Happy Birthday Katie! (a day early)

Hands up, who out there cannot believe that Katie is turning 5 (tomorrow...I'm posting this early to make sure I get it done...we have a busy few days coming up!)!! It's amazing. We have seen so much grown in the past year.

Katie, you are intelligent, funny, caring and fun. You love to read, run and jump and be silly. I see you being such a great sister and friend. You are getting way too smart for us...spelling words often doesn't work now and your dad and I are thinking we may have to start spelling French. (yes, Ben might need a dictionary) This won't work for long of course, since we have you registered to start French immersion Kindergarten in September, for which dad and I are going to an open house tomorrow night. (Happy Anniversary Ben! 9 years already! Can't wait for more!)

It's seeming very chilly for the birthday...though we know from snow on our wedding day and wearing shorts outside for Katie's 3rd birthday that weather is no guarantee this time of year. We are planning a kid party this Saturday and after school "school friends" party Friday, a little special but casual playdate at the playground with school friends...weather permitting...we will bump it to the next day if necessary.

Generally speaking though, the weather has been a little weird this spring. Some very cool days, like today and some warm ones where we had no jackets and decided to pack away the tuques. (ahem which I've since taken back out...I've been wearing mine in the house all day...so cozy!)

A few weeks back we even had a crazy snowstorm with more snow than most of winter all in a day or two. (must blog more frequently...was it a one day storm? More?). Ah...this photo...i remember more now...see, we went to Gram and Papas because the power went out at our place. From about 5am until around 1pm. Gram and Papa were great sports and the girls had fun building a big snowman....that actually melted in the sun as we ate lunch that day. So funny.

Easter was lovely...a weekend full of dinners and the girls had matching dresses that they love. Here they are opening little gifts from Great Auntie Gail. She spoils them so!

Hold on..where's Ben? Oh yes, who can forget...he had an Easter egg of his own that weekend...in the form of a kidney stone! Gosh, that wasn't fun! Poor guy...Grandpa drove m to emergency in the wee hours of Saturday morning and we didn't see him again until after noon. He's since much better. Word is, that apparently, these things happen. Not much to do but try and drink more water...like all of us should. Excuse me while I go fill mine up...I'll wait while you do yours. :)

As far as diabetes goes, we did still manage a few chocolates for the girls...some regular kinder eggs and smaller kinder brand eggs. We parceled them out over a few days, tacking them onto snacks etc and then hid them in a cupboard. And the girls completely forgot about them! And eventually Ben and I ate them. Yes, seriously. Sorry about that girls, it's for your own good and you'll get plenty of time for chocolate in your future. :)

I've been alternately loving how the girls play and been driven mad at the sound of their arguing. (why yes, both mad crazy and mad angry, as anyone I talk to on the phone can probably tell.)

Its funny how when you leave them alone, they giggle and play pretend and you can hear all this marvelous stuff that comes from their smart little heads. And they come up with how to build and decorate the couch like a pirate ship. (sponsored by a Safeway flag!). (funny how you can smile at the creatoity and silently groan at the same time thinking of the mess)

This is the girls. Making AARRRr pirate noises and facial expressions...and this arm pump things..what do you call that?

As well as independent play, I tried a few play activities with the girls, one being paper mâché. Katie LOVED. She was all in giggles about getting so messy. Sam did not like getting messy and was happy doing her own thing. We covered balloons and popped them the next day when they were all dry. Not to make anything specific, but just to experience it. Funny...Sam was more into painting then Katie.

Also, while I think of it, Katie daily seems to say now "I'm Bored!". Hmm. Let's see how long it takes before that drives me crazy. :)

Also along the lines of doing more with them and also encouraging their growth and independence (ie, trying to keep them from saying "I'm bored!"). I had the girls make lunch the other day. Katie actually scrambled her very own eggs. :) hee hee...that was so much fun. And definitely more supervised than it looks here, but she really did it. And Sam made her own sandwich. They were both so so pleased with themselves.

(a little quicker now, this is getting long, and more than plain old birthday post)

We played restaurant! So easy and so much fun! I was waitress of course, as I have the most experience. (ha ha). Grab an apron, a little coil flip book, a pencil behind your ear and start taking orders. A board game (Candyland here) makes a great menu. No real food is served, but definitely bring out empty plates. I threw out all kinds of waitress phrases "would you like fries with that? Anything to drink? Etc....Anything that sounds official.

And ok, honestly, why does this feel different from real life, where I DO in fact make all their meals and cater to every picky order (without spitting in their drinks or charging them anything?)...I don't know but somehow it was different and it was awesome. I encourage you to try it sometime. (did I mention you can also use it to practice restaurant manners? Or is that obvious?)

