A Series of Uninteresting Events

Quitting

2012-01-22T14:34:00.000-08:00

I'm not the best at keeping up the blog...and I don't think many people actually read it anyway. I think I'm going to take a break from blogging...or maybe go private so that I can keep it for a personal record. Just wanted to let anyone who reads this know.

Lilia Laughing

2012-01-15T11:20:00.000-08:00

I'm behind on my post for Christmas...I may or mayn't get around to it. Here's a funny video of Lilia laughing at Audrey and a ball. If anyone is wondering what Audrey says near the end, it's "No drooling on my ball."

Job is 5!

2011-11-12T15:50:00.001-08:00

Well, I'm a little behind on this one. November 1st, this boy...

became a 5 year old! 5 seems so old compared to 4...I'm not sure why. So we had a crazy couple of weeks with all the Halloween stuff and birthday celebrations. The kids dressed up several times for different Halloween activities. I lost track of what they wore to which place, but I have pictures of most of their costumes. Job had his first birthday party with kids that weren't all cousins. We invited 8 kids, thinking they wouldn't all show up...but they did! It was a little crazy, but we survived. Job decided he wanted a Halloween party at our house. The kids all came in costume. We decorated craft pumpkins and spiders (still finding glitter everywhere from that), played pin the nose on the pumpkin, tried to play hot pumpkin (no one was interested), decorated cupcakes and opened presents. We thought this was plenty of activity to fill up two hours...but we seriously underestimated the attention span of some 3-5 year olds. Greg ended up taking them outside to play freeze tag to wear them out a bit. It didn't seem to have much effect on their energy levels though. Anyway, I'm glad that's over for another year.

We also had a dinner with family at Greg's parents on Sunday. Then we had cake and took Job and Audrey to see Puss in Boots on his actual birthday. So overall I think he had a great birthday this year. He got a lot of money and gift cards, so he's been spending like crazy. He actual gave Audrey $30 to spend on herself, which I thought was nice of him. Audrey promised to share her birthday money when it comes around in June. We'll see if she remembers that one. Here's a some picture of the party chaos and his family parties...

Job loved trick-or-treating this year. Audrey did too, but she got tired after a while. Job didn't want to stop. We did a lot more houses than last year. Now here are the Halloween pictures, I just realized I'm missing one of Job in his Batman costume, which he wore for trick-or-treating.

We headed up to Halifax last weekend and stayed with our friends Doug and Jessamyn. They have three boys all pretty much the same age as our kids. The kids had a blast playing together. I think that's all the news. Here's some more pictures...because excessive pictures makes up for my lack of things to write about:

Corn Maize

2011-10-24T09:02:00.000-07:00

Greg had a meeting this weekend in the big city, so all of us headed up there Saturday. On the way we stopped in the valley at a "corn maize". I like the clever pun used by the farm. It was fun. I wish we had more time there, we would have tried out the big maze instead of just the little kid one. Although, my Mom told me a story she heard on the news about a family getting lost in a corn maze and having to call 911 to get out, because all the workers went home. Maybe it was better we stuck to the kids one. Here's some pictures from the corn maze and other random things:

Big Day for my Girls!

2011-09-29T17:20:00.000-07:00

Today was a fun day of firsts. Audrey went to her first ballet class and loved every minute of it. Greg and I were feeling bad for her because she's been so lonely and sad since Job's been in school. A teacher Greg works with is also a dancer. She and her sister-in-law do dance classes for different ages. She was telling Greg about a ballet class for preschoolers that was pretty reasonably priced. Audrey is always doing "her ballet" for an audience of stuffed animals, so we asked her if she would be interested in taking a class. She seemed quite excited about the idea, but I was still skeptical since she can be very shy when she's around new people. I thought once we actually got there she would cling to me and refuse to participate. But we decided to give it a try. Kelly found her a whole ballerina outfit in her girls dance things, complete with body suit, 2 tutus, and slippers. So she got a all dressed up tonight and we headed out to ballet. As soon as we got there she went off dancing and barely noticed me. It was pretty cute to watch a bunch of preschool girls (and one boy) prancing around to Backyardigans music. They actually learned some ballet technique too, which I wasn't expecting for this age group. She was really excited to go back, but she was "tired out" and wanted to go to bed when we got home at 5:30. Here's some pictures of my cute ballerina. She's not like me at that age. I would never have considered such a girly thing when I was young. She must get it from Greg:)

Also, Lilia rolled over today. I didn't see it at first, but I knew it happened because I left her on her belly and when I came back she was on her back...looking a little shocked. Dave came over to babysit for me right after it happened. When I came home he had experimented by laying her on her belly and he said she rolled over a few times. She wouldn't do it again right then, but I tried it out later in the evening and she rolled over a few more times. She was pretty quick about it and looked very proud of herself after she would do it. She can hold her head up for quite a while now too on her belly. She seems to have grown so much overnight. Here's a picture of her after Job and Audrey used her as a prop for their imaginary play.

Job didn't do much today except get in trouble at school! They have a system in his class where everyone starts the day with their name on the green circle. If they get a warning about something, their name gets put on the yellow circle. If they need to be talked to again they get put on the red circle and get some kind of consequence. Job got put on the yellow circle and was pretty disappointed about it. He had told me before that he was "never going to get put on the cercle jaune or rouge." I guess he was running in class because another boy was trying to kiss him. I don't know why this boy wanted to kiss him, but anyway...he got a warning because the class had just been told not to run. So I guess he failed his attempt at green circle perfection this year. Here's a picture I took of him on picture day...since I refuse to pay for school pictures.

First Week of School and Other Stuff...

2011-09-11T14:03:00.000-07:00

It was Job's first week of school this past week. He had a great time! I'm relieved. I'm glad we decided to send him in the end. I don't think he was even nervous the first day. Just excited. He's doing well with the work, loves the school bus, and loves to play with the other kids. He's really into the french thing too. He comes home and asks me what all kinds of words are in french. I'm happy about that. It was important to me that he be in French Immersion. I feel a little bad for Audrey...and myself. She follows me around all day when Job's gone. I don't get much done around the house between Lilia and Audrey. My house has never been so messy. I feel like I lost my babysitter. On Saturday, Greg was out so it was just me and the kids for the afternoon. While I put laundry away, Job read books to Lilia in her swing until she fell asleep, then he and Audrey played together. I got more done in that couple of hours than I did the whole week he was gone. But, in a way it is good for Audrey that Job's in school too. She's learning to be more independent. Normally she would just watch Job play on the computer because she had trouble working the mouse. Since he's not around, she's learned how to play games all by herself. She's loving being able to play Dora the Explorer games as much as she wants. Those were never Job's favorites, so she didn't get to do them much before. We sure miss having Job around all day, but he's having a great time at school, so we're happy for him. Here are some pictures of the big day:

We tried to make the most of our time before school started. We made a trip to the zoo, where the kids rode a horse and a fake cow and fed some goats and deer. Here are some pictures:

They also had a sleepover with their cousins Morgan and Ruby. Once they stayed at our house and the other time at theirs. Here's a picture:

And on Labor Day we went to an awesome playground that's about a half hour away from Yarmouth. It's the kids new favourite...

All this action wore some people out... they fell asleep on stairs and in chairs:

Lilia has started smiling and babbling. The only picture I have of her smiling is blurry because it's hard to catch her with my camera. She still sits around and look cute. That's what she does best. At her two month appointment she weighed 13 pounds 9 ounces and I can't remember how long she was, but I think it was 60 some cm.

Vacation

2011-08-15T09:04:00.000-07:00

August 1st, we headed over to PEI to spend some time with my family. We stopped at Victoria Park in Truro on the way up. What a beautiful spot! The kids loved it. They had walking trails with waterfalls and natural pools to swim in. We wished we had more time to spend there, but we had to catch the ferry. The kids loved the ferry too, so the long trip over was successful.

All my sisters were home except for Jeannine. Luckily we got to see her in Yarmouth not too long ago. We all went to Shining Waters fun park the day after we got there. The kids all had a great time. It was nice for the kids to be able to do something fun like that with their cousins on my side. They only see each other once a year, so we made the best of the time. The adults had fun too. We took turns watching the kids at the little water slides so all the adults could try the big ones. Job was big enough this year to go on the big slides with an adult and he had a blast. It wasn't a really warm day and he was freezing, but he didn't want to stop. Audrey was upset that she was too little for the big slides, but she went on the biggest kid slide all by herself and was pretty proud.

Johanna and Steve and their kids had to leave the next day, but they had plans to come visit us in Yarmouth after visiting Steve's family in Cape Breton and Halifax. Job and Audrey had fun with Trish and Stephanie and Michael for the rest of the time. We had a little birthday party for Greg and Michael while we were there. Trish made a delicious three layer chocolate cake. It rained most of the time, but we managed to get to the beach once. We went to the UPEI pool for some indoor swimming. The kids had some spending money from both sets of grandparents, so we did some shopping too. Rob and Kelly rented a cottage in Rocky Point, so we went to visit them there to have some BBQ and smores on the campfire. We met up with a friend of mine from school (Sarah), who has two kids around Job and Audrey's age. They played together at Victoria Park (in PEI, not Truro) and went through the sprinklers.

We headed back on the 10th. We made a stop in Halifax because I had an allergy test appointment. I'm excited, because I think we've actually figured out my sinus pain and problems. The allergist ruled out allergies, but she thinks I have chronic sinusitis. She recommended that I use a sinus wash twice a day for a month. She said if that didn't work, she would recommend to my doctor that I go on anti-biotics for a full month. If that doesn't work, they'll do a CT scan of my sinuses to see if surgery is a good option. I'm hoping I can get it cleared up soon so I can feel better.

The day after we got back, Johanna, Steve and the kids came to stay with us for a couple of nights. The kids had a great time together. We went to a really nice playground in Meteghan and also went to Smuggler's Cave. They left early Saturday morning to catch the Digby ferry.

We headed over to Digby later on Saturday too, for Greg's grandfather's birthday party at his Uncle's house. It's been a busy month...so busy that Greg and I even forgot our anniversary! It's today, but neither of us remembered until I got an e-mail from Greg's Aunt on facebook saying Happy Anniversary. haha. So I guess we aren't doing anything special for the Big 8. Oh well, we're happy, that's all that matters.

Victoria Park (Truro)

Waterfalls- Victoria Park

Audrey and Aunt Trish- Shining Waters

Job, Aurey, Sam, Mara & Charlotte

Job, Audrey and Aunt Steph

Mara, Sam, Job, Charlotte, Aunt Trish, Audrey

Job, Audrey, Charlotte

Audrey

Sam and Audrey

Happy Birthday Greg

Buried at the beach

Living it up

Audrey, Job, Emma, Morgan & Ruby making smores

The one picture we took of Lilia...poor neglected baby

Lilia Claire Veinot

2011-07-11T09:38:00.000-07:00

We've had a lot going on the past few weeks. The most exciting is the arrival of Lilia, who was born on Wednesday July 6th at 8:20 pm. She was 22 inches long and weighed 9 pounds 1 ounce. She also has red hair, which was a bit of a surprise since the rest of us all have dark hair. I won't say I had a great delivery, but it could have been worse. Once again, my request for drugs was denied until it was too late...so I wasn't happy about that. Especially after I made all the effort to tell every doctor and nurse that I saw leading up to the delivery that I wanted drugs. They all said it would be no problem...whatever. The problem this time was the doctor who was on call for delivery didn't show up when I first got admitted, like she was supposed to. She said she would be in "shortly." I'm not sure what her definition of shortly was, but she ended up having to be called by the nurse again to come in and walked in the door as my water was breaking. Needless to say it was too late for drugs. The good news was that Lilia had a noticeably smaller head than both Job and Audrey, so it wasn't as painful as it was with Audrey at least. And it went really quickly, so I wasn't in a lot of pain for more than a few hours. Job and Audrey are thrilled to have a new sister. So far, Lilia is quite fussy and doesn't sleep too well. I'm hoping we can get her into some kind of routine soon so we're not up all night. Here are some picture of her:

My sister Jeannine came to stay this past week. Her boyfriend Jean-Baptiste also came for one night. He's a really nice guy and the kids loved him, even though they only saw him for about an hour and they're usually pretty shy of new adults. I don't see my sisters very often, so it was nice to spend time with her and the kids had a great time. It was also convenient to have her here when I went into the hospital. Not that we had any shortage of volunteers to help out, but Jeannine was staying with us anyway so we just left her here with the kids and went. We didn't do too much while she was here, but we did get out to see the lighthouse and to McDonald's for ice cream. Here are some pictures:

June 30th was Job's preschool graduation. They had it at a community center here and he was supposed to get up and sing some songs. He got a little shy as all the kids headed up onto the stage. He was also very hot because it was very stuffy in there, so he wasn't in to mood to perform. Greg walked him up to the front to get his graduation certificate and frog school bag. He was pretty happy when he got the bag. Audrey was very unhappy the whole time. At first she was crying because she wanted to get up on stage and wasn't allowed, then she was crying because she didn't get a frog bag. The teacher dressed up like a clown and passed out balloons to all the kids, so that cheered Audrey up a bit. Job's teacher was so great this past year. Job loved her and will miss her. Job was also sad that he wouldn't see his best friend Jacob as much (shown in the pictures below), so we promised him we would have Jacob over a few times this summer to play. Luckily, Jacob will be in Job's class at school in September. Here are some pictures of Job's graduation.

