Summer's End

Holy Cow!

It hasn’t been months and months since my last update. I guess I’m getting better at trying to keep this site updated. I’ve added a new album with pictures from the last month of the summer. I hope you like them.

We had a great summer. Aside from the near-constant rain we had in SW Ontario, we still managed to do a fair bit, including trips to the zoo, African Lion Safari, North Carolina and some camping.

Since my last update at the end of July, we spent a really fun day at African Lion Safari with Chris, Alex and I meeting up with my sister, Jenny, and her son, Kian, as well as Kathy, Steve and their two daughters, Jennifer and Sarah, and one of Jen’s friends and Grandpa as well.

We enjoying driving through the game reserve to see the animals and Alex had an amazing time at the splash pad as he’s now big enough to go into the ‘bigger kids’ area where there’s tons to do. He just loves water and getting splashed and soaked and it was fun for him to get to play with his cousins too.

We also got away for a great trip to North Carolina with my side of the family. We had 13 of us in total sharing a huge house in the Outer Banks in North Carolina (Rodanthe to be specific). The house was beyond belief and Alex had the most spectacular time playing in the pool, and the pirate ship playhouse, and flying kites and playing on the beach. We even got to make a few day trips to try out some famous North Carolina BBQ (Eastern Carolina style) as well as a trip to the aquarium. The trip was truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and I hope Alex gets to one day experience something that fun again as he just loved playing with his cousins, grandparents, aunts and uncle and he loved the ocean and the waves and everything about the trip.

We finally also had some good news about Chris’ job situation and thankfully his job is secure and also we don’t have to move anywhere. It’s been a hard 18 months waiting for the company that bought out Chris’ company to set everything in motion with the new structure, but it’s nice to finally know that most people in the sales force were able to stay with the company. The new company has its Canadian head office in Montreal, so Chris will be heading that way more often now.

Alex also started Junior Kindergarten (five mornings a week)… well, he hasn’t officially started yet. They have “staggered” entry for JK kids so that the kids all get a chance to visit before starting school officially, so he and I went for a 20-minute visit last week, and this Thursday he goes for the full morning, but with a small group of kids, and then on Friday the entire class goes for their regular class. He seems to be taking it all in stride - I think Chris and I are finding the transition much, much harder.

Because we had a bit of a break until he started school this week, we took advantage of the time and went camping up near Kincardine at Inverhuron Provincial Park. It rained on and off, especially as we were trying to pack up, but overall it was a great trip. The scenery is lovely and the park is very rustic but still has nice hot showers and clean bathrooms (a must-have in my books), so we’ll probably go back again at some point. We just got back today and Alex is in daycare tomorrow afternoon and then Thursday’s the big day where he goes off to school for the first time and Chris and I collapse into piles of tear-filled goo on the way home.

I’ll be sure to do more updates as I can! Thanks for following along with our family adventures and pictures!

Finally an Update!

Well summer is here and I can't believe I haven't updated this site since February! I kept meaning to do an update, but there was always some event or party, etc. coming up and I'd decide to wait to update the site until after that passed so I could include pics of that, but then I'd forget about it and the weeks and months just flew by.

I'll try to keep it brief with just the major highlights of our lives since February. Forgive me if I jump around a bit in this entry. I'll also post a bunch of pictures from the past few months in a new photo album.

Let's see... big news in our household.

Alex turned four on June 11. His party was tons of fun, with a few kids from his daycare plus some of his other friends all over for a backyard party. My niece, Jennifer, and her friend were hired as party planners and they did an amazing job of organizing some games and activities, plus they decorated the backyard and did up the loot bags for the kids. We also had a lovely Korean lunch with family in Toronto in honour of Alex's birthday.

We also had a wonderful birthday party for Alex in London with Chris' sister and her family. A great meal and a wonderful time for all of us.