(I should mention that Katie's face paint is from a playdate earlier that day at a friends house...what a cool friend's mom to have face paint...and let the kids use it!)

This is one of those times where I left them alone for a while...a big path of shoes. All the way down the stairs and to the playroom. Goodness, we have a lot of shoes. :). I think Sam started this one. There are books beside as stepping stones I think. They've done the book path before but not up the stairs.

Katie built a Lego animal all by herself!

And the biggest news of all that I can't believe it took me a whole week to post it...
Katie has a Loose Tooth!! For real! It feels young but dr. Google tells me it's ok and the average age for losing a first tooth is 5.5. It's still here a week later. How long do these things take?

It was so funny, we were eating corn on the cob and Katie kept saying "ow" with every bite. I thought she just had something stuck in her teeth, but no, it's a real live loose tooth.

We are all very excited!

Sam checked, but her tooth is not loose yet. As we drove down our back alley this week, I rolled the window down to say hi to a neighbour, then got Katie to show of her tooth news...and Sam pipes up right afterwards and says "and I have diabetes! type one diabetes!". It's so cute that she's "owning" it. :)

I'd like so say a special thanks to all who have contributed money towards Ben's marathon coming up in May in support of JDRF...he has more than surpassed his initial goal and we are just so touched that you are choosing to support this cause that now means so much to us. Many hugs of thanks. (and if you don't know what I'm talking about and want to donate, please email am and I'll send you the details.)

And with that, I bid you goodnight...so much is going on here that I can't seem to keep up. Just know that we are doing really well, life is fun and tiring and wonderful. :)

Little Funny Things

I just hit publish on the previous blog post that I had started writing on Sunday but have to start another before I forget a few small things.

Sam has said for a while now that green means stop and red means go.  As in traffic lights.  And wrong, of course, so we try to correct her whenever she says it.  Yesterday, she and I were successfully finishing a school time shopping and Costco trip and were driving home to put groceries away before picking up Katie, and she said it again "Red means Go!!"...just as I was starting my left turn on a green arrow light, where the rest of the lights in our direction had just turned red.  It all makes sense now...using her kid perspective, we do often go when lights turn red.  Interesting how wrong can be right.

Katie said tonight, as we were reading books before tuck in..."I love B-O-O-Ks"...Aw...so sweet and JUST what a mom wants to hear.  She's also been telling me lots lately "I can spell Snack, Apple, Mom, Dad, Katie and Sam"...and then proceeds to spell them all.  I keep trying to gently make her read more of our easy books but she just gets mad and wants me to do more of the reading.  Which I do...don't want to ruin a good thing.

The girls and I were goofing around this evening before getting ready for bed (Ben had had a long day and a bit of a headache so i let me off early)  :) .  One thing we started doing was little races on the floor in our bedroom...snake races.  That Katie is seriously fast as a snake and she beat me every time.  The funniest thing was that as I watched her go by me, she was totally slithering and doing her army crawl that she did back when she learned to crawl in her own way.  Exactly the same.

Tonight we tried Mustard Asparagus Chicken for dinner...a recipe from my Alberta Chicken Growers cookbook...there are some real winners in there!...in the spirit of our new "Try it Tuesdays".  Partly to infuse a little fun into meal planning (I love trying new meals, but realize it is practical to stick with standards more often...for sanity and grocery shopping) and to help the girls branch out their eating.  Just a more formal, thematic way of saying You Must Eat (more than one bite of) This without just being a big meanie.  I should mention this is our first week...we'll see if we manage to keep it up.  Tonights meal was excellent, Sam ate quite a bit of it we don't even have leftovers.  (the recipe feeds 4...2 kid portions cancels out the marathon training dad portion, right?)(ok, you got me, I had a second helping too)

This morning, it wasn't a school day and we had no other plans, and I managed to ignore a bit of laundry (so hard to do!) and decided to take the girls to the museum.  We've been a few times before but usually on a playdate and without Katie if she was at school.  It was so nice to go just the three of us.  More freedom to go where we wanted when we wanted.  We managed to catch both story time AND craft time an hour later ( the girls made moose antlers by tracing their hands and glueing them to a headband).  The girls love the animal dioramas and live fish and even spent quite a bit of time in the aboriginal gallery today.  Really a wonderful time.

Anyway...I'm tired from such a busy day and need to to some reading or something.  (Hunger Games or finish up the Biography of Cancer...not sure which...)  Hope you have a good night and rest of the week.

Mid March Goodness

A few little things.  I can't believe it's mid March.  The weather has been extremely hopeful...the warm sun, longer days and melting snow...all wonderful. (though I curse last weekends daylight savings...whoever thought that up does not have little kids).  Anyway, we have recovered, no one is sick and the girls have been playing together beautifully.  