The weekend before Jeannine got here, we had our friends Doug and Jessamyn Choo come and stay. They have two boys around the same age as Job and Audrey, with another of unknown gender on the way. It's been a while since we've seen them and we had a great time. The kids played really well together. Audrey actually cried when they left. Here's a picture of the boys showing off their muscles (Audrey was too shy to get in the picture).

Well, I think that's all for now. I should really do more posts so they don't take so long to do. Here's a picture of Greg and the kids on Father's day...

Birthdays and stuff!

2011-06-17T17:41:00.000-07:00

We've been pretty busy here since my last post. On May 29th I turned 30 years old. I refuse to have my picture taken when I'm pregnant...so I'll have no photo memories of my 30th. Oh well. I hate getting my picture taken even on a good day. I had lots of cake and presents and hugs from my kids, so it was a good time.

On June 3rd Audrey turned 3 years old! She thought that since it was her birthday, she could do whatever she wanted and treat people however she wanted. Job was not liking it. We were having a combined birthday party for her and Ruby (whose birthday was on the 8th), on Ruby's birthday. So on Audrey's real birthday we just had a little family dinner and some cake. We took her to the store to pick out a present from my parents, who had sent her money. She chose a digital camera. Even though she knew what it was, she wanted me to wrap it up anyway. So she had fun opening a few presents. Kelly came by earlier in the day with Morgan, Ruby and Charlie and dropped off a Dora balloon and some other things for her. She and Job fought over that balloon all weekend. They both loved it. The next day she received a Dora the Explorer Ball Pitt from my sister Johanna and her family. That was exciting too. Here are a few pictures of her actual birthday.

On the 8th we had a birthday celebration out at Greg's parents for both Ruby and Audrey. I think Audrey got a good deal because she got to celebrate twice. We had some BBQ, some cake, and opened more presents. Audrey and Ruby are self-proclaimed best friends, so it was nice for them to have a party together. Audrey and I decorated Audrey's cake together. It doesn't look very professional, but even if I did it myself it would probably look the same. I'm not good at stuff like that. Kelly did an awesome job on Ruby's Rainbow Bright cake. Here are some pictures of the girls with their cakes and opening presents.

In between those two occasions, Kelly had a baby shower for me at her house. It was a fun time and I got lots of cute stuff for the baby. I won the game of who could drink the fastest from a baby bottle. I'm very proud of that for some reason. I forgot to bring my camera to the shower, but I took a picture of the diaper cake Kelly made after I got home.

On the morning of the 10th, Job had his orientation for school. I thought he would be nervous, but he was excited and had a great time. There are two kids from his preschool class that will be in his class next school year. He spent the whole time with them and they all had fun together. They went around to three different classrooms to do various activities. They got a bag full of fun school stuff, had a snack, and got to go on a bus ride without any parents. By lunch time he was tired out a ready to go home though. I'm wondering how he'll handle being in school all day soon. Here are some pictures of him fooling around and working hard...

Last Saturday we went to the SPCA and took a dog home. Don't get excited... we actually took the dog back today. His name was Jamie and he was 7 years old. He was a nice dog, but I was unsure about getting a dog to begin with. We tried it out and it wasn't really working for me. I think he might have been an outdoor dog before, because he didn't seem comfortable in the house. I felt bad keeping him in, because he didn't want to be in, but I felt bad leaving him tied up outside all day too. We couldn't let him loose because he would take off and we'd have to go looking for him. He was also really jumpy around the kids. I was just worried that he wouldn't become comfortable with us...and with a new baby coming, we figured it wasn't the right time for a dog. I felt so bad taking him back to the SPCA. I actually cried. It might have been partly hormones, but I think it was mostly guilt. The kids really loved him... except for one day when Audrey got mad at him for chewing the bow and tail off her stuffed lamb. They were sad to bring him back...but neither of them actually cried like me. Anyway, that was our dog adventure. There's a picture of the kids and Jamie at the top of the blog.

The last pictures here are some of the ones Audrey and Job took with Audrey's new digital camera. They've taken hundreds of pictures, but only a couple of dozen have actually turned out not blurry. Audrey hasn't really mastered it yet. She got a few good ones though. Job is better at it and has taken some silly ones. I think it'll be a fun toy for them.

Advertising Works

2011-05-15T15:47:00.000-07:00

Job said to me today, "Hey Mom, did you know that chocolate milk makes you strong?" I was only really half paying attention because I was in the middle of doing something, so I just said something like... oh ya. Then he said, "The TV said that. Then the TV said, 'this message was brought to you by your local dairy farmers.' I think if I drink lots of chocolate milk, I'll be able to lift really heavy things."

I thought it was funny that he remembered the exact words of the commercial. I don't even know where he would have seen that ad. The only TV we watch at home when he's awake is Kids CBC, which doesn't have commercials. I guess he saw it somewhere and it had quite the impact. He loves chocolate milk anyway, so he was probably happy hearing that it's something that makes you strong. It gives him a reason to ask for it more.

Not too much has been going on here. We're all sick with colds. Audrey hasn't been sleeping well lately, which is probably why Greg and I both got sick. I've been going to the hospital twice a week to get iron infusions through IV. I guess my iron was way too low. I tried getting it up by taking supplements, but apparently it wasn't that effective so they decided to give it to me through six sessions of IV infusions. I feel bad for the kids because I haven't had much energy to do much fun stuff with them. The weather hasn't been that great so we haven't been getting out much. Job at least has preschool twice a week. He was student of the week last week and got to bring in some pictures of himself and some of his favorite things. The teacher said he went on and on in detail about all the pictures and his toys. Audrey would love to go to preschool. She's old enough to go in September and I would love to be able to send her, especially since Job will be in school all day, but it's expensive. I wish preschool was subsidized here.

Job was supposed to get his preschool pictures done a couple of weeks ago. I was so excited to get them, because he was going to be photographed with a graduation gown and cap on and I thought it would be so cute. Everything was going so well that day. Usually it's a fight to get him dressed up, but he obliged willingly on picture day. He was excited to get his picture done too. When we went to pick him up, his teacher told Greg that he refused to get his picture taken. He wouldn't even get in the group picture. We asked him why he wouldn't do it when he got back in the van. I guess he didn't like the photographer's mustache. He has one of those old fashioned handlebar mustaches that curl up at the ends. Job was afraid of him because of that.

We're still contemplating names for the baby. I find girls names harder than boys for some reason. I think maybe it's just that Greg doesn't go for the type of girls names I like. I'm sure we'll come up with something at the last minute, like we did with the other two.

Mother's Day was nice. The Veinot guys decided to surprise us girls with a Frenchy's shopping trip. Carla didn't end up coming, because Ethan's birthday was that Friday and we were leaving that afternoon. Veronica, Kelly and myself stayed at the Admiral Inn in Digby Friday night. We went out for Chinese buffet, then to one of the Frenchy's, then back to hotel for swimming. The pool had just recently opened, so it was very cold and had quite a few bugs on the sides and the bottom. Kelly didn't like the bugs so she didn't come in. I was desperate to swim and feel weightless for a while, so I braved the bugs and the cold. I figured it wasn't any worse than swimming in a lake with leeches. Probably better, since these bugs didn't bite. Veronica came in too, but she had her glasses off and didn't notice the bugs at first. Saturday we went to Tim Horton's for breakfast, then to Wal-mart, then to all the Frenchy's and one garage sale on the way back to Yarmouth. I think the total number of Frenchy's we went to was six. My feet were very sore by the end of it all. They actually still are when I walk. Greg had a supper made when we got back. Spaghetti with homemade meatballs and garlic bread. It was really good.

Sunday morning the kids gave me some cards that they made themselves. Inside they wrote why they loved me. Job's said, "I love Mommy because she plays with me sometimes." Audrey's said, "I love Mommy because I know her and she is Babe." Greg had told her before that my name is Jocelyne, but she refuses to believe him. She thinks my name is Babe.

I haven't been taking many pictures lately, but I have a couple. I made muffins with the kids the other day and Job decided he wanted to do the dishes after. Once he started, Audrey decided it looked like fun and joined in. They didn't do too bad of a job considering their age, but they made a big mess with the water. Which reminds me...I finally own a dishwasher! I've been wanting one forever, but we've never had any extra cash to get one. A couple of weeks ago, Kelly called me from Salvation Army and told me there was a Kenmore dishwasher there that looked relatively new for $75. I called Greg at work and talked to him about getting it. He said we could go in after he got off school and get it. I was worried someone else would snatch it before then, so I called Greg's Dad and he came in with the truck and we went to get it. It isn't hooked up yet. It's a built in and doesn't actually fit under our kitchen counters. So we have to get some work done to make it look like it fits in our kitchen somehow. We have a plan, hopefully it works out. For now I guess I can always use the kids:

A Decision has been Made

2011-03-24T09:01:00.000-07:00

Well, if anyone has spoken to me in the past few months they've probably heard about the great debate going on in my head recently. Should I put Job in school next year, or keep him home? Here in Nova Scotia, if you turn 5 by the end of December, you're allowed to start grade primary in September. Job turns 5 on November 1st, so he's old enough to start next school year, but is on the border line of the cut off date. I wasn't sure what to do. Part of me felt like he's ready for school, while the other part wanted to keep him home and carefree for another year. I also thought it would be easier for me to have him home, because he and Audrey play so well together. When Job is at preschool, Audrey is a bit more needy. I'm worried about how bored she'll be when he's gone all day. It would mean that I would have to make more of an effort to entertain her. Greg has said all along that he thought Job should go. It was just me who was really worried about it. I had talked to a bunch of parents about it and most of them said the same thing...they would rather their child be the oldest in the class than the youngest. This didn't really help me feel better about sending him.

So, I decided that I would make my final decision after a meeting for french immersion, which took place at the school last night. While I wasn't certain about whether to start him in school this September, I was sure about wanting him to be in french immersion. So Greg and I went to the meeting and I felt a lot better about the whole situation after it was over. To start, I saw the parents of two kids in his preschool class that he gets along with really well. It made me feel better to know that he would be in the same class as some kids that he knows already. Then, they handed out some sheets that talked about where a five year old child should be developmentally. I read through the list of things a five year old should be able to do and it made me feel much better. Job can do more than what was listed on the sheets. Then, the meeting turned interesting. They discovered that there were 30 children enrolled in the french immersion class and they could only accommodate 25-27. They said that if some people didn't drop out, they would have to set a time and date and have the parents come enroll their children again...only this time it would be first come, first serve. The parents were not to happy about this. Then it came out that the school would first have to cut the children who were not in the school district, since they were technically supposed to go to another school. So, all the parents started arguing about when we would find out how many of the children were actually in the school district. After a lot of debating, it was decided that we would all go out into the hall one by one and tell the principal whether or not we lived in the school district, so they would know what the numbers were. We found out in the end that there were 27 in the district and 3 who were not. So the 27 in the district were safe and the 3 who were not were cut. It was obvious that the parents of those 3 were not at all happy. I felt bad for them, but it made my decision to put Job in school this September much easier. I don't know how many people will be interested the next school year, and I don't want to take the chance that he might not be able to be in french. So, after that long story, now that I know he's for sure in french, we're going to send him to school. I hope I don't regret it, but I think he'll be fine. He doesn't mind doing worksheets at preschool, and I've been getting him to do them at home as well. He's progressed a lot in the past few months with his letter tracing. He also loves the social aspect of preschool, even more than the work part...so I think he's ready. My sister Johanna gave him a hooked on phonics kit for his birthday, so we've been working on that recently. I think I'm going to have to teach him to read in English myself, since he won't be doing any English until grade 2 or 3. He can read "at" words and "an" words now. It's kind of a struggle to get him to pay attention, but when he does he gets it, so I'm hoping to just do a little at a time and get him reading soon.

Anyway, that's my big rant about Job and school. It's probably boring to everyone and I'm sure the people I talk to a lot are tired of hearing me debate about it. It's just something that was stressing me out a lot. But, now that the decision is made I feel much better. I can stop talking it about it right...now. There.

