Catching Up With Karis!

Christmas, the new year, Kam's birthday and my birthday have all come and gone.  The pace of life is in high gear with me starting another term in school and going back to part-time work.  But amongst all the changes happening in the day to day routine, I've had to stop and take the time to watch and take in all the changes going on for this gal.....

Karis is 16 months old now and is in full swing of becoming a little girl with personality.  Our little Kare Bear's biggest accomplishment is that she has started to walk.  All along I was positive that she would be walking sooner than Kamille did (15 months).  So many other things that Kamille does inspires Karis to give a try, however walking wasn't one of them.

By Christmas Karis was navigating the house by wall and furniture.  She was super speedy, however she was very reluctant to walk while holding our hand or she would drop to her knees if we even tried to get her to stand on her own.  She was just not into it.  On Boxing Day without any prompting, Karis let go of the ottoman and took about 2 steps all on her own.  All three of us caught it out of the corner of our eyes and we erupted into cheering and excitement for Karis.  I suppose its been baby steps for her since then.

We kept encouraging her and found certain things that seemed to work for her, perhaps giving her a sense of balance or distraction.  If we put her in her 1-piece snow suit she would manage a few steps at a time.  If we wrapped her baby around her in a blanket sling, she was able to walk the hallway upstairs.  Gradually she was getting it.

 Last week was the week that she officially became a walker.  Last Monday she was still mostly crawling through the day, by Friday we captured this amazing video of her and Kamille dancing.....and spinning!

And then once she had it, she hasn't stopped showing off her skills.  

Even the "down" times are fun to capture!  She doesn't mind!

We've even managed to get outside for some real practice.  

This brings a whole new level of communication to their relationship!  I love it!

The one other thing that I want to remember about Karis right now is her love of hats.  Hat is one of the first words that she has perfected.  She points them out to us everywhere, in photos, on TV, on strangers and absolutely loves wearing them and having them involved in her play.  "Haaat"  

It didn't take me long to find this collection of photos of her in her hats.  She is always wearing them.  Makes me wonder how she is going to handle it once the weather gets warmer.  I hope she loves sun hats just as much!  I'm thinking that her obsession with hats is the reason why she can't stand wearing barrettes and ponytails in her hair.  Super bummer for me, but she looks super cute in hats too!  

 This week I have even noticed her fascination with her winter jacket too.  She loves wearing it and is thrilled when I announce "get your coats and hats on" to the girls.  Kamille dawdles getting ready, but I kid you not, Karis stands there with her hats, mits, shoes and jacket begging to have it all put on saying "haat, gack, haat, gack" over and over again.

 love love love her little pony tails here.....didn't last long after the hat went on!  

And her words are coming!  She is using Mama more for me now.  She is just like Kamille in that she loves her Dada.  She lights up and happily says "Da-da" or "Da-yee" while pointing at him when he comes into the room.  I think she might use some form of "dada" for Kamille too.  I love that when I talk to her she appears to understand more.  Sometimes I get a "yes" or a "no" nod from her.  And some words she will repeat back to me, like snack which also sounds like "gack" too.  Its just so exciting to see her learning!

I cannot recall what she was saying here...Bummer, it will come to me though...hmmm

A couple week or so ago Kevin brought Karis home a new stuffy.  Its a cheshire cat.  "Caa."  Karis has really taken to this cat.  Recently she has insisted that "caa" and her white knit blanket be with her during our snuggle and comfort nursing before bed.  I love it.  Her cat, her blanket and my baby in my arms....a perfect way to relax into the night.

She has one other night time interest - Baby Beluga.  When Kamille was a baby and for quite some time, she insisted on singing/reading Baby Beluga before bed every. night.  That Raffi sure did something right when he came up with that one.  Karis is fully into the Baby Beluga book and I had no influence in that at all.  It was in the rotation of bedtime books and for a bit now, she has insisted on "Booo" when we cuddle in the rocking chair at bedtime.  Singing is always the preferred way of flipping through the book for her too!  Having Kevin home over the holidays and into January really allowed me to have that 1:1 time with her rather than the usual "all in Kam's bed" storytime that me and the girls were used to.   Oh, another thing that Karis is starting to say is "nigh nighs", which sounds more like "na-na."   I just love it.

