Christmas Pictures

Blog entry follows Pictures :)

Christmas 2008

We had a nice Christmas, despite Kaitlyn being sick. Christmas Eve she started with refusing to eat anything, but one very large cookie. We were going to stay overnight at my Mom and Dad's due to the weather, but when Kaitlyn started getting sick at 2 AM, we decided she would be better in her own bed than waking up the whole house (Brad and Rebecca and kids and Greg and Veronica were also staying overnight). She was sick at Ryan's Mom's as well on Christmas Day, but when she wasn't getting sick, was happy as can be for the most part. Boxing Day she seemed back to her old self except she still refused to eat and now was starting to refuse to drink as well. We took her shopping and she napped when we got home. We knew something was really wrong when she woke up from her nap and cried for 2 hours straight - nothing we could do or offer her to make her stop. Ryan phoned the nurse helpline and they advised to take her to emergency. Not where we wanted to go over the holidays but we actually hit it at the right time and the rush started after we checked her in. Turns out she has a nasty throat infection, and now that she's on medication, she's so much better. She even ate some cheerios yesterday and is drinking apple juice like crazy.

Other than that, we are getting ready for our cruise and are so excited! In a way, I'm glad Kaitlyn was sick while we were home with her rather than sick while we are away. I would hate to have imposed that on Krista! Finding clothes to wear is a bit of a challenge for both of us since we have dropped a few sizes. I even tried my grade 12 grad dress on yesterday and - it fits! Craziness!

Kaitlyn was spoiled for Christmas from us and her grandparents, as well as Uncle Greg and Aunty Veronica who gave her very first Barbie. She was so excited. Lots of books, Little People, a new doll and even a Wonder Pets DVD (which she pronounces "oo dee dat" no matter how much you try to correct her).

The snow is in full force but the big thaw started yesterday. Looks like we'll be swimming to church this morning.

Anyway, better run - Kaitlyn is calling for me. I'll post some pics a little later.

Our Night Out

Last week Saturday was Ryan's work Christmas dinner. We decided to make a mini-getaway out of it since it was at the Pan Pacific in Vancouver. The dinner was really tasty, despite the small portions, I splurged on dessert, and we had a great night away. Kaitlyn stayed at my parents' house and had a great time too which made it easier to be away for a night. We stayed at a nearby hotel which was great too - way bigger room than we thought we booked which is always a nice surprise.

One of the great things I noticed that night was I wasn't afraid to pose for pictures. Ryan and I have both been working hard at the gym (though not as hard as we'd like because we like to work out together but then it costs more for childcare) and have totally changed our eating habits. It was great to feel confident in my new dress, Ryan in his suit, and seeing that our hard work is getting results. Not sure how much more we'll get accomplished before the cruise but I still haven't hit my goal yet!

Quilt Contest

Yes - my sister will be shocked. But I was so taken with these gorgeous quilts, I had to pass on the link for a chance to win one. So beautiful! Click here to enter

2 Months and Counting!

Well we are 2 months away from the big cruise with my family to the Caribbean and are really starting to get excited about it. And prepare. We have to finalize our passports and are trying to get to the gym together or alone a few times a week so we will enjoy posing for pictures in January. Nothing worse than coming back from a big trip and realizing you opted out of every picture because you didn't like the angle it was taken from.

Life has been continuing as normal for the most part. Ryan was transferred to the campus closer to home which has been wonderful. He is working day shifts so we get to be together as a family much more and we're saving on gas as he doesn't have to drive for an hour every day. He has applications in with both sheriffs and Corrections and we're very hopeful for both. Now that Ryan has a year of security experience, his chances are so much better than 2 years ago when he tried for sheriffs. The really good thing about this is he realizes he has a real interest and love for security work and is finally doing something he really enjoys.

My work is continuing as normal and life is hectic. It's hard to work 8 hours a day, keep the house at least somewhat tidy, do laundry, groceries, get to the gym, take care of a 2-year-old and find time for sanity, but I'm surviving and looking forward to a break in January!

