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!"

Cinnabon Cake

I made this cake for Nathan's first birthday. I didn't realize that I typed the recipe up over six weeks ago, but never got around to pushing the post button.

Grease a bundt pan and coat with cinnamon sugar.

1 cup brown sugar
1 Tbsp cinnamon
Combine in a bowl and set aside.

2 cups flour
1 ½ cups white sugar
2 tsp baking powder
¾ tsp salt
¾ cup unsalted butter, softened
Mix in mixer on low speed.

Add:
½ cup applesauce + ¼ cup vegetable oil
3 eggs + 1 egg yolk (room temperature)
1 tsp vanilla
2 X 100 g yogurt cups - I used a vanilla/caramel duo (or you could use 1 cup of plain yogurt or sour cream)
Mix again on low speed until combined.

Pour ½ of bater into greased and cinnamon sugar coated bundt pan. Sprinkle cinnamon mixture over top, and then remaining batter. Swirl with a knife.

Bake at 325 for 35-40 minutes.

Icing:
1 cup icing sugar
2 Tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla
¼ tsp cinnamon

Whisk together in a bowl, then drizzle over top of cake while still warm.

Enjoy!

Number Five

Wow, it's good to be blogging again. It's been so long since my regular posting sessions, I thought I might have forgotten how it's done. I started this blog as a way to keep a record of our family's everyday adventures, as well as an outlet for me to share whatever else seems newsworthy in the Hill home.

Well, have I ever got something newsworthy. And it just doesn't seem right to let the days and weeks keep going by without even a mention of said news on the blog.

So here it is.

In September of 2008 our family is going to change forever with the addition of baby Hill number five.

Yes, you read that right. A new little precious baby will be joining our family in just less than 6 months!

(Stop to breathe here)

Okay? Let's keep going.

We told the kids first, which was so fun, and they were surprisingly good at keeping our little "family secret" for quite a while. We took a vote at Family Home Evening, and it was a tie: three of us think it's a girl and three think it's a boy. (I'll let you guess who thought what.) Yes, Nathan can vote at 14 months; he's pretty advanced for his age.

It's been a roller coaster the past several weeks, let me tell ya. The seemingly constant nausea, along with the extreme tiredness, in combination with the inability to look at food without resisting the overwhelming urge to gag made it a little difficult to tend to the needs of four children and a husband who actually require feeding three times daily (at least), not to mention clean clothes and help with things like homework and baths and, well, a caregiver that is able to leave the couch more often than the bare minimum number of trips to the washroom daily. Unfortunately, I was unable to convince anyone else in the family that it was completely desirable to eat nothing but soda crackers for days on end.

(Now that I am safely into the second trimester, I am thankfully free of the morning sickness - or as I like to call it, the morning/afternoon/evening/late-night sickness - and I have also started to function somewhat more productively on less than 11 hours of sleep per day.)

The roller coaster took an emotional turn when I had my first visit to the doctor. At this visit, I was told that I was one of two things: either completely off on my dates or carrying twins. A very looooooong four days later, an ultrasound quickly ruled out both of those situations, which left me with the only remaining (yet arguably least desirable) alternative scenario... 11 weeks pregnant with one baby growing in a uterus the size of a watermelon. I tried to look at the bright side and think of how great it would be not to have to stress about telling everyone that we were expecting, since they would already know by the simple fact that I was already, ahem, showing.

Right now we are 14 weeks along and things seem to be running a lot smoother at home. I think this is mostly due to the fact that we have all significantly lowered our expectations of what Mom can accomplish in one 24 hour period. If the kids are dressed, the family is fed somewhat regularly (yes, mac 'n cheese from a box counts), the beds are made and the laundry and homework are done - we are having a highly successful day. Maybe next month we can add in some extra vacuuming, dusting, and filing sessions in the office, but I'm not making any promises.

After all, I have finally, yet reluctantly, come to the understanding that I am at the mercy of the development of a tiny human being, who is (rightfully) more interested in growing healthy organs and limbs than he/she is in the cleanliness of my kitchen floor.

