Already 3 Years Old

"I so much love you, Mommy... I love you so much!"
~ Dolly - January, 2008

I love you too, Dolly - I always will.

Happy Birthday, little girl of mine!

Birthday Cake Flambé

Saturday we went to Grandpa & Grandma C's house for Sir's birthday party. He requested a Black Forest cake, and Bashful kindly placed the candles that I grabbed from my candle stash decoratively on the cake. Then Grandpa C. lit the candles and I got my camera ready to photograph at least part of the evening. As the above picture shows, my candle stash was a little different this year.

I think this was the best 'blowing-out-the-candles' event I've ever experienced, and I'm so glad I was able to photograph it! Enjoy!

The short candles started setting fire to the tall candles thus creating an interesting effect. After a few seconds of attempting to keep all the candles lit in their proper places, Grandpa C. changed his mind and decided to just rush the brightly lit cake to Sir to quickly blow out.


By the time the cake made it from the kitchen to the living room where Sir was waiting, quite a few of the tall candles were burning in multiple places. But everyone was laughing so hard at this point, Sir couldn't catch his breath long enough to actually blow! You can see that although PC isn't paying attention, Dolly on the other hand looks a little unsure about just what is and what isn't supposed to be happening...


At this point, the flames were so bright that my camera didn't even use the flash. I don't think I've ever laughed so hard at a birthday party in my life! Sir finally caught enough breath to blow the candles out after the final flare up you see here. PC still looks dazed, and Dolly looks like she's not so sure she wants a birthday party this year... or maybe just a party without cake?

Two Months...

Now that Emma is three months old, I'm not sure I can accurately remember what stage of development she was at a month ago. I feel bad that I'm not keeping up with her monthly pictures the same way I did for the other two kids. Maybe I'll get her three month picture up in the next few days with current information.

Emma was smiling by two months. Unlike Dolly and PC who started responding to a smile with a smile around 3-5 weeks, Emma either couldn't, or just wouldn't be bothered to smile in response until she was at least 6 weeks old. This picture is characteristic of Emma in that she looks like she's in her own little world doing her own little thing. She's still like that really. I couldn't ask for a more laid back baby that demands less attention. It's been very handy, but I end up feeling guilty for not spending more time with her. Don't get me wrong, we do have our fun interactive moments, but they're not nearly as many or as frequent as Dolly and PC's 'mommy&baby' times were.

Speaking of Dolly and PC - This is what they looked like at two months: PC's Two-month Post. I wanted to just stick a picture of all three of my kids at two months old in this post, but I'm too tired to go find the original pictures to upload them in the size I'd prefer. Maybe I'll spend the extra energy on putting Emma's three month post together before she'd already four months old!

Another Year Gone By

I love this picture, and someday if I ever get around to it, I want to blow it up and frame it for one of my walls. Someday. Right now I'm just trying to get out of my blogging slump. I took this picture from the window of our van - while it was moving. We were cruising down King George Hwy probably around 70kph when I glanced out the window to see the sunset. By the time I got the camera case out of the diaper bag, the camera out of its case and my window rolled down, I had enough time to snap two pictures before the view was blocked by a hill of trees. You can't exactly ask your husband to slow down on a two lane highway while you take a picture of the sunset so I was pleasantly surprised with the result!

Anyway, this post isn't about a sunset picture. I wanted to start my 2008 blog off with the New Years get-together that we went to, but that should have been posted on New Years Day. Then I read Aunt Jailgy's blog, and thought her recap idea was a great way to start off a new year.

So, this is my recap of 2007:
January ~
- I started a diet for the first time.
- 6 inch snowfall followed by a week long Cold Snap.
- Found out we were expecting baby #3 (so the diet died after two weeks of life).
- Dolly turned TWO!
February ~
- I hit the quarter century mark.
- 1st Trimester Exhaustion.
March ~
- 1st prenatal visit.
- CF testing in Vancouver.
- More Pregnancy Exhaustion.
- PC started walking (at 8 ½ months).
- My cat Fluffy died.
April ~
- Participated in hosting Richmond's 3rd bible conference.
- More snow.
- The death and resurrection of my Laptop.
- Announced our Pregnancy!
May ~
- Richmond Sunday School Treat.
- Road trip to Red Bluff, CA
June ~
- Left our kids with Sir's parents while we got away for 3 days!
- Went to Walla Walla's bible conference.
- PC turned ONE!
July ~
- Welcomed BC's annual heat wave.
- Celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary.
- Took the kids to the Vancouver Aquarium.
- Went to the 2007 Fireworks Festival.
August ~
- Toured the hospital's Maternity ward.
- Hosted our 5th annual summer's end barbecue.
September ~
- Received a new (and Superior) camera!
- Richmond's Sunday School Picnic.
- Dolly fell over the outside stair railing and fractured her wrist.
- Welcomed Emma!
October ~
- Emma's baby shower.
- Bronchitis of the Year/Asthma attack.
November ~
- Dolly broke her left arm clean through.
- Got to enjoy Richmond's 2-day conference!
December ~
- Tina and her boys visited for a week.
- Got family picture taken.
- Escaped the flu that the rest of my family got.

