The purple icing:

Last week the girls and I made cupcakes, and they requested purple icing. It wasn't the prettiest colour I have ever seen, but they were pleased with it, and had a great time icing the cupcakes themselves.




Two cuties colouring.

Morgan is home from school today. She is running a fever and is generally miserable. She has a couple of suspect spots but I am not entirely convinced that it is the chickenpox...time will tell. Ella has a gazillion more spots today and is being a trooper! She is in the best mood of the three of them!!

Guess what?????

Ella has the chicken pox!!!! The older girls haven't had it yet, so we are potentially in for a very long month!!!!! I have no idea how she got it either.
Wish us luck!!!
xxoo

Check this out!!!!

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First Steps

Ella just took about five steps BY HERSELF in the kitchen!!! We're in trouble now.... what a star :)

XXOO to all.

Taking a little breather!!!!

We have been running non-stop for I don't know how long!!! March break is finally here and we are taking it easy. A very welcome thing! The in and out of the van with boots and snowsuits is getting old (and exhausting!) so it is really nice not to have to be rushing three little people into the cold every morning.
We are back into a hectic appointments for everybody. Dentist, pediatrician, family doc, etc....Ella has had a bunch of appointments, and all is well. She had her eye appointment and her eyes look great! We go back again in six months. Now we're just waiting for ENT and her follow-up hearing and speech appointment.
Had a nice weekend - visited with friends from Montreal whichwas awesome. We really wish we all lived closer!!!!!
Other than that it has just been the daily grind - and I have been slacking in the picture department.
xxoo to all :)

Birthday Pictures

The Birthday Girl and Tasha!


The Birthday Cake chosen by Paige:


Eating of the cake :) No mess here; it all went in her tummy!!


Opening of presents!

The big snowstorm:

Last week we got a huge dump of snow. They say somewhere between 70 and 80 cm of snow hit our city....Here is what it looked like when we got up in the morning:

This was the view from our patio doors.


From the kitchen window:



The living room window:


The kids had a wonderful time out in the snow:


This was taken from the kitchen window; Paige is almost as high as the window.



Morgan was having too much fun throwing snow in the air to come any closer for a picture.

Today in guiding we celebrate Thinking Day. This is in honour of Lord and Lady Baden-Powell's birthdays. They were the founders of guiding, and shared the same birthday. Very cool! Morgan is wearing her Sparks uniform to school today to mark the day.

Happy Birthday Ella Grace!!!

IM000014
Originally uploaded by The Doodlebugz.

I can hardly believe how quickly this year has passed, and that your birthday is already here! Hard to believe that at this time last year Maggie was bigger than you- much bigger than you!!!You have brought such love and joy to all of us, and to everyone that loves you. We love you little Miss Ella Bean, Happy Birthday!!!!!
Love,
Mama, Daddy, Morgan, and Paige
xxoo

Amazing Discovery! Oh yeah, and Happy Valentine's Day ;)

I have been getting HARASSED for an update, which this will not be; I just discovered something today that I wanted to share. Actually I'm a bit surprised that I haven't noticed it before; although I think that Grandad did when he was here in November and I being so distracted by everything else took no notice. Anyways, enough rambling.

My big discovery is that Paige is a south-paw. She has been having trouble colouring and I couldn't for the life of me figure it out since her fine motor skills are so good. Well it is because she is really left-handed. She was colouring up a storm today with her left hand!!!!!!! What a star!

Update to come; it is a certain baby's birthday in two days, plus we just got a dump of 70 cms of snow so I have pictures of that as well.


xxoo to all :)

The spay that wasn't and other tales....

What a bunch of cuties. This was from a couple of weeks ago when we got together for dinner.



Little Miss Belle went to the vet on Friday to be spayed. I took her in for 9 am and at about 10:45 got a call from the vets clinic. They had done her pre-surgery blood work and all was well. They had put her out, shaved a strip on her belly, and there was a fairly recent spay scar. I couldn't pick her up until late afternoon though because she had had a general anesthesia. Poor kitty. Here she is sleeping it off; she was still quite stoned when I brought her home. She has had the desired affect on Maggie, who seems much happier to have company. Not to say that there isn't still the occasional hissing....


This picture is a just because picture.



