycles are faster than cars. So, he says to me, "I'm going to get big and Papa's going to get small. Then I'm going to ride on the front of the motorcycle and he's going to ride on the back. Then we can go vrooooom aaaaall around the roads. Wouldn't that be cool, Mama?" Yup, that's his father's son.

Taking a walk

On Sunday, another beeautiful February day here in Burnaby, we went for a little walk down by the river. We fed the ducks mostly, but also walked around a little bit and just soaked up the sun in general. Gary and I both had cameras so we took a lot of shots.

A gold medal for Elijah

For some reason, despite the fact that Elijah loves playing hockey, he resists playing in the floor hockey class I signed him up for these past couple months. I'm really not sure why this is, aside from it being an "attention grabbing" scheme. Anyway, last week, after coaxing from myself and the 2 instructors, we managed to get him participating a little bit. At the end of the class they were each presented with a gold medal and got to stand on a little podium to receive it. I got a couple pictures of the presentation and him playing. Josh was there too, so he's in some of these shots.

Jolly Jumper Update and more

It's been a while since we recorded Charlotte in the jolly jumper. You can see the last video of it here (taken in November). I figured, since she's so much more enthusiastic now, I'd post another one. It's pretty fun to see. It was taken February 14th.

Here's another one of her playing peek-a-boo. No interference from Elijah this time.

And the last one to share was taken just minutes ago. She was sitting here talking at me. She sounds so intent on getting her point across.

Little did I know she was trying to get me to change her diaper...

Gung Hay Fat Choy - So starts the year of the tiger

The kids and I hosted the New Year's Eve dinner here. All I had to do was cook the rice as Helen and Yehyeh brought all the other food! Helen had bought a New Year's outfit for Charlotte and I did her hair in an approximation of the good luck and oh-so-cute "fire cracker". Elijah didn't get an outfit, but got a hat with a long braid attached. Very cool. Yumi wore her outfit and was so cute. So, here are a few shots from miscellaneous sources of the evening. The New Year's dinner actually just took place last night, since Gary was home. Hot pot! Mmmmm... We also celebrated Ed's birthday. The only picture I have is a shot of his cake. So, Happy Birthday as well, Ed!

Charlotte's first swim

Last week Charlotte and I went to the pool for her first swim! Yvette and Avery came with us to keep us company. I had quite an adventure finding swim diapers and a swim suit for her. I went to Zellers the day before, assuming that they'd have both items- no problem. Not the case. I guess they're considered seasonal despite the fact that children take swimming lessons and warm beach vacations even in the winter. I found exactly ONE single swim suit of any size, shape or color in Zellers. And what do you know - it was the right size! I wasn't too picky at that point so I bought it. Only $7 too, so didn't worry too much about it. Turns out it fit right and looked pretty cute. So, I'm happy with it. I took some pictures of her in it before we went to the pool. Since it was just me handling her in the water I didn't have opportunity for pictures in the pool. But I'll tell you this - she's a water baby! No fussing at all. Loved the water. Splashed around, looked around, played with the rubber duckies and even let me float her on her back. Pretty cool. Didn't even cry in the shower afterwards. Yay Charlotte!

Charlotte at 8 months!

Well, as mentioned in my last post, I didn't have pictures of her yet. I've remedied the situation and here are her 8-monthiversary pictures! She's sitting up, playing with things in her crib and showing off her first tooth! She got that a few weeks ago - on January 25th! She's earlier with her teeth than Elijah - 7.5 months instead of 11 months. She's working on her second tooth now. I don't see any sign of the top ones yet.

On to 2010!

Well, here we are, well into 2010. Can you believe it? Charlotte is 8 months old today! That means mat leave is 2/3 over! Ak! I have to go back to work??? (Hmmm...don't have any pictures of her yet today so I'll have to post those later!)

Anyway, as you can guess, she is developing new skills all the time. She's able to sit up on her own for long periods of time. She eats lots of things now - oat cereal, rice cereal, banana, apples, prunes, broccoli, yams (loves these!), carrots, congee, cauliflower and yogurt as of today. She still doesn't like texture so everything has to be super pureed. We're going to introduce chicken soon and mango and kiwi are my next fruits. I've got beans in the fridge waiting to be pureed as well. Yehyeh really likes to feed her, but sometimes she refuses to take food from him. He's very happy when she has a good day. :)

She loves playing on the flour and scoots around like crazy. Very close to crawling, I'd say.








As for Elijah, he's battling his winter colds these days and is generally tired and well, cranky as a 3 year old can be. However, we have some good times still and he still LOVES being outside and running around. I'm looking forward to better weather so that he'll go out more often at daycare too. When he's home with me, we try to go out so he gets some excercise. He's also doing a weekly floor hockey class with his friends Josh and Owen. He protests going there, almost every week but once he gets into it, he does really well. We also go to motoring munchkins most Fridays. Sometimes with Josh and Avery but sometimes just by ourselves. He really likes being there as he's familiar with the place. So, he runs around on his own mostly now. He's really into riding on the "fast cars" and finding other kids to race. When Josh races with him he has a great time.








At home Elijah is now on the computer. Yes, that's right. It's absolutely astounding what he can do. He gets frustrated some times since he's using the mouse with his right hand (he's left handed). But in general, he's getting the hang of things. Once I turn it on for him, he logs in (no password) to his user profile, opens the games himself, and plays several different ones with no help. We've got a few on the computer thanks to Tracey passing on the ones her kids have outgrown. We've also discovered pbskids.org which has many games including his current favorites from the "Dinosaur Train". Not only is this 1/2 hour tv show entertaining for him, but he's learning lots from the games as well. He know several different dinosaurs by name and understands the concept of "herbivore" and "carnivore". It's pretty neat.















Here are a couple videos of Charlotte's progress in mobility.
This was taken January 20th. You can see what an effort it is for her to get anywhere.

And this was taken February 5th. You can see what progress she's made!

The rest of the year... (Part II)

There was more to share than I thought, so I broke this post into 2.

Some time after Christmas I bought a new storage cabinet. I love putting those things together so Gary knows not to offer now. However, Elijah seems to share my love of assembly and dragged all his tools over to help out. He even got to use the new powerful drill! He was very excited about it. And he's gotten good with the hammer - I started several finishing nails for him and he pounded them in for me - with a real hammer! Very cool to see. He enjoyed it so much.

We also enjoyed a visit from Sandra, Elvis and Ava. As you can tell, Sandra was near the end of her pregnancy. (To update - they had a planned C-section on Jan 12th and welcomed Ava's baby brother Jonah!) Ava and Elijah had fun playing in the basement. Was good to see them all!

And that brings us to New Year's Eve. Late night celebrations are certainly a thing of the past (for now) for Gary and I. However, despite our lack of planning, we ended up having Brian, Yvette, Josh and Avery over for a visit and dinner. Here are a few shots of Josh and Elijah playing. For some reason, they seem to wear the same outfit on the same day a lot lately. I think they must both have a couple favorites that they wear often enough to coincide with each other. It's pretty funny to see though.