Her "What the heck?" face doesn't show itself as much anymore.  It was such a fun expression to call out when she made it.  "What the heck?"

"What the heck? Can't a girl eat her breakfast without a camera in her face?"

Kamille and Karis play well together most of the time.  They tend to squabble over a few items, dolls, purses, cameras and the baby carrier or stroller.  I think its fair to say that Karis rarely plays with the toys that Kamille would have typically played with at her age because she is all about what Kamille plays with.  

Sometimes she gets frustrated that she can't carry as much as her big sis.  Two purses (one with a camera in it), a wallet and keys.  But eventually she figures out her priorities...or which items Kamille would want the most.  Cheeky!

Oh, but I have to mention one of the things that completely gets me going at this stage - the constant rummaging through ALL OF MY STUFF!  Specifically, my kitchen.  Paws off!  This girl is obsessed with the lazy susan cupboard where all my baking and dry goods are.  Its impossible to tear her away from it without a big big upset.
But sometimes when I catch her up to no good, its worth while to stop and take a few photos...because I really want to remember her sneaky side!

Have at 'er my darlin' girl.  You win.

Karis you are such a fun little gal.  You are on the cusp of leaving your "babyness" and becoming a wee girl.  It makes me teary sometimes (you are my baby!!!) but I am also excited for all the change that will come.
I just love you!

Sick

Warning:  I write about barfing...because I did.  A lot. 

It was right about 3pm yesterday when I was finishing up with a staff meeting that I suddenly had the urge to sleep.  It was like BAM and I needed to be at my desk with my head down.  So I assumed the “first trimester” position at my desk, breathing deeply to refresh some energy but that wasn’t working.  Soon the nausea kicked in and I found myself hurling the entire contents of my lunch in the “semi-public” washroom at work.  In hindsight it is likely one of the grossest things ever to me, but I was in no state of mind to judge in that moment.  Figuring that it was all over and a bad lunch had escaped me, I desperately searched for gum in the office and decided that I was ok to get some paperwork done.  However, I found myself staring at my computer and now questioning if I was pregnant.  I quickly call Kevin and say, “Tell me there is no way that I could be pregnant!”  And after the “it would be immaculate conception” speech from Kevin I hung up the phone feeling another wave of exhaustion coming on.  This time I packed up my things and headed home. 

At about 2km from home the nausea kicked in and I was breathing deeply to save the interior of my car.  I greeted Kevin as I ran past him and graced him with sound of yet another lunch up-heave.  I thanked him for rubbing my back and headed straight upstairs and fell into my bed. 

At this point the exhaustion was far beyond the “first trimester” type and I was feeling rather loopy.   More hurling.  Then sweat.  Then chills.  Yikes.  This was no good. 

At 5pm, I heard Kevin leave to get the girls at daycare.   OMG the girls!  OMG Thank God that he was home.  There was no way I could have got out of bed to get the girls, let alone make them dinner and get them ready for bed.   I sat there in complete panic about what I would do if he was away working this week.  Who would I call?  Fortunately I came the conclusion that should it happened that I have the BEST group of friend that would positively step up to help out.  I just love my community of friends! 

In the meantime, Kevin decided that I would be quarantined after learning about a nasty flu virus that has been circulating town.  So I spent the rest of the early evening listening to the sounds of Kevin and the girls go through the dinner and bedtime routine.  He is so good.  Since it was my body that was fatigued and not my mind, I lay there lifelessly allowing a stream of consciousness consume my thoughts, everything from wondering how movies get made, to recalling that this day, January 19^th was Kamille’s due date, to how this "doing nothing" was putting me behind in my school work.  All I could do was think.  My thoughts were all scrambled.  

By this time the body aches, the complete discomfort of continuing to hurl the inner scrapings of my stomach, the sweating, the chills and the fatigue had me really grumpy and sad.  I was calling Kevin on his cell phone to communicate with him, request a glass of water and tell him that I was feeling aweful (incase he forgot about me).  I am not good at doing sick. 

