Aggie Days

Adam took Jackie down to Aggie Days at the Round Up Centre this year. Jackie was a little overwhelmed by all the people and not quite sure what to make of all the animals. Her favourite was the bunnies.

I love this picture - it looks like she is having quite the conversation with this dog.

She looks thrilled, doesn't she - this was at the end and I think she was more than ready to head for home.

A Hockey Game

Adam got given a pair of hockey tickets from work - so we went and enjoyed each others company, nachos (I swear they were laced with crack cocaine), drinks and a win (against the Minnesota Wild).

Believe it or not, but this was my first Flames game since 1998. If you remember what the Flames fans were like way back then - it was a dramatically different experience.

3 on the floor...

The Park

Our house is right across the street from a park. The equipment is mostly blue - so this is known as "Blue Park" by Jackie.

When we first bought the house, I thought it would be great to have a park so close, I was so wrong.

Every single time we come home - she sees the park and asks to go. She is also pretty possessive of the park - she sees another kid on the swing - and right away says "my swing" and wants to go and kick them off. Great!

Adam takes her across the street as much as possible - it is much harder for me to take both of them since Anderson is not so fond of staying in the stroller anymore.

I am sure we will be clocking in many more hours at this park in the years to come.

At the top of the slide.

A Mommy Moment

I do not get anywhere near as much attention / affection from Jackie as Adam does. I fell out of first place in her books about a year ago. Daddy is #1! She is 100% a Daddy’s girl, however when he is working, I temporarily take over that coveted first place ranking.

As many Moms and Dads know, a 2 year old is usually so busy playing they forget that their job also includes some snuggle time for their parents. When Jackie occasionally remembers her duty, usually Daddy is there to haul her up into his arms and love her to pieces. But a few weeks ago, he was at work when some much needed snuggle time happened.

A bobcat was across the street clearing a sidewalk, and this scared her, so she came running to me and the only thing I could do was haul her up into my arms and hold her and love her. She settled her head on my shoulder and I smelled her baby shampoo smelling hair and loved every single moment of it.

She wanted me to hold her for at least 10 minutes, and even when Anderson woke up, I still held her a few minutes longer. I knew moments like these are few and far between and I will cherish each and every last one of them.

Like Father , Like Daughter

Copying Mommy again....

Remember when I said Jackie makes me laugh at least once a day, well the other day, we were upstairs getting dressed and ready for the day.

I know it is in a toddler's nature to copy almost every thing they see, but I did not realize it would go this far.

I laughed so hard when she did this. Even funnier is she wore them until we had to leave the house and I had to put pants on her.

Beccause I think he is pretty cute.....

Birthday Photo

Anna had a cake for Jackie at day home yesterday, she snapped a few pictures and gave them to me (sorry about the quality - this is a scan of the photo).

Happy Birthday Jacqueline

My little girl is now officially 2. I know this is so clichéd – but I really can’t believe she is 2 years old already.

Favourite Food: Hard boiled eggs (only the egg whites though) or anything that Daddy is currently eating
Favourite Snack: Mini marshmallows and chocolate chips
Favourite Fruit: Strawberries
Favourite Vegetable: Frozen peas
Favourite Person: Daddy
Favourite Friend: Lauren from day home
Favourite Toy: Elephant puppet she got from Grandma and Grandpa for Christmas

As few things about Jacqueline:
She is not the biggest fan of Brutis – she HATES it when he is on Daddy’s lap or getting Daddy’s attention when she thinks she deserves it.
She also hates it when Daddy is holding Anderson – she will say “Mommy Boobie” – meaning – give Anderson to Mommy so she can feed him and that means I get my Daddy all to myself.
She loves to brush her teeth.
Not only does she have her favourite Blankie – she also has a funny assortment of items that must come to bed with her – Pumpkin: this is a small stuffed pumpkin I had out for Halloween as decoration – it has never been put away, Fishy – a stuffed sock made to look like a fish that Anna made for her, and Elephant – a puppet. But she also right now LOVES her towels – I have a few colourful beach towels and all 3 must accompany her to bed and then downstairs in the morning. Oh – and Big bear, bear and baby bear also help fill out the crib.
She seems to gravitate to men. If Grandma and Grandpa are here – she will play with Grandpa – same goes for when we have friends over – she gravitates to the men. I told her this is okay for now – but must change in 12-14 years.
She HATES getting changed. If you manage to get the sleeper off – she is more than happy to wear only a diaper all day long if I would let her.

