The Better Half

What a wonderful second half of Rob's holidays we had! We spent a lot of time resting and playing and the whole week was extraordinarily peaceful. This post we'll let the pictures tell the story!

We spent a lot of time in our PJs reading books. (Ellie is turning into a book worm like her parents. Here she is "reading" her Bible.)

Ellie and Daddy sharing a story. Ellie is tickling herself, like usual.

Rob's brother Tom sent us new speakers for our computer for Christmas. When Ellie and Joshua got up from their nap, they re-discovered the world's best toy ever:

The Box.

Ellie dumped a whole bin of play food in The Box for Joshua and he was happy to sit there for almost half an hour.

Ellie used The Box as a sticker book and a bed for the next three days.

Her friends often joined in the fun, too.

Ellie also spent a lot of time nurturing one of her favourite dogs, "Zammy". He was a $3 garage sale find. I don't really like noise-making toys (and he barks "E-I-E-I-O" when you pull his string) so I was hoping to leave him in that particular garage. After some unusually insistent declarations of love for the little spotted fellow, I let her take him home. I've never regretted it!

Giving Zammy a "lolly pop".

Joshua playing quietly with his favourite farm toys. When the afternoon sun shines into our living room like that, it seems to make everyone quite content to just enjoy life.

Ellie spent a lot of time dressed up as a princess, thanks to her uncles Tom and Farzad who like to indulge her princess obsession! She felt very beautiful...thanks guys. :)

(Note that Joshua is still sitting in The Box in the background...)

One sunny morning during Joshua's nap the rest of us had a Play Dough party:Concentrating!

Rob's masterpiece - Archie Asparagus (for those of you who know Veggie Tales)

The stuff that came out became known as "Spaghetti Minder". Don't ask. Ellie makes up names for everything.

I don't know about you, but I think Rob was having as much/more fun than Ellie!

Wednesday (once our stomachs were finally feeling somewhat normal) we decided to go on a very special and rare outing: McDonald's! Aside from Joshua deciding that he hates cheeseburgers, the meal was perfect. Totally peaceful and fun.

Another great aspect of the holiday was that we got some much-needed cleaning done! One day we rearranged our bedroom and purged our boxes of books that we don't read anymore. Anther day Rob steam-cleaned all the puke stains out of our carpet. Unfortunately it didn't dry over-night...but the kids didn't mind:

Ellie (for a reason we'll never fully understand) enjoying some air on her tush.

Joshua was a bit more captivated with our dehumidifier buttons.

We had my sister Karla and her family over one evening.
Regan and Ellie now go down to Ellie's room and play alone (quietly) for long periods of time. This is how we typically find them:Pretending to go to sleep and dressed up in each other's clothes and panties.
It never ceases to amaze us, because they used to fight. A LOT.

And lastly, Joshua turned ONE on Friday! We decided to hold off on his party until the end of January (too close to Christmas!) but we did celebrate a little by going to the swimming pool. It was wonderful.

Getting splashed in the face.

Apparently our kids are not real go-getters in the pool. They like the water, but they like watching everyone else like the water even more!

That ball never left his sight (or his death grip).

Dumping water on Daddy

Another really fun peaceful outing. I felt so thankful and blessed by all the rest God gave us this week. Today we are back to our regular routine refreshed and healthy!

p.s. More to come about Joshua's birthday after the party in late January.

The Better Half of the Holidays....to be continued.

I have got a TRUCKLOAD of happy pictures from the better half of this holiday ready to be posted...but our internet connection is really wonky this weekend. We'll only be able to fix it when our landlord gets back tomorrow...so stay tuned!

A Blue Christmas

As hard as we tried, this Christmas really turned out to be a bit of a blue one for our family.
It started out alright. On the weekend of the 20th and the 21st we had two family gatherings that were fun. Ellie and my niece Regan are at that wonderful age where they go off and play well together, so Rob and I had a lot of time to reconnect with relatives and eat lots of delicious food.

Story time with Uncle Nathan.

Regan quickly inhaled three cookies before anyone could stop her. :)

Sharing a picnic lunch.

Nana and Josh enjoying a game of Peekaboo.

Monday the 22nd Joshua began doing little gagging coughs in the car while we were running errands. In the night I woke up 3 or 4 times to hear him gagging on his throw-up...tiny little pukes that didn't really make any sense. We were hoping he had just eating something a little off.