I've been told by my supervisor that I apologize too much so I won't be saying sorry as I usually do for not getting a post up in 2 months - life is crazy and this morning I made sure to get up half an hour early to get this post up so people don't think we've fallen off the face of the earth. Here are a few pictures from the last month:

Kaitlyn giving big smiles at Grandma's house:


Oma's 2 helpers on Halloween enjoying some dinner:


Kaitlyn dressed up as Little Red Riding Hood on Halloween (sorry, she really didn't want to pose and this was the best one - she was too busy enjoying her Smarties to pay any attention to me):

My little brother is married

Well, it's been an exhausting last few days but we all survived and the wedding went wonderfully. Veronica looked beautiful and was such a calm, easy-going bride, it was a joy to witness their big day. Everyone had such a great time, truly one of the most fun weddings I've ever attended.

Here are a few pictures (unfortunately I really didn't take too many since I was more concerned about my 2-year-old behaving as she was a flowergirl - once she was safely tucked in bed, then I went snap happy).

August

Well August is almost gone already and this is my first post of the month. A lot has happened around here but seems there are never enough hours in the day to get around to everything, including keeping everyone updated on us.

Ryan had an incident at work a few weeks ago. He was trying to get a female drug-user off the property and suffered a surprise attack from 2 males when he approached the female. She managed to prick him with her needle and the 3 individuals escaped. Because no one knows the needle source, Ryan has to endure a month round of what is known as the "cocktail" to prevent infectious diseases such as HIV and the Hep strains. The medication is violent and he ended up on WCB for 2 weeks but is now back at work and the meds are set to complete next week. It's quite stressful for him as the fear of the unknown is quite daunting. He'll have to get tested every few months for the next year and we are looking forward to putting this behind us.

Kaitlyn finally had her bangs cut so we can see her lovely eyes. Unfortunately I cannot find my camera so I can't share with you all :( I'll have to look harder at mom and dad's since I'm pretty sure that's where we last saw it.

I'm still working hard as a court clerk and still find it interesting but wonder if it's what I want to do for the rest of my life. In health news, I've been waking up wheezing at night for a while now and finally went to the dr about it this week. My asthma-like symptoms could be allergies but are easily treated with an inhaler. But if I become dependent on it (using it more than 3 times a day) a steroid inhaler may be next. Thankfully I am only using it once per day so I think it's under control.

Anyway, that's a quick update for those who are looking for it. I will try to find my camera and come back with a picture post soon!

This is what I get for talking about it

A friend from work offered me a bedroom set for Kaitlyn with a single bed and dresser. Of course I accepted but told Ryan right away, let's put the bed in the garage for now and keep Kaitlyn in the crib as long as possible since she's not climbing out anyway. Well, today when I picked Kaitlyn up from Rebecca's, Kaitlyn was still napping as it had taken a long time for her to fall asleep due to the fact she kept climbing out of the pack-n-play. Hmmm. Not a good sign I thought.

So now she's in bed. For the third time. The first time she used the play kitchen to help her out. So I moved that. The second time she tried to use the toy box but ended up taking a big fall and had a good cry. So I moved that. So now she's back in bed and hopefully scared to try again... I guess I should be thankful she hasn't been persistent about this until now (25 1/2 months old).

Summer is Here

Sorry for the lack of posting lately. Things here are continuing as normal and it seems there's not much news to report. Our heat wave has finally hit and we are loving it. Despite a little less sleep at night (I refuse to break down and pay for an air conditioner), Kaitlyn loves to be outdoors which she gets to do a lot of this past week.

