Five Weeks.... and Surviving

Clara is five weeks old today. She had her one month checkup a few days back and got the thumbs up from the doctor for weighing in at 10 lbs. She is very strong and likes to hold her head up and look around when she's awake. She loves her swing, where she spends some of her daytime naps.

She started smiling around three weeks, which is earlier than our other babies ever did. Her first real smile was at Scott, which I immediately took as a sign that she's going to be a daddy's girl. She smiled a few times at Grandma too.

Speaking of Grandma... my Mom left to go back to Dubai a week ago. I sure miss you, Mom!

I really missed you this morning at 7:45 AM when Scott was in Toronto and I was walking all the kids to the bus stop with Nathan in the stroller and Clara bundled in the Snuggli because it was about 3 degrees outside.

Mostly I just miss hanging out with you and doing things together like cooking, shopping, sewing, and talking. I've been drinking those dessert teas everyday and thinking of you and what a great time we had together when you were here.


Clara is a good sleeper, in fact she has had three nights this past week where she slept for 6 hours straight. Oh, I can't tell you how grateful I am for those nights.

She went to her first concert on Tuesday when I took her to Waterloo to see my friend Meaghan Smith (who was totally amazing, by the way).


We are, on the whole, doing well. The adjustment to life with five young children has been as smooth as it possibly could, I'd imagine. I'm not going to lie. It is busy. Sometimes it's extremely overwhelming. I've learned the best thing to do in those situations is try to focus on getting through the day 10 minutes at time. I can't think too far beyond that or my brain gets overloaded.

My sister is flying across the country next Wednesday to come visit with my niece and nephew, and I am so incredibly excited about that!

Unfortunately, She's Inherited My Genes... But She Looks Darn Cute in Her New Spectacles

So, about four weeks ago, while sitting in church, I realized that Samantha may need to visit the Optometrist when I saw her squinting to read the Hymn numbers on the wall.

I took her in the next day and sure enough, she got a prescription, albeit a mild one. She picked out some cute purple ROOTS frames and a couple days later they were ready.

She was a little bit nervous to wear them to school for the first time, as one of her friends had said that she thought glasses were "weird". I was so happy when she came home and reported that the same friend, after seeing Samantha's glasses, thought they were awesome and was hoping she could get glasses too.

Clara's Blessing

Clara was blessed by her Dad on Sunday, September 28. We were very happy to have Grandma here for the blessing, along with Nana & Papa, Uncle Jeff, Aunt Lindsey, Tyler, Donna & Quinn and their three children, and many friends from here in London. We had all of our family over afterwards for a big dinner.

What Can I Say... The Kid Likes to Eat

You may have noticed that for the most part I've been MIA around this place for about, oh, nine months or so. And this little guy has done a lot of changing and growing up during that time.

Nathan is now going on 21 months old, and we're starting to see glimpses of the sweet personality that was so apparent when he was a baby, but seemed to get smothered in the baby-toddler transition phase he's gone through this year.

Nathan is curious, fearless, and persistent. He loves music and singing. Some of his favourite toys are his cars, his horses (along with the whole Wild West Fisher Price Set), and his tools.

And, like every other male in the family, he is obsessed with sports. He gets out there and plays street hockey on the driveway with the big kids, kicks soccer balls down the stairs, and has mastered the Little Tikes basketball hoop which currently resides in our entryway.

Nathan spent his summer traipsing around London from Samantha's soccer games to the boys' t-ball games to parks, splash pads, and more. He also got to see a lot of the province as we traveled to Play On! tournaments from London to Oshawa to Ottawa, not to mention Tobermory, where we spent a fantastic week at the cottage. He never complained about being strapped in his car seat, no matter how long the trip, and he loved the adventure of exploring new places and things.

(At the pool at the Holiday Inn in Ottawa - our last Play On! weekend of the season)

Nathan is talking a lot more, and loves to read books. His favourite right now is "Brown Bear" which he reads with Grandma at least 10 times every day.


While looking over photos of Nathan over the past few months, I noticed that most of the pictures centre around food somehow. Nathan does not like to get left out of anything, but he really puts his foot down when it comes to eating.

As our three oldest children have learned from experience -if you want to hang around Nathan for long, you'd better be good at sharing.

New Background

Since you asked... the new background is one I found at this website:

http://squidfingers.com/

I think everything on there is free, but he asks that you credit link back to his site.

Clara's First Two Weeks

I think a baby update is in order - including lots of pictures for Grandpa Jordan!