One of the big surprises Alex got for his birthday was a big inflatable climber/obstacle course from Grandma and Grandpa. We’d come across an amazing deal on these at some Wal-Marts (usually they sell for $500-600 but they were on clearance for $99!!!), so it was a great present for Alex and such a good deal that we bought the climbing mountain version as well as they’ll be great backyard toys for years to come.

Alex just finished daycare last week until he starts school (JK) in the fall. He's been going a couple of days a week to the same daycare since he was younger, so it was sad to have his last day last week. His new school is just at the end of our street, so he'll be in JK in the mornings, and then for two afternoons a week, he'll go to the daycare program at the same school so that I have two full days to work.

Chris' job situation is still somewhat in limbo. His company was bought out over 18 months ago in a huge buyout by another pharmaceutical company. As the purchase was really complex, it's taken a long time for the companies to get things sorted out, but we're hoping to hear exactly what's going on with Chris' job within the next few weeks. While we weren't too concerned about Chris losing his job, it was still a possibility that might happen, so we've been trying not to fret too much about things. We have no idea if he'll be doing the same thing, or if he'll move into a new role or if we might have to move, but at least we won't have to wait much longer to find out.

Another big thing was that we bought a new tent trailer for camping. I'm not a huge lover of camping, but Chris loves it and I know it's a wonderful experience for Alex. We'd always camped in tents before this, but last summer we rented a tent trailer and we really liked the experience, so we started looking at older used models and eventually ended up buying a new 2009 Jayco tent trailer. We've been out with it twice so far and we are really enjoying it. It's a lot to learn, but it does make the entire camping experience much more comfortable for all involved.

Our first trip was to a Provincial Park near Peterborough that we’d been to many times before. We loved our time there, even though Alex got sick with a bronchial infection the first night and ended up on antibiotics. We just got back yesterday from our second outing with the camper and we’d tried a private park this time as it had lots of things to offer for young kids. Everyone was very friendly, but this was more of a trailer park with people there for the whole summer with permanent trailers and big RVs versus campers like us. It was a nice experience, but not much in the way of privacy or nature, but we did have fun at the splash pad and swimming in the lake.

Another fun thing we did since my last journal entry was to go to see Walking with Dinosaurs in Toronto. This is a great show if you get a chance to see it - Alex loved it. We had planned to have Grandma and Grandpa come with us, but they were both sick with a chest cold they caught from Alex (or Chris), so a friend of ours and her son came instead.

Jumping backwards a bit here - the winter was pretty tough overall. The snow here was just crazy and I actually got snowed in once when Chris was away on a business trip. I found someone to come out and clear the driveway and walkway, but there was about 36 hours where I couldn’t even get the front door open because of all of the snow.

Health wise, things have been good for me. No major flus or bugs over the winter, but Chris had a really rough go with migraines that just seemed to get worse and worse even though he was on new stronger meds. Eventually he was able to see a neurologist who specializes in migraines and she switched his meds as she thought some of the headaches were a reaction to the meds he was taking to deal with the pain, and overall the improvement has been amazing. Now instead of migraines 90% of the time, he can go weeks without a headache.

Alex had a small cough/cold about six weeks ago and managed to pass it onto both Chris and my Mom, but both of them got REALLY sick with it even though Alex just had a slightly runny nose and a bit of a cough. Chris had to have two different rounds of antibiotics to get rid of the infection in his chest and my mom was wiped out for a couple of weeks as well. I have no idea how I didn’t catch it, but thankfully I managed to stay healthy (a bit of a surprise lol).

The summer’s been great so far - lots to do with the new camper and we’ve been seeing our family in London and Toronto when we can as well. We have another camping trip planned this weekend in Niagara Falls for the long weekend and then we’ll be going to North Carolina with my whole family for a week near the end of August. With stays overnight in Buffalo and Virginia Beach while enroute, we’ll be away for about 10 days.

I’m thinking of moving this site to a more traditional “blog” website so I don’t have to pay for the storage. If I do move it, I’ll be sure to let you know.