Kaitlyn's regular sitter (Krista) is now on maternity leave and starting this week, she will be going to Andrea's for 2 days a week and Rebecca's for 3 days a week. She was a little confused Monday morning when I was dropping her off at Andrea's and when we pulled up she asked "See DeeDee?" which is what she calls Krista's son Deakan, and I had to say "Sorry baby, not today". So then she said "See Alyssa?" and I said "No baby. Today you're going to play with Lucas and Nathan and Aunty Andrea". She looked totally confused but she adjusts so easily - apparently she was a breeze to have for Andrea, so I think the new arrangements will work wonderfully.

Potty training is semi-underway. She will "go" for Aunty Rebecca and for Krista but so far not for me. Stinker. Considering she's still quite difficult to understand because she uses a lot of baby talk, hopefully when she communicates better, potty training will go better.

Ryan is still working hard and waiting on the final word about the sheriff program to start in August. Hopefully we'll hear something this week!

As far me, I'm still working full time. I've now run my first jury selection and once I learned I controlled the pace of the courtroom, it went so smoothly and I'm looking forward to the next one. I'm finding court clerking so much more interesting than I ever thought - even sometimes clerking on high profile cases and bail hearings on accused that you read about in the papers. Whether I want to do this for the rest of my life? Still not sure on that one... Time will tell!

All right, Kaitlyn just interrupted this with a complete meltdown due to a mosquito being on her. Better run!

The Birthday "Twins"

Here are a couple pictures of proud Opa with the birthday "twins". It was impossible to get them all to smile at the same time and sit still. But we tried! At least Opa is smiling.

Bring on the Sun!

I just love this time of year. Hopefully we get many more sunny days to come!

Kaitlyn is 2!

Just wanted to quickly post a happy birthday to our sweet little girl. Unfortunately Kaitlyn had a rough night last night and is pretty cranky today (my guess is more teeth?) but it is official - we have a 2 year old in the house!

On another note, I'm enjoying being at home and doing regular things. I have been tackling (what is it Yvonne always calls it? Mount Washmore?) the laundry, cleaning the house, and I even baked chocolate chip cookies yesterday. As well, I made a nice dinner trying out a new recipe called Cheesy Stuffed Peppers. They turned out really good and were a bit of work but inexpensive to make. Don't believe me? Here you go!

May Long Weekend

The May long weekend is upon us (already!). Work has been crazy for me lately with plenty of overtime and learning new things. I was supposed to clerk my first jury trial but the accused chose Judge alone the day the trial was to begin. At least I was able to clerk the jury selection which was an interesting experience (and a lot of talking on my part which I was nervous about).

Ryan is loving his job as a security guard and is also working plenty of hours (definitely more than me) and also looking forward to the new process for sheriff training. He has an application in for the August program and they recently announced changes including pre-hiring, no more tuition, and paid training. All good things in our minds!

Monday will be our 7th wedding anniversary. I cannot believe it has been 7 years already! What a crazy 7 years it has been but we have been blessed, especially in the last few years with the arrival of Kaitlyn, being able to be close to family, and the purchase of our first home.

Kaitlyn will be turning 2 two days later, on Wednesday. The last 2 years have definitely flown by and we are constantly amazed by the things that she says and does. She has recently shown a lot of interest in puzzles and is actually quite good at them! She loves to carry around her princess purse and calls it "backpack" (yes, way too much Dora for this girl). She can sing most of the alphabet song and is consantly making up her own words to the same tune.

Today was gorgeous with temperatures of 30 degrees and Ryan was able to get a lot of much needed yard work done and shrubs carried away to the green dump (thanks Jake!). Our yard is still a work in progress with a lot of work that still needs doing.

Next week I am off for the entire week and will hopefully be able to get a lot done around the house and spend some time with Kaitlyn.

Here are a couple new pictures to share:

Thinking of Things...

There are a couple things that have been running through my head lately. Kaitlyn has had a persistent runny nose and dry cough for about 3 months at least. In addition, she has eyes that water daily, sometimes she has tears running down her face, and she's just sitting there. I'm beginning to think we should ask the doctor about a possible milk allergy. Considering both her parents were allergic as toddlers, this might be not a bad thing to check out. It also could explain why she's getting sick quite a bit lately... Any thoughts?

