First week of January

Big Guy!

Playing with cousin Jessie

The words that best describe January so far are purge and organize. We have tackled - and continue to tackle - all of our closets and storage areas. We are actually seeing some progress and Dave and I are quite encouraged. Unfortunately I experienced a purging of a different kind at the beginning of last week: stomach flu. Luckily it was a 24 hour thing and Dave and baby did not succumb to the bug.

We have also had some lovely visits with friends and family.

Here are some photo highlights.

New Year's Eve and Day, 2011

The holiday festivities continued. We headed to East St Paul to ring in the New Year with our friends Viv, Rod and their girls Reegan and Jaelyn; Christy, Karel and son Samuel; and Kiri, Mike and their children Finn and Ember. My, times have changed for us: the evening started before 6 pm and we were home before 11pm!

New Year's Day we were invited to neighbour's Barbara and Arnold's home. Our neighbourhood friends Tomoko, Todd and Ren; and Edwina, Trevor and children Miriam and Silas were also in attendance. We had a lovely time.

We're off to a nice start for 2011!

Between Christmas and New Year

It was a busy week. Here's a quick summary of what we were up to

post dinner cuddle with Tony

Tuesday we were invited to a tapas dinner party hosted by my colleague Tony and his wife Andrea and their boys Sascha and Max. We have a fabulous time: amazing food and great conversation.

Ambrose on my baby sled

Babe's 1st ski

On Wednesday we pooled our Christmas money together and bought the cross country ski attachment for our Chariot. We took it for a test ski at the Churchill parkway trail (in south osborne). We have to admit it looks pretty cool and works slick! On the same day Dave took Ambrose for a quick turn on my childhood sled. I was overjoyed that my mom kept it for all of these years.

Thursday night we had a great visit with Moog, Janine, Claire and Janine's mom Lorene. We had a lovely time visiting, eating dinner and dainties and playing a game of Settlers of Catan. Moog introduced us to the game several years ago and although we have the game ourselves, we have not played it in quite a while. I am happy to report I won! (with assistance from Janine who played for me when I had to tend to Ambrose). 

Observations and milestones:
-Ambrose was 9 months on the 30th
- can go feet first off of furniture and beds
- can clap his hands, which he does often.
- loves to eat (I pretty much feed him off of my plate but he still has his "baby food" including pureed fruits, particularly pears)
-loves to laugh and to do silly things to make you laugh along with him
-able to play independently
-loves to watch and play with other kids
-always on the move, crawling across floors and up the stairs, creeping along furniture, grabbing everything that is within hands reach.
-beginning to show that he can be stubborn and determined
-as vocal as ever


click here to see some more pictures

Christmas Part II

Later on Christmas Day, Dave, Ambrose and I made our way back to our house and joined Nana and Papa Streit along with Uncle Gody, Auntie Naomi and cousin Emma. The kids opened their toys and we enjoyed a lasagna dinner.

Emma and Ambrose had lots of fun playing together, particularly going for rides on the lil tykes push car.

ride em cars are fun!

Christmas stockings

Boxing Day was spent just hanging out. Shirley and Emma went to the Nutcracker with friend Lou and her granddaugher Chloe.  The next day Shirley and Abby headed off to Mitchell and Ambrose and I went to my mom and dad's to visit gramma and eat some leftovers and dainties.  

Gody and Emma

Emma and Papa

Click here for photo gallery

Christmas Part 1 (updated)

On December 21 and 22 had a lovely visit with Natasha, Matt and their boys Max and Isaac. They drove from Calgary to spend the holidays with Tasha's parents. It was great to see an old friend and her family. Dave had fun wrestling with the boys and Ambrose was quite pleased to play with the boys. 

Max and Isaac

On the 22nd my mom, Breanna, Ambrose and I drove to Erickson to pick up Gramma. We spent the night and the next day we visited my Auntie Darlene and Uncle Brian in Brandon. Their kids (my cousins) were in town for Christmas. Ambrose got to meet Jeri, Scott and their boys Brady and Chase from Vancouver (Ambrose was fascinated by Brady's braces); Jody and Kevin from Calgary; Tara from Vernon, BC and of course, Claire Bear with parents Moog and Janine were in from Ottawa. It was a lovely visit but unfortunately I do not have any pictures to share and I now have pictures to share (thanks for sending them Janine!)