We Have a One Year Old in the House!

Nathan was the sweetest little birthday boy! He got lots of attention from his siblings, and even a visit from Nana and Papa for some birthday cake in the evening.

I feel bad that I'm blogging about his first birthday a month late, but that's just the way life goes for the fourth child, right? (Yes, I realize that when Samantha turned one, the only person on the planet that had even heard of blogging was my brother, Sami, but that's beside the point.)

Here is a little bit of what Nathan is like at 13 months...

Mode of Locomotion:
The Crawl (I think he's following in the footsteps of his older cousin, Jayna, who just started walking at 17 months)

Favourite Words:
Uh-oh (after anything falls on the floor)
Heeeeeyyyyy (when he sees something appealing like food or Oscar)
Daddy!
Hi (whenever he sees - or heaven forbid, gets his hands on - a phone)
NO! (used completely in context about 134 times a day, on average)
Boo! (as in Peek-a-boo... for some reason he says this right away as soon as he sees us with the camcorder)

Favourite Pastimes:
Eating
Chasing Oscar
Bathtime
Doing bad things to laptops by banging repeatedly on the keyboard
Finding marbles, Legos, K'nex, or any other chokable objects to put in his mouth when Mom's not looking

Playing on the Electric Piano
Eating
Emptying the dishwasher (clean or dirty), and contents of the cupboards onto the kitchen floor
Going for a ride in the sled when it's time to pick up Jesse from school
Watching "Backyardigans" (or listening to Backyardigans Music on iTunes)
Playing in the toilet
Did I mention eating?

It's scary to think of how fast a year has gone by.  A year and a month ago I came home from the hospital with this new little bundle and I remember looking at his curly black hair and wondering how our lives would change from that moment on.  Sometimes I think of how Nathan is lucky to be born into a family with two parents and three older siblings who adore every single thing about him.  But mostly we are lucky, or I think the more appropriate word is, blessed.  Yes, we are so very blessed to have Nathan in our family.  I absolutely cannot imagine life without this precious boy.  

The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Month

.... for blogging, that is! On the whole, it's been a good month, really, I just wasn't busy blogging about stuff and sharing photos. I think the proper blogging-etiquette would have been to inform my readers (all four of you) that I would be taking a little break, and to please check back in a few weeks. But it really wasn't planned, honest!

Here are a few snapshots of what we've been up to....

Vana, I mean Samantha, setting out milk & cookies for Santa

Christmas morning - Nathan quietly raided the stockings, hoping we were all too distracted by presents to notice...

Brett doesn't like to waste time - why not colour when it isn't your turn to open a gift?

Jesse's favourite gift was his new hockey stick, but I didn't snap a picture of it :(

Samantha got the movie, "Bridge to Terabithia". I have never read the book, nor did I know what the story was about. OH MY GOODNESS! Do not watch this unless you are prepared to cry your eyes out! (It's really good though - just be sure to stock up on Kleenex.)

Grandma Paton came down with Scott's parents for Christmas Day!

Wake me up when the turkey's ready!

Wing Ki came for a visit to show us her Hong Kong pictures. I would love to visit there someday!

We all LOVE having Aunt Mona visit. We had so much fun!!! Our kids all suffer from attention deficit when she leaves.

Now, after all that, I have to say that I don't have any pictures of the REAL reasons why I haven't been up to blogging a whole lot.

First of all, Scott and I were working on something we nicknamed the OM (short for Operations Manual), which is basically a 90+ page document of every detail you would need to know in order to run your own Play On! tournament. We finally completed it last weekend, and it is such a relief to have it done! It was quite a project, for Scott mostly, as my contribution was only a small portion of the whole. Even so, after a few late nights of typing until 1:00-ish in the morning, I had little energy left for more "chatter".

Secondly, my trusty laptop here is on it's last legs. It can't handle too much stress, gets over-heated and crashes - often multiple times per day. With the purchase of a 500 GB portable storage device to backup my files and photos, I finally had to admit that, sadly, I will soon have to say goodbye to good ol'CLEVO. I just hope it can hang on until the replacement gets here, although we're not exactly sure when that will be?? Until then, I'm just grateful every time I turn it on and see the green lights as evidence that it may indeed function for one more day.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year & Baby News!