We came home from the hospital on Friday, September 19.

Some of Clara's first visitors (at the hospital and at home) were Uncle Jeff & Aunt Lindsey, Nana & Papa, Tasha, Adrienne, Kelly, Pauline, and Mila.

Clara had her first Doctor's appointment on September 24 - one week old. She weighed in at 8 lb 6 oz, and I was very happy to see that she had regained her birth weight and then some. (She had a discharge weight of 7 lb 14 oz).

So far Clara has been a very good-natured and content little girl. She sleeps really well in her swing or in the playpen during the day, waking up to eat every 2-3 hours. Sometimes she wakes up and just looks around. She's very alert when she is awake, and can already focus on looking at people and things. She loves to be held.

In the past few days she has started cluster feeding in the evenings from about 7:00 - 11:00 every night. During the night she's gone from waking up 4-5 times to about 2-3 times for feedings. She usually goes right back to sleep afterwards, which I am very grateful for.

She's been on lots of little outings, including some shopping trips, church this past Sunday, and to another baby shower for a friend of ours.

That's it for now. I hear someone waking up for lunch... and she does not like to wait!

Clara's Arrival

Clara Jordan was born Thursday, September 18 at 1:24 AM. She weighed 8 lb 4 oz and measured 21 inches long.

Samantha, Brett, Jesse & Nathan are all excited about their new baby sister!

More details later, but here are some pictures of Clara's first day out of Mom's tummy.

Happy Birthday Samantha!

A Visit from Grandma and Grandpa

Last Friday I drove to Toronto to pick my Mom up from the airport.

Yesterday I drove back to Toronto to say good-bye as she flew off to NYC to be with my sister before her wedding next weekend.

A week with Grandma went by so fast, I didn't even take a single picture! Good thing we will be together again in about ten days.

Grandpa came for a visit too, from Wednesday to Friday. It's been three years since we've seen Grandpa, so this was quite exciting!

The children have changed a lot, so there was lots of catching up to do. Grandpa brought gifts and more gifts and Grandma took us shopping (and more shopping).

The kids loved going out to a real restaurant when we all went to Red Lobster on Wednesday night. (Thanks to a kind friend who watched Nathan for us, we were able to relax and have an enjoyable meal together!)

We also got to see Nana and Papa this week, when they came for a visit on Thursday.

Our children are so very blessed to have wonderful, loving Grandparents.

I Can't Believe It! We're Having A....

(Disclaimer: If you want to subject yourself to my lengthy blathering-on about the whole process of finding out what our baby is, please read on. Otherwise, skip to the last line and come back again tomorrow.)

We had our second ultrasound on Friday. It was so amazing to be able to see this baby moving around, with the little black shadow of a heart beating away. WOW. What an incredible experience.

We took Samantha with us this time (first time ever taking someone else besides just Scott and I). I think she had fun, but all she really said afterwards was, "That baby sure has a BIG head!"

London is different than some other places, in that the technician who does the ultrasound doesn't actually disclose any information while you are there. He/she simply takes a bunch of pictures, shows you the baby on the screen, pointing out features of interest, and then sends you on your way with instructions to talk to your doctor to get additional information.

I have been dying to find out the gender of this baby, since, well, the day I found double lines on the stick, but I made it very clear to everyone that even though our ultrasound was on Friday, we wouldn't know anything until my appointment today. Or possibly Monday. Because, knowing how fabulous she is, our doctor would be very likely to call when she got the report from the lab.

So, you can imagine my SHOCK when the phone rang at our house on Saturday morning, and the voice on the other end informed me it was our doctor calling with the ultrasound results!

She made sure I was sitting down before breaking the news: "You're having a girl."

Everything else she said after the word "girl" is kind of a blur, mostly due to the fact that I started bawling right there on the phone. I managed to hang up, and ran to tell Scott, who had heard me crying and thought something terrible must have happened.

I'm not sure if he was more excited about hearing the news, or relieved that there wasn't a death in the family.

We sat the kids down right away to tell them that they have a little SISTER on the way! Everyone was thrilled.

Samantha started crying (probably because I was still crying).

Brett started doing a happy dance on the sofa.

Jesse said, "This is perfect! Now we'll have one of each!"

(By this he meant - in case you're not sure how four-year old brains work - we already have a boy baby, and now we're going to have a girl baby. One boy baby. One girl baby. Perfect!)