Well in the morning, without thinking, I gave him his bottle of milk like usual, and it didn't stay down for more than 3 minutes. So that day was filled with random projectile vomit all over the place. Not anything too surprising or disturbing. Been there done that.

Christmas Eve we all woke up feeling pretty good. When I went into Ellie's room I told her it was Christmas Eve. "Christmas EVE!?!?" she repeated, "I hab to gib Santa a BIIIIG hug and gib him a candy cane!" I found this rather surprising, seeing as Ellie's been terrified of Santa her whole short life. "We need to go to the mall and see Santa at his workshop!" Ellie begged. I didn't promise her anything seeing as Rob and I were both working all day, and she and Josh were going to my parents' for the day. Well it didn't take much twisting for Ellie to convince her Auntie Leila to take her to the mall. Apparently it took three tries, and on the third try Santa noticed Ellie shyly watching him from a distance, and he waved and told her she had nice boots. WELL! If there's any way to win over a little girl like Ellie, it's to talk about her apple boots. She was 100% sold. I happened to peek out the window of the Hallmark store where I work just then, and saw her sitting on his lap! I quickly ran out just in time to see them get this photo of her:
She yacked his ear off about her fuzzy socks and how she was staying at Nana's that day, and he was very Santa-like and did a great job of feigning interest. Every time she sees the photo of her on Santa's lap she declares enthusiastically, "I'm not AFRAID ANYMORRRRE!" Santa has never played any part in my childhood Christmas's, but I've got to say, it was pretty neat to see Ellie overcome her fear and enjoy this aspect of Christmas for the first time.
Christmas Eve dinner with my family also started off alright, and was very yummy!! After we headed downstairs to read the story of the first Christmas and have the kids open their gifts. My dad valiantly tried to keep the girls attention with a children's version of Jesus birth, but they were just too excited to sit still. Their legs and arms were flailing all over the place the entire time.I don't need to mention how much fun the girls had unwrapping their gifts (as well as their little brothers' gifts):
Joshua seemed confused by this whole 'ripping off the paper' concept and kept trying to put it back on the present:
Well we only lasted until about 7:15pm and Rob and I both felt really gross and tired, and decided to cut our favourite night of the year short and go home. When we got home Rob just lay down on the couch and didn't move again for a looong time. I put Joshua to bed and then decided to do Ellie's new puzzle with her before putting her down. She was having a great old time when suddenly she sat back, put her fingers in her mouth and said, "My mouth hurts. No. My throat hurts. No. My tummy hurts!" And I said, "Ellie, do you have to puke?" And she said, "YES!" So we ran to the bathroom where she deposited pretty much all of her Christmas Eve dinner, and then she said, "Let's do the puzzle again, Mommy!" So we did, and then took another intermission to deposit her dessert...and then the rest of the night went downhill from there. Rob was making bathroom trips from 8 pm till 4 am and I was up with Ellie for most of the night. She was such a trooper. Every time I ran to her room to hold a bowl under her mouth, she'd curl back up in bed and say, "Thanks, mommy. I love you. See you tomorrow!"

Needless to say, Christmas morning we were all exhausted, except for Joshua who was now over the flu but had begun teething again. My mom graciously took him for the day while Rob slept, Ellie watched videos and slept, and I did mounds of yucky laundry and cleaned the bathrooms. Rob and Ellie recuperating together (he's tickling her hand...hence the hypnotized look on her face:)

Ellie and I managed to put together her new Playmobil house together on our own while Rob napped.

My flu never manifested itself aside from feeling nauseous ...and it's still kinda stuck in there (there are benefits and disadvantages to not being a puker!) So needless to say, we forfeited the gifts on Christmas day, and never got around to baking the birthday cake for Jesus that we had intended to.

Boxing day we all felt much better, so we decided to let the kids open their gifts from us and Grandpa and Grandma Balfour then. But as you'll soon tell from the photos, everyone was still really wiped, and there wasn't much enthusiasm to be found about anything:

Our humble little 12 inch tree.

Ellie and I sporting her new head bands. I bought her three girlie things (headbands, a necklace, and a princess crown) from a store called Ardene for $5 and they were her some of her favourite presents! Christmas sure doesn't have to be expensive at this age.

