Connor's 1st Birthday Party

Well the first chapter in Connor’s young life is now complete. Yesterday we celebrated his first birthday. Many thanks to all of you who came, helped out and brought presents. I think all had a great day.  It all went over Connor’s head of course, he had no idea what was going on. He was in great spirits throughout, helped by the two hour nap he had (and was necessary) earlier in the day.

He didn’t like his ice cream very much but he did like his cake though which Brooke baked on Friday (thanks again Brooke). We should also give a mention here to Connor’s outfit for the day. It arrived earlier in the week from Granny Owens (Thanks Mum). She has sent dresses to both girls and now Connor for all of their birthdays thus far. This will get expensive on her now that we have three kids.

I had loads of photos; many of my favorites are shown below. As normal I took many of kids and families, which can be viewed and downloaded, from here. Thanks again everybody, we had a great day!!

Toni and Jack Visit

I had a pleasant surprise when I arrived home from work tonight. Toni and Jack were visiting and had been for a while at that point. Most of you will recall that she was looking after Anna and Frida for Kaisa and Kevin before having her own baby. She spent a lot of time over here with those girls and was quite close friends with both Kristina and more recently with Brooke.

Jack is a beautiful and healthy looking three month old boy. It was great to see them both.

Happy Birthday Connor

Today Connor officially turned one year old. We didn’t do much by way of celebration tonight, a school and work night; we’ll do that at the weekend. He did get a few cards from the girls and Brooke together with a present from the girls. He looked pretty excited about it all.

Happy birthday son, we love you. Mum and Dad.

Christmas Party

Yesterday the girls and myself met Lorraine at the Christmas Party they were having at her work. Although it was the first time I had gone, the kids have attended this and loved it for the last three years. They had Santa and Mrs Claus, face painting, caricature drawing, cookie decorating, story telling and lots of goodies. The kids love this every year. Shown below are a few photos but I took many others for those of you wishing to see them.

With this party and the arrival of snow, it’s starting to feel like Christmas. We also put up our tree yesterday!

Snowfall

The snow has arrived. We awoke this morning, or rather at or around 7am this morning the kids got the entire house up with their excitement about the snow that had fallen. We had about 4-5 inches but the temperature was not very cold.

They were both out there tossing around in it before 9am. All of you out there without kids, think about that for a moment. Saturday morning before 9am in the snow!!

Generally it all went well, I ended up out there with them in the afternoon trying to build a snowman. Disaster really, unfortunately it was the wrong kind of snow, it simply wasn’t sticking!! They were quite upset until I had an inspiring thought. I grabbed the shovel and helped them build "Crystal Mountain". For those of you not familiar with Dora the Explorer, she saves Crystal Kingdom and I convinced the girls that this was part of the story! 

Brewing Beer Again

I had vacation today so I dragged myself away from the iPad for a few hours, it was hard, fired up the brew kettle and made a batch of beer. A Scottish Wee Heavy. It’s been about a year since I brewed so I thought it was time, keep me from getting rusty anyhow.

Brooke took a picture of me with Connor and Isabel. I'll admit it was pretty staged but I wanted a similar shot to that of a picture that was taken back in 2005 with Anja. We weren’t thinking much about a second or third child back then!! 

Birthday

Many of you know that today I turned over yet another year of my life. I guess it happens to us all. Many thanks again to all for the cards and happy birthday wishes. The day was generally like most others until I arrived home to hugs and kisses all round. Dinner was ready and everyone was happy. Thanks Love. I had presents and cards from everybody. Gloves and a fleece from the children, which are perfect for this time of the year and a really cool present from Lynne. I’ve been playing with it all-evening, as have the kids before they went to bed for that matter. "We" are now the owners of yet another Apple product, an iPad. It is pretty cool.

Just as treasured as my iPad, however, are the handmade cards the girls made for me. I’m sure 20 years from now I’ll recall the iPad for sure, who knows what will be popular then. I’m positive however, that as I look back at these two cards they will illicit memories that will be both timeless and priceless…… 
Now, I'm about to crack open one of my all-time favourite beers...an Oatmeal Stout from Sam Smiths.

Another Ear Infection...Connor this Time!

This is a postscript to my previous post which included details of our two trips to urgent care this weekend. Well, make that three. Given that Connor was quite irritable all day yesterday, coupled with his constant his ear tugging and the fact that he’s essentially had the same sickness as us others:- why not!! Another ear infection and his third. Not good really, this temporary doctor has already mentioned the possibility of tubes!! Here we go again!!


Pictures of Connor Yesterday:

Lizzie, our Elf on the Shelf

We also have a new addition to our family, for the coming month anyhow. Lizzie, The Elf on the Shelf. Some of you may already know about the visiting Elf at Christmas time, if not it’s a pretty nifty idea. You can read about it at their website but in summary, between Thanksgiving and Christmas each year, an Elf who is Santa’s helper comes to visit each household with children but only stays during the daytime. He or she then returns to Santa each night to report the news of the day and but returns each night to a different location in the household. The children must find him each morning; he generally sits high on a shelf.  The Elf, can indeed speak with adults but not children and must not be touched. Each household Elf has his or her own name, nominated by consensus. We already love Lizzie our Elf :))

Thanksgiving Roundup

Our Thanksgiving holiday was extensive this year. It started on Wednesday evening with friends over for dinner, actual Thanksgiving with Kaisa, Kevin and family on Thursday, Christmas tree decorating on Friday and another actual Thanksgiving with Randy and Lorraine and their family Saturday afternoon. We had lots of great food, great company, turkey for the first time this year and truly enjoyable on each occasion, thanks to all.