Christmas eve was spent at my parent's house. David's parents arrived that day from The Pas and joined us for the festive feast (my mom began preparing dinner two weeks before Christmas). It was a lovely meal followed by some serious gift opening (we open our gifts on the eve).

Ambrose in his Christmas best

Jessie

With Gramma

checking out one of his new toys from Nana and Papa

With Jordan

Breanna happy in her new one piece pjs 

Dave, Ambrose and I spent the night at nana and papa's house. We awoke to discover that Ambrose received gifts from Santa! Later that morning we enjoyed fried pault, a swedish dish that is part of our Christmas tradition. Yum!

Fried pault

Ambrose enjoying pault for the first time

Taking the car for a spin after papa put it together

Having fun with papa

Click here for picture gallery

December so far

loves the Christmas lights

Bizzy Bizzy Bizzy Baby!!

Observations and Milestones:

• Cut left central incisor while we were away and the right one is on the way.
• Climbing stairs and motoring around quite nicely.
• Has perfected his soft hug.
• Loves to laugh and clap his hands.
• Waves like the Queen on a float - back of hand to the crowd.
• Shakes his bum bum when the music hits.
• Likes to call out to strangers for a "HEY!"
• Very vocal. Sings with mom. Sings himself to sleep.
• High Fives are coming along nicely.

Since getting back from Mexico, we have worked hard at organizing the living room and dining room. As a result the living room is now Ambrose readied. Our friends Natasha, Matt and their two boys, Max and Isaac stayed over for a night and the living room was well tested by the 5 and 3 year old.  Ambrose is fascinated with "older" children; he watched these two rough house and play with great interest.  Isaac (the younger of the two) treated Ambrose like a little brother or cousin and let him know when he was getting in the way or being annoying.

other December highlights:
-Nana Shirley visit (attending Daddy's hockey game and visiting Fort Whyte) and visits with Uncle Gody, Auntie Naomi and cousin Emma
-lots of visits with Nana Arlette
-shopping with Auntie Brytt
-visits with friends Luna (Collin and Natasha) and Samuel (Karel and Christy and other friends)
-attending Mommy's work holiday potluck
-attending Daddy's VIA family Christmas party and hockey Christmas party
-chilling with Uncle Gord
-trimming the Christmas tree
-passed the nubbie ball back and forth with daddy three times. was almost as pleased with himself as daddy was.
-Loves the little 80's synthesizer. does bum bum dance and shakes head. just scours all the buttons while different background rythmes stop and start. Manages to get the sample song going. video to arrive soon.

Click here for picture gallery

Ambrose meets Santa (plus updates on baby)

While we were shopping yesterday afternoon with Nana and Auntie Brytt, Ambrose met Santa.  The exchange was quite pleasant actually. While sitting on Santa's knee, Ambrose turned his head and looked up at Santa with much curiosity. He also grabbed a piece of Santa's beard and proceeded to play with it. We have plans to meet Father Christmas at Fort Whyte on Sunday.


Other updates...
Ambrose is now 8 months old and he weighs 23 pounds. He is busy baby, always on the move.  He loves to walk with assistance or cruise around and move between furniture and/or people (or, if they let him, the cats). He likes to throw/push toys ahead and then move towards them while playing. A favourite toy is the Fisher Price farm from Jessie. He spends equal time playing with the animals and standing up holding onto the farm (no, it does not hold his weight and he has taken some tumbles but he persists).


His new thing is to scream at the top of his lungs, usually in delight (he demonstrated this quite well while we were on the plane). He is experimenting with some new sounds and vocalizations. In fact I don't think he is ever quiet (even in a deep sleep he will sing his deep slumber song).


His interest in food has deepened just these past few days. Although he still prefers to feed himself, he is finally allowing me to feed him more than 1-2 spoonfuls in one sitting. In fact last night he ate over half a jar of organic pureed pears! He does not hesitate to let us know if he likes or dislikes a certain food. Here's the running tally for this week 
Likes: puffed wheat, rice crackers, pureed blueberries, homemade banana bread, chunks of steamed carrot and anything he can pick up and put into his mouth himself. 
Dislikes: apple sauce (really?), rice cereal, any pureed vegetable (ugh)