In other news, we went to PEI for march break last week. We left on Saturday and made a stop in Halifax at the temple and then at the Natural History Museum to see Sue the dinosaur. The kids had a good time there. Unfortunately, I forgot to pack our camera so we have no pictures from march break. We didn't do too much in PEI, mostly just stayed home to spend time with my parents. We did spend an entire afternoon at the UPEI pool. The waterslide wasn't open at first, but opened about 10 minutes before we were going to leave. We ended up spending another hour and a half there after that, because the kids were having so much fun on the slide. Also, my Dad took us all to McDonald's for supper one night so the kids could take advantage of a play place. They don't have one here in Yarmouth and the kids loved it.

The kids are getting anxious for the baby to get here, even though I still have 3 months left. Greg's parents took the kids the other day to give me a break and Job thought that I would be going to the hospital to have the baby while they were gone. I am hoping the baby comes early, but not this early.

That's all the excitement here...as usual not too much.

Ultasound Results!

2011-02-14T17:57:00.000-08:00

Greg and I spent Valentine's Day driving to Halifax for my ultrasound appointment. Greg's parents watched the kids, so it was nice to have time alone together. Greg is sick with a cold though, so I don't think he had much fun. Anyway, now for the exciting news. I'm told by the doctor we're having another girl. Audrey is not too happy. She wanted a baby brother and Job wanted a baby sister. So Job was very pleased. When we first told them, Audrey refused to admit the baby was a girl. She kept saying, "no, I wanted a boy!" On the way home from picking them up at Greg's parents, we were asking the kids what they thought we should name the baby. Job thought "Light-bulb" was a good name. Audrey was confused as to why we were all choosing girls names. She said, "yeah, but what are we going to name the boy?" I told her again there was no boy, only a girl. So then she said, "let's have a boy too." I guess she thinks I can just produce multiple babies at a time and have them be whatever we want.

Job didn't understand at first how we knew it was a girl. He asked me where the baby was. I explained the ultrasound process to him and he was very excited. He asked me if we saw a flower on the baby's head. He said that girls have flowers on their heads. I'm not sure where he got that from. I was thinking maybe he remembers the flower headbands Kelly used to put on Ruby's head when she was a baby. I've never put a flower on Audrey's head...and I don't know of any other baby girls he's seen with flowers. Maybe Tamara put a flower on Meghan's head recently, but I don't remember seeing one on her. Or it could have been the Dr. Seuss book that he and Audrey like to read at church every week about Daisy Head Mayzie. I told him that Mother's sometimes put flowers on their baby girls heads, but they aren't born with flowers on their heads. I think he was disappointed.

Anyway, it was a long day of driving and waiting at the hospital, but I'm glad we know what we're having. Hopefully Audrey will be happy with the baby girl when she sees her.

Winter Fun

2011-02-04T10:32:00.001-08:00

The kids are having a great winter so far. We've had a lot of snow and they love to play in it. School was canceled twice this week and Greg took them outside. A few of their cousins, Morgan, Ruby and Shaylee came over one day and they all played outside together.

My sister and brother-in-law (Johanna and Steve) sent a Christmas package earlier this month with lots of toys in it. The kids were so excited. Audrey got a purple dog that you can program to sing songs and say her name and favourite color. Johanna programmed it before she mailed it, so Audrey was so excited and surprised to find out the dog knew her name and was singing songs about her. Job was very excited about his Batman monster truck and the loader and dump truck he got. They also got some Thomas toys, which they both love and some videos and books. Johanna also sent Job a Hooked on Phonics kit, so I'm going to try starting to teach him to read using that.

Other than that, not much too exciting going on here. I've been feeling better lately. I'm getting excited to find out what this baby is. Only 10 more days!

Job got a report card from preschool earlier this week. He had very good results, but I suspect all the kids did. They're having a pajama day on Monday, so he's excited for that. That's all I can think of. Here's some picture:

Sitting in the box with their new toys.

Getting a blanket ride from Greg.

Audrey and Ruby on a sled.

Shaylee and Morgan.

Job and Morgan.

Much needed update

2011-01-14T10:37:00.000-08:00

I figure it's about time for a new post...even if I don't feel much like doing it.

I guess I'll start out with the big news. I announced it on Facebook, so most people probably already know that I'm pregnant again. I'm due around the end of June or first of July. I had an early ultrasound done to double check my due date (which I thought was July 4th). I guess the ultrasound showed that I was further along than I thought...by a few days. The date they gave me was June 30th. But then the nurse said that the ultrasound can be off by up to two weeks, so I'm not sure if they're keeping my original date or going with the new one. If the ultrasound can be off by that much it makes me wonder why they bothered to do one in the first place.

I'm excited to have a new baby but I really hate being pregnant so I'm counting down the days until it's over. I have chronic sinus pain and problems and have been lost not being able to take my normal sinus medication. Apparently drugs are bad for babies. Tylenol doesn't do much for me. I feel bad for my family because I've been a major cranky pants lately. My kids probably think I'm the devil. Greg has been really good about helping out, but he's quite busy so he can only help out when he's around. Greg's parents have been helpful too. The kids love going over the their house anyway, but I'm sure they love it even more now because they don't have to listen to me. Luckily Job and Audrey are really good at playing together on their own and aren't too much trouble. As I'm writing this they're both in the playroom playing "library". Audrey is checking out books for Job. I guess she takes after me. I think they deserve a better mother than me though. It's a good thing they have such a great Dad, or they'd be in trouble.

I thought that this baby would be a surprise, because Greg is opposed to spending money at those ultrasound places to find out the gender. I am too I guess. I think they should just tell everyone for free. Anyway, my doctor read in my file that my sister Trish had heart problems when she was born. He said that if I wanted he could send me to Halifax for a good ultrasound on the seventh floor of the IWK (where they also happen to tell you the gender). I agreed...not so much because I was worried about there being anything wrong with the baby, but more because I knew I'd get to find out what I was having. So thanks Trish! Thanks to you we'll find out whether the baby is a boy or girl. I don't have a preference either way. I just think it's nice to know so you can prepare the clothes and stuff before. We're scheduled to go for February 14th, so I'll announce it when I find out.

Christmas was good for mostly everyone except me. We went to PEI for most of it. I was excited to go see my family, since I don't get to see them very often. Not everyone was there. It was Trish and Jeannine and us and my parents. Stephanie and Michael went someplace warm...I forget where but I'm sure they had a good time. Johanna and Steve and co. usually stay at their place in Ottawa for Christmas because it's so hard to travel with kids around that time. Plus Johanna just had her fourth baby! A boy named Michael Innis Budge. He goes by Innis though. I hope I spelled that right...it might be spelled differently.

Once we got to PEI I ended up with a bad sinus infection...not really surprising since I get them all the time. This one was really painful though. I ended up going to a walk-in clinic the day after Christmas and got some penicillin. Then I ended up with a painful rash all over me and also somehow managed to hurt my Achilles tendon and could barely walk. I went to a different walk- in clinic and was told that the rash was probably caused by the sinus infection and the ankle was caused by strain. Don't ask me how I managed to strain my ankle laying on a couch for a straight week...but somehow I did. This doctor gave me some different medicine that would work for both the sinus infection and the rash. I eventually got better, but not really until after we got back from PEI. We ended up staying in PEI longer than planned, partly because Greg and the kids were having such a good time and partly because I couldn't walk or put my boots on because my ankle was too swollen. We were there for New Year's too this year. By then I was so sick of laying on my parent's couch that I convinced Greg to take me to see the new Narnia movie in 3D. It was super expensive because it was also a weekend, but we had some movie money from my parents and a buy one get one free coupon so it didn't end up being that bad. I had a couple of coughing fits during it and had to leave once, but I thought it was a good movie.

Greg had a really good time with the kids the whole time we were there. He took them swimming at the UPEI pool three times because they had some toonie swims. They have a really nice pool there for kids with sprinklers and lots of fun stuff. He also took them outside lots to build snowmen and go sledding. Greg gave the snowman his own hat to wear, then couldn't get it off because it was frozen to the snowman's head. I think he managed to get it off before we left. The kids loved playing with Aunt Trish and Aunt Jeannine. They're much more fun than I am. Job was really sad when we were leaving. He always says he wishes Papa and Gangie lived closer to us. He also says that "PEI is a great place." I have to agree with with him.

When we got back to Yarmouth we had a Veinot Christmas at Greg's parents place. It's nice to have two Christmas' every year. I just realized we don't have any pictures from that Christmas, and we only have about two from the PEI Christmas that aren't just the back of the kids heads. I guess I wasn't really motivated to take pictures this year.

We put up a tree at our place early in December so the kids would have lots of time to enjoy it before we went away. When we got back I was ready to take it down. I don't like leaving Christmas stuff up too long after the New Year. I had a hard time convincing the kids it was time to come down. They would cry every time I would mention it.

We finally got Audrey potty trained a couple of weeks before we left! I'm glad that's over with. I had tried a couple of times before, but gave up because I find potty training so frustrating. We stuck with it this time and it worked. She has been accident free for over a month now. It's been nice not having to buy diapers all the time. We only use the pull ups at night now. I guess that won't last too much longer though.

That's the update I guess. I'm not sure if anyone really reads this, but here are some recent pictures. There aren't as many as I would like, but oh well.

Audrey applying her new found skills...in an interesting spot.

Standing by our Christmas tree...the kids decorated it themselves.

First real snowfall in Yarmouth. I mustered up enough energy to take them outside.

Opening presents in PEI

Audrey and her new Dora Dollhouse...Vamonos!

Halloween and Job's Birthday

2010-11-02T06:21:00.000-07:00

For Halloween this year, Job and Audrey dressed up a few times. There was a church trunk or treat, a Halloween party at Greg's school, a Halloween party at Job's preschool, and a Halloween party and Rob and Kelly's. Job dressed up mostly as The Flash and Audrey dressed up mostly as Spiderman. They changed it up once with Audrey being a bear (she called it a growly bear) and Job being Batman. They both had a great time. They love to dress up and get candy. At Greg's school party, Greg dressed up as Michael Jackson and participated in the dance group's interpretation of Thriller. We went to go see him perform. He did a good job and it was funny. I don't think any of the students knew he was involved in it until he appeared on stage. Everyone was screaming and cheering for him. You would think he was a real celebrity.

Audrey had a fall off a dining room chair last week and split her lip open. It looked really gross for a day or two, but has healed really quickly.

It was Job's 4th birthday yesterday. I can't believe how old he's getting. He had a great day. In the morning, we let him open one of his presents. Then, the missionaries came by and dropped off a gift of Hotwheels for him. One of them changed color, so he was very excited. Papa and Gangie called and sang Happy Birthday to him over the phone. He thought that was pretty funny. He went to preschool in the afternoon and was excited to tell his teacher it was his birthday. We brought his favorite healthy snack (green grapes) to share with all the kids in his class. We had the family over for dinner and cake and then he opened his presents. He got a lot of great stuff. He and Audrey have been playing with his new toys all morning. He still doesn't want to take off his new Batman pj's with the cape on them. Now he's starting to tell me all the things he wants for his birthday next year...great.

Carving a Pumpkin

Bear and Batman making funny faces

Spiderman and The Flash

Birthday Cake

Playing with (and wearing) gifts

First Day of Preschool!

2010-10-18T14:52:00.000-07:00

Job started preschool today! He's a couple of months late, as the classes started in September. We didn't think we could afford to send him, but we had an anonymous donor who offered to pay for it. I won't say who, because I didn't ask permission to post it. I'm really grateful though. I was worried because he starts school next year and I didn't know what he would think of it. I wanted him to get some kind of an idea of what school would be like. Now, with preschool he can. He goes every Monday and Wednesday afternoon, from 12:45 to 4:00pm. He was excited to go, although right before we left I think he was a little nervous. He kept telling me that he wanted to go, but didn't want me to leave him there by himself. Once we got there he was fine though. He went right over to the train table and started playing. When I went to pick him up, he was playing with a little girl on the slide outside. He didn't even notice I was there at first. I'm relieved that he likes it and his teacher said he adapted well to the routine they have.

I feel really bad for Audrey. She really wanted to go too, and cried when we dropped Job off. This morning she was saying that she was going to preschool too. I told her that she wasn't big enough yet. When we were getting ready to go, again she said she was going to preschool too. I told her again that she wasn't big enough yet. Then she said, "But, I'm still not big enough yet?" Then she got a really sad look on her face. I guess she thought she would have grown enough through the morning to go to preschool. It was funny. Here's some pictures I took before we left. Audrey looks happy because this was before we had the conversation about her not being big enough. She thinks she's going too.