After the girls went down we agreed to a drop off exchange outside the bedroom door.  He left me my work bag and laptop and I left him his toothbrush and a fresh set of bedsheets for the pull-out couch.   I contemplated the idea of trying to distract myself by surfing online or catching up with school posts, however, I found myself staring at my google homepage until my computer feel into sleep mode.  Nope, no energy to even move the curser. 

I scoured the bathroom cabinet for pain meds and decided to pop an extra strength Tylenol to see if it would help.  I swallowed it and pleaded with my body to keep it in.  I visualized the whole experience of that red tablet and imagined how much time it would take for it to dissolve as though it was in a race with another wave of nausea….Fortunately my Tylenol won and eventually I could feel the pain alleviating in my back and shoulders.  I must have drifted into a light sleep after that and awoke at 9:45 or so feeling ok.  The water was staying down too.  I think I was winning this battle!   

At that point I had just spent 6 hours in bed doing nothing.  That is not an easy place to sit for me.  I tried to justify it by reminding myself about making time for rest and for catching up on sleep and gave up the idea of needing to do school work or other things on my to-do list. 

I spent the next 2 hours tossing and turning in bed, peeling off the layers of clothes that were once keeping me comforted.  I heard Karis stirring in her bed and crying out randomly at times.  Oh, please I do not wish this on any of my family members, especially my girls.  How sad to know that there is nothing that you can do but hug them and nurse them through such a terrible way to feel.  Time, its  letting that nasty bug take hold of you while you fight it with every bit of 'doing nothing' until you feel better.  

In silence, my thoughts were also with the many people who live in the reality of feeling this sick everyday. I am grateful.  I am grateful for my health, that this is just a bug and not something I am attempting to conquer on a daily basis.  I am grateful for my Kevin, I am grateful for my girls.  

Difting in and out of sleep for the remainder of the night, popping another Tylenol, mustering up the energy to sit up to sip orange juice in the morning.  I can take my time.  Its not a work day for me.  

Today is nothing but movies on the couch with the girls and watching them from my horizontal position.  Watching them.  Really taking this time to watch their expressions and interactions.  They are gorgeous. 

I'm sick, but I will be better within 24 hours.   (which should be any minute now.......)

in the meantime, this makes me laugh

That Mermaid Story

You know how every family has those stories that will be remembered and told for years to come?  Well this is one of those stories.....

This past summer Kevin and Kamille ventured out on an overnight trip in Vern.  On the way out there, Kevin and Kamille stopped into the video store to pick up a movie that they could watch on the portable DVD player at bedtime.  Kamille picked The Little Mermaid and from that day on, she has been in love with Arial the Mermaid.

The fall came and went and when it came time for Christmas wish lists, Kamille's included "a Barbie", which in her words actually meant the Arial Mermaid doll that we had previously seen in Walmart.
On Christmas morning, Kamille was happy to find that Santa Claus had brought many of the items on her wish list, including her very own Arial doll.  It was love!

However, Santa had also brought some gifts that weren't just right so I had planned to do some exchanging, including a particular lunch sac that I wasn't fond of the shape and size of.

In the days after Christmas Kamille and Arial were inseparable and as I mentioned before I was pretty much oblivious to what the heck the girls were up to in those day because I was all over the place myself.

On January 3rd, in an effort to get all my ducks lined up before returning to work, I ran out to Walmart after tucking the girls into bed to return items and pick up some new post-Christmas deals.  It was quick, easy and so very cool to shop ALONE in the evening!

The next morning upon waking, Kamille was downstairs desperately searching for something...she was searching for the lunch sac that I had just returned to Walmart the night before.  Apparently that is where Arial had decided to spend the night.  OMG, I returned the lunch sac with Arial in it!

Kevin got on the phone and called immediately, sadly no one had any idea what he was talking about nor were there any lunch sacs in the returns area that morning.  They said they would have someone search the store shelf, but later we were then informed that no one found Arial.  That same day I popped in with Kamille and we had a look on the shelf ourselves and searched through similar lunch sacs that Arial may have been in, but she wasn't in any of them.  We were told that the customer service gal who had done my return was going to be in the following day and that I could call her during her shift to see if she had stumbled upon Arial that night.

