12 posts tagged “deanna”
What a fun New Year. Everyone had a cold from November until the beginning of February. Between Sarah and Samantha there have been four ear infections. Samantha woke up Wednesday night with the stomach flu (and the mess on her and the bed to prove it) which escalated to diahrrea, fever, cramping and loss of appetite. Things just got better from there. Joe was diagnosed with strep throat and as he got back to normal, fell to the stomach flu Friday evening. Sarah woke up throwing up later that same night. Even Jen caught it (sorry Jen). I was supposed to play in a volleyball tournament with work on Saturday...well stand on the court and watch other people play around me but obviously I was chasing kids around with a bucket, clean PJs and Javex :)
As I say too often, it could be worse. I'm still recovering from surgery and so far I have not shown signs of this tummy issue and neither has Alex. Joe bounded back to normal after a day and a half, Samantha has finally come around and Sarah might be. We made it through