Katie wrote "I Love Dad" on our little chalkboard the other week.  Spelled it completely on her own.  You can bet that Ben was pretty pleased.

 My January birthday gift from Auntie Andrea was an annual pass to the science centre...i can't think of a better gift!  The girls had a great time in the new kids area.  Love the airplane and the building area.

 Sam and I met Steph, W and baby N at southgate one morning while Katie was at school.  Sam's holding one of the new snack bags I sewed.  They have been useful and super cute!

 We had a nice sunny day after a bit of a snowfall a couple of weeks ago and went sledding after school with some school friends.

 Katie loves making snow angels.

 Sam and I went to Starbucks last week...just the two of us!  We've had so many playdates/errands lately that we haven't really spent lots of free down time just the two of us.  It was really simple and relaxing...To have my full attention on her...both girls are so independent and play so well together that I can get away with doing other things around them and not actively playing with them.  It's great having that freedom but I do want to remember to take time to BE with them...I sometimes really feel like it won't be long before their teachers see them more than we do.

 Katie had her St.Patrick's day party at school on Friday.  There's something weird about this holiday that compels me to sew something for her.  Working with fabric I had on hand (and after Katie rejected the perfect kelly green linen blend) i decided to use this green and pink strawberry shortcake fabric.  It's a two layered skirt from my Sewing Clothes Kids Love book.  I think she really loves it!  It's got quite a princess flair and sisewise, I think it'll last through the summer.  I did end up buying cheap matching green t shirts for the girls too.  I can only do so much with my fabric stash, which leans toward the pink side of things.

Science Girl

This morning, we are staying home because we have no plans and a hint of a cold coming on...myself and the girls. Lots of nice free play time. Katie has already counted a bunch of coins which I helped her multiply and figure out how much money she had. She wanted to know how much I was charging for lunch and could she afford it. (I wish!)

Now she has moved on to making her own scale...balancing a tray on our Bosu (an exercise ball type thing). She has put various objects on each side to see which is heavier. So simple but so complex...don't you think?

Sam is wearing a pair of butterfly wings and has, twice this morning, with encouragement, managed to get her own new panties and put them on herself. (we've had a few more wet panties lately...she's backsliding a bit on potty training...I think normal, we'll just keep encouraging her independence.). This is a task I know she can do but so often she asked us and we do it because it is faster. No more. I say "I KNEW you could do it!" and her proud smile and jumping tells me to relax and let her take the extra time to do it right.

We have us some lovely girls.

So far I have got bread dough rising and made a fresh pot of coffee. Maybe time to get to my laundry? Probably...with some Q the background I think. :)

So normal

Apologies...life has gotten so much more normal, including irregular blogging. We are in a groove with diabetes, within our normal schedule anyway. I'm sure when we have a playdate or dinner out etc things we be hard for a moment.
Sam is doing amazingly. She's gotten her silly back in the past few weeks...I think we hadn't noticed that it had been missing for a while. Katie is being an awesome big sister...helping out Sam when needed...getting toys, distracting with fun...they are playing so so well lately for the most part, including as I type this. As evidence, I present the picture below, with their "playdough machines".

This girls got their swimsuits on while I was out shoveling snow on Sunday and played "beach". Such wonderful imaginations.

It snowed more on one day this weekend than it has the whole winter. Cold but not too cold. It's really quite bright and beautiful...it helps knowing that it won't last too long...according to both the forecast and the calendar as we head into march already this week.

We are well...special thanks to the cards and thoughtful phone calls we received after word got out about Sam. I think feeling the love family and friends definitely has helped us get through this time.

Talk soon!

Happy Birthday Sam!

Happy Birthday Sam!
Today you turn three.  You are such a big girl now!  You have been super strong these past few days and most of the blog doesn't even know why.  (this has nothing to do with my lack of blogging...this is pure laziness, dishes, reading and knitting.  Sorry about that!)

We took you to the hospital emergency room on Sunday evening. You'd been feeling sick all weekend...sick like napping on and off all day and really really tired.  And you'd been drinking a ton of water (over the past two weeks) and peeing a lot...while i thought you were doing an exceptional job of keeping hydrated, we know know that you were starting to show us signs that you have diabetes.  Auntie Gail helped us see on Sunday evening that we had to take you to see a Dr. and i'm eternally grateful because she may well have saved your life...with one prick of a finger, you were diagnosed, given awesome care and now our lives will be a little different forever.

Your dad and I cried a lot while you were recovering, hooked up to tubes of saline and insulin and sleeping.  It hurt so much to think that you were so sick.  As soon as your sugars and other levels got a bit better the next morning and you could have actual food and water again...we knew everything was going to be ok.  You were quietly smiling and talking that Monday evening, the very next day from when we brought you in.  We got to take you home almost 24 hours after we came in...pretty amazing.

