Happy Birthday Daddy!

Once upon a time, about 19 months ago, I met the most amazing person - my Daddy.

Now, I know there are a lot of really great dads in the world, but I think my Daddy is just the BEST one that could ever have been made for me. He really loves spending time with me and we have so much fun together that it always puts a smile on Mommy's face. Tomorrow's his 27th birthday, so thought I'd share some of my favorite Daddy memories from this month with you all.

Daddy and I read books together every day.

My favoritest part is when he does the crazy elephant noises!

He's taught me to do them pretty good!

One day I found a book on puppets and made Daddy read it to me. I think it inspired him...

...because he actually sewed me his own sock puppet! It didn't look quite like the ones in the book. But I liked it anyways. :)
On another day it was really rainy, so Daddy took me outside to help me look for worms. I just love worms. Worms go 'ssss', like snakes.

He even let me hold one!!

We got really wet but had a BLAST!

Here Daddy was making me giggle hysterically with a monkey puppet. He also chases me around the house like a lion a lot. I just love that. I laugh and I laugh...

Once in a while Mommy lets Daddy do my hair.
I think he does a beautiful job!

So as you can see, this Dad of mine is pretty neat. I wouldn't trade him for the world!
Happy Birthday, Daddy!
Lots of love,
Ellie
xoxoxo

Hooked on cheese...

It's gotten a bit more difficult lately to capture life in the Balfour household. We thought it was cute when we first taught Ellie to say 'cheese' for the camera. Now we get pictures of little else. If we actually manage to pull the camera out quietly enough that Ellie doesn't notice, she will always at least hear the flash popping up...and that second is the second she runs up to the camera, gives us her toothiest smile, says 'cheeeeeese' and almost before a person can snap the button, she's running around the other side of the camera to see what she looked like. I suppose that IS life in the Balfour household then, isn't it. Well then. Here's to cheese!

Turtle-necked cheese.

Shirtless cheese.

Tomato-covered cheese.

Black and white cheese.

Mommy-daughter-duo cheese.

Thankfulness

This thanksgiving I feel really really thankful. Sounds like a cliche, but this isn't always totally true for me. Yeah, it's always pretty easy to come up with some good things I'm thankful for when we share around the family dinner table - after all, we do live in North America....but this is different. It's like, bubbling in and maybe even over the edges of my heart. I am full to overflowing. May I get quite personal and share a few of these thankfulness 'bubbles' that are threatening to overflow? I'm thankful for...
1. A God who is faithful and committed to me and my little imperfect family.
2. A husband who sees beauty in me on my ugliest days (moodwise and otherwise :). The struggles, the triumphs, and the JOYS of marriage.
3. Our sweet and happy little girl. The gift of motherhood.
4. This little lively baby pummeling my ribcage. The miracle of pregnancy.
5. Hardships. They keep bringing us closer to God and each other.
6. My job at Hallmark...getting to see so many different types of people, and learning to love the difficult ones.
7. My parents. Watching them grandparent. Knowing the rich inheritance (metaphorically speaking :) that they are passing down to me and my children.
8. Daily bread...that we're in a place in life where we never have too much, and we never have too little. (Keeps us trusting in Someone other than ourselves.)
9. Colder weather. An overheating pregnant lady's dream come true. :)
10. That we own a Toyota. What a reliable piece of machinery!
11. Our apartment. Sure, we don't own a house yet like many of our friends, but it's definitely home (or "ham!", as Ellie calls it with glee) and there's no brighter, more peaceful place to be.
12. Books, music, crayons, playdough, blankies, disposable diapers, hot showers, donuts...I could go on, but maybe I'll save the rest for my journal. :)

Anyhow, it felt like a bit of a shame to be thankful and not share it with someone. I pray you all have a wonderful, thankful Thanksgiving weekend!