During this time we have also had a repairman to our fridge/freezer, which was not working due to a faulty relay switch and two visits to the urgent care office. Yesterday morning I finally took myself to see a doctor to determine that I have an ear and throat infection coupled with bronchitis and yesterday evening Isabel’s throat was really hurting her. Unwilling to ignore this due to her recent surgery, we took her to the same doctor that I had seen 10 hours earlier. He switched her antibiotic.

I took many pictures; some of which are shown below but all are shown on our Mobile Gallery.

Christmas Tree Lights

Today we are over with Randy and Lorraine, helping them decorate their Christmas tree. Lorraine loves to have all the kids get involved in these festive activities. We are all in a post thanksgiving slumber here in West Lafayette. We are starting to get into the holiday season.  We had dinner with Kaisa and Kevin and their kids yesterday.  We had a very relaxing afternoon and wonderful food, thanks again to you both.

The week is moving along smoothly. Isabel is recovering well, albeit slowly. It will probably take a few days before she has fully recovered.

Isabel Recovering Well

Thanks to all who wished Isabel well today, I’m glad to report that her surgery went very well. One never knows when having a general anesthetic for the first time how it may affect you. We were a little nervous about that and are happy that’s its over.

She was a real little trooper. Very calm and very brave, not even a whimper from her as she was taken into surgery. I was a very proud parent today, seeing how she took it all in her stride. She has recovered remarkably today, literally bounced back after 4-5 hours of sleep with little or no pain.

Ironically enough, but not altogether that surprising really, it was Anja who need the attention tonight as we bathed and tucked them in. Isabel received a very cute Barbie present for her bravery today and garnered much attention throughout the day as you can imagine. It was all a little too much for Anja who was a little jealous….

Isabel Adenoid Removal Surgery

On Tuesday, poor little Isabel will have her adenoids removed and have temporary tubes inserted into both eardrums. This will hopefully finally get her some relief for her constant nasal, sinus, ear canal stuffiness in addition to eliminating the fluid that seems to be permanently lodged in her eardrums. She is literally walking around these days deaf as a bat since there is so much fluid in her ear. As I’ve recounted in these pages on many occasions, she has had her fair share of ear infections, runny nose and colds. Coupled with all of this, as you all know, she has poor balance resulting in her constant falling and banging into things, she pronounces words poorly since she hears poorly and finally she doesn’t taste or smell very well and snores like a freight train (we now know this for sure given our recent one room hotel stay in New Orleans).

Having enlarged adenoids is generally attributed to this suite of symptoms. They essentially block or hinder the normal fluid drainage down the eustachian tube and cause all sorts of issues. This is a very common situation with children and generally starts becoming an issue at 2 years and gets progressively worse until they grow out of it at about 5 years. She was recent referred by her doctor to an ENT specialist who took about 5 minutes to diagnose and recommend a path forward.

She will have this routine procedure done as an out patient surgery under general anesthetic very early Tuesday morning. We’ll be at home by noon and is fully expected to be bouncing around after only a few days. We are all looking forward to some relief for our little social butterfly!

New Orleans

Last night we all returned from an almost week-long trip New Orleans, or as they say down there, “Naw’lins“. Lynne and myself were there to attend the Annual Meeting of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS). The town and conference center were extremely busy, with two conferences running simultaneously, 10,000 participants at our conference and an additional 10,000 at SC10, a conference on super computing.

Brooke came with us to watch the kids during the day and generally speaking it all went well, although it could have been smoother. First, travelling with three kids as young as ours is not trivial and we didn’t have direct flights. Secondly, many of us were sick. Lynne and I are still recovering from last weeks illness, Connor is in the middle of it, as was Brooke who was running a fever for a few days and had a very painful throat all week. She visited her doctor this morning and confirmed a double ear infection with strep throat, how’s that on top of watching three small kids in a hotel room? Finally, since Connor has a cold, he was not sleeping well at all and when in a single hotel room, (Brooke had her own room), everybody knew when he was awake which was often. Lynne bore the brunt of that!!

The girls did have fun though I think. They were generally well behaved and had fun and cycled from the swimming pool, to eating out in restaurants and watching movies and cartoons, all of which are restricted at home. They also had a chance to visit the New Orleans Aquarium and Children’s Museum on separate days with Brooke. They were both enamored with this white albino alligator that they saw at the aquarium. A side note, Anja lost her second tooth in transit!

We owe a huge thanks to Brooke, without whose help as normal, we simply could not have made this trip happen. Thank You!!

Weekend Update

Not much to report here, now that the weather has turned cold and the clocks have “fallen back”, we are staying inside mostly. The girls and I did manage to get out for a short while to rake some leave and generally clean up a little yesterday. They were a big “help”. Lynne did some baking and tried to take it easy.

Lynne has been quite ill all week with a nasty virus. She has had the typical flu symptoms of fever, feeling cold, achy body, swollen tonsils and no energy. Not much fun.

Last night Brad and I started to watch the Lord of the Rings, we have the directors cut. Obviously we only watched the first movie, The Fellowship of the Ring, it was almost 4 hours. We have two more to go which we will try to watch before the end of the year. Anyhow, hope you are all well, have a good week.