We were at education sessions today (and the rest of the week) and Gram and Papa and Gram and Grandpa and Auntie Andrea were there too, all learning about how we can help you be the best Sam you can be with the help of insulin and controlled diet.  Katie, who missed you sooo much and cried because she was sad, was with GG Lill (and had stayed over the night before at Gram and Papa's and the night before that Gram Cheryl had stayed over at our house with her).  I'm overwhelmed with information but also grateful...

Grateful for:

The love of our family and friends,

the knowledge and skills that we all bring to the table (biology, math, coping, positivity, creativity, organization etc),

our already strong focus on healthy eating that may make these nutrition changes for our diet a little less difficult and the opportunity to learn even more about healthy eating,

the digital scale that I bought with Christmas money,

realizing now now we dont have to find a place in the cupboard for the scale because it will live on the counter,

the health care system...we have dietitians, nutritionists, social workers and doctors all working hard long hours for us so that we can become diabetes experts ourselves,

and probably many other things that i just don't know about yet. 

Sam...this will all become normal soon.  You will still be you...feisty, outspoken, funny, friendly, kind and polite (you're probably about the only 3 yr old who the nurses have heard say "no thank you" when they were coming at her with a needle)(true, it was kind of screamed/yelled through tears, but very polite)

I wish I had more time and brain power to write more about the other amazing things you have been doing as you grow lately, but I'm exhausted and still have to get meals and things ready for tomorrows session.  I'll make sure to bring lots of activities since Katie is coming tomorrow too and I'm sure you'll want to colour, play dolls or stickers together.  

We can't believe you are already three...be happy, the dietitians said they can work the Strawberry Shortcake ice cream cake into your meal plan for your birthday party on Saturday.  Wouldn't be a birthday without cake.  =)

We love you!

Christmas and Happy New Year

Happy 2012!
We have had a lovely holiday so far. Christmas was great, especially not getting sick like last year (remember...Ben and I were throwing up?). We saw lots of family, had some lovely food, and the girls especially received many thoughtful gifts.

Santa brought them a rather large doll house. Taller than both the girls! I suppose he figures this way they can grow with it a bit.

This is the girls opening the box for the dollhouse, which had a note on it telling them to go downstairs after they opened the box. Katie refused at first, saying she'd rather play with her new stamping set.

The girls also received from Gram and Grandpa and Ben and I some Rapunzel dolls and from other friends some Strawberry Shortcake dolls, so I think this house will get lots of play time.

Santa assembled the dollhouse for us and had it ready to go downstairs. Smart guy.

The girls watching TV with the new blanket Gram Mary made for Katie. It's such a warm fleece that Ben and I love it for tv watching too!

We went to G Auntie Gail's for Xmas day dinner. Katie and Sam were a little shy (actually a bit of a theme this season...) but warmed up a bit come present time. Katie is wearing one of the headbands the girls got from auntie Alli in their advent calendar...you should all know that I steal them every chance I get because they are so adorable. And if you want to give me...ahem...I mean, my kids... more cute headbands, feel free to do so.

We've definitely enter the land of dolls but also maybe board games...we got the Candyland game as a gift and it's fun! So great to play a real game with the kids. Katie is definitely a little more into following the rules, but will still bend them when she gets bored. Sam doesn't really care about the rules much. She wanted to stay on the sticky "miss a turn" spot for about half the game.

I found time to bake (of course!) and Ben requested cinnamon buns. They were delicious, I didn't do the cream cheese icing since it's not Ben's favorite but found a simple brown sugar caramel icing instead. I only iced some of them in case the icing wasn't great, but not to worry it was good. Yum. We froze a bunch so we wouldn't eat them all at once.

Last Friday we went to a park for a sledding party with friends. The weather was pretty good (as in, not too cold) and there was some snow (which, I imagine by now might have melted some as it was 12 above zero yesterday!). The girls had lots of fun. I brought some hot chocolate and we all got some rosey cheeks. The sun started to peek out just as we were leaving to go to our friends house for lunch (Jon, Shelley and their kids L and E...it was a full house with lots of friends!).

Hope you are enjoying the few days left of holidays. This week has been great with Ben still being home and we have been doing some more relaxing and normal activites...a few small playdates and catching up on laundry etc. Sam's potty training is awesome and she hasn't worn a diaper since the Tuesday before Xmas (except at night). We don't have big messes to clean up any more but we are sure going through a ton of laundry...wet undies mostly. Usually just a bit wet and definitely making progress every day. Exciting! I can't believe how much less garbage we are making without the diapers. Big milestone for our (second) big girl! :)