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Emma, Ethan and I packed up our bags 2 weeks ago and invaded my parents house while Dann finished some of our house renos.

Dann has wanted to build a play room in the basement since we moved in, thus he finally got around to it. Dann framed up our storage room and sided the room with panelling. He painted the panelling to match the rest of the basement (bluff), put down a foam floor and then used our old area rug for the final touch.

(Dann even framed in a plastic mirror on the wall so the kids can look at themselves - he thinks of everything)!

Emma was so excited to see the finished product! Dann moved the kitchen centre out of Emma's room and put it down in the "new" room. She has spent countless hours playing in her new play room already and we have only been home for a couple of days. Not sure if Emma will like sharing her new space with her baby brother, once he is on the move!

Dann painted the last wall in the kitchen (now the walls are all one color)...

and the stairs now have white painted risers instead of white paper risers.

I think the risers turned out great... I have such a handy husband!

Enough reno photos...
lets look at the kids now!


Ethan is now 4 months old.
He is 21 pounds and 27 inches long.

Those thighs are bought and paid for...

Happy Birthday Grandma!

Mom was excited to celebrate her special day with her grand kids.

While we were away, we spent some time with Great-Grandma.

She is going to be 93 this summer, and still lives on her own in her house.

I think she has more energy than humanly possible!

Holding Ethan brought a sparkle to her eye, which was nice to see.

Emma also got a chance to spend 4 days with her cousin, as Dean and Richelle came home for a quick trip while we were at my parent's (to meet Ethan and visit Great-Grandma). We all had a nice visit, even if it was short.

Great-Grandma with her two Great-Grand Daughters

I managed to make a quick trip to Calgary to visit my old roommate and some family. Kari's youngest son Jack could not get enough of Ethan. All Jack wanted was to get as close as possible to Ethan. Jack is a big boy, so we had to hold him back on a few occasions.

I also got a visit in with my friend Janice. Her youngest daughter Olivia and Emma had a ball together. They were attached at the hip and played like old pals.

My cousin Debbie stopped over to Mom & Dad's the last night we were there. Grandma Deb loved Ethan and was ready to take him home! Yup, I said Grandma!! This Foxy Granny has 3 grand kids of her own and one more on the way!

We will end this slide show with a pic of Ethan in his highchair.

Nothing New

I don't really have anything new to post, so I thought I would put on a couple new photos and call it good!

Emma loves using all of Ethan's baby things with her dolls...

and

A close up of our little guy!

Bye for now!!

Always something...

I swear, we are always changing something in our house... never happy with the way it is. I have seen some wood stairs in my designer mags with their risers painted white. I personally have never liked all wood (like it is now) and I think we should paint them white. We put white paper on all of the risers to see if we like it.

The above photo has 2/3 of the stairs done... what do you think?
Paint them white or keep them brown??

The photo below has all the risers done in white to give you a better idea.
Any input is welcomed!!

Emma and Dann got creative with her veggies!

We got out the exersaucer for a try. Ethan loved it... with a little help of some blankets to keep him from slouching over too far. He is pushing lots with his legs lately and holds his head up well.

Sisterly/Brotherly love!!

Ethan just hangin' out!

Enough is enough!!!

Like we did not have enough snow already... last week we got hit again with another snow storm. There is a crazy amount of snow around and there is no where left to shovel the darn stuff. Yes, our front snow bank is as high as the garage roof!

I must say I have had enough of "Old Man Winter" and it can go away any time now!!

Above and below are photos of Emma's snow fort she made with Dann at Christmas. Needless to say, this last storm covered the fort with new snow, thus it is no more. Emma was sad to see the opening of her fort was blocked by a mountain of snow!

Emma's swimming party was a hit. The kids were exhausted when it was time for pizza & cake, which ment it was not so crazy in the party room. Because they were tired, the kids just played with baloons, and no games were needed!

Ethan is 3 months old now!

He weighed in at 17lbs 12oz and is 26.5 inches long.

Before long, Ethan will be sitting and then crawling (yikes, everything is happening so fast the second time around)!!

Ethan still has crazy hair, so Dann now refers to him as "Kramer"

A present for both of us

We decided to step up into the new "T.V. generation" and bought a 42" LG flat screen plasma. It is too awesome and we are really glad we took the plunge! The HD gets hooked up next week and then there is no turning back. We got a great deal before Christmas and then saved some more when we found it cheaper on Boxing Day! Yahoo!

Movies will never be the same (especially Baby Einstein... LOL, for those of you with kids).

Happy Birthday

HAPPY 4TH BIRTHDAY EMMA!!

Hard to believe my little girl is four years old! We had a small get-to-gether at the house the day of her birhtday and this coming Sunday Emma will have a party with some of her friends!

There were no shortage of presents... Emma is loved and spoiled by many!

It appeared that "Barbies" were the theme gift this year.

I would have to say that Prince Eric is one lucky guy (darn good odds, even for a plastic doll)!

Here is Ethan sporting his "Bull Dogs" shirt that his cousin sent him from California State University in Fresno, CA. Jeannette is a Keeper for the ladies soccer team, and Ethan is her #1 fan... GO BULL DOGS!!

We decided to try Ethan out in the Jolly Jumper. He is a bit young for it, but he loved it anyway.

Just a shot of the big harvest moon (before the snow storm).

Dann dressing up his son for combat...

No More Excuses

Well the time has come.... and no it is not a "New Year's" thing!