So, now that I've officially broken in the blogging of 2008, I'll be working on finishing the six draft posts that I've started over the last few months! And its almost 11, so I should be going to bed.

Cousins ~

"Jesus... said,.. Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God."
Mark 10:14

December 1st, 2007
From left to right with ages: M.L.-18 months, A.L.-4 years,
2 months., Emma-2 months, Dolly-2 years, 10 months and PC-17 months.

Pending....

In the last week and a half every member of my little family has fallen victim to the FLU AXE. I have the awful feeling of anticipation as I know I'll probably get axed as soon as I stop expecting it. Lovely feeling don't you think? I was really dreading being sick while the rest of my court was nightly expelling their stomach contents, but thankfully, it's starting to look like some recoveries are being made.

Dolly got sick just before the California conference, and I had half expected it since quite a few people we'd been in contact with, had already suffered at the talons of this bug. In a day or so, Dolly seemed perfectly fine, but then PC got sick and he seemed a lot more miserable than Dolly had been. I guess part of it could have been that he wasn't sick in the daytime like she had been. I got pretty good at changing sheets in the dark, and PC and I worked out a rather efficient method of communication when it came to being sick - thus perfecting our dash to the bathroom. I thought he'd be better in a day or two like Dolly was, and at first that looked to be the case.

Then PC got sick again - or didn't really get over being sick the first time around. He'd pick at his food all day, and then lose anything he'd eaten sometime during the night. This went on for another four days with an occasional day where it looked like he was getting better. But after a while I realized he was only eating because he was probably starving and figured losing his meal was the lesser evil.

Meanwhile, Sir started getting the forerunner symptoms. He kept feeling worse and worse, and one night he took a bucket to bed - just in case. That was the night that Emma got sick. She had nursed before bed and was really upset afterwards. I didn't know what was wrong with her and carried her into my room where Sir was, to have him hold her for a minute while I got ready for bed. Just as I was about to hand Emma to Sir she got really upset, and as soon as I turned her around to face me, she spewed the entire contents of her little stomach all over me. Ok, not entirely... she managed to come up with a second round after I spun her back away from me. This was at 10:30. Emma seemed very much relieved and even cheerful after the spewing episode. She happily cooed at the bathroom towels while I peeled off my coated jumper and took a quick shower.

Clean again, I proceeded to bathe my infant before wrapping her up and putting her to bed in clean clothes. Then I did a quick job with the carpet cleaner to get the worst of 'round 2' cleaned up. I finally crawled into bed at 11:30 only to be catapulted out at 1:30 thanks to Emma's screams. She was starving! How dare I put her to bed on an empty stomach? She quickly forgave me and heartily stuffed herself before falling back to sleep. I tiptoed back to bed, slipped under the covers, glanced at the 2:00 on my side table clock, almost closed my eyes and bolted back out of bed and down to PC's room where he was losing his meal. Thankfully he hardly had anything in his stomach so it didn't take long to clean him up and change his clothes. Although we did need a new pillowcase, the sheets were spared which was nice. Back to bed at 2:20.

Next it was Sir's turn. I jolted awake as he exploded across the room at 3:30. While he got a hold of himself in the bathroom, I cleaned up in our room. There were only a few spots that missed the bucket thankfully. Back to bed at 4, and up again at 5:30 to change Emma's outfit since she'd lost part of her 1:30 meal. She didn't want to eat and was happy again in dry clothes so I just put her back to bed. I didn't notice the spot on the crib sheet until the next morning, but that was only because I didn't put Emma back in the same spot she'd been in after I changed her. I crashed back to bed at quarter to 6 only to get up an hour later to calm Dolly down. She'd lost her pacifier and started to panic. I was just glad she wasn't sick again. Then I slept until the alarm went off and PC decided to get up for the day at 7:30.

That all happened Monday night. Needless to say Tuesday was rather unprofitable, but Wednesday it looked like we were going to get over this bug. Except, PC and Emma were sick again Wednesday night. Yesterday seemed ok, and today PC has just been fussy. He's probably tired though. He kept waking up last night because he was thirsty. Speaking of tired... I need to put my munchkins down for naps. They're happily playing in the Pillow Corner right now, but there's not a lot of room over there and I'm sure I'll be hearing from them soon if I don't put them to bed first!