Other than that, everyone is sick still, and I can't wait for winter to end. Okay I know that it just started, but I've had enough!!!! Ella has her hearing test on Friday, so I'll update then.
xxoo

So much for being original. I just saw a top ten list of baby names for 2006, and Ella was on it. Hmmn. Off to make dinner but I'll post later......

Update

Morgan had her first experience of heartbreak last week. A boy in her class whom she was very close with (although I must say more last year than this) moved away on Friday. We had tears all weekend. She is such a sensitive one (underneath the bubbly facade) and was really quite sad. She's feeling much better on that front but stayed home from school today because she wasn't feeling well. The teacher said she had a really "off" day yesterday so I let her stay home today. Hopefully after a good night's sleep she will be right as rain.

Paigie has school tomorrow and I am duty mum. It was quite cute on Monday when I went to leave she came running for a hug; and so did her best friend. Her teacher told me last week what a nice person Paige is. That was so nice to hear given all the tantrums (although they have been a bit better of late).

Miss Ella has me stumped. I have this sippy cup that reminds me of a bottle (the top is silicone and squishy rather than hard plastic) and she has never really taken anything from it. I used to pump on a regular basis in the hopes that she would take fluids from somewhere other than me, but with no luck. So I got frustrated pumping and tried water, and when she was old enough, watered down juice. Still no joy. She would take a bit, and spill most out the side of her right lip. The plastic surgeon even told me that it was because she couldn't get good enough suction. Well I gave her warmed up cow's milk this week, and she took it; without spilling! I've even been trying to get her to take a straw with no luck. So it seems that she likes milk! Or maybe also because she is getting older. She even went to bed twice this week with only having drunk from the cup, no nursing! So it looks as if I may be able to wean her in the near future! Although surprisingly enough, for all my bitching about wanting to have her weaned by a year (or near abouts), now that she is starting to take a cup I feel a little bittersweet about the whole thing. I guess knowing that she really is the last....


Well I'm off, Kev is out of town and I'm quite tired. Friday is a PA day so Morgan is off, need to figure out something fun to do with them. We have to get up early anyway on Friday
to take Belle into the vets to be spayed.

Dictee

Morgan got 100% on her dictee today, and even got the bonus word right (which we hadn't studied)! Good Job!

Poor Ella Bazoo

As if an ear infection wasn't enough; when I went to put Ella in the tub last night, she was covered in a lovely rash all over her tummy and back. I called the after hours line, and the registered nurse told me that she has an "amoxicillan rash" which is quite common and does not indicate a penicillin allergy. She is to keep taking the medicine and the rash will go away on its own. She probably won't develop the rash again. Poor little muffin though!
Morgan has her first dictee (spelling test) today, we worked really hard on learning the words so I can't wait to see how she did. I'll post later.
Off to vacuum.....

Storm Day

The big girls painting with water colours, and having a great time!

This is the baby with the fever and ear infection. She's still smiling!!!!

The princess is crashed in her favourite spot. She only sleeps on the couch because I told Kevin not to worry about the cat shedding all over the couch; Maggie doesn't. Ha, ha, should have kept my mouth shut on that one. Speaking of Maggie, no picture of her, she is on top of the cupboards in her usual spot refusing to pose.....

I'd take a picture of outside, but there is nothing to show, doesn't take much freezing rain for them to close the schools here; makes sense though as the roads were pretty bad this morning when we went to the doctor!
xxoo

Freezing rain and one sick baby

There was no school today due to freezing rain. The kids were pretty excited to stay home. We did have to go out though. Ella has had a very high fever on and off since Friday supper time. I took her in to the doctors this morning and she is now on antibiotics for an ear infection. Poor muffin. She hasn't complained at all, just had this wicked fever.
I'm off to try and sneak a little nap while she is asleep and the big ones are playing. Ella hasn't been sleeping much at night so I'm pretty beat!

Happy Birthday Hannah!!!!!

Yesterday we celebrated Hannah's birthday, and her real birthday is today; 5 years old!! Hard to believe how fast the time is going, I can remember holding her in the hospital when she was first born!