She has a favourite color for everything:
Bottle – green – but she wants the choice – so we often have a decoy bottle in the fridge – the blue one – and almost every time she will still choose the green one.
Plate: yellow
Construction paper: purple
Sleeper: the purple princess one
T-shirts: white, but it would be yellow if I had a yellow shirt for her
Pants: the fussy pink ones
Straws: yellow
Vitamin: yellow

Looks like yellow is her favourite color, she is a very funny, very opinionated little girl – I think though this is only an indication of things to come…..

Happy Birthday Jackie - we love you very much and are so happy you are part of our family. You make me laugh at least once a day and smile all the time by just being you!

A Birthday Party

On Sunday we celebrated Jackie’s 2nd birthday with a big party. Since there were going to be a significant number of kids, along with their parents and then also friends and family, we decided not to inflict ourselves with that kind of punishment here at the house – instead we did Jackie’s party at Sip & Safari.

For those of you that do not know – Sip & Safari is an indoor kids play room that also serves coffee for parents and drinks and snacks for kids. Jackie, Anderson and I frequent it at least once a week. Here is their web site if you are interested.

For the party, I made cupcakes – chocolate with 2 different types of icing – strawberry and chocolate – all the recipes are posted on my food blog – In the Kitchen with Jenny.



Jackie loved the icing! It was funny – all the kids were seated for the cupcakes / candles – everyone had their fill and went off to play again – but not Jacqueline – she was the last one left at he table eating away.

She was however quite intimidated by the candles – the last time she would have seen a candle would have been a year ago at her first birthday – doubt she remembers that.

Everyone had a great time – it is a fantastic place to have a toddler’s birthday party – the kids have lots of room to run around and play, and the adults have lots of room to move around and visit.

The gift opening was comical - 8 toddlers all trying to "help" - I was in the middle - everyone else sat back and laughed.

As everyone was leaving, the kids got a treat bag and all the adults and children received a Monster Cookie thanking them for sharing the day with Jackie. The recipe is also posted on my food blog.

Thank you to everyone who came and shared as we celebrated 2 great years with Jackie.

I will post a few more pictures in a few days – I have some being emailed to me from friends and family.

4 months old!

Has anyone ever said time flies even faster with the second?

I am not ready for him to be 4 months old yet. I am enjoying him being a little baby too much! But he is growing and changing so much.

Anderson is a super happy, very smiley little boy. He loves his Mommy (but I think it is more about the food than anything else), he also enjoys watching his crazy sister.

I had Anderson in for his 4 month immunization today and got his height and weight updated.

Height:
Birth: 20 inches
2 months: 23 3/4 inches
4 months: 26 inches

Weight:
Birth: 7 pounds 15 ounces
2 months: 12 pounds 14 ounces
4 months: 15 pounds 13 ounces

He is still in the 75% for both height and weight - happy and healthy - we could not ask for more.

Book Review - The Other Boleyn Girl

Adam gave me this movie for Christmas, but since I had not read the book yet, I decided to hold off on watching it, read the book first and then watch the movie.

The book is fantastic. I loved it!

I am not a huge fan of historical fiction (I find lots of books do not describe the surroundings etc enough - how am I suppose to know what people wore in the 1500's), but Philippa Gregory does a great job at not just bringing you into the king's court in the early 1500's, but also into the lives of Mary and Anne Boleyn.

If you are looking for a great book that takes more than a day to read, I would recommend you pick this one up.

Sledding

This weekend we headed out to visit Grandma and Grandpa. they had given Jackie a sled for Christmas and we got a chance to take advantage of the nice weather and a great hill.
Jackie and all adults had a blast - we went out twice - once on Saturday and again on Sunday.

First down the hill with Daddy

As soon as we got to the bottom on the hill she would say "more, again!" - this is her running to do it "more, again!"