Joshua doesn't look that enthused, but these matchbox cars from Grandpa and Grandma are a BIG hit! This was the only gift he didn't try to re-wrap! :)

Ellie and I reading a book given to her from our landlords.

Feeling beautiful.

Josh and Rob wrestling once Josh lost interest in the gifts.

He decided to go off and explore instead.

Ellie was PUMPED to get some new Veggie Tales movies and CDs from Grandma and Grandpa. We've already spent a considerable amount of time dancing to the new songs (working off our Christmas goodies. Oh wait. Those all got puked out.)

We've all been kinda sleepy and groggy ever since. The biggest blessing of it all is that the kids have been sleeping some 13 hour nights, and Rob and I are getting lotttts of much needed rest!

So anyhow, this wasn't the Christmas I had envisioned for our little family - at all. And I would LOVE to be able to tell you that my attitude was great through the whole thing. But it wasn't. I did alright while everyone was puking as we were all in survival mode, but the next day the disappointment of it all really hit me, and I found myself actually getting angry about it. As much as I would have liked to believe that Jesus was the reason I was excited about Christmas, the truth was exposed when my favourite traditions went down the tubes (or shall we say, the toilet?) and I got grumpy about it. Already looking back I can see it was good that I was forced to turn to Jesus in a big way this Christmas and realize again how great my need for Him really is. I am speechless that he came to earth so he could die for a sinner like me. What a wonderful Saviour. There was no hype for us this Christmas. But Jesus was in the house. What more could I ask for?

p.s. Stay tuned for (hopefully) a more upbeat post at the end of this week. Rob is still on holidays and we plan on having a dang good time with our little family. :)

A Christmas to remember!?

So far I'm the only one who hasn't been throwing up all over the place...

I will post all our happier Christmas memories once this beast of a flu has left our house!

p.s. Merry Christmas to all my wonderful friends and family who read this!

Prayer and Band-aids

I think this week was my initiation into what it means be the mommy of a little BOY. Let me tell you about it. :)

Saturday morning we were getting ready to go to a friend's birthday party. As I was combing Ellie's hair, I moved a chair that normally helps to guard our space heater from being touched by a certain curious individual of our family...Joshua. Because we were leaving almost immediately and were in quite a rush, I didn't think to move the chair back.

Big mistake.

As Rob and I rushed about getting our things ready, we suddenly heard a piercing cry from Joshua in the living room. At the same time we realized exactly what was happening: Joshua had walked along the furniture towards this 'new' thing to be discovered, had grabbed on, and didn't know to let go when it started hurting. Rob grabbed Joshua and ran to the bathroom to run his hand under cold water. Josh was absolutely freaking out and fighting us like crazy...he did NOT want anything to touch his hand, not even a cold cloth. Finally we pried his hand open to survey the damage: lots of white, loose skin. So we very quickly changed our destination from birthday party to Emergency Room!

Josh screamed the entire car ride there, but thankfully we were seen immediately because of the volume of his cries. The nurses wrapped his hand up in layers of gooey stuff (Kristi might know what it's called :) but it was next to impossible to keep it on him...he was still fighting us tooth and nail. Slowly Joshua began to fall asleep, exhausted from fighting and crying. The nurse came in with codeine and advil, and then Josh passed out completely. We sat and waited to see a doctor for a loong time with Josh snoozing on my lap. Another little boy came in with a bloody cloth held to his eye - he'd been stabbed by the horn of a goat! I was almost in tears (mostly from the emotion of what we'd just been through) as I listened to the nurses wash his eye out and then declare with a sigh of relief, "It's just the eyelid!" I couldn't stop thanking Jesus for how minor Joshua's wound really was (turns out he got second-degree burns).

Finally Joshua was seen by the doctor, and he woke up and smiled a very cute, drug-induced smile and lay perfectly still while they wrapped up his hand into what I affectionately called, "The club". When we arrived home, I put Joshua on the couch and he looked at his toes, wiggled them, and smirked. Hehe..I have to say, it was quite amusing to watch him on codeine!