Puddle Jumping

A couple weeks ago we had a huge rainstorm on our way home from the grocery store. JUST as we parked the car the rain stopped, leaving large, wonderful puddles all over our parking lot. So I pulled off Ellie's shoes and socks, rolled up her pants and let her run wild:

What a wild child. Just look at her running wild. :)
No, she loved it. So we knocked on our neighbour Hayden's door....

And made it into puddle jumping party!

The sun even came out.

You can't see it in this photo, but Hayden went crazy and was covered from head to toe in muddy water.

Ellie stayed a bit cleaner.
As I write this we are having another dreadfully rainy day. This time, however, Ellie donned some beautiful shiny green boots (hand-me-downs from cousin Regan) and we bravely went to Extra Foods to get some chocolate chips. Ellie thought she was the coolest kid in the whole store, staring at her feet the entire time with this satisfied look on her face. So easy to please!

Toddlerhood

Recently I've learned something that can occasionally make or break my day.
Ellie is now 18 months, and every day she is closer to age 2 than she is to age 1. This fact is very evident as Ellie learns new motor skills at an alarming rate and mimics nearly everything she hears. This is also evident as her attitude becomes one that demands more and more independence. I have to remind myself often that this is a good and normal stage of her development. For instance, when it's raining outside and you don't want to wreck your hair before work and your little angel just wants to pick up one more leaf...and try with great determination to stick in the lock to the trunk, well, those are the sorts of times where that good and normal stage of development can remind a person that patience is a difficult virtue to learn. Anyhow, there are days that fly by without a hitch and I sigh and think to myself, "Isn't it just glorious to be a mom? I could do this forever." And then there are other days, underslept, teething, runny nose, diarrhea days, where the only thought that runs through my mind is, "Only four hours till Rob gets home. Only 3 hours and 53 minutes till Rob gets home..." . Well, okay, not really that bad, but days where it seems as though it'll never end. Especially when I haven't slept well or feel sick Ellie shows her independant side a little more than usual.
On one of those particular days I prayed and asked the Lord, "Can you help me out here? I need some wisdom. It feels like all I'm doing is saying 'no'". And the immediate thought that came to my mind was, "Count how many times she obeys." Hmmmm...I had never thought of that. So I tried it. And I was astonished! Elianna is a really really obedient kid! Sure she opened 5 different forbidden cupboards, stood on 4 different dangerous surfaces and ate 3 foreign objects all in 2 minutes flat but she listened EVERY time when I said 'close that', 'please sit down' and 'oh yuck, spit that out!'. All the reminders had caused me to overlook the postive results. And then I realized that this applies to all areas of my life...how often do I count the negative before the positive? How many times do I look at the clutter my hubby leaves behind instead of noticing all the ways he tidied up? Or how often do I count my aches and belly pains before counting how good the rest of me feels? How often do I count how much I lack before realize how much abundance I have!?!? Okay, rant is over. For any tired-out moms of toddlers out there I'd like to encourage you to take the test: count obedience before disobedience. You might be surprised!

Bubble baths

Bath time has gotten real easy around our place these days. Start singing "This is the way you wash your _____ (fill in the blanks) " and Ellie does all the work for you.From her cheeks,

to her belly,

and even her nose!
(Now if only I could teach her to do her hair. She hates that part.)

Rob Goes Under the Knife

DISCLAIMER: if blood makes you queasy, maybe skip this one. :)