With Mommy

And Grandma

A big hill

Brutis even took a try - he did not enjoy it at all.

Grandpa came with us on Sunday since he was working on Saturday - but I missed getting him on my camera - however I got a great video with him.

Photos

Jenny needs...

I saw this on someone else's blog and thought it was funny - go to google and type "(your first name) needs" and see what comes up - here are the first 10 for myself.

1. Jenny needs... to find herself a baller - this is from someone else's blog doing the same thing - this Jenny thought it might mean a melon baller??

2. Jenny needs... a Wee video by Mr Jingles. (Hmm, not too sure about that one - I think I am good)

3. Jenny needs... a home. (since I already have a home I think they are talking about a dog named Jenny)

4. Jenny needs... a road bike (again - I am good already thanks - I will let you keep it)

5. Jenny needs... space. (This one I do need - with 2 under 2 - yes there are sometimes I would love to hide away somewhere)

6. Jenny needs... help masturbating (okay - we all know the Internet has a lot of porn - I laughed at this one and will refrain from further comment)

7. Jenny needs... love! $400. (I swear that is what it says - I might charge a bit more though...)

8. Jenny needs... a loving home (another dog)

9. Jenny needs... a home ASAP (this one is a car - but really - how many animals out there are named Jenny - I have yet to meet a dog, cat or bird with my name)

10. Jenny needs... a doctor dolly (no idea what a doctor dolly is....)

A fun little game but really did not address my true needs at all.

Book Club

A friend of mine started a book club a few months back and although I was too busy being pregnant, having a baby and then dealing with a new born to read the first book, I did succeed in reading the second.

Our second book choice was Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

I was more than a little apprehensive to read this book, I thought it would be way more religious than I was interested in reading. But I decided to give it a go - the reason I joined a book club was to push myself into reading books I would not normally read.

I was more than pleasantly surprised at this book. I thoroughly enjoyed it and would highly recommend it.

Here is a brief synopsis written by The New Yorker:

At the age of thirty-one, Gilbert moved with her husband to the suburbs of New York and began trying to get pregnant, only to realize that she wanted neither a child nor a husband. Three years later, after a protracted divorce, she embarked on a yearlong trip of recovery, with three main stops: Rome, for pleasure (mostly gustatory, with a special emphasis on gelato); an ashram outside of Mumbai, for spiritual searching; and Bali, for "balancing." These destinations are all on the beaten track, but Gilbert's exuberance and her self-deprecating humor enliven the proceedings: recalling the first time she attempted to speak directly to God, she says, "It was all I could do to stop myself from saying, 'I've always been a big fan of your work.'"

Hats

Anderson has a few hats I thought I would share with everyone.

Chairs

Jackie and Anderson both have their own chairs - she loves hers but right now his is way more fun....

Here they are in the right seats (and just in case anyone forgets - his shirt says 100% Boy).



Jackie in Anderson's Bumbo

And Anderson trying out her chair

10 months ago...

Approximately 10 months ago I slept through the night for the first time.... until last night! (While I am pregnant I never sleep through the night - damn bladder.)

We have been doing some sleep training with Anderson and he has been doing great. As many Moms know, once you get a child to sleep through the night, it take a little while for you to be able to. For the last few days that Anderson has been sleeping through, i still have been waking up at the normal time and listening for him, but last night I slept through.

Right now he is going to bed at 7pm and waking up around 5:00 / 5:30am. I know for some of you this is an outrageously early time and you would not consider that "sleeping through the night", but since Jackie wakes up at 6am every day anyway it is not too bad.

So now that we have gotten the nights worked out - we are working on the naps - so far he really only likes to nap for an hour at a time - we are trying to get him to 2 hour naps.

Auntie, Uncle and Cousins

I am so happy to announce that Adam is now an uncle, I am an aunt and Jackie and Anderson are now both a cousin.

Adam's brother, Lance and his wife Sarah had a baby boy yesterday, February 11th.

Logan Hunter Hill was born at 3:17pm via c-section and came in at 6 pounds 14 ounces.

We are super excited for them but also so sad that they live so far away and we will not be able to see Logan for quite some time.

Congratulations Lance and Sarah and welcome Logan!