Superheroes run in our family

2010-10-12T07:15:00.001-07:00

Great Book

2010-10-03T06:17:00.000-07:00

As most of you know, I like to read. I'm usually into reading children's or YA fiction. I don't like to have to think too much when I read... I just want a good story. I was browsing the YA shelves at the library the other day, and came across an older book called "The Haunting of Hill House", by Shirley Jackson. Apparently, it's a classic horror story, but I had never heard of it before. Whenever I see an older book (this one published in 1959) on the YA or children's shelves of the library, I make a point to read it. Usually, the library wouldn't keep a book with no cover art on the YA shelves unless it was a good read. So, I took it home and read it...and it completely freaked me out. I'm a bit of a wimp when it comes to scary movies. I don't watch them because I get too scared. Books, on the other hand, don't scare me as much. I guess my imagination isn't quite as vivid as the images of a movie. This book, however, was really very creepy. It's about a big old haunted house. I happen to live in a big old house...that makes random noises when it's windy, due to the poorly insulated windows. I finished this book on a very windy night, after everyone else in the house had gone to bed. Let's just say I had a hard time sleeping that night and didn't brush my teeth as well as I should have, because I was to scared to be in the bathroom alone. I would recommend this book as a great October read for anyone that hasn't read it already. Apparently, the movie "The Haunting", with Liam Neeson is based on this book. I've heard of the movie, but have never seen it because, as I said, I'm not into scary movies. I'm thinking I might have to make an exception for this one. Maybe I'll have some people over to watch it with me. I'm sure if I watch it with Greg, he'll just try to scare me after. Anyone up for watching this with me?

Fun Times with Cousins and Friends

2010-09-10T12:29:00.001-07:00

The week before last, my sister Johanna and her family came to visit us from Ottawa. Her and Steve have three kids, with another on the way in November! Samuel is 4 (almost 5), Mara is 3, and Charlotte is 1.5. The kids had a great time playing together. I think Job was loving playing with another boy his age for once. We didn't do a whole lot, just hung out and played with toys inside and on the swing set outside. We made the annual trip to the shore to throw rocks in the water. When I was putting him to bed the first night they stayed, Job told me to make sure his cousins knew they were supposed to stay with us for the night. He said if they left, he would cry...and he really did.

Sam got Job interested in Monster Trucks. They had a funny conversation after watching a Monster Truck movie. Sam had brought Job the "Gravedigger" Monster Truck toy as a present, but after watching the movie, Job decided that he liked the "Batman" Monster Truck better. Sam was quite concerned that Gravedigger was going unappreciated, and offered to take it back to Ottawa with him. After a lengthy conversation, they figured out that Job did like Gravedigger and wanted to keep the toy; he just liked Batman better. It was funny to listen to them having such a deep conversation about Monster Trucks. They all had a great time together. Job was not too happy when they had to leave. Here are some pictures:

Audrey, Job and Sam, throwing rocks.

Sam trying to run away from the picture...I got him though.

Steve and Charlotte.

Audrey, Job, Mara and Johanna.

It's been a crazy week back to school for Greg. He's had lots to do for work and church...plus he's helping to coach the girls soccer team at school this year. His master's classes start up again at the end of the month, so it will get even busier then. I guess the time is going to fly this year.

Our friend Chantel, her son Donavan, and her boyfriend Richard came to visit us for a couple of hours last week. She was home visiting her family from Minnesota. She sadly moved there for school...because she's literally too smart for Canada. It was nice to see them. Donavan and Job had a great time playing together. After they left, Job started crying and said that he wanted Donavan to stay and play more. Audrey fell asleep early, so didn't get in on much of the action.

That's all the news.

7th Anniversary

2010-08-29T17:11:00.000-07:00

I forgot to mention in my last post that Greg and I celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary on August 15th. We haven't really done anything to celebrate yet. We were in PEI at the time and things were busy. We'll get out on a date eventually I guess. We're a very romantic and exciting couple, I'm sure you can tell. I don't actually have any recent pictures of us together, but here's a couple of good ones from our early marriage days...before we had kids and grew up. Sadly, things haven't changed too much around here.

Jam Packed August- This post has lots of pictures!

2010-08-22T15:50:00.000-07:00

Greg's had his masters classes every second day in July, so we've packed all our summer fun into one month. We started it off at Upper Clements Park the first week in August. It wasn't part of the original plan, but the kids completed their summer reading goals from the library and were awarded free passes, so we headed out the same day they finished. They had a great time. I thought one of us would have to go on the rides with Audrey, but she didn't care if anyone was with her or not. She went on all the rides she was allowed on. It was a hot day, but fun. Here are some pictures of that:

The next day we drove to the valley for Greg's grandfather's 80th birthday celebration. It was a quick trip there and back, but was well worth it.

Later that week we headed to PEI. We took our time driving up and made a few stops. First stop was Liverpool for lunch. It's a beautiful place. There was a park right on the water, so we let the kids play there for longer than we planned. We decided to take the ferry to PEI this time. The kids have never been on a boat, so we thought it would be a good experience for them. They loved it. We made it to PEI around 8:00pm. The kids were so excited to finally be there, I felt bad putting them to bed right away. We spent the rest of the week hanging out with my parents and three of my four sisters and my brother-in-law. Tish, Jeannine, Stephanie and her husband Michael were all there. The kids obviously got spoiled. We had beautiful weather the whole week, so we made it to the beach several times and also went to Shining Waters fun park. It was my first time there, since back in the day the place to go was Rainbow Valley. I was actually impressed with it. There was a shallow kids pool that had three water slides. Two of them were big enough for parents to go down with their kids, so we had a fun time doing that. Job went down them all by himself. Audrey did the smallest one on her own and was bugging me to try the biggest one too. I asked the life guard if she was allowed to go down alone and she said yes. So I sent her down the big twisty water slide. She started out with a big smile on her face, but somehow managed to flip over on her belly and turn around backwards. She wasn't smiling by the end of it. After that she was happy to go down the slides with an adult. Trish came with us, so we took turns sneaking away from the kiddie pool to try out the big water slides. The flume ride was really fun. Here are some pictures of the trip. I wanted to include some pictures of my sisters, but the only ones I had were of them in bathing suits at the beach. I wasn't sure if they would appreciate me posting that on the internet...although they all look very nice.

Liverpool:

PEI Ferry:

Shining Waters:

The Beach:

Victoria Park:

In the Van:

We took a different way home than normal. We drove to Saint John, NB on Friday. Did a little shopping there and stayed at a Hotel for the night. The kids love hotels. Job and Audrey slept in a bed together. The next day Job told Audrey how much he loved sleeping with her in their bed at the Hotel. Yesterday we took the ferry from Saint John to Digby. It was a three hour ride, so it seemed a little long for us with the kids, but they had a good time. There was a play area where they spent most of the time. They also showed Iron Man Two in a movie area, so Job sat with Greg and watched that for a while. Once we got to Digby it was only an hour to drive home.

We spent the evening last night at the park with our friends who moved to Alberta a couple of years ago, the Rector's. Sheena and the kids were home visiting her family in other parts of NS, but came down to Yarmouth for a couple of nights. Peter had to work, so he wasn't with them. Their youngest (Benjamin) is the same age as Job. They spend a lot of time playing with each other when they were younger. They got right back into the routine and played together all last night at the park...then all through Sacrament meeting in church today. It was really cute. It was great to see Sheena and the kids again. We miss their family a lot.

Old Friends:

Reunited:

We're heading out to Upper Clements Park again tomorrow with all the extended Veinot family. It should be fun for the kids to go again with their cousins, grandparents, aunts and uncles. My other sister Johanna and her husband and three kids are coming to stay with us sometime soon too. We're looking forward to that! I'm sad that summer is coming to an end. We had a good one though.

Regis and Kelly

2010-07-18T16:54:00.000-07:00

So, Veronica and I made it to the Regis and Kelly show last Monday. Greg and the kids drove me to the Digby ferry on Sunday after church. It's a three hour ride to Saint John. It was actually quite nice. I wasn't looking forward to the ferry ride at first, because my only previous experience with ferries was the PEI ferry, which smelled really bad and always made me nauseous. This ferry wasn't as smelly as I remembered ferries being. They also had computers with internet connections and a little mini movie theater. I watched a movie that I can't remember the name of...it's that one with Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler and he's a bounty hunter and has to bounty hunt his ex-wife. Anyway, it wasn't the funniest movie ever, but it kept me distracted enough not to feel nauseous.

Dave and Veronica picked me up at the terminal in Saint John (they had been in Fredericton for the weekend) and we drove from there to PEI. We got up nice and early the next morning and headed down to Confederation Landing Park to wait in line for seats for the show. It was clouded over, but luckily it didn't rain (the show was outside). Nothing eventful happened while we were in line. We saw Gelman walk by a couple of times and the guy from Canada AM (or one of those morning shows) was there interviewing people.

We ended up getting seats somewhere close to the middle, but closer to the front than the back. The ground was soaking wet and muddy from all the rain the previous day. We didn't manage to get on camera, but it was still fun. I took some pictures of the guest and of Regis and Kelly. I wasn't close enough to get really good ones, but you can at least make out who the people are. The guests were Peter Facinelli (from Twilight of course), Carson Kressley and Lady Antebellum. There was an older, somewhat balding lady sitting a couple of rows in front of us (her head is in most of my pictures) who had a beach ball hit her right on the head during the commercial break. That was one of the funniest moments of the show for me.

Picture of my ticket

Waiting for the show to start

Gelman getting the crowd pumped up before the show

Regis, Kelly, mounties and bald woman's head

Peter Facinelli

Lady Antebellum

It was a nice drive home as the sun came out after the show. This past week we haven't been doing too much. We went to a parade with the kids yesterday, for Seafest (the somewhat lame festival they have here every summer). The kids had fun and got some free suckers and free admission for bowling. Other than that, my news is limited.

Live with Regis and Kelly!

2010-07-06T19:43:00.000-07:00

When I heard a couple of months ago that Regis and Kelly were going to be doing a week of shows in Charlottetown, I was very excited. I really like that show, but I haven't had much of a chance to watch it lately, since the kids like to watch kids CBC. Anyway, when I heard they were heading to my beloved hometown, I went on their website and requested tickets to a show. They just randomly pick the winners of the tickets, so I wasn't sure if I'd get them...the last thing I've ever won was a Wind River sweatshirt at a grade 8 dance...I'm not a lucky person. However, a few days ago I got a letter in the mail from ABC with two tickets to the Live show on Monday, June 12th! Greg quickly rained on my parade by telling me he didn't think he'd be able to go, since he's doing his masters classes and all that. So, we offered the tickets to his parents, thinking maybe they'd have fun. Apparently Dave didn't agree and declined the offer to the tickets. So, Veronica came up with the idea of ditching the guys and going together...which is what we're going to do! Hooray! I just went on the website again to see who the guest is going to be. Wouldn't you know it's Dr. Cullen from Twilight! So, if you watch Regis and Kelly on Monday you might catch a glimpse of me. I'll wave to you!

New Nephew!

2010-07-04T11:19:00.000-07:00

I'm excited to say we have a new nephew. Charlie William Veinot was born this past Wednesday, June 30th (right on his due date) at 10:30pm. He was worth the wait. Check out his super cuteness.

Other than that not much new has been going on with us. Greg's done school for the summer, but starts his masters classes tomorrow. They're only every second day during July and he still has August off, so we should have a fun summer.

We used some of Audrey's birthday money from the grandparents to get the kids a swing set and a sandbox. Greg built the sandbox himself. We bought a metal swing set from Superstore because it was on sale and there was no tax. I had thought about getting a wooden one, but they're kind of pricey. Greg could have built one himself for less, but I'm not sure when that would have happened, since he's pretty busy. The kids like the metal one, they're out on it now. I think it'll be good for them until they're older anyway. It gives them something fun to to in the backyard. Up until now out yard wasn't a very fun place to play. I haven't taken a picture of it or the sandbox yet, but I will for next post.

Greg's parents are away for the weekend and asked Greg if he would feed their dog Jake. Greg thought it would be fun to have Jake come stay with us for the weekend, instead of driving back and forth every day. The kids have been loving having a dog around. Job's been feeding him and playing with him all the time. He insisted on having Jake sleep in his room both last night and the night before. It's been pretty cute. I think Jake's been having a good time too. He likes attention and there's no lack of it so far.

Audrey's been up to some new tricks. The other day we all went to Superstore to pick up a few things. I noticed Audrey was putting some things in the cart, so I told her not to and took them out again. When we went up to the check out I noticed we had forgotten to get something, so I left to go get it. Apparently Audrey had put some things back in the cart without us noticing. When Greg took the groceries through the check out, he thought I had put those items in the cart and ended up buying them. As a result, we now have a large supply of Pantene Pro V shampoo. Luckily most of it was on sale. The ironic part is that she picked up a few bottles of shampoo that were for curly hair and fine hair. She's the only one in the family that has hair like that. I guess she was shopping for herself.

The kids got some new beach goggles from Nanny that they had to try out in the tub. Here are some pictures.

They also like to put pantyhose on their heads...