I only have 10 more months until I go back to work, and if you saw me now, you'd think I was 4 months pregnant. In other words... "stop talkin' the talk and start walkin' the walk!"

I hopped on the tread mill today and it felt pretty good. I would like to say that is me in the photo, but I would be lying (it does look like our tread mill though)!

Anyway... Emma thought it was fun because she did her exercises on her mini tramp while I was doing my thing. I will repeat this process... oh, like a million times, in the next 10 months. Hopefully this will help the belly shrink!

Christmas Magic

Christmas morning was very magical around our house. Emma slept in until 7:30, which is magical in itself! She ran straight down stairs, past her stocking and gold dress, to see if Santa ate his snack and read his note. She then ran back upstairs into our room screaming in excitement that Santa had come, he ate his snack and he brought her a new fish named "Max" (Emma excepted the death of old Max the fish a few days before X-Mas, stating Max is in Heaven and Great-Grandpa is taking care of him. Santa figured she could handle a new fish now).

Emma was so thrilled with Max, she was happy leaving it at that. She walked passed her stocking about 3 more times before she saw the "Gold Dress" hanging on the railing. When she finally noticed, Emma was vibrating and could not wait to put on her new "Gold Princess" dress. It fit like a glove!!

Emma also received some gold shoes, purse and necklace to accessorize her new look.

Here is the new "Max"

Pat, a friend of ours in PR, told us a story about how the owner of a local pet store stated her Beta fish jump out of their tank all the time, and she just scoops up the crusty dudes and plops them back into the tank. I guess they come back to life??? Hard to believe, but should the new "Max" decide to become an Olympic high jumper, we will try this to see if it does work??

Ethan had a terrible cold over the holidays (still has the tail end of it). Considering how sick he was, he was in pretty good spirits during gift opening etc.

I guess he had enough at this point!!

Happy again with big sister!

Family Photos...

Big sisterly love...

Mommy having some one-on-one time with her little man!

2 Months and more....

This photo was taken December 16th - Ethan at 2 months.
He weighed in at 16 lbs 4 oz and was 25.5 inches long
(is it wrong to have your boy on steroids this early in life? hahaha!)

Emma loves helping out with Ethan and enjoys feeding him his bottle from time-to-time. Ethan loves anyone who gives him food!!

I found some camouflage pants for Ethan while we were shopping in Edmonton... they are so darn cute!

TUMMY

TIME...

Ethan actually enjoys it once and a while!

I know I have mentioned we have had a lot of snow the last couple of months, but this photo really shows just how much. The city crews were busy cleaning off the roadways this week and piled the snow up on resident's front lawns.

Dann got busy with Emma and they started making a snow fort with all the large snow chunks...

they did not come in until dark!!

While I was busy with Ethan, Emma and her daddy got busy writing a letter to Santa. Emma was pretty proud of her letter. She wrote out some of the letters in the words herself (she is growing up so fast)!

Our visit with Santa went well this year (it did last year too)!!

Emma loved talking with Santa, telling him exactly what was on her list and Ethan just hung out without any tears!

Grandma & Papa arrived on Wednesday and they are very pleased with their latest Grandson.

From our house to yours,

God Bless

and

Merry Christmas

Bye-Bye Max

May 2006 - December 2006

Our pet fish, Max, left us early this morning and has gone to "Fishy Heaven"

Here is the story behind his departure...

The last month, Max, has been acting a bit weird and not eating much but he seemed to be coming around this past week. Yesterday morning I changed his water and he seemed happy, swimming around. Later that morning, Emma and I were getting ready to make gingerbread men when all of a sudden, Max jumped out of his fish bowl and landed on the counter in front of me. I was startled but I scooped him up quickly and plopped him back in the water. All seemed okay with Max until... Emma and I were rolling out the gingerbread dough, Max was splashing around like a crazy fool? Too weird!

THEN...

Lastnight after the kids were in bed, Dann was standing by the kitchen sink and all of a sudden, Max jumped out of the water again and landed on the floor. Dann got the net and scooped him back into his fish bowl. Dann commented that it was lucky he was standing there, cause if Max would have jumped out in the middle of the night or when we are out, he would be dead. We retired for the night around 11:00 p.m.

About 1:30 a.m., Emma woke up screaming and crying. She begged us not to leave her alone and was very upset (more than she has ever been with a bad dream). It took Dann over an hour to get her to calm down and go back to sleep alone. We thought it was very strange and unusual behaviour for Emma (when it comes to bed and sleeping that is).

This morning Emma and I went down to the kitchen to make oatmeal at 8:00 a.m. and I went to feed Max but he was not swimming around in his bowl like every other morning for the last 7 months. I went around the kitchen island to find Max dried up dead on the floor. He had to have been there half the night, cause when I went to pick him up, he was stuck to the floor. Emma was devastated that her little Maxy was dead. She was crying and said she does not want Max to go to Heaven or in the garbage. She went on to say that he should just stay inside with us until winter is over. I explained to her that Max will start to smell and he cannot stay inside. I think we convinced Emma to put Max into a box she decorated a few months ago with macaroni & fruitloops and we will cover him up in the snow outside.

Unknown if Emma's bad dream (Karma) last night had anything to do with Max flopping around on the kitchen floor before he succumb to his injuries??? Maybe someone was trying to tell us something?? Things that make you go hmmmmm??

Bye-Bye Max...