At this point, I was beginning to think that perhaps Kamille was wrong and that Arial was somewhere in our home.  We had one full day to search for her in the house but she didn't turn up.  Sadly my phone call the next day to Walmart didn't produce any answers and the girl who had done my return didn't even remember me or our transaction.  Great.

So we had no Arial and one very sad little girl.  In an effort to make things better for our Kamille, Kevin and her had a chat and surmised that if Arial wasn't at home or at Walmart then she must have left our home and jumped into the pond/slew of water behind our home.  She totally bought it, however now she spent parts of the day longing for Arial to show herself as she stood in the window watching for any sign of her - even claiming one day to have possibly seen her red hair!  Poor gal.

In the days before her birthday Stacey caught wind of what was going on with our lost Arial doll and offered to find a new Arial to gift to her.  Stacey told me that she had searched for the Arial doll with no luck.  Christmas must have wiped out Walmart's supply of the popular princess.  However, on her birthday Kamille opened up a brand new Mermaid Barbie from Gus and Stacey.   She was every bit of a mermaid as Arial and Kamille was happy to have a new mermaid doll.

For the first few days after her birthday I noticed Kamille and her "Lainey" the mermaid enjoying time together, but then it appeared that she too was missing.  Hmmm.  It was shortly after that that Kevin asked me if I had ever noticed that Lainey never left her bedroom?  No, I hadn't noticed, why?  Well apparently she told Kevin that Lainey could  never leave her bedroom and infact had to stay under her pillow so that she would not run away.  Kamille was afraid that Lainey would run away!

It was around this time that Kamille started talking about Arial again.  So Kevin and I decided that we needed to figure out what we should do about this.  Kevin went back to Walmart and there were still no Arial dolls on the shelf, he searched through the lunch sacs on the shelf again, he even asked the staff to search the lost and found for Arial.  Nothing.   When in the city, Kevin search Toys R Us too.  No Arial.

Our girl was still so hung up on Arial.  She talked about her, played pretend Arial and even swooned for Eric, Arial's prince.  She even told me that she wished that all of the snow we had melted so that it would create enough puddles for Arial to jump from the slew of water all the way back to our home.  I kid you not.  Oh my sweet Kamille.

So anyway, last Saturday Kevin and Kamille spent the day together in the city.  Karis and I had a bunch of errands to run, including a stop at Walmart.  Arial was on the list.  Searching, searching, searching and AH HA!  There she was.  I swear I let out a gasp when I saw her.  I know I did because little did I know it, but my neighbour was behind me and commented on how excited I sounded over a Barbie doll.  I explained that this was no barbie doll, IT WAS ARIAL!  At last Arial was coming home!

So with a little bit of giddiness in me I paid for our Arial among other things I picked up and I was just leaving Walmart when I notice an overcharge on my bill and in the spirit of saving a buck or $4.00, I stayed put to get my money back.  I am standing at the customer serivce desk thinking about the whole Arial thing, so excited that she will finally be home again and in that moment, for some random reason I decide to return to the aisle of lunch sacs.  I just don't understand where Arial has gone?  So I arrive in the aisle and start picking up and feeling all the similar lunch sacs.  Nope, nope, nope, nope, wait a second....squish, what's that? unzip and Oh. My. Gawd.  ARIAL!

Arial spent 12 days in a lunch sac on the shelves at Walmart!  How?  What?  Why did we never find her before?  What the heck?  Its seemed impossible!
I was so excited, I returned to the customer service desk to return the unopened Arial....."You are never going to believe this..."

Big plans for Kamille start going through my head.  I raced home, pulled Lainey out from under Kamille's pillow and set up a reunion that would soon happen!

I didn't even tell Kevin what was happening.   I knew the whole thing would be just as thrilling for him! The only clue I gave was that I told Kamille that the musical birthday card that she got for her birthday that plays "Girls Just Want To Have Fun" was playing when I walked in the door from running errands with Karis.  I acted all like "that's strange, why would that song be playing and all by itself?  Who is having fun in our house???  Kevin got it, Kamille thought that maybe our 7 year old next door neighbour had come in and check out all her toys.  So funny!   Following dinner we went up to get the girls in their jammies and after a bit of time in her room without noticing I couldn't contain my excitement and I got all wide eyes and motioned to her bed.