Morgan + Job = Trouble

2010-06-09T05:31:00.001-07:00

You wouldn't think these two innocent looking kids would do anything at all mischievous. Think again. Yesterday, Tamara and I were enjoying some time over at Kelly's house. We were all upstairs chatting while the kids were playing nicely downstairs in the playroom. We started hearing some screeching, but it was happy screeching so we didn't bother investigating at first. It was only after the happy squeals persisted that I began to become suspicious. I decided to go down and see what was going on. I did not at all expect what I saw. Job and Morgan were standing in the downstairs bathroom in a huge puddle of water; both soaked and dripping. There was literally about an inch of water on the bathroom floor and numerous large and small puddles all around the playroom. I think I said something like: "what are you guys doing?" at which point Kelly and Tamara came down to see what was going on. I think we all just stood there in shock for a minute. Kelly went to get some towels from upstairs and we started cleaning up the mess. I couldn't believe how much water there was everywhere. The innocent younger kids somehow managed to stay relatively dry through all this. I felt so bad that Kelly's new floors were flooded, but I couldn't help but laugh a little. It was all a bit crazy. To top it all off, Job and Morgan decided to strip themselves of their sopping clothes and were running around naked upstairs. It was quite the play-date.

I was telling Greg about it when he got home from work. He thought it was all hilarious, although I doubt he would have felt the same if he had discovered it and had to clean it up. Job was sitting with us as I was retelling the story and piped in, "water fights are not for inside, they're for outside... right Mom?" So at least my random lectures about inside water fights as we were cleaning up the mess actually got through to him. I hope that this mischievousness is a preschool faze and isn't going to escalate as they get older.

Busy Times

2010-06-06T13:38:00.000-07:00

We've had a lot going on here lately. Starting on a sad note, Debbie MacLean (Kelly's Mom) passed away recently after a battle with Lymphoma. We love her a lot and were very sad to hear the news. She was a very loving, kind and funny woman who was very good to us. Saturday, May 29th we traveled up to Halifax for her funeral. Greg's parents came with us in the van, which made it an easier trip with the kids. It was a beautiful service and it was great to hear more about the life of Debbie. We will miss her a lot.

It also happened to be my 29th birthday on the 29th. Greg and I went to the movies the night before to see Iron Man 2. I didn't like it as much as the first one, but it was still pretty good. While we were up in Halifax, we went to Swiss Chalet for my birthday supper. Dave tried to get the servers to sing happy birthday to me, but I foiled his plan (thank goodness).

The next day after church, Audrey was running around with a marker in her mouth. I didn't realize she even had a marker, she must have picked it up in the Primary room or something. Anyway, she fell on her face with the marker in her mouth and it cut the back of her throat really badly. It was bleeding a lot and she wouldn't stop crying, so Greg, Veronica and I took her to emergency while Dave watched Job. It wasn't a very long wait. The doctor took a look at it and said it was cut in two places, near her tonsil. At first he told us to come back in a few days to see if it was healing properly, but when we got home there was a message from him on the phone saying he made an appointment for Audrey to see a throat specialist the next day. We took her to see the specialist and he said it should heal on its own. She has to go back at the end of the month to be sure it heals. She's been quite fussy since it happened and doesn't like to eat because it hurts her throat. It's been getting better slowly though.

Audrey turned 2 on June 3rd. She actually wasn't too thrilled that it was her birthday and got mad at everyone who wished her a happy birthday. We had a combined birthday party for her and Ruby (whose birthday is the 8th) at Greg's parent's place. Audrey woke up on the wrong side of the bed that morning and wasn't having a very good day. She didn't even really enjoy opening presents, which is usually the highlight of any birthday party. She did enjoy eating hot dogs and loved the cake that her Aunt Kelly made for her. I'm glad Kelly made the girls matching cakes. They turned out really cute...much better than anything I could have made.

After the party, Greg and I went to Tim-Br Mart because they were having a sale on windows. We need to replace one of the big windows in our living room because it leaks when it rains heavily. Some of them were 50% off, but we couldn't find one to fit our window. We ended up buying 3 windows to fit in the space. They were on sale still, but weren't as cheap as I was hoping. I just hope it looks ok in the end. Job was with us and one of the guys that works there gave him two suckers and three big bags of chips. I guess they had a BBQ there earlier in the day and there were things left over.

I guess that's all the news so far. Here are some pictures from Ruby and Audrey's birthday party.

Audrey not looking too happy on the drive to the party.

Job was in a better mood.

Getting a birthday check-up.

The awesome cakes Kelly made.

Birthday girls opening presents.

Eating cake.

Birthday girls!

Forgot Something

2010-05-27T16:51:00.000-07:00

I forgot to mention something about the shower in the last post. My sister-in-law Carla decorated the cake that Veronica made and it turned out super cute. I didn't have a picture of it so I stole it from Carla's facebook. Kelly also made a birthday cake for Carla, since it was her birthday the next day, but I didn't get a picture of that cake either. Both cakes were really good.

Babies!

2010-05-23T16:59:00.000-07:00

Well, we got some things around the house figured out. Greg dug up the septic tank and we discovered that there was a pipe that had a hole in it. Whoever "fixed" it before decided to just wrap a big piece of plastic around it. Needless to say, that's where the problem was with our plumbing. There was a blockage around that area. So, we had the septic tank drained and Greg's dad fixed the broken pipe for us. It seems to be working fine now.

Last Friday evening Veronica and I had a baby shower for Kelly at my place. It's her first boy so we had to celebrate! It was my first time hosting anything at our new house, so I had a good time planning things and getting ready for it. I even made a diaper cake...which wasn't the greatest thing I've ever seen, but for me it was an accomplishment. I'm not at all crafty or talented when it comes to that kind of thing. I think people had a good time and Kelly got lots of nice things for Charlie. We had a good turnout. I think there were about 17 people, including the hosts and Kelly.

My sister Johanna announced that she is having her fourth baby in December. I'm very excited about that. My list of nieces and nephews is growing rapidly. I wish she lived close enough for me to have a shower for her too. I've been trying to convince her to move to Yarmouth, but understandably she's not interested.

I don't have much news other than that. I took a few pictures of the shower, but not many because I was too busy doing games and preparing food.

Frustration

2010-05-10T10:02:00.000-07:00

We've been having a bit of bad luck with the house and other things lately. Our computer crashed, which is why I haven't been blogging this past week. Luckily it was only a software problem and we didn't have to replace the computer. We paid staples 40 dollars just to tell us that. Plus they kept it for a whole week. Stupid Staples. Other than losing everything on the computer, I guess we made out ok with that situation. Luckily, a few weeks ago Greg got up in the middle of the night with the distinct impression to save all our pictures to a memory card. If he hadn't of done that all our pictures since Audrey's been born would have been lost. Good thing someone listens to the spirit around here.

Now we have some kind of plumbing or septic problem. If we use large amounts of water, like running the washing machine or having a shower, water leaks and gurgles from different sinks and drains in the bathroom and kitchen. I think we either have a clog in one of the pipes, or our septic system needs to be drained. Unfortunately, we don't really know where our septic tank is located. I don't know what's wrong with the businesses in Yarmouth, but nobody ever seems to want work...or maybe they're just too busy. I've called all the plumbers in the yellow pages. Most of them said they couldn't come out, one told me he could next week, and another said they would call me back (which they haven't done yet). None of those options are very pleasing to me. I'm extremely annoyed. So, I decided to cheer myself up by sticking one of my children in the dryer. See pictures below. Don't worry...I didn't turn it on... although it was tempting.

Funny Story

2010-04-20T16:03:00.000-07:00

I was babysitting Morgan and Ruby this morning while Kelly went to her prenatal appointment. Morgan and Job were sitting in the TV room watching some Diego and Morgan said to Job, "My Mommy has a baby in her belly that's going to come out soon. It's a boy." Job looked at me and said, "Mommy, I want a dog...what's in your belly?" I said there better not be a dog or a baby in my belly at the moment...especially a baby...oops I mean dog.

Springtime Gardening

2010-04-17T15:08:00.001-07:00

Ok, so I'm getting on a role with the blogging. I'm determined to be a good blogger. I even made an effort to fun up the blog a little bit.

Earlier this week, Grampie Veinot came over and dug up a garden in our yard. The kids were really excited to go out and plant some stuff. The day it got dug up, Kelly, Morgan and Ruby were over playing. Kelly and I had a tough time keeping the kids out of the freshly dug dirt. Of course Morgan had decided to wear a nice dress and dress shoes that day too.

A couple of days later, Nanny and Grampie came by and Job and I went out to help plant. Well, I didn't really help. I just stood there and took some pictures. Job was kind of nervous to go out and do it at first. I don't think he really knew what gardening was all about. Once he realized that it involved playing in the dirt, he was all into it. He had a great time. Audrey was having a nap for the first part, but I went and got her up so she wouldn't miss out on the fun. She loved it too. There's been talk about maybe expanding the garden if it does well...so hopefully the kids will get to do some more planting. I'm sure they'll be excited to see things grow and to pick things when they're ready. That is...unless the weasel decides to help himself to the harvest. I haven't seen the weasel since the Ritz cracker incident, actually. I think maybe we scared it off. Kelly and I decided to name the weasel Dave, after our most loved father-in-law. We mentioned this to the real Dave, but he didn't seem amused for some reason.

Here are some pictures. Notice how I'm the only one not doing anything:

Happy Family

2010-04-13T23:00:00.000-07:00

Two posts in one week...I'm awesome.

I went to Halifax for the day Saturday with the Yarmouth Relief Society for our temple trip and some stake meetings. It was a good time. I don't think I've laughed that much in a while. Greg's jokes get old...but women doing dumb things never does. At one point I was sent into Michael's to find Tamara...who was taking her good ol' time finding the things on one of her multiple lists. I walked right by her coming out of the store and didn't even see her. I also may have offended some by referring to them as "geezers", which I just recently realized is actually a term for men as opposed to women. Jokes on me. There were several other highlights which I won't mention for fear of retribution. They were much funnier than the ones I wrote about.

Greg spent the day at home with the kids. They didn't miss me. He let them play in the massive puddle at the end of our driveway (see pictures below). Grampie brought over a two wheeler bike with training wheels for Job. It hasn't taken him long to take off on that. That's all the news. I wasn't even going to write anything, I'm just waiting for this video to load. It's taking a ridiculously long time. Aunt Trish, if you're reading, I still have the Thank You video the kids made for you. I'll upload that another time.

Easter Weasel

2010-04-08T18:47:00.000-07:00

I guess my last post was a lie. This year hasn't led to more posts. I'm just too lazy.

Here's the news: The kids are good. They get along really well most of the time, which makes my life easier. We've been having fun hanging out with all the Veinot family and the kids cousins down here in Yarmouth.

Job is getting so big. He's got his Dad's personality, so he's a character. He's starting to learn about adding and subtracting. I wasn't sure if he was understanding what I was trying to teach him, but the other day he told me that two books plus three books is five books...so I think he's getting the addition part of it. He's been saying really cute prayers lately. He's in sharing time now at church. Sometimes it's a struggle to get him to go, but once he's there he really likes it. We usually bribe him with gum or candy and that does the trick.

Audrey has some real personality coming out lately. I'm not sure I like it. If she doesn't like something, you'll know it... she'll scream it at you. Otherwise she's as sweet as pie. I think she might be bi-polar. She's talking in sentences now and likes to sing and dance. She can sing her ABC's and count to twelve in English and eight in Spanish. I guess my kids watch too much Dora and Diego. She still has cute little chubby cheeks that I love...they wobble when she runs.

Greg's doing well. He just heard that he got accepted into the Masters of Education program at St. FX. He'll be busy for the next few years, but I'm sure it will be worth it. He's specializing in Phys. Ed. Rob got accepted to the same program, so it will be nice for them to do it together.

We had a fun easter. Nanny Veinot had an easter egg hunt out at their house for all the kids. They had a great time. They got so many treats, Greg and I didn't bother getting them any for easter. We just bought them each a toy and a movie to share.

In other news, we have a weasel living in our yard. A few weeks ago, we noticed some holes dug around the foundation of our house. I was sure it was a rat, so I got Greg to put some poison out. I never want to ever see a rat in or around our house. A few days later, I was watching TV in the evening and I heard a really loud squealing, coming either from the wall or the floor of our dining room. I thought at first it was Greg playing a joke on me. He likes to make rat noises because he knows I hate the things. When I realized that it wasn't Greg and may actually be a rat, I freaked out. I packed up my stuff and the kids stuff and we took off for Greg's parents place. Greg and his dad went back the next day and put more poison out and set up some traps. We stayed another night and all the next day at Greg's parents, because I was a chicken and didn't want to see a rat. When we came back there was no sign of anything and we didn't hear the noise again. I assumed the rat ate the poison and died...at least that was what I was hoping. Then, the other day, Greg's dad noticed a weasel hiding behind our compost bin outside. Greg was telling Job about it the next day and Job wanted to go out to see it. Greg took him out, thinking the weasel would never show himself...but he did. There's a small hole in our compost bin and the weasel was running in and out of it with food. He looked at us, but didn't seem bothered. Then he started jumping around in the wood pile we have outside. The kids were loving it. I'm not so sure. On the one hand, I'm relieved that it was most likely a weasel and not a rat doing the squealing that night. Apparently weasel's eat mice and rats, which is good news for us too. However, I'm not so sure I want a weasel family breeding in our yard. I'm sure we'll have to get rid of it somehow, but I'm not sure how. The last I saw of the weasel it was running away with a Ritz cracker in its mouth.