Christmas and Other Stuff

Another few months have simply flown by in our home but I’ve finally gotten around to posting pictures from Christmas until now.

We had a busy December trying to get ready for the holidays. We managed to get our decorations up pretty early in the month and Alex enjoyed decorating cookies with me and putting ornaments on the tree. Soon after we were ready for the holiday season, Chris flew out for a week in Holland on business. He really enjoyed the trip but it was hard having him away for a big part of the pre-Christmas time.

Once he was home, we had about a week to relax and enjoy ourselves before things got really busy. We hosted Chris’ family for a holiday dinner at our home (festive pasta lol) and then left the next morning to make our way to Montebello in Quebec. We spent Christmas there last year and were lucky enough to go back again this year to spend a few days with my family. Chris also surprised Alex and I with a train trip from Toronto to Kingston as Alex is incredibly enamoured with trains of all shapes and sizes, but he’s never been on a real train that goes fast on a longer trip, so Chris dropped us off in Toronto and Alex and I enjoyed a nice comfortable trip to Kingston and then met Chris at my parents’ home there. We stayed over that night and then left early the next morning to drive to Montebello.

The weather was wonderful and Alex loved the ferry ride across the Ottawa River. We spent a wonderful Christmas in Montebello and really enjoyed ourselves. The hotel had tons of activities for kids, including a visit from Santa on Christmas Day, ice sculptures, a pyjama breakfast party and contest that Alex and his dog, Copper, won (they had matching PJs). Alex loved the Jacuzzi bathtub in our hotel room, especially because you could get A LOT of bubbles during a bath.

Before Christmas, we’d taken Alex to see Santa Claus and the thing he asked for the most was a ‘Polar Express’ train. Santa did bring him another train he’d asked for, but he also told Alex’s Aunt Jenny and Grandma about the Polar Express, so they gave it to him on Christmas Eve as his special gift. He was beyond thrilled with it and it was the hit of the holidays for him. Even when he woke up Christmas morning and I showed him the stocking that Santa had left for him, he looked at it for a moment and then said, “I don’t need that… I have the Polar Express!”

We came home on the 27th and spent a few days relaxing at home and just hanging out. We’d brought home some of the presents in a big box, and Alex quickly absconded with the box and said it was his fort and for two days, he actually slept in it for naps.

Alex went to a friend’s daughter’s second birthday party and he really had a great time. It was simply amazing to me that there could be six kids age 2 and 3 there and they were all busy quietly painting their piggy banks as a special treat. The party was wonderful and it was great to see Alex playing with some of the other kids, even though he still tends to be a bit shy in some situations.

Perhaps our biggest news so far this year is that Alex is now 100% potty trained. We started eons ago with the potty training and he learned to pee without any real difficulty at all, but the other ‘task’ we use potties for was something he just wasn’t keen on. We were told by many people not to fret about it and that he would learn it when he was ready, but it just seemed to take forever. He never had any messes… he’d announce to us when he needed to go #2 and he’d then go put on a pull up, would go and then asked to be cleaned… but try as we might, he just totally was not into sitting on the potty or the toilet. We tried bribery, we tried coaxing, we tried begging but it just didn’t seem to work with him.

Then lo and behold, one day at daycare he finally managed to use the toilet and the teacher was thrilled (nor surprising, eh?). We had no idea if it was a one-time thing, but the very next day he was playing downstairs with Chris while I was out doing some shopping and he went upstairs on his own to go pee and then Chris heard him calling out, “Yahoo! Come look what I did!” *chuckles*

I have no idea what switch inside him got flicked, but since then, he’s been wearing underwear 100% of the time when he’s not sleeping and we haven’t had any trouble. While it’s exciting to us that he’s reached another milestone, it’s one of the last few ‘baby’ things he’s grown out of so it’s also a bit sad.

Despite the bittersweet aspect of this hurdle, we celebrated this in style with a “Poo-Day” cake and lots of positive reinforcement.