SHE WAS THRILLED! Oh, so excited!

Girls just wanna have fun!  

no kidding.......xoxo

We didn't tell her that I had found Arial at Walmart.  She totally doesn't need to know that.  She believes that Arial came back to be with her and Lainey.  My girl is happy and all is back to normal!  Arial and Lainey get along fabulously, although they don't venture far from her bedroom!

This is that story for us.  The one that will always be remembered.  The one that will always remind us of her smallness.  The one that we will always use as the "when you were little...."story.

I love it.

Our Boy, Kingsley!

We have a special wee boy in our family who is celebrating a big FIRST birthday today!  

My little nephew Kingsley is ONE!  One year old and he has lived quite a courageous life in the past 365 days!

Kingsley is the much anticipated boy in the group in the all-girl offspring that my sister Jill and I have birthed.  She has two daughters, Rachel and Cordelia and when they found out that their third child was going to be a boy the entire family was elated!  A boy!  

Jill is notorious for dressing ALL her children in matching and co-ordinating outfits.  This is one of their 3 Christmas co-ordinated outfits.  Love you for it Jillsy! 

The news that we received only days after us finding out that Kingsley was a boy wasn't as elating and shocked my sister and our family.  Kingsley had Spina Bifida.  

All of what we learned about our much anticipated boy came at the exact time that Karis was born and so there were a lot of mixed emotion surrounding her exciting and healthy arrival and also learning that our baby boy was going to be born with Spina Bifida and would require immediate and life long special needs.  

Rach, King and Cor.  Of course they had matching jams too! 

But from the minute this little boy was pulled from my sister he has shown us nothing but courage and bravery.  The first of his surgeries happened only hours after he was born and his most recent surgery was just 6 weeks ago.  Through it all Kingsley has maintained his gorgeous flirtatious, easy going and smiley personality!  He is such a trouper!

I look forward to continuing to be amazed by our little King!

Happy Birthday to our 1 year old Kingsley!
We love you!  xo

Happy 4th Birthday To My Princess

And just like that Kamille is now four years old.  I can still recall the moments leading up to her birth, her  amazing arrival and our first days with her.  I hope these memories never fade.  

If there was one things that stands out about our little Kamille's fourth birthday, its that she has been looking forward to this event for a very very very long time.  She has been talking to about how she is going to "get four" for as long as I can recall this past year.  Holy!  The birthday countdown that we started on her wipe board in her bedroom was waaaaaaaaay more celebrated than our Christmas countdown we had going.  

Personally, I've never really been big on the birthday thing, but I couldn't help but get bitten by her infectious excitement and enthusiasm for her big day!

The requests from Kamille were that she wanted it to have a Princess theme and that she wanted a Princess cake and balloons just like Karis had for her first birthday.  She had even made up her own guest list, which initially included her whole class of mates at school, but we had to widdle it down.  In the end, she did it all on her own.  This was her gig for sure!  

And what she couldn't do herself, Kevin and I stepped in and became Team K2 -  Princess Party Planning experts - all in one night!  I kept telling Kevin that we needed to sit down and really start getting our ideas out and getting things done, but before we knew it it was January 7th and it was crunch time.  Loot bags, games, food, decorations....and the cake all needed to be done in two nights.  

We managed to pull all of our resources together the night before the big day and with the help of Kevin's mom who is in town for a visit, we gave it our all. 

I had baked and froze the cakes that we needed for our grand idea...So there we were - ice cream cones, cakes and wine....lots of wine to get us through this.  After consulting Kevin for the master plan (who was using a Googled image of the Disney Castle to formulate his idea) I whipped up some cherry icing in my food processor (ah-mazing!) and we were off to a good start. 

The Cake Boss in action!

Seriously, this guy was all about the details.  I love that he chose the "My Love" candy.   It is one of the names that I respond to Kamille with.  Like if she is calling for me, I say "Yes, my Love?"  Details! 

And while the Cake Boss was busy getting pink fingers, I was busy putting together the Loot Bags.  In a desperate attempt to find matching bags that were the right size for the loot, we opted for the reusable and biodegradable Poop bags that we grabbed from the dispenser down the road.  It worked perfectly for our Poop Loot Bags. 