Here's some pictures of the kids.

New Year=More Blogs

2010-01-28T16:31:00.000-08:00

So, I know I've been a horrible blogger lately. I'm still having health issues and still have no idea what's causing them...but I've decided that I'm going to be way better at blogging this year. Just so I can keep a record of what the kids are doing.

The past few months have gone by quickly. Audrey turned one...then one and a half. She started talking early and now has a large vocabulary...which she uses quite often to tell me what to do. Everything I hear from her goes something like this..."I want (fill in the blank with whatever she wants) too Mom." The other day she crawled into a play crib that Aunt Trish had given her for her dolls. Then she said, "Hey Job, jump in!" She copies everything Job does and they get along very well. Although, just recently Audrey's figured out that she can tell on her brother. Every now and then she'll run in the room and say something like, "Job hit me Mom." Sometimes I don't know if he actually did, or if Aurdrey's just trying to get him in trouble. They both seem to enjoy it when the other one is in trouble and will repeat the scolding that Greg and I are giving.

Job turned three November 1st. We had a birthday party for him here with all the Yarmouth cousins. He really likes that Audrey's big enough to play with him. He's all into Transformers and Diego these days. Greg picked up the second Transformers movie for him at the library a few days ago. He was so excited to see it, but when I put it on for him I realized that there was some language in it that I did not want him repeating. Plus it was just a really dumb movie and I couldn't stand to watch it. So I told him we had to stop it because it had bad words in it. He said, "But I like bad words!"

We had a great Christmas in PEI. The kids had a blast with Gangie, Papa, Aunt Trish and Aunt Jeannine. When we got home they had a whole new Christmas with their Nanny and Grampie.

We're loving the new house. The only thing that I can't stand about it so far is that we've been having problems with uninvited friends...yes we've had mice. Totally grosses me out to think about them scurrying around in here. I don't know if it's going to be a continuous problem, or if it was just because the house was empty for a couple of months before we moved in. Then we didn't realize they were here for a while, so they had lots of time to reproduce. I guess you have to expect that sort of thing when you live in an old house surrounded by fields...but I don't like it one bit. We haven't caught any in a while so I'm hoping that means we killed them all. I have no sympathy for the things.

Here are some pictures. We've been bad about taking picture lately. That's something I'm going to do better too...

Halloween

Birthday

Christmas

New Year

This is FUN, I love FUN

2010-01-10T16:18:00.000-08:00

Jocelyne asked me to post the video below on her behalf. In turn, I have to acknowledge that what is said in this blog may be offensive to some, and if so, it is Greg writing this and definately not Jocelyne.

I would like to take all the credit for Job and Audrey's dancing skills, or lack of them, but partially I will give some recognition to DJ Lance Rock and friends from Gabba Land and also the Black Eyed Peas..., there's something about their music that causes Job and Audrey to want to dance all night long. Certainly they did not get these skills from Maw Plamondon,...have you seen her dance to Shania Twain or KD Lang? It is humerous...but not in the cute way...not anymore anyways. Maybe give it another 10-15 years and we might find it cute funny again. Fortunately, when Maw Plamondon reads this, she will be 7 hours away. This is what happened to me over Christmas when I said she overcooked the gravy:

I tried calling the Kids Help line, but they said they don't consider me a child anymore. I learned a hard lesson that day...wooden ladles hurt.

I hope everyone enjoys the video!

P.S. I hope you don't believe everything you read about gravy on the internet.

Too Sick to Post

2009-07-25T09:32:00.000-07:00

Hey anyone who actually reads this. Sorry I've been neglecting the blog lately. I've been having some health issues and haven't been feeling well enough to do much of anything. My doctor said something wacky is going on (he didn't actually say wacky...I added that) probably with my digestive system. He's sending me to a specialist, although I don't know how long the waiting list is, so it could be a while before I get anything diagnosed. Anyway, this is all happening at a rather bad time, since our closing date for the house was yesterday and we're supposed to be moving in any day now. Actually, the only reason I'm writing this blog is because I'm trying to avoid and forget about all the stuff that still needs to be packed and cleaned. I don't know how we accumulated so much stuff the past few years. I blame the kids. They come with so much baggage. Greg's been doing a great job with the kids and handling all the house stuff. It's a good thing he's a teacher and has the summer off. We've been so fortunate to have family and friends helping us in so many different ways! We appreciate them a lot. I can't really complain about anything, because we've been so blessed recently.

I have a bunch of stuff to talk about and post pictures of, but it'll have to wait. Audrey turned one a couple of months ago. She's walkin' up a storm and has a personality very similar to Job's...crazy (a cute crazy...not psycho crazy). I think they take after their father, although he's not always so cute.

I'll post more sometime soon.

Audrey Learns NO

2009-04-12T16:13:00.000-07:00

Tonight I was feeding Audrey some pears and asked her if she wanted some more. This was her reply...

Greg Loves Miss Marple

2009-04-07T09:04:00.000-07:00

Most of my posts have been mainly about the kids. I guess because I only started the blog in the first place to help me remember milestones...I'm not very good at keeping baby books or scrapbooking. So, I thought for a change I'd make a post about what's going on in the exciting (or not-so) lives of Greg and Jocelyne.

To start off I'm very excited to have added a few new friends to my friends list. I'm always happy when someone makes a comment on my blog, or if I read someone's blog who has our blog on their friends list. In my head that gives me permission to add those people to my friends list. I don't like to add friends willy nilly...in case that person doesn't actually consider me a friend at all...which would be quite embarrasing.

Although that news is exciting...I have much more exciting news still. Greg and I made an offer on a house and it has been accepted. We still need to get it inspected, so it's not considered sold as of yet...but the papers have been signed so it basically is. I'm very happy because I actually love the house. I have been checking real estate listings for quite a while, and have never really seen anything I was happy with in our price range (and never thought I would since our price range isn't very high). I saw this house when they first listed it, but they were asking too much for us. They dropped the price 20 thousand a few months ago, so we went to see it. I loved it right away. The outside needs some work and the windows need replacing, but it's a big old house that's been renovated on the inside. I've always wanted a big old house...I guess you can blame that on all the children's fiction I read, which often involves old houses for some reason. Anyway, Greg liked it too, but was wary of it since it's about 100 years old. So we made a very low offer which was rejected (as we thought it would be). Then we waited. They dropped the price another 10,000 recently, so we went to see it along with some other properties in that range to compare. We still loved this house the best, so we made another offer on it. This time higher than the last one, which must have looked better to the owners because they took it. We're not moving in until the end of July, since we have a lease at our current place until then, but I'm very excited. We took the kids to see it the last time we went and Job had a great time. It's a big 6 bedroom with a big yard...so the kids will have lots of room to run around both inside and out. It also has a walk up attic which is already insulated, so we could finish it eventually as a rec room or something. Not that we need the space now.

Not much else is new. Greg's been making fun of me lately because I've become addicted to Miss Marple mysteries. I checked out several DVD's from the library and am always trying to get Greg to watch them with me...but he won't. I don't know how realistic the mysteries are. I find that Miss Marple often comes to conclusions that are based on very little evidence...she must be very cunning.

I was going to write more, but Audrey is starting to get mad at me. Better stop...

March Break

2009-03-29T16:08:00.000-07:00

We've had a pretty good month. It was Greg's March break recently. We thought about going to PEI again, but decided to stay home so I could get some things done around the house...things which didn't actually get done. Oh well. We had some fun times in Yarmouth. We took Job to see his first movie at the theatres. They were having toonie matinees all week, so we went to see the Tale of Despereaux. We weren't sure about him sitting through the whole thing, so we tried to get him exctied about it a couple of days before by showing him previews on the Web. We went with Job's cousins (Ethan and Shaylee), Nanny and Greg's cousins (Carrie, Sarah and Jen). When we were waiting for the movie to start, Job started to get tired of looking at a big blank screen and asked Greg where the remote was. Greg said he didn't know, and that Job should ask Nanny. So Job yelled to Nanny (sitting at the other end of the row): "Nanny, you got the remote?" We had a good laugh at that. Once the movie started he was enthralled. He watched the whole thing and was yelling random comments out, like "Oh no, the rat!" When it was over he asked to see it again, and when we told him we had to go he started crying. He cried the whole way home. Ever since then he's been referring to himself as Despereaux (or the mouse), Greg is the rat, I'm the cat, and Audrey is the frog (although there was no frog in the movie that I am aware of). Now if Audrey is napping he'll ask. "Where's my frog?"

Audrey stayed home with Grampie while we were at the movies. Apparently, she got away from him for a few minutes. One minute she was in the kitchen, the next she was gone...so Grampie went looking for her. It took him a few minutes to find her standing on the bottom step holding on to the safety gate. I thought it was funny when he told us that because I pictured her hanging from the gate like a cat hangs from a screen door.

The rest of the week was fun too. We went for walks to the library and set up the tricycle Job got for Christmas from Nanny. It's still a little big for him, but he loves it. Greg's parents got a new bedroom set, so they gave us their Queen sized bed, which I love because it's bigger and firmer than our old bed. Now I don't seem to have as many back problems as I did before. We also got a nice dresser from them.

Audrey learned to clap last week. Now she claps all the time...except when I ask her to so I can actually show people... then she acts all sheepish and hides her face. I've been working on letter sounds with Job. He knows a lot of them now. I tried to get him to sound out a few simple words, like Cat, Mama, Dada, etc. I think he's actually getting it. He can recognize a few words now too, like his and Audrey's names.

This weekend we went to Emma's 7th birthday party. It was fun times. I think Job really liked the pinata. He's been wanting to bring his bag of candy everywhere since Friday. Yesterday we went up to the temple and today was branch conference, so we had a busy weekend.

Here are some recent pictures:

Jack Frost

2009-02-19T11:33:00.000-08:00

Last weekend we made a trip up to PEI for the Jack Frost Festival. It was a pretty long drive just for the weekend, but it was worth it. We had a great time. We got there just after midnight on Friday. We would have been there sooner, but Job was car sick again. Having Vanna Tan is a real help on long trips. The DVD player kept Job entertained the whole way. He watched Yo Gabba Gabba almost the whole time (I've got all of it memorized now). Having the empty back seat was great for feeding and entertaining Audrey. Although, she didn't need much entertaining...she's a great traveller. The back seat was also handy for changing diapers and sleeping. It was by far the easiest time we've had travelling.

Saturday was busy. We went to the indoor activities at the Civic Center first. My Dad came with us. I'm glad he was there; he was a big help with Audrey. I didn't think to bring her stroller, so she had to be carried everywhere. She's a heavy girl. I think Dad's arms were sore after the day was over. We saw a Backyardigans show and a Marvel Superhero's show. Job liked the Backyardigans, but the Marvel one was boring. The only good part was when Spiderman came out on stage and was dancing around. Job got really excited about that. We saw Winnie the Pooh and Tigger walking around. Job ran up to them and was saying "hey Tiger!" trying to get their attention. But apparently you can't hear or see anything in those costumes, so they pretty much ignored him. We went to see the animals at the petting zoo a couple of times and Job went on a couple of slides. When we were done there, we went back home for lunch and to give Audrey a nap.

After lunch, we went to see the outdoor stuff. Job fell asleep on the way and had some trouble waking up. Dad was holding him while he was sleeping, and when he woke up Dad had his hat on, so Job didn't realize who it was. For some reason, (probably because he was sleepy) Job thought that Dad was really some other man who looked like Dad. Later in the day, when Dad wasn't around, Job was asking Greg where "that other Papa" was. I think he still thinks Dad was some other guy. He talks about "that other man" still. Anyway, the outdoor stuff was the best part for Job. If we had of known he'd enjoy it so much, we would have gone there first and spent more time there. They had slides and castles made of ice, igloos, ice sculptures and a tube run (which we didn't try). We forgot to bring our camera for the outdoor part, so I don't have any pictures, but it was really great. We were planning on going to the fireworks in the evening and maybe doing a horse and sleigh ride, but we...actually, I mean I...was too tired and cold.