During January, Chris was away at a couple of meetings in Toronto and he came home to a huge amount of snow to shovel before he could even get his van into the driveway. I had Alex all dressed for going outside and the two of them spent an hour shovelling the walkway and driveway and playing outside before coming in for cookies and hot chocolate.

As Chris had been away most of that week, we decided to do something fun that weekend and we went to a local butterfly conservatory to check out the butterflies, birds and other bugs. Alex simply loved it and said he wants to go back again very soon.

Well, that’s it for now. We have Chris’ birthday coming up this weekend, so we’ll be celebrating as a family and then Chris is off to Montreal for another business trip.

We hope that the New Year is going well for all of you and I hope you enjoy the pictures in the new album.

Catching Up on Things

Wow - I can’t believe I haven’t updated this site since July! It’s been a busy four months, plus we’ve been hit with a few bugs that seem to keep coming back, and I just haven’t been able to get around to uploading pictures here and writing an update.

I know that many of you who check out this site like to see the pictures, so I’ll start with those. I’ve created three new albums for things to be a bit more organized. The first are pictures from the end of the summer (called End of Summer), the second album is full of a bunch of pictures from Disney (the album is called Disney) and the most recent album has pictures from this Fall, Thanksgiving and Halloween (the album is called Fall and Halloween Fun). All three albums can be reached by the links at the bottom of this page or by clicking on “My Family Albums” on the left. I hope you enjoy the pictures.

Let’s see - how can I condense four months of family info into a relatively brief journal entry? I guess I’ll start with some of the big stuff.

In late August, we went to Disney with my side of the family. We spent seven days in Disney with my parents, Jenny, Kathy, Steve, Kian, Jennifer and Sarah. We had a great time touring the parks, eating at some fabulous restaurants and swimming in the world’s most amazing pool at our hotel. On our fifth day there, our sister, Mary, and her son, Raymond, his wife, Joy and their three daughters came to stay and tour with us for the weekend. We hadn’t seen Raymond since he was a young kid, and we’d never met his family so it was simply incredible to get to spend time with the entire family.

Alex had a truly spectacular time. We kept waiting for him to have a major meltdown. It was hot, we were waking him up early, keeping him up late and eating on the run a lot of the time, so we wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d lost it the way so many kids (and a few adults) do when visiting Disney. Thankfully it never really happened. He skipped, danced, jumped and ran through all of the parks, enjoyed all of the rides he went on and had fun meeting some of the characters (even though he was a bit shy at times). Probably his favourite ride (and one of ours too) was the Kali River Rapids in the Animal Kingdom. It’s one of the few “grown up” rides that someone his size can go on safely as it has a special seat for smaller kids, so we all piled into the raft and got soaked. I didn’t get a lot of good pictures of him on the ride, but I did post one of Jennifer screaming as she got soaked, and Alex is also in the picture laughing his toes off.

It was truly a trip of a lifetime - and we loved everything about it (except for the August heat). We managed to see fireworks, meet a bunch of the characters, so on some fun rides and see some great shows. Because of my mildly obsessive Disney planning approach, we also got to enjoy some great restaurants during our stay, including our first night’s dinner in Epcot at the Moroccan pavilion (although Alex fell asleep during that dinner - poor guy had been up and excited since 5:00 a.m., so it’s not surprising he fell asleep in his salad). We also went out for a special dinner with my parents at an African restaurant called Boma and enjoyed a birthday dinner at the Coral Reef, which is a lovely restaurant built around a huge aquarium in the living seas, so while we enjoyed a nice dinner, we had sharks, mantas, fish and scuba divers swimming by (to which Alex would repeatedly cry out, “SHARK!” or “DIVER!” much to our amusement.

It was my mother’s 75th birthday, so I’d arranged with the restaurant for us to have custom menus with my mother’s picture on the front, as well as a diver holding up a happy birthday sign (although for some reason the sign said, “happy brithday” *laughs*). It was our last night in Disney and was a great way to celebrate with the entire family.

