The Waiting Game

So there are only a few days left until my due date and so far little Simon is being stubborn and refusing to meet us. My Mom came into town today and I am so glad that she is here! I'm hoping that her presence will bring us a little good luck and this weekend will be the one. She also made me realize how long it has been since I have done any blog posts.  I don't think that there is any way that I will be able to catch up on all the things that have been going on here but I thought I would quickly post a couple of pictures to show how the baby belly has been growing.  I will have to do a big update on some very excited things later... one of them being that Bruce now owns and operates a Marble Slab Creamery! Time to plump up even more!

Soccer in Kamloops! (7 months)

Beautiful Rhododendrons (8 months)

Today! 9 days left!

My Captain America watching out for bad guys.

Some Marble Slab handmade by his Daddy

 Keep your fingers crossed that Simon arrives while my Mom is here!

On A Golden Springtime

The last few evenings we have had a little bit of sunshine so after dinner we have been out and about.  Mostly Eli asks if we can go to the ocean and we are happy to oblige him.  Although, it does usually end with him throwing sand or rocks into the water and getting the entire beach into his hair. A couple of days ago we went to the pier at Jericho Beach but they were doing some repair work on it so we didn't get to actually go out onto the pier. We still had a ton of fun balancing on the logs and enjoying the sunshine. Oddly enough there are also a fair amount of wild rabbits in the area and it was hilarious to watch Eli try to chase them.  It seemed that everywhere we looked there was another one and Eli would go taking off after it.  I don't know how they came to live there because they don't look like your average jack rabbit or anything.  It actually looks like they all just escaped from a pet shop because they are all sorts of different colours and pretty small.

Sunset at Jericho Beach

Hello!

We also ventured out to Queen Elizabeth Park this week to look at all the beautiful spring blossoms.  Eli's favourite thing in the whole park was the fountain.  I think that he would have stayed there for hours if we had let him.  Every time they would shut off he would get super concerned but then they would come on again and it was the most surprising thing ever!

Watching the fountains

Father and son

Climbing a cherry tree

Bruce took this picture the other day when they were playing and I guess that Eli lined up all of his Sesame Street characters on his bed.  At first Bruce thought that he was being so sweet until Eli punched every one of them off.  I guess we haven't gotten past his little aggressive phase yet but to be fair I probably would have thought that was pretty fun too.

All lined up and ready to knock down

Easter

Concentrating so hard

This year for Easter we decided to drive up to my in-laws in Kamloops for a few days.  We were so lucky with how beautiful the weather was while we were there.  The entire weekend it was around 20 degrees and we soaked up every minute of the sunshine.  Overall we had a wonderful Easter weekend that was complete with an Easter egg hunt, decorating and a lovely Easter feast.

The whole decorating crew

It took about every ounce of my restraint to let Eli decorate the eggs by himself.  He was putting the spoon for the blue dye in with the orange dye! Can you believe it? I was on OCD overload but he had so much fun and was so proud of himself that eventually I just sat back and supervised.  You might notice in the pictures Eli's fat lip... He was having a wonderful time playing with his Papa on the treadmill in the basement and I think that you can probably guess what happened next.  A little face plant and road rash but he recovered quickly when he saw that there were chips on the table.  Like father like son I suppose.  He also got a little bike from his Nana and Papa for Easter and has had such a good time using it here.  It has taken him a little bit to figure out the steering but he is getting much better and I love walking along side him while he makes his "vroom" sound effects as we go.

Happily decorating eggs and a good shot of his fat lip

He is so proud of the eggs he made!

First time on his bike.

Spring, spring, spring!