I think the kids had a good time. Audrey was shy of my parents at first, but by Saturday evening she was feeling at home. I was worried that Audrey might be fussy during all the activities, but she was happy being held by Dad. We left church early on Sunday to start the trip home. We made it back in record time...only 7.5 hours and only one stop.

I've been sick since we got back, but that was the only drawback of the trip. School was cancelled today, so Greg's home. Job's having a great time playing trains with him right now.

Job actually tried to use the potty today on his own, without any nagging from me. Unfortunately, he pooped first, then took his diaper off and tried to use the potty, so there was poop everywhere. He had it on his hands and then rubbed his face...that was pretty gross. I had just given him a bath, so I had to give him another one after that.

Here are a few pictures from our trip:

Audrey's Talking

2009-02-01T16:19:00.000-08:00

Audrey is saying Dada and Mama now. It all started Wednesday night. Greg and I went to the movies because I wanted to see Inkheart (which was excellent). When we got back, Job ran right to Greg and Audrey came crawling over to me. They both have their obvious favourites... anyway, I sat down with Audrey and she cuddled into my shoulder and said, "Oh, Mama." I thought it was super cute. She's been saying it ever since. She's been saying Dada for a couple of weeks now, but it was always random and I was never sure if she was actually saying it meaning Greg, or if she was just making the Dada sound. I noticed the other day that she was actually saying it to Greg. Job taught her how to say Bum. She was playing in her jolly jumper the other night and Job was spanking her (playfully) and yelling BumBumBum. Audrey was laughing and squealing, then she started saying BumBumBum too.

It was Kelly's birthday on Friday, so all the Veinot women (Veronica, Carla, Kelly and myself) went to the movies to see Doubt, which was another good film.

Greg starts a new school term tomorrow. I think he's looking forward to different classes and a new batch of students.

Not much new with me. I've been sleep deprived, since Audrey has been up several times a night consistently for the past couple of weeks. I think her teeth must be hurting or something. I've been surprisingly patient with the kids though, despite the lack of sleep. If I start to get annoyed, I just leave the room for a minute and take a break. I did this on Friday afternoon. Greg was a little late getting home from school and I was starting to get frustrated because both of the kids were whining and wanting me to pick them up all the time throughout the day. So, I went into the kitchen for a break. Job followed me in, still whining. He asked me what I was doing, so I told him I was taking a break. When Greg got home I must have had a sour look on my face, because he asked me what was wrong. Job answered for me...he said, "Mama needs a break." That cheered me up a little bit. Now Job tells me that he's taking a break when he sits somewhere for any length of time.

I almost forgot...my sister Johanna had her third baby. A cute little girl named Charlotte Patricia Budge. I hope they don't mind me showing a picture of her here.

Quick Update

2009-01-19T10:06:00.000-08:00

I forgot to mention a few things that Audrey can do now. I don't want to forget about them. Over Christmas break at my parents she learned how to blow raspberries. She puts her mouth up to my cheek and blows. She thinks it's pretty funny. Also, recently she's started sitting up more. I would try to make her sit up, but she never really liked it. She would just move back to her belly automatically, so she could crawl around and play. Now, she's figured out how to get from her belly to the sitting up position on her own, so she's been sitting up a lot more. And today I just noticed that her first tooth has come in on her bottom gums. That might be why she's seemed a bit fussy lately. Just wanted to add those in before I forgot about them.

Holiday

2009-01-13T14:00:00.000-08:00

We had a busy holiday. We left for PEI the day after Greg got off work. Greg's parents were nice enough to lend us their car, since the Nissan had to be fixed again. On our way up, we stopped at a wholesale car place in Dartmouth to look at a van. Ralph MacLean did us a real favour and went to check it out for us the week before. It's a 2005 Caravan. It was a good price and appeared to be in good shape, so we decided to take it. We put a down payment on it and picked it up on our way back. Jeannine named it Vanna Tan (since it's Tan, not White). I thought it was a clever name, so that's what I call it now.

We had fun with my family in PEI. Two of my sisters were home, Trish and Jeannine. Stephanie was off galavanting in Hawaii. Johanna was too pregnant to want to travel. She was due on January 9th I think, but still no sign of baby. Job and Audrey were loving all of the constant attention they got. Something they're not used to. I think Job was on attention overload, because he seemed really cranky for a while when we got back to Yarmouth...like he was going through withdrawal.

We took the kids to the new UPEI pool while we were home. It was really nice. They had a really warm toddler pool, a recreation pool with sprinklers and a super fast slide, and a competition pool that also had a rope to swing from. Jeannine came with us. It was Audrey's first time swimming. She was loving it. I took Job swimming a lot before Audrey was born, but he hasn't been in a pool for what would be a long time to him. He was kind of nervous and didn't really want to try any of the fun stuff. He did try the slide a couple of times with Greg and then once with me. I didn't lift him up fast enough once we got to the bottom and his head went under the water. I think that killed it for him. Jeannine, Greg and I all tried the rope swing. It was really fun, but I felt silly since the only other people using it were kids and a couple of seemingly immature adult males. It was a fun time. We'll definately go back the next time we're home.

Other than that we didn't do too much. I wanted to take Job for a ride on the bus, but we didn't end up doing it. We went to the movies once, but mostly just hung around the house and played with Jeannine's old school Little People's Main Street set.

We came back New Year's Eve. Once we picked up the van, we split up. Greg took Job in the new van and I took Audrey in the car. We ran into that big storm once we got to Digby. I was worried about driving in it, so we left the car in Digby at Greg's Uncle's place. We didn't stay up until midnight, we were too tired.

New Year's day we went out to Greg's parent's place to have dinner and open Christmas presents with them. With the two Christmas', Job and Audrey made out like bandits. Greg and I bought them each one toy for Christmas, but after seeing everything else they got from the rest of our families, I regret having bought them anything at all. Yes, we're very stingy.

Greg is back to work. I've been trying to do more things with the kids during the day. Mainly Job, since he seems to be at an age where he needs constant attention. We've been doing crafts and different activities I've found online. I've recently been worried about Job's behaviour. He isn't the best at sharing and doesn't listen to me at church when I tell him to sit down. Tamara let me borrow her book, "The Happiest Toddler on the Block." When I first got it I opened it to a page that pretty much told me what was wrong. Apparently I have unrealistic expectations for him. The part I read actually said that you shouldn't expect a 2 year old to share, or a 3 year old to sit still during church. haha. I guess I'm one of those strict mother's that's always getting mad at their kids for dumb things.

Here are some holiday pictures:

Audrey's Learning New Tricks

2008-12-04T10:22:00.000-08:00

Audrey is six months old now. It's gone by quickly. Just yesterday she started to crawl a little bit. I was surprised, thinking she was too young to be doing that. But she's not really, she's right on cue. She's been a mover from the beginning. She rolls everywhere. Once I found her under Job's bed, chewing on a bag of diapers. Today she was trying to crawl some more. She got on her knees and moved a few inches to grab one of Job's toys. Her effort was futile though. As soon as Job saw her with it he ran over and snatched it away. He may not be the best at sharing with Audrey, but Job loves to make her laugh. He's the only one who can get her to laugh really hard.

We bought a fake little tree for Christmas. I wanted to get a real one, but we're going to be in PEI for Christmas so we decided against it. Job calls it "his Christmas tree" and plays with it everyday. We ended up taking all the decorations off because he was using the bulbs as bouncy balls. Good thing they were only plastic. It's just a tree with lights now.

Not much else is new. We might be getting a newer car, since ours always seems to have problems. The other day is was acting funny when I was driving myself and the kids home from Superstore. I pulled into the parking lot at the mall just as it shut itself off. Greg's Mom came to pick me up after school and we tried it again. Of course it worked fine. I'm starting to get annoyed with it...time for it to move on.

Audrey trying to crawl

Don't know about this one...

Audrey having fun in the jolly

Audrey trying to escape her car seat

Audrey giving the camera the evil eye

Job looking sharp in the church outfit he picked himself

Fall Fun

2008-10-03T05:06:00.001-07:00

I know I've been really bad at keeping this up. Sorry to anyone who actually reads this. Not too much has been going on up until this past weekend. Greg's enjoying work I think. Normally I try to do things with Job during the day to keep him busy. We've been having play dates with Morgan some days; going to the library and the park when it's nice. Job's like me and likes to watch movies. Unfortunately, once he finds one he likes that's all he ever wants to watch. First it was Shrek. That wasn't too bad because at least there were three to choose from. I introduced him to my Studio Ghibli films (mostly Miyazaki's but one by Takahata) recently. I was really excited that he actually liked them. I thought at first they might be too old for him. He's watched them all, but he's really taken a liking to My Neighbor Totoro. We've seen that movie so many times, I have it memorized now. Luckily he doesn't just sit there and watch it over and over. He plays most of the time, but just likes to have it on in the background. He quotes the lines in his favourite movies sometimes, which is funny. The past couple of weeks he's been really into Spiderman, so we've been watching that a lot.

Job's been saying some other funny things lately too. The other day he tried to convince me that Audrey had a stinky diaper instead of him. When I got a whiff of him I said, "You pooped" He said, "No I didn't Mama, Audrey pooped." Greg was playing with him another time and he said, "Good job Dada!" I'm not sure what Greg did to get that praise.

Greg had a math conference in Kentville recently, so we all went with him and stayed the night at a hotel. The next day I took the kids shopping and to the park while Greg was at work. While we were playing at the park another little boy came up to us and was just standing there, staring. Job looked at him and then said, "Oh, that's weird." It was kind of funny. Luckily, the other little boy didn't speak English, so he didn't understand.

I took Audrey to her four month appointment at the Doctor's about a month ago. She weighed 16 pounds 9 ounces and was 27 inches long. She's probably bigger than that by now though. She's a real mover lately. I'll lay her down on the floor and when I look back, she's across the room chewing on something. She loves to watch Job and Job loves to play with her. He explains things to her and talks to her all the time. We were talking to my parents on the webcam one day, and Job said, "Look Audrey, Gangie and Papa." He also points out the cows, cars, trucks, and other exciting things to her when we're driving. If he's doing something fun, he wants her to try it too. The other day he wanted her to sit in the laundry basket with him. Their favourite game is to lay on the floor while a put a blanket over their heads and then pull it off. They both get excited about that.

Job's been anti-pants lately. If anyone is wondering why he hardly ever has pants on in pictures, it's because he refuses to wear them most of the time. I have to bribe him somehow to put pants on when we go out.

This weekend was Halloween and Job's birthday...so in other words, craziness. Friday night we dressed Job up as Spiderman and Audrey as a bumble bee. We talked to Gangie and Grand Papa on the webcam and showed them the costumes, then we went out trick-or-treating. We only did a few streets around our place, but he got a good amount of candy. Job was kind of scared to go to the doors at first, but once he saw the treats he was getting he got over it. Audrey slept through the trick-or-treating. After we got back, the cousins, Nanny and Rob and Kelly showed up. Ethan and Shaylee were clowns, Emma was a vampire, Morgan was a giraffe, Ruby was a big ugly cat (the cat costume was ugly... not Ruby), and Kelly was an astronaut. It was a fun night.

I stayed up late Halloween night trying to make Job a Spiderman cake for his birthday. That plan failed...so we ended up buying him a cake with a yellow flower on it. Not very Spidermanny. Oh well. Yesterday was Job's 2nd birthday, so we had a party. It was only family that came, but it was a good number. Greg's Mom (his Dad was working), Carla, Kelly, Rob, Ethan, Shaylee, Emma, Morgan, Ruby, Carrie, Sarah and Jen all came over. We played a couple of Spiderman games, then had pizza and cake, and opened presents last. I think Job was a bit overwhelmed with it all. He cried a lot, but I think he had a good time once he saw all the cool presents. His Nanny and Grampie got him a little tykes car and some clothes (the Spiderman PJ's were a big hit); Aunt Trish got him a cool pirate ship; Rob and Kelly Fam. got him a Thomas the Train that moves when you blow a whistle; Carla and Mark Fam. got him a hot wheels truck; the Warburtons got him a tow truck that makes cool sounds; Greg and I got him a Spiderman Mr. Potatoe Head and a Wonderpets DVD, and my parents gave him some money for his education fund (he'll thank them for that later). He made out pretty well. He's been playing with his new toys non-stop since the party. He woke up this morning talking about his new car.

That's pretty much all the news. Just a note: the dates on the last two posts are wrong...don't know what's up with that. It's actually Nov. 2nd. Here are some pictures...

Random Pics

Halloween

Birthday

End of Summer Fun

2008-08-03T17:35:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted in a while, so there's a lot to say. I'll try to remember everything that's happened. I guess I'll start with our newest addition to the family. Josh... the fish. Keisha Rector entrusted us with its care since she moved to Alberta. Job was excited about him the first day we got him, but now he's somewhat disinterested. Josh doesn't do too much. He swims around and eats, that's pretty much it.