Placental pathology

How's that for a title??? I had a phone call this morning from Kathleen in the genetics department. When we saw the geneticist I asked about the placenta, and they didn't know. So she got the pathology report from the hospital where I delivered. Apparently my family doctor has had it all along; nice of him to share, and for some reason the paediatrician did not get a copy. Go figure! So, the report stated that the maternal side of the placenta was fine, but the fetal side had necrotic (DEAD) tissue areas. Problems in the blood vessels and some cysts. Now apparently this can happen in pregnancies with normal outcomes, so it doesn't really give us any new answers. We already know that it had to do with that placenta. I also think that we won't ever have any real answers; and I am finally okay with that. I want to focus on the fact that I have three gorgeous healthy and tenacious daughters. Ella does not have any major health issues. So far her hearing looks fine, and so does her eye. What more could I ask for? For months and months (probably because we didn't even have any kind of diagnosis) I was desperate for answers. I am now able to let that go, and enjoy this sweet baby girl that we've been blessed with. Hard to believe that in a little over a month, she will be a year old. WOW!

All caught up!!!

Well guys there you have it, I am all caught up on pictures, I think. Must run, it is Sparks night.
xxoo to all.

My three divas ;)

Three Divas ;)

Daddy's girls

Cute as punch

The best present of all:

Here is Miss Ella Bean on Christmas morning:


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Voila!

Building the gingerbread train

The girl and her guests

The Birthday cake

Now that I'm finished ranting about preschool, I'll try to get some more pictures up. Here is the cake from Morgan's birthday party. The characters are Lilo and Stitch from her favourite movie!

Parent run organizations.......

For those of you who don't know, Paige goes to a co-op pre-school two mornings a week. This requires me to do duty days. In order to do these duty days I pay my friend to watch Ella Bean. The other requirement are Bingo nights. This is the school's major source of funding - without which the school would close; so parents are required to "volunteer" their time there as well, the number of bingo's is related to how many days your child attends; as it does with duty days. (I get out of Bingo though - Kev goes because he doesn't want me downtown at night so he does them!).

So all that said, we had a meeting this morning. Somehow the president made mention of the fact that there is a family that because of their situation does not do duty days or bingo's - but does pay extra in order to have their child in the school. Well! All hell broke loose. People were furious that if they had to make arrangements in order to fulfill their obligation to the school, then so should everyone. It was then explained that every year there is one family that because of circumstances cannot fulfill all the obligations but is allowed to have their child attend if they pay more. To me this seems fair. When we enrolled Paige we know what would be required of us, and decided that we could commit to that so that she could attend this school. Now I know that if we had not been able to commit, but it was really important that she be in the program I would really appreciate it if we were given a chance for that to happen. I don't understand why others would object so strongly,and I was not the only on who felt that way. Keep in mind that there were only a select few that were bitching. Be responsible for your own family. If you know that you can meet certain obligations (no matter what sacrifices you have to do to make that happen - that is what happens when one has children) so that your child can go to a co-op pre-school then do that. If your school is helping out one family a year that needs it; be happy that your child is in such a caring environment. Don't bitch that they aren't doing as much work as you!
The whole meeting practically was wasted on that instead of anything productive. Apparently this is the first year that any one has had a beef with this, and as a result they won't be doing it anymore. So because of the selfishness of a few, someones child will miss out next year. Paige goes to big school next year, so it won't be an issue; but hopefully it is a nicer group of parents when it is Ella's turn, or I will have to find her somewhere else. We are not amused!!!!

When did you say you were leaving?????

Maybe catnip wouldn't be such a bad idea afterall.....
;)

Introducing Princess Belle

We have a new family member:

Maggie has been quite lonely without any animal companionship, so we thought that she might like some feline companionship. Since she thinks that she is a dog, she isn't quite sure about this whole plan, and the two are ignoring each other. They have been separated but after the all clear from the vet today, Belle has the run of the house. There was quite a lot of spitting earlier and much to my surprise Maggie was being quite a bully. When there are strange cats on our porch she comes running for me, but I guess inside her house is a whole other matter.
Belle came from the SPCA, and our vet thinks that she is about a year old. Her disposition seems very sweet, and she really likes the kids. They named her, can you tell?? :) I'll keep you all posted.....
xxoo

Tehnical difficulties

I'm having trouble uploading pictures from Picassa, so I'm going to take a break before I get anymore frustrated, but I'll try again tomorrow maybe. In the meantime, there are some awesome new pictures on flickr. Click the photo badge on the left hand side of the page.
xxoo