Well April is finally here and it seems that the rain in Vancouver has started to taper off a little bit.  Granted it is raining right this very second but we had a good week long stretch of rain-free days and it appears that spring has arrived!  When we moved to Vancouver it was in the late summer and so this is our first experience of spring here.  I am certainly not used to it arriving so early but it's a lot like Alberta in that it arrives very suddenly.  One day you wake up and out of no where there are birds chirping and tulips blooming and people are friendly again.  We decided to go out and gather up some of the flowers that we found and take some pictures before they are no longer in bloom.  The crocus flowers have already wilted but daffodils have taken their place along with tons of others that I wish I knew the name of.  I think that it should be mandatory for people to put labels on the flowers in their gardens so that I know what they are.  There are just so many different varieties here that seem to grow without anyone planting them or taking care of them.  Eli has been enjoying the flowers just as much as we have.  Every time we pass someones garden he has to stop and smell them and he always points them out when we drive by.  Bruce and Eli even picked some daffodils for me (from the front lawn of the empty house next door) and they have made the house smell terrific.

My lovely daffodils 

No coats!

A little gnome tree

I have no idea what this flower is but I love it.

Magnolia

Our street full of cherry blossoms

Two Beautiful Days

This weekend we were fortunate enough to have two absolutely gorgeous days coincide with Bruce's days off.  With the sun finally shining we certainly didn't let those days go to waste. I will give credit to Bruce for doing all the planning and research into where we should spend our days.  He found a couple of great parks: Whytecliff and Lighthouse.  It's amazing how much you can feel rejuvenated by the sunshine, I think I will be ready to face this very gloomy week just by looking back on these pictures and knowing that there is an end in sight!  Eli had such a fantastic time as well, if he could be outside 24 hours a day he would be.  As soon as we would pull onto our street at the end of our adventures he would immediately realize we were going home and start saying "no go home, go walk".  All in all we had a fantastic weekend.  This first batch of pictures is from Whytecliff Park but both parks were in West Vancouver.

Wild crocus flowers that grow everywhere!

Whytecliff Park

Some of the climbing was a bit treacherous

Eli asked me to take his picture- what a ham

In the water with Daddy

Just throwing rocks

The next day we went to Lighthouse Park with another family that we are really close to.  They have a little boy, Liam, and they are best buds.  We brought a picnic and stayed for the afternoon but I think I probably could have stayed all day.

Dan, Liam and Eli trying to skip rocks

Bruce and Eli after climbing the huge rock formations

The view from the top of the rock

The boys generally just ran around while we ate

The lighthouse

These last couple of days certainly made me anxious for summertime even though I know it is still a long way off.  The annual Cherry Blossom Festival is coming up soon though and hopefully we will be able to go and get some great pictures of all the amazing cherry trees that are beginning to bloom.

It's a Boy

Well I guess that the title of this post says it all.  We had our ultrasound appointment this week and luckily our little Chenuz baby cooperated enough that we were able to find out what we are expecting! Turns out that in July we are going to have ourselves another little bouncing boy!  Bruce and I are so excited and I think that Eli will love having a little buddy to run around with.  So far everything is still going well with the pregnancy and I can't believe that I am already halfway done.  It's all going pretty fast I just hope I will have enough time to prepare for this one like I did with Eli.  Hopefully I'll get some baby bump photos up soon but so far I don't have a single one.  Here's just one of the ultrasound pictures (sorry it is so grainy).

Our newest little man

March Messes

Well February continued to be a pretty busy month.  We had a wonderful trip to Edmonton and right now I just don't have the energy to go through all the things that we did so I have decided to save that for my next blog entry.  Today I have just a few choice pictures of Eli being a crazy kid.  Lately, it seems like every time I turn around he is making another mess.  Whether it is opening a jar of sprinkles and spilling them all over the kitchen, or somehow finding our stash of gum and taking a bite out of every piece and then spitting it back out onto the couch, I am constantly cleaning up.  I did get some pictures of some of the funnier messes so here they are...

He was being a very big helper when I was making pizza dough the other day. He unwisely decided to rub it all over his face.

What a mess!

A couple of days ago I tried to get him to take a nap so I put him in bed, sang a couple of songs and left the room.  I could hear him playing with his toys but after a few minutes he quieted down. I was so happy because I thought that he had finally fallen asleep.  I was wrong.  To help with his dry skin I had mixed up a batch of Glaxal Base and Vaseline and put it on his changing table, apparently I did not put it high enough.

Looking appropriately ashamed of himself

The vaseline made his hair so greasy I had to wash it 5 times to get it out!

Just an extra shot of my cool kid