We went to Halifax weeks and weeks ago...that's how long it's been since I've posted. It was a quick trip. We came up on a Thursday, had supper at Rob and Kelly's, then went straight to the temple. No matter how early we leave Yarmouth, we always seem to just make it to the temple on time. We spent that evening with Rob and Kelly. Kelly and I were going to go visit Julia in the hospital, as she just had her baby, but I didn't make it home on time. The next day, Greg went shopping for new sneakers and I took the kids over to my friend Jennifer's for a quick visit. It was sad, because it was the last time I saw her before her big move. She and her family abandoned us for Alberta as well...this seems to be a pattern with our friends. We can't blame them though, they're from Alberta originally so this was expected. We took some pictures of Audrey and Denelle together. They're several months apart, but pretty much the same size. Actually, I think Audrey is bigger...and she's the the younger one.

We took Job to a kids CBC show on Saturday. He had a great time. Curious George and Bo on the Go were there. Also Sid and Patty, who he talked about for days after. At the end, they blew bubbles out into the audience. We were sitting close enough for Job to run up and catch a few. They also gave out treat bags to all the kids. We weren't allowed to take pictures, but I snuck a few anyway. None of them turned out. This was the best one.

Our friends from Alberta, Chantal and Joel Saint-Aubin came to visit. They were here for the wedding of Chantal's sister. They brought their cute daughter Isabelle to play with Job. We took them to the park in the wagon. They were a pretty sweet couple. Job was very chivalrous and pulled Isabelle in the wagon around the park. I think Isabelle was indifferent to his wooing. I don't think she's ready for a commitment yet.

My sister Johanna, her husband Steve and their two kids, Samuel and Mara came to Yarmouth to visit for a couple of days. Job and Sam had a great time playing together. Mara is getting so big and cute. She loves bananas. We went to the park and to the lighthouse. The kids threw rocks in the water. Job was sad when they left. I think he thought they were going to be living with us. In the mornings for a while after they were gone, he would ask where they were and look at the stairs like he was expecting them to come down.

We went down to PEI for a week too. Job was so excited to see Grandpapa and Gangi. He also had a great time with Aunt Jeannine and her boyfriend Dustin. They took him to some kind of amusement park for kids with a ball pit when they were babysitting him. Apparently Job didn't enjoy the sea of balls at that time. A couple of weeks later, though, we took him to Upper Clements Park. He really had fun in the sea of balls that day. I give Jeannine the credit for introducing him to the balls. He spent over an hour in there. They had a couple of slides going down into the balls. The slides were really fast, but that didn't bother him at all. He's a pretty daring child. I wish sometimes he wasn't so eager to do dangerous things...not that the slide was dangerous, but other things he does are. At Upper Clements, we also went on a train ride. Job was impatient for the ride to start (as you can see from the picture below), while Audrey slept through it all. We took Job on the convoy trucks and the airplanes. The airplanes weren't a big hit. Job went on alone the first time. He was fine at first but started to get scared after a while. Greg went on with him the second time, but ended up feeling sick. Near the end of the day, Job went on the mini-bumper boats all by himself. It was kind of funny to see him spinning in circles in the puddle of water. It was on overall fun day.

We also went to Digby this summer for Grampie Tidd's birthday. That was a fun day. We saw a parade, had a BBQ and Job played with his cousins on a slip n' slide.

School has started up again. Greg is back at Yarmouth High, teaching Math, Economics and Political Studies. The PS is familiar to him since he took some classes in University, but the Economics is totally new. He's enjoying it though. We're also enjoying him coming home for lunch again. Job asks all the time if he can go to work with Dad. Since we always say no, now he just says: "See you at lunch, Dada", when Greg leaves in the morning.

Job's been having fun playing with his cousin Morgan lots lately. Rob, Kelly and Fam moved down to Yarmouth for the school year. Audrey and Ruby play together too, but they probably don't realize it yet.

Audrey is doing some new things. A couple of weeks ago she rolled over for the first time. Now she can roll onto her belly and lift up her head to check things out. She can hold it up for quite a while too. She did it for about 4 minutes today, without a break. Also, she's started laughing. I was singing to her today and she was laughing quite hard. I guess that's a testament to my horrible singing.

Job's been progressing as well. He knows all his letters and can sing most of the alphabet song. He can count to 10 and knows the basic shapes and colours. He's started talking in short sentences. The other day he said to me: "cute socks Mama."

Anyway, that's a quick update on what's been going on. I don't spend much time on the computer these days. Job gave up naps so I have no free time in the day. Here are a few random pictures that don't really go with the post.

Family Fun

2008-07-22T12:14:00.000-07:00

So, I guess I'm already having trouble keeping this blog updated. I thought this might happen. Oh well, so here's the latest...

Greg got a new calling at church last week...Branch President. He's replacing the irreplaceable Peter Rector. Peter, his wife Sheena and their six children are moving to Alberta this week. We'll really miss them all. Sheena has been a great friend to me since we moved here. Their youngest son Benjamin has been a really good buddy to Job. They play together every Sunday and at playgroup every week. Job won't know what's going on when he doesn't see Ben at church anymore. Here are a few pictures of Job and Benjamin together over the past year and a half.

Back in the early, chubby days.

At Benjamin's first Birthday.

Trying to escape from church.

Don't know what's going on here...Morgan isn't sure either by the looks of it.

In other news, Rob, Kelly, Emma, Morgan and Ruby came down to Yarmouth for a visit this past week. We had some good times. Emma loved playing with Ethan, Shaylee, Carrie, Sarah and Jen. Job and Morgan were double the trouble together. They had a great time chasing each other around and screaming. Ruby and Audrey didn't hang out much, they were too busy eating, sleeping and pooping. I'm sure they'll have fun together in the future though.

We all went to Ellenwood Park one evening to swim at the lake and have a BBQ. Rob and I were watching Job and Morgan in the shallow end of the lake. Rob started talking to me about how there were leeches in the water, then I look down and saw one stuck to my toe. It was grosse. When I tried to pick it off, it got stuck to my finger. After that, I tried to make Job play in a little muddy puddle instead of going in the water. It worked for a bit, but he wanted back in the water.

The next day, we went to Ellenwood again. Luckily, Greg and Rob watched the kids while Kelly and I sat in the shade with the babies. Morgan and Job went for a ride in an inflateable boat. It was really cute. I wanted to get a picture of it, but didn't. I think Rob might have got a few. Here are a couple of pictures we took. I thought we took more, but apparently not. I hope Rob and Kelly have some that we can steal.

I think that's all our news for now. Here's a couple of pictures of Audrey, because I feel like I neglect her in my blogging.

The Events of the Week

2008-07-10T10:21:00.000-07:00

There's not much new going on here. Earlier this week, Dave came over to take off some of the plastic we had on our windows for the winter. He brought with him his trusty ladder. Job was outside watching what was going on. I guess he decided he was going to climb the ladder. Being the responsible parent that he is, Greg left him climbing while he ran inside to get the camera. Well, I guess he didn't leave him alone, Grampie was still there to catch him if he fell. Here are some pictures of the exciting event...

Tuesday we decided to drive out to Ellenwood Park to go swimming at the lake. I didn't take any pictures of our trip, but Job had fun in the water. Greg and I took turns playing with him. We had a ball that we threw around. Job liked the water as long as it wasn't in his face. He fell face first a couple of times and wasn't too impressed.

Yesterday, Job helped me make cookies. In the end, there was flour everywhere, but the cookies still turned out.

Last night at our branch enrichment meeting we did photography. We were supposed to take some still life pictures and some portraits. I'm not a very good photographer, so here are some of the pictures I took for all to mock...

I call this one, "yummm...skittles."

I call this one, "Bridget giving a talk."

[For those of you who don't know Bridget, she's one of Ethan and Shaylee's (Job's cousins) many beloved Cabbage Patch dolls.]

I call this one, "Job."

Today we had a fun day. We went to Port Maitland beach. Job wouldn't go in the water because he was afraid of the waves, but luckily the tide was out so there were some warm puddles for him to play in. He had a great time. He kept pointing at the waves and saying "Pablo", because one of his favourite Backyardigans DVD's is about Pablo surfing the waves and cruzin' the dunes. Audrey and I just hung out on the beach. She slept the whole time and I just tried to. I've never been good at outdoor sleeping. Speaking of Audrey, she's been doing a lot of smiling lately. She will really smile when Job talks to her. She smiles for him more than either Greg or myself. Greg gets jealous and tries to talk like Job, so that she'll smile for him. Audrey is a smart baby, however, and not easily fooled.

To end this post, here's a picture of Job holding Audrey....

And just for fun, here's a picture of Job throwing one of his many tantrums...

Animal Overload

2008-07-06T15:09:00.000-07:00

For those of you who have ever been around Job, you'll know that he has a variety of obsessions. Some include: cars, trucks, trains (specifically Thomas and Ben), bikes and animals. Because he loves animals so much, we decided to take him to Oaklawn Farm Zoo in Aylesford this past Friday.

The trip did not start out well, considering Job was up most of the night (the anticipation of seeing live animals was too much) and therefore we were all rather cantankerous. Audrey fell asleep right away, but Job decided to have little screaming fit before he reluctantly went to sleep. After that, the trip went relatively well. We stopped to eat at McDonald's for lunch and had a hard time convincing Job to leave the "playplace", which consisted of one of those toys with the beads that you push along the wires. At least he's easily entertained.

When we got there, Job was really excited. Highlights for him included some crazy monkeys, an eagle, lions, tigers, and a bear (I won't make the obvious movie reference here, although I know you're all thinking it). He fed some goats corn. One of the baby goats escaped through the fence and proceeded straight to the corn dispenser to eat up the dropped remenants. There was also a rogue turtle that Job wanted to pat. We wouldn't let him though, due to the salmonella threat.

We made one trip around to see all the animals and were expecting to go around and see some of them again, but Job was obviously tired and kept saying "bye bye" to all the animals. We took that as a hint that he wanted to leave. He didn't even want the stuffed tiger we offered to buy him at the gift shop. When we got back to the car, Job didn't want to get in, which was understandable considering the heat. He started screaming "No!" and ran in a straight line away from the car in the opposite direction of the zoo. It was pretty funny to see. A bystander even made a comment about how he had a lot of "spunk." I'm assuming that was her nice way of saying, "your child is annoying and out of control." I convinced Job to get in the car by telling him he could watch a Backyardiagans video on the portable DVD player.

Here are some pictures (obviously taken by me, because they're bad):

Job and Greg feeding the goats corn.

The escaped goat licking himself.

What Job would look like if he were a lion.

On the way home, we decided to stop in and visit Greg's grandfather in Bridgetown. It's always a good time visiting him. Audrey, who slept through the zoo, woke up for the visit. Job had a great time playing with a monkey finger puppet that his great grampie had. Grampie would pretend to throw it up in the fan and Job would look up at it for a while, hold up his hands and say: "gone." Then Grampie would really throw it up when Job wasn't looking, making Job think it had fallen out of the fan. He didn't want to leave when it was time to go. He was crying and saying: "Grampie, Grampie!" until we started driving. We didn't make it very far. As we pulled out of the parking lot we realized one of our tires was completely flat. So, we pulled into the parking lot next door and Greg changed the tire. The kids were both surprisingly good during the process. It was really hot in the car, but Job was happy watching his video and Audrey was happy with her soother.

We got home later than expected, because we could only go 80 with the spare tire. When we were getting Job ready for bed, all he talked about was the zoo. He told us over and over about the bear splashing in the water, the sleeping tiger, and the corn-eating goats. I guess he forgot that we were there too.

The Blog Bandwagon

2008-07-05T12:19:00.000-07:00

I decided to join the rest of the world and start a blog. At first, I thought "blogging" was a trend that would soon peter out, but apparently blogging is here to stay... just like Pee Wee Herman. I figure since I never write in my journal, this could be an acceptable substitute.

To start, I guess I'll talk about our new little chubster...I mean girl. Audrey Eloise was born on June 3rd shortly after 1 in the afternoon. She weighed 10 pounds 1 ounce and was 55 cm long. She lost some weight in the hospital, but gained it all back in a short time. At her one week appointment she weighed 10 pounds 4 ounces. Here are some pictures of her in the hospital.

Job is impressed with his sister. He gives her hugs and kisses all the time and says: "Oh Audrey." He touches her hair and says: "soft." He also tries to give her a soother. When she doesn't take it he says: "not working."

On June 22nd Rob and Kelly and their family came to Yarmouth to bless their new baby Ruby with Audrey. It was nice to have the cousins blessed together. Here are some pictures I pilfered from their blog, since we didn't take any pictures with our camera.

That's all for this post I guess. Stay tuned for more information on our recent trip to the zoo...