Also, there was a job posting in our area and I think I'm going to apply for it. It's not a lot more money, but would definitely be a good experience to go through the job competition process again, and if I did get it, would add to my diverse yet specialized career in the Ministry. Plus it would mean less overtime and I have the option of working a little bit longer each day but getting every third Monday or Friday off, which is a definite plus. But do I really want to put myself through the disappointment again? Yeah, I do. Call me a sucker ;)

Here are a couple pictures of our silly girl.

First - I was being really lazy this night and told Kaitlyn I wouldn't be giving her a bath. I turned away for about 2 minutes and found this when I returned. I guess she really really wanted a bath. It definitely is interesting and exciting that she understands almost everything now and is sometimes smarter than we give her credit for!



Here is Kaitlyn just being a goof and balancing a pillow on her head. The ways she finds to amuse herself are definitely amusing to us. Another cute thing she does lately is she hardly ever calls me "Mommy" anymore but it's usually "Mom". Guess she thinks she's not a baby anymore?

Our Trip to ER

Kaitlyn has not been feeling well, basically since 2 weeks ago when she had her immunizations. The following day, she puked twice and I was concerned since she had just had her shots. I phoned the Nurse Helpline and the nurse was friendly and helpful and suggested it had nothing to do with her shots, but she probably caught the flu bug - just try to keep her hydrated.

She was fine until the following Monday while at Krista's (our sitter) she got sick again. She was fine again until Wednesday, threw up again. Thursday I brought her in to see Dr. Clarke and that's when we found out about the ear infection and that would explain the dizziness and nausiness. Since being on the amoxicillin, she has thrown up off and on, but never more than once a day and usually not 2 days in a row. Other than that, no fever and acting normally, keeping food down between vomitting spells. Then on Saturday she grew worse. She now had diarrhea, was refusing bottles and juice and threw up in the evening. Sunday morning, she was sick again and I had had enough. I went to emergency and was told there was a 4 hour wait and to head across the street to the walk in clinic which had no wait. The doctor didn't seem concerned about the 2 pound drop in weight but seemed to focus in on her runny nose, and diagnosed her as gagging on mucus from a cold. I told him she had not had a wet diaper yet today and I was concerned. He dismissed my concerns.

I brought her back home and tried to treat her normally as the doctor suggested but with frequent, smaller feeds and drinks. She threw up again and that was it. We went to emergency and waited the now 2 hour wait and saw the doctor. She was diagnosed as dehydrated with probably a stomach flu that she wasn't able to shake because of her dehydration. The doctor left it up to me on whether she should be admitted overnight since her blood tests showed definite dehydration, but suggested we take her home and treat her the same way they would overnight. They weren't too keen on starting an IV until they saw how she tolerated some fluids. She did great! After giving her a prescription anti-nausea medication, we cup fed her 1 oz of apple juice at a time, 10 minutes apart for the next hour and she kept it all down. They then released us with instructions to continue which we have been doing. She slept great last night and for her nap, for the first time in a week or so and seems to be on the mend (hopefully!).

I keep saying, I cannot wait until summer. Hopefully warmer weather will bring better health along with it! I am sick of sickness.

Finally a Post... and another ear infection

I cannot believe it's been 2 months since I've posted. That really is horrible and I do apologize.

Things are moving along here. I've been struck with the flu and am feeling better, 10 pounds lighter (not quite the way to do it but I'll take it anyways!). Tomorrow I go to a Violence Prevention Seminar for work and am the designated driver so Ryan is out there vaccuuming the van as I type.