Even Nathan joined in by giving Scott and I kisses (voluntarily) - which he never does! I think he could sense the excitement in the air. Scott always says he's a big kid in a little kid's body.

We called around to share the news with family, and after a fun day together at home we celebrated with dinner at Boston Pizza.

Three days later I still can't believe it. I visited the doctor today and saw the report with my own eyes. I think it's finally starting to sink in.

Oh. My. Goodness. Somebody pinch me. We're having a girl!

Front Page News

If you're in London and get a chance to look at the London Free Press today, there's an article about Play On! with a picture of Scott. It's not huge, but it is on the front page.

If you're not in London, check out the article online (minus the photo):

>>> click here <<<

While you're at it, check out the new Play On! website and let me know what you think.

www.playon.ca

Oh, and in case you haven't talked to us in the last 48 hours... this blog has gone PINK for a reason... :)

(No, it's not October)

Harlem Globetrotters

A couple of weeks ago Scott took Brett and Jesse out for boys' night at the John Labatt Centre to see the Harlem Globetrotters.

Jesse had received the movie, "Scooby-Doo Meets the Harlem Globetrotters" for Christmas, so they were pretty much prepared for what kind of show to expect that night. (I am sad to admit that our kids get a good amount of their education from Scooby-Doo Mysteries.)

They had fun night and came home all pumped up. Brett couldn't stop dribbling his souvenir Globetrotter basketball for days, and Jesse asked to have our Little Tikes basketball hoop moved up to his bedroom so he could play more often.

Here is a picture of the boys with Airport Greenup - the tallest player on the team (6'8").

Kiwanis

Samantha had her first experience competing in Kiwanis this past Thursday. She performed a piano piece called, "Dance" and she did a great job!

Way to go Samantha - we are so proud of you!

(Click on the video below to hear her play)

Who Stole Our Sweet Baby and Replaced Him with a Terrible Toddler?

Well, Jesse has officially been absolved of his role as the family Trouble-Maker. Yes, The Toddler has taken that over quite nicely. He is walking now, and getting into more mischief every week.

Our other kids are adapting to this new way of life with The Toddler pretty well. They usually remember to keep the toilet lid down and the bathroom door tightly closed. They keep marbles and small pieces of Lego and K'nex picked up (with reminders). And all phones, laptops, wallets, and other valuable or breakable objects are kept higher than 2.5 feet off the ground (that's Mom & Dad's job, mostly, although Samantha is good at helping too).

We no longer have nice things such as picture frames or candles displayed on side tables, coffee tables, or shelves that are below my eye level. In fact, a couple of friends came over the other day and asked, "What's with all of the purging? Are you guys moving???". After about 10 minutes spent with The Toddler, they said, "Never mind, we get it."

Our beautiful wedding lamps are going out with next week's garbage as a result of one (or two... or ten) too many topples with The Toddler.

There are some benefits to this stage of childhood. For one, I don't have to sweep the floor as often, as The Toddler loves to eat any forgotten leftover food he finds under the table. (What do you mean you don't find 6 hour old pieces of crusty toast and jam appealing for an afternoon snack?)

And the fact that he answers "NO" to every question he is asked never fails to provide entertainment for the rest of us.

Yes, somehow, despite all of the trouble he gets into, we all still find him irresistibly adorable.

Nevertheless, I often find myself counting down in anticipation to that glorious and precious time of day commonly referred to as, "NAP TIME."

If You Tell a Wish, Will it Still Come True?

We enjoyed our long Easter weekend a LOT.... maybe too much.

Friday morning we put together 42 treat-filled eggs to bring to a potluck we went to later in the day. The kids played outside for a while, and in the afternoon Scott took them to the church for some floor hockey in the gym (one of our favourite family activities) while I made parmesan chicken, potato salad and rosemary bread to bring to the potluck.

The kids enjoyed the egg hunt at the potluck get-together. Since we don't "do" the Easter Bunny at our house, this was their time to enjoy some chocolate and candy.

We rented the movie Enchanted and had a movie night on Saturday night. What a cute movie! Definitely a good one to see, if you haven't already. Loved it!

We decided to have our big turkey dinner on Monday. In the middle of carving the turkey, Scott found the wishbone and Samantha got to break it with him. Scott ended up with the bigger end, and the kids all wanted to know what his wish was. I told them that it's generally believed that if you tell a wish it won't come true. Jesse thought about this for a minute, then said, "Dad, I don't want your wish to come true... I wanna hear it!"