Earlier in the summer, we’d had lots of fun with Alex and taking him to a local water park and also doing a special “Day Out with Thomas” where Alex got to ride on a train that was pulled by Thomas the Tank Engine and also had fun doing some other things. We also took a trip to Montreal as Chris had to go there on business, so we added on an extra day or two and made a family trip out of it. It was amazing to see some old friends like Harold and Maureen and Mike and their two adorable kids. Alex had a great time, and we loved being back in Montreal, even if it was for such a short visit.

Once we were back from Disney, we got busy doing some of the normal Fall things. We went to a very fun Apple Festival in a small town near us, and Alex had a great time doing pony rides, getting his face painted and trying lots of sweet apples.

We also spent a great Thanksgiving in Kingston and celebrated my father’s birthday while we were there. The kids all had fun together, and we all enjoyed some great dinners and the nice weather.

As Halloween approached, we decided to have some friends over for a pumpkin carving party, so we cleared out the living room, put down some cheap tablecloths and had fun gutting and carving our pumpkins. Alex wanted his pumpkin to have a ‘scary’ face, so he showed me what it should look like and then we both demonstrated the scary faces for Chris (see picture in the album lol).

For Halloween, Alex wanted to be Buzz Lightyear, so his Aunt Jenny bought him the most amazing costume. Not only did it have boots, gloves and a helmet, but it also had wings that lit up and it fit him perfectly. He loved being Buzz Lightyear for the night and loved the fun of going trick or treating for some candy and chips. Jennifer was a pumpkin, Sarah was a ‘dead princess’ and Kian was an absolutely adorable Tigger.

In other news, Chris is still working hard at his job. His company was bought out back in March and the sale was just finalized last week. We don’t know what impact this will have on his job or territory, but we don’t think his job is at risk as he’s doing very well, plus he’s involved in a number of other projects for the company. He’ll be going to Holland for six days in mid-December for one of those projects, so he’s very excited to see Amsterdam and Boxmeer and also meet some of his colleagues from other countries.

Our plans for Christmas are to go to Montebello again, so we’re very excited about that. We hope to get the house decorations all up this weekend and I’ll be trying to get the Christmas shopping done before the 24th!

I do apologize for the long delay in updating this site, and I’ll be sure to post Christmas pictures as soon as we’re home.

Our best to all of you for a great holiday season and I hope you enjoy the pictures.

We've Entered the "Why" Zone!!!

This past month has been a busy one, but lots of fun. After celebrating Alex’s birthday on June 11, we then celebrated our niece, Sarah M’s birthday a few weeks early in London at a pool party. Alex had a great time with Amanda and Sarah and also loved swimming with his Aunt Karen and then playing with Uncle Lew.

We spent the Canada Day weekend in Kingston with Kathy, Steve, Jennifer, Sarah, Jenny, Kian and the grandparents and it was a great time. We were able to go to a local craft fair to wander around and pick up a few fun things, and get Alex a little arm painting (he didn’t want his face painted, nor was I keen on the idea of him looking like a butterfly or other animal). At first he was quite shy with the girl doing the painting, but his curiosity soon go the better of him and he watched her closely as she drew a spider and web on his arm (his pick for design - he asked for Spider Man but she said she couldn’t do that but could draw a spider).

After the trip to the fair, Chris and I took Alex to a local farm to pick some strawberries. The berries were so juicy and ripe and Alex loved picking them as well as sampling a few from time to time. He also loved getting to ride on a trailer pulled by a tractor and walking through the fields.

After going back to Lilac Cottage to rest, we then took Alex out for his first fishing trip. It was a bit chilly and was starting to rain, but the fish were biting like crazy. I was too squeamish to get overly involved in the whole process, but Sarah was the first to catch a fish and Jennifer caught one soon after that. Alex was quite fascinated by the whole process and kept asking, “why” throughout the fishing trip, but his zeal was tested a bit once he actually caught a fish for himself. As we pulled the fish out of the water, he told us he wanted to see it, but if it got within two feet of him, he’d scream, and then would ask to see it again. We let him look for a few seconds before releasing the fish back into the water.