Yesterday Rob got his wisdom teeth pulled. I, being the faith-filled wife that I am, geared myself up for the worst possible results (a coma, spontaneous projectile blood fountains spurting from his mouth, etc.) because well, things usually get somewhat adventurous when Rob meets illness....and in this case, minor surgery. Fortunately things turned out almost A-okay. The surgery went peachy and Rob came home swollen and bloody and tired, but pretty much normal-seeming. I had to go to work in the evening so I dropped off Ellie(who, at the same time as this just happened to come down with a cold. That's generally how these things work) at a friend's house and went on my way. Later on Rob called me at Hallmark and in that half-frozen sounding, non-consonant-pronouncing way asked if I could bring some gauze home from work, and sorry about the rug. :) hehe. Apparently (like other members of his family) Tylenol 3 and Rob are NOT friends...and Rob ended up having a big throw-up shortly after taking one. This opened up everything that was trying to clot in his mouth, producing mass quantities of blood. This is a bit of a problem in itself (blood isn't fun). Another problem was that Rob puked into a bag provided by the doctors which he assumed was water proof. And it wasn't. Poor guy, dizzy and faint, did his best to clean up our cream-colored carpet before collapsing in a heap on the part that wasn't stained. I left work early and got my dear shnot-nosed girl, put her to bed, and then got to work on the blood trail left across the living room floor. :) My results were so-so (anyone got any ideas? I tried table salt...apparently that was supposed to do the job. There are still faint stains.) Anyhow, the good news is that even without the Tylenol Rob is actually doing just fine. The bleeding has finally stopped and he doesn't seem to be minding a day spent reading his books and eating Jello. And Ellie's in pretty good spirits despite the fact that she's so congested that she calls me "Bummy" instead of "Mommy" and her eyes are constantly tearing. And I'm just really thankful. Thankful that I don't have say, 6 kids with the flu barfing all over the place, thankful that I can't get my wisdom teeth removed until after this baby comes, and thankful that God's grace is always sufficient. Cleaning up bloody puke really isn't all that bad when you were preparing for a coma.

Here's some photos of Rob and Ellie playing in their first fort together (just for the sake of throwing in some photos):

What's a campout without a little KFC?

Birds Hill Park

On Labour Day weekend Karla and Nathan invited us to join them at Birds Hill Park, a great campground/man made lake/picnic area about an hour away from us. We picnicked and playgrounded (yeah, not a word) in the most beautiful end-of-summer weather you could ask for.

My mom says they walk the same. I think it might be true.

This was the view we had of Regan most of the time...a distant, rear view of her disappearing into the horizon. That girl can run!
I don't have a photo of it, but Regan got into her first ever playground fight a bit later...and I think her first playground kiss, too. (The fight and the kiss were from the same boy. The kiss came first. Love is tough.)

Ellie found the chips. And helped herself.

And shared a couple with Auntie Karla. Mostly she helped herself.

Feeling quite independent on the picnic table.
Ellie rode in the trunk on the way home.
Just kidding, Grandma. :)
It's a great place to change a poopy diaper.
We couldn't resist stopping for ice cream on the way home. Mama couldn't resist, anyways.
CHEESE!

Interesting News

Most of you have already heard, but for those who haven't, MY DUE DATE HAS BEEN MOVED, again. *sigh*. It's a little bit depressing, really. We are now expecting a New Year's baby again, like I had originally thought. The ultrasound report came back last week and my doctor was wrong. He had thought (according to my measurements) that I was due Nov. 23. The ultrasound says January 12! Yeah! That's quite a difference! Suddenly I feel massive. Oh well. We're aiming for January 1 so we can get lots of free stuff. :) So off I go to change our pregnancy ticker again...

A few pics of Dana's wedding

Dana, the gorgeous (and very relaxed) bride.

Me and the kids.

Dana and mom looking awesome.

My family,which is getting very large! Ellie, Rob, me, Leila, Dad, Mom, Dana, Jon (my new brother) Karla, Regan and Nathan.

Ellie having a blast with Nana.

Ellie happy in the arms of her handsome Bapa.

Regan looking beautiful. It was quite the task trying to keep these flower girls clean for the ceremony!

Dana and her step mom Liz admiring the wedding wheels.

My sister Leila, a bridesmaid.

The girls drawing attention to themselves as always!

(I didn't have time to take photos during the ceremony or reception, but it was beautiful. Dana and Jon's vows had most people in tears; Regan and Ellie actually both came down the aisle looking like little angels (and then Regan ran back UP the aisle:) and Rob did a stellar job of MCing the reception. It was an incredible day that I'll never forget!)