Kamille took some time to write THANK YOU in her best big-girl printing on each tag, and then we stuffed them with some post-Christmas 75% off loot - bath bubbles or foam soap and Jelly Beans!  However my favourite loot bag item was the idea that I come across a while ago.  Prior to having kids, I read about making a CD with your kid's favourite songs on it as a party favour.  I waited until I knew Kamille had a selection of favourites from our daily soundtrack around the house and over time I have jotted them down in anticipation of.......

Kamille's Birthday CD!

Kevin took over the details of this too and did a fantastic job putting it all together!  

He also took over the creation of our  Pin The Star on the Princess Wand activity as well.  This Daddy sure is a sucker for all things girly-girl!  I love it!

He projected an image from the internet onto the cardboard to create our game!

When Kevin was a kid his mother used to decorate the house with a hand-made birthday banner every year for her son's birthdays, so of course we will follow this tradition from now on!

And after a full night of party planning, we finished off the night with wrapped presents and empty bottles of beer and wine.  We all landed in bed around 1am...excited for our girl's big day!

Sadly between 1am and 5:30am I was up with Kamille four times and once with Karis, so I missed the  discovery of her big birthday banner first thing in the morning because I couldn't drag myself out of bed at the crack of dawn.  She was thrilled with it though!

She could not contain her excitement for her birthday party to begin.  From the minute she was dressed and ready, we did everything in our power to distract her in the 90 minutes before her guests arrived.  Yikes, it was hard.....
We gave her a gift.....

but that interest didn't last long....
So we let her get into the Chips and Cheesies (or maybe we got into them first??)

And when that distraction failed, we brought out the cake....

A very exciting moment for Daddy!  She loved it!

However, we still had 20 minutes to go and she was getting to be one grumpy birthday girl.......

We banished our grumpy girl to the front room and told her to watch for her friends to arrive....she stood in the window waiting..and then finally they began to arrive!  She was beyond excited and ran out the front door to greet her girly friends.....

Kaya, Kylie, Kamille

Xanadu and Kamryn

They ran straight up to Kamille's room to play.  Its so fun watching little girls interact and hear what they talk about together!  They got into the dress-ups and explored all of Kamille's toys and books.  

And just when I was thinking that I might never get them out of Kamille's bedroom, our Prince of the party arrived!

Kamille's boyfriend for life, Gus!  He was looking extra handsome for all girls!

Watching her Prince colour.  *love*

We managed to roll right into birthday activities including decorating their own tiaras (and crown), and Pin the Star on The Princess Wand...

We played Pass the Parcel too - such a great party game!  Then the it was time to open presents!
Soooooo funny.  They all crowded around her with excitement!

And through it all, Grandma was preparing lunch and hanging out with a very happy Karis!

And it was during their lunch of grilled cheese sandwiches, tater tots, veggie sticks, chips and cheesies that I suddenly had a flash back of my birthday parties as a child!  I get all of my photography enthusiasm from my dad and basically grew up with a lens pointed my way all the time.   My birthday party photos ALWAYS included a Funny Face shot from the kids around the table and individual funny faces of all my guests....So I followed suite....

Funny Faces....

I love it!  

And then the moment they were all waiting for.....

Look at that excitement!  

Blowing out the candles......

and the kids wasted no time digging in and pulling all the candies off.....

In the end, it was the candy and the ice cream cones that were a hit. We had almost the entire cake left after the party!
And with 15 minutes to spare before all the parents would arrive, we ended our fantastic party with some dancing, of course!

Karis was all about the dancing! 

Showing everyone their fancy moves!

Twirling dresses....

And just so much fun!

And although, I don't have any photos of her, Stacey was the Princess Guest of Honor at Kamille's party.  She was on the sidelines with Baby Henry and lent a hand in keeping the kids entertained and cleaning up.  Thank you Stacey!  

After a great two hours, with tired girls upstairs in their rooms Joan, Kevin and I sat down and enjoyed a much deserved break.  

We pulled it off and it was so great! 

Happy 4th Birthday my little Princess Kamille!

xoxo