Kathy, Steve and the girls had to head back early in the weekend to go to an event in Toronto, but the rest of us hung out in Kingston and went to the fireworks by the Fort. This was Alex’s first taste of “real” fireworks but as we were pretty far away, I don’t think he realized how big they truly were. We’d done some fireworks in our own backyard last Canada Day and Steve and Jennifer had done a fireworks show on the lawn of Lilac Cottage the night before they left, so Alex was used to the small shows (which he found incredibly exciting!), but the big one also got him all wound up. Everytime a coloured firework went off, he’d sing the chorus from a Thomas the Train song that lists all of the colours, so I’m sure the people near us were quite sick of hearing “red and green and brown and blue” being repeated every 30 seconds for about half an hour.

The weekend after our trip to Kingston, we went camping near Peterborough with friends of ours. We each had our own site and we’d rented a tent trailer for the weekend to try it out (our friends own their own), so we camped in semi-luxury for the whole weekend. Alex loved the whole experience, and was incredibly excited once the tent trailer started getting put up once we arrived at the provincial park. He was great the entire weekend, and had fun with our friends’ two girls, and it was a lot of fun to be able to share the experience (and cooking chores) with another couple. We roasted marshmallows, hot dogs, made s’mores, went to the beach and played at the playground. If we ever go camping again, I’d love to rent a tent trailer again as it really made the whole sleeping arrangement more comfortable, and it was quite easy to get Alex to go to sleep as it felt like a little house for him, and we were able to set up Chris’ iPod and let Alex watch a bit of a movie before bedtime as a way to wind down.

We have a busy summer still planned, with trips in the works for Montreal, plus our big family trip to Walt Disney World at the end of August for the entire family. We also have a Day Out with Thomas planned for Alex in the coming weeks, so there’s lots going on.

Alex is still going to daycare two days a week and is enjoying it. He’s talking more and more and is starting to tell us jokes (not all of them make sense), and he’s really getting into lots of imagination-type play.

The other big development with Alex is that we’ve now entered the “Why” stage. He’ll ask “why” over and over again, until we run out of answers, or distract him or until one of our heads explode. A typical conversations runs like this:

Me: Don’t sit there.
Alex: Why?
Me: Because the cat is asleep there.
Alex: Why?
Me: Because that’s where she fell asleep.
Alex: Why?
Me: Because it’s a comfy place and is warm and she likes to sleep there.
Alex: Why?
Me: Because all cats like to sleep during the day and they prefer warm soft places.
Alex: Why?
*my head explodes*

Please tell me this “Why” stage doesn’t last too long.

I’ve put some new pictures into a new Canada Day album - hope you enjoy them.

Take care.

Alex Turns 3!

Well it’s finally happened. Our little baby is no longer a baby at all - he’s now three.

We had Alex’s 3rd birthday party on Sunday and it was a lot of fun. More on that in a bit.

It’s also been a busy time in our household, as the nice weather has allowed us to get outdoors more than we did in the Spring. Alex and I have gone on a few playdates, plus he went to his first “real” birthday party where he was invited, and he understood what was going on and wanted to go celebrate with his friend, Ty (who turned 3 two weeks before Alex). That birthday party was a riot and Alex had an incredible time - they held the party at a great indoor play area near here, so the kids all burned of a bunch of energy playing on the slides, climbing up the gym and finding their way down again.

We’d taken Alex there before, but he’d always wanted one of us to go with him to help him, and he’d always been a bit scared to go up too high without one of us coaxing him along.