We've had such a wonderful Christmas holiday and break from regular life. With the festive season winding down now, I'm looking forward to getting back into some semblance of normalcy (i.e. putting the kids to bed at half-decent hour and eating something other that Christmas treats for breakfast). Scott tells me he checks my blog daily hoping for an update and I'm sure he's getting tired of looking at that super close-up of Brett's tooth injury, not to mention so much has happened since then. Here it is (in a nutshell)...

Christmas 2007 at the Hill House:

• Christmas Eve day was spent doing some last-minute errands, shopping, and wrapping
• Christmas Eve night we went over to our friends Dave & Tasha's home along with some other friends for a fun night of make-your-own-loaded-nachos (and a pile of other delicious food) and, of course, visiting. Lots of visiting. A little unorthodox for our family for Christmas Eve, but we were so glad to spend time with dear friends and we didn't stay too late because we didn't want to miss Santa
• Christmas morning the kids ran downstairs and were happy to see that they were pretty good this year after all?!?
  
• We read the Christmas story from Luke 2 before tackling the presents under the tree (Actually, we have a tradition of opening the presents one at a time so that everyone gets to see each and every present... And yes, we clean up all of the wrapping before the next present is opened)
  
• Shortly thereafter Nana & Papa showed up from Kingsville, along with Grandma Paton, and the present exchanging started all over again
• We talked on the phone to family members across the globe before indulging in a traditional Christmas turkey feast
• We spent the rest of the day enjoying new toys and games and ended with some Karaoke before the grandparents had to head home in the evening
• A couple of days later my sister Mona came to visit (she took the train from NYC where she had spent Christmas with her fiance)
• Jesse came down with an ear infection and was in quite a bit of pain for a couple of days until the Biaxin kicked in
  
• Scott and I went to a party on New Year's Eve while Mona had her own party at our house with Samantha, Brett, Jesse & Nathan (We tried to convince her to come with us, but she insisted that spending the night with our kids would be more fun for her that going to someone's home that she'd never met) They played Mouse Trap, made treats, watched a movie, and stayed up REALLY late!
  
• The next morning, despite several inches of newly fallen snow and the forecast for more treacherous weather ahead, we set out on the drive down to Windsor to get together with the extended family on the Hill side (Scott's Dad's relatives). The roads were bad, but the reunion was great and we stopped back in Kingsville after for more time with Pat and Bill
  
• Grandma Paton and Uncle Tom came by for a visit, and the kids entertained us by dressing up with some of Nana's clothes they found in a dresser in the basement and coming up as various "people", such as George of the Jungle, complete with theme song. Some of their ensembles were quite creative, but my favourites were Brett wearing Nana's silk nightgown and Samantha and Jesse wearing dickeys as skirts.
  
• Scott did a fantastic job of getting us home safely that night despite a highway closure (due to an accident), and the incredibly slick road conditions. We saw a lot of cars in the ditch (I stopped counting after the first five) and I was so grateful when we finally pulled into our own driveway late last night
• Today was a sad day as we said goodbye to Mona and sent her off on the train back to Montreal

Hands down, the most exciting thing that happened this Christmas was the arrival of our new nephew, Tyler Wade Hill, who decided to make his grand entrance into the world on December 29 (eight days late), weighing in at 9 lbs 2 oz, born to the world's proudest dad (Jeff) and mom, Lindsey. We are so happy and excited for them and can't wait to meet the little... er, not-so-little guy!



Is anyone making New Year's Resolutions this year? I would love to hear what you are all resolving to do in 2008! I've got a New Year's Resolution spreadsheet in the works, but for now I will share just three:

1. read more books
2. do monthly meal plans
   
3. stress less about unimportant things

I hope to maybe blog a little more too, but I haven't set any specific goals for this because I really enjoy it and don't want it to become a chore. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and that 2008 will be a year to remember.