Kaitlyn woke up 2 mornings ago and I noticed some gross yellow stuff on her crib sheet. I didn't know what it was until she put her finger in her ear, held her finger out to me and said "see" and then I noticed the fluid draining from her ear. After speaking with someone from work, I grew concerned, and made an appointment for her with the doctor. Sure enough, ear infection and the yellow stuff is lovely puss. Gross. The doctor explained she would have a lot less pain with this ear infection compared to past ones since the puss doesn't build up, but drains outwards with the help of the tubes. A good thing I suppose!

Ryan is doing well with his new job as a security guard and they are very anxious to train him on more sites and upgrade his first aid so he'll get a raise and be more of an asset to them. He's definitely making a good impression and still looking forward to getting into the sheriff program, hopefully in August.

Anyways, off to make some dinner!

Sharing Some Cute Pics of Our Growing Girl...

Kaitlyn is getting so big is all I can think when I see these pictures. Her hair is getting longer, she has such a personality, and everytime I see pictures of her, I can't get over her big blue eyes. She is getting over a fight with the pavement in these pictures (the pavement won) but other than that, I think she steals the show when she walks in the room ;)

Note to Self...

Just because something is "easy" and "no work and dinner is on the table" does not mean it is edible. We tried the new McCain Slow Cooker meals from the freezer section today. So not good... After 5 hours in the slow cooker on high and anticipating an easy great meal, Ryan is currently rummaging through the deep freezer trying to find anything else we can make for dinner tonight instead. Bleh.

Posting

So apparently I don't post enough. Some days I just feel like nothing else is really new so why really blog about it? Well, I guess I should give it more effort so here's a post just because ;)

I am training people at work. I know - what??? Aren't I still technically "in training"? Well, I'm flattered but have to admit, it takes a lot of patience when I'm trying to do my own job and explain it at the same time.

Kaitlyn is full of words and understands basically everything you say to her. Her favourite word right now is a tie: "ball" (she loves to play fetch with Daddy and I jokingly say we no longer need a dog), or "owy" (she's always got an "owy" somewhere on her body). She made me laugh the other day when Ryan went over to help Brad with the bathroom remodelling while Kaitlyn was down for her nap. We were getting ready to join them over at Becca and Brad's house for dinner - shoes on, jacket on, when Kaitlyn suddenly looked very worried and said "Uh oh - where's Daddy?" and went running from room to room, fearing we would leave him behind. I explained to her we were going to see Daddy and she was like "oh" and happily got in the van.

Anyways, off to eat some dinner and watch the Nucks. "no nana no" (in Kaitlyn's language this means "go Canucks go").

Kaitlyn has Bronchitis

I feel pretty bad for having missed this one. Kaitlyn has had, what I thought, a dry cough for about a week. Yesterday she threw up after her nap and I'm not sure if she coughed so hard she threw up, or if there are other things going on. She was also running quite the fever yesterday but after giving her Tylenol, she seemed like her normal, happy self, even eating well, so we thought it was an isolated incident. This morning she woke up and sounded like she was wheezing and I was concerned. We decided that Ryan would go to church for the morning service, we would take her to the walk in clinic between services, and then I would go to church in the afternoon. Well, the walk in clinic on a Sunday is not the place to be apparently. When we walked in there were 5 kids Kaitlyn's age or younger, all sick, plus the sick adults too.

The doctor was very good and quite concerned as soon as he listened to her chest. Right away he said "oh, it's very moist in there". With no hesitation, he prescribed penicillin plus a puffer (which we also have to use the attached chamber for since we can't control when she will breathe in). We are to give her no non-prescribed drugs (cold meds) besides Tylenol and she is a little cranky. The first time we administered the puffer, she smiled and wanted more. The second time, she screamed the entire time and we had to hold her down to get her to inhale it. Hopefully things improve by Tuesday or she will be taken for a chest x-ray!

So that's our life right now - just thought I'd post an update in case my parents are checking up on us on their cruise. I'm not even sure where they are this time. What a bad daughter I am, but sometimes it's hard to keep up with their travel life. Hope you're having a good time and don't worry, I'll tape Amazing Race for you tonight.