Not at the party! Not sure if it’s because he’s getting older, more independent and more physically able to do some things, or if he saw the older kids going up alone and just wanted to be part of things, but for the first time ever, he played on this playset on his own, without Chris having to climb through all the stuff with him (I’ve put some pics from the party in the newest family album). While we loved watching him having such a great time, it was also a little sad to see yet another change in him that makes us realize how quickly time is passing for us.

With Alex’s newfound joy in climbing and sliding, Chris and I began looking into outdoor playsets for our backyard. We’d looked into them last summer, but just felt that Alex was too young at that point, plus I wanted to research them to be sure I got a good deal as well as one that was safe and sturdy.

After dragging Chris around to tons of places to look at various options, we decided on one set and somehow managed to get it home. Chris then spent that weekend, and every evening that week putting the thing together (with help from Alex and I, of course). I acted as chief engineer, organizer, project manager and Chris did the heavy lifting. It was fun to see the set come together, and Alex (and our next-door neighbour, McKenzie) could barely wait for it to be finished (I’ve put some pics in the newest album). Now that the set is done, Alex has been playing on it just about everyday.

We had a bunch of friends and family over for a lunch BBQ on Sunday for Alex’s birthday party and they all had a good time. It’s great seeing everyone, and people came from London, Mississauga, Brampton, Kingston, Oakville, Toronto (and around here) to join us. That evening, we had a bunch of aunts, uncles and cousins who live in this area over for a dinner BBQ, so it was a busy day but it was so great to see all of them too. While we live so close to one another, we don’t see each other nearly often enough so it’s nice when we can all get together and hang out.

Alex’s actual birthday was on the Monday, so because it was his regular daycare day, he brought a little treat to share with his friends at daycare. He was quite pleased to bring some ice cream and sprinkles to share with the group, and after daycare, we had a nice quiet dinner in the backyard for just the three of us. We had planned on going out for a Korean dinner, but we knew Alex was tired from a busy couple of days, so we just decided to hang out at home and eat some leftovers.

The summer now looms before us and it should be a busy one. We’re going to London this weekend for our niece’s birthday party, then to Kingston for the Canada Day weekend, then away camping with friends in the middle of July. August should be quieter, but at the end of the summer, we’re going with my side of the family to Walt Disney World for six nights - so that will be an amazing trip for all of us.

Hope you like the pictures in the newest album.

Easter Bunnies and Other Stuff

WOW - am I ever behind in updating this site. I had no idea that I hadn't updated it since Christmas, so I quickly uploaded some pictures of the first part of the year up to Easter.

Things have been busy here, as usual. Alex is growing up so quickly and talking up a storm. When we're out with him, he tends to be pretty shy and reserved, but at home, or in the car with us, it's non-stop chatter. At times it's like a running monologue of everything he's doing, and at other times, he'll get excited about something and that's ALL he'll talk about for what feels like hours and days on end.

He's still a pretty good natured little guy, but we are seeing signs of some typical two/three-year-old behaviours, but thankfully usually only when he's tired, hungry or sick with a bug.

There are days when we feel like we're living with CONFLICTO - THE WONDER CHILD! No matter what you say, he wants to do something different, and he can't even seem to make up his own mind, so we sometimes get a lot of "yes... want to go downstairs, no... want to go outside, no... want to stay inside, yes... want to go outside, no... don't like that" etc. We know it's a normal stage of his development and we're enjoying the fact that he's learning to express himself and his emotions... but it can also be exhausting as I'm sure anyone with a young child can attest.

The biggest news in our family lately is the addition to our family of a brand new nephew (for Chris and I, and a cousin for Alex). My sister, Jenny, had her baby on April 4 and he's simply adorable. He's named Kian and he's a very calm and alert baby. Alex is curious, but not overly so, but our nieces Sarah and Jennifer have been helping out lots and love having a new baby to take care of.

Kian came home on Easter Sunday, so the Easter Egg hunt was exciting, even though Kian slept or ate through most of it.

I've uploaded some pictures of Alex into the newest Family Album and I promise not to let another four months go by before I put in more new photos.