(Josh and 'the club'...woozy from codeine)

For the next four days we had to go in and get his burns re-wrapped every day. He was a trooper and always sat very still and gave his 'flirty eyes' to the nurses, but it really stunk to have to go out each day in our minus gazillion degree weather. Not nice... especially for the kids. Yesterday I convinced the wound care clinic nurse to let me change his dressings myself from now on, so she packed me a big goody-bag full of supplies, and I'm officially earning my title as 'nurse' of the family (I think that's part of a mom's job description, no?)

(Joshua day 2...back to his old self)

(Joshua day 3..getting more comfortable with his bandage and starting to get it dirty faster...bites on it when he's bored)

Well, this story probably all sounds quite piddly to you more experienced moms out there, but you must understand that I have a three year old little girl who's only had TWO band-aids in her life, and only ONE of them involved a scratch. :) My life is about to change!!

(Joshua getting his burn re-dressed by my neighbour, a health nurse, one night when it started to unravel. It's hard to see but the whole palm is covered in blisters.)

Joshua's hand is healing really well. The blisters got huge, and then started to re-absorb without popping, which is the best case scenario - least chance of infection.

But that's not really the end of the story. The wipe-outs continue non-stop (at least 5 a day) as Josh has limited use of his right hand to hang onto furniture with it all wrapped up. (That, plus he's begun the darling habit of throwing his head back whenever you say 'no' to something, often resulting in some uncomfortable sounding 'smack' on the floor...or on your face, if you're not careful!)(Pumped to be able to use his hand again with a smaller bandage)

And as if all that's not bad enough, yesterday I was wiping Joshua's hands before taking him out of his booster seat, and turned to look at my sister. I was standing RIGHT THERE. Literally RIGHT THERE! And somehow (for whatever reason seemed fitting at the time) Joshua managed to throw himself over the side of his booster seat, landing on the floor and gouging his temple on the corner of our hope chest. Oh. Man. That horrible horrible feeling in the bottom of your gut when your child is hurt and you wish you could have prevented it.

(Joshua's temple gouge and bruise on his eyebrow)

Anyhow, the bump from that incident is already gone, and so far Joshua doesn't seem to be brain-damaged. :)

All this to say, I have become very accustomed to life with a girl like Ellie that has been mostly about singing, playing, and dress-up. I'm beginning to understand and accept that my life as mom to a little boy like Joshua might be more about prayer, vigilance, and BAND-AIDS!

Church Christmas Program

Last night was our church's annual Christmas celebration. Normally we don't actually do a program or anything, just get together to talk and sing and laugh and eat great junk. Well this year we did a program that included at least half the church...including our family. I thought I'd post a couple of videos to give you a glimpse.

The first one is of Rob. He had the only recurring role in the program, playing the church janitor. As always, he went above the call of duty and made his throat sore with his version of a 'janitor's voice'. The kids LOVED it. This was the only segment I got on tape:



At one point he did something super funny...so funny that he not only had the whole church in stitches, but HE couldn't stop laughing either. Kind of similar to what happened to me a little earlier. Josh just wouldn't stop grabbing the microphone. The second line I tried to read I just entirely lost my composure:



Ellie had her first ever stage appearance (along with three of her little friends) and decided she liked it just fine!



And then after the program was over, Ellie had her first dance "recital". It was pretty cute! Ellie is a year and a half younger than the rest of the girls in her class, and when she first started, I doubted my decision to put her in...she had no idea what a "class" was, and didn't follow instructions. She would simply go off and sit on a couch, or find a toy to play with. So I went with her for a couple of classes to remind her to listen to Michelle, her teacher, and she's loved it ever since!

(The two girls on the right are twins, and couldn't seem to decide whose bells were whose. :) And Ellie was a bit obsessive about getting back on her piece of tape after every jump. :)




P.S. Apparently Joshua CAN talk! Suddenly he says "Eh-YEE" for Ellie, Mama, Dada, "na na" (for night night), "bah" for bottle, and "YA!" to answer any question you ask him. He shakes his head vigorously when you tell him "NO!", waves goodbye like a mad man, and as of yesterday, does the sign language for 'more' (he thought he was prett-ee great when he finally did the sign back at me :). But really he does none of these things on command - only on his terms. He's not as eager for approval as Ellie is. He's taken me a bit off guard, as I had prepared myself for late language development. But I'm not complaining. No, quite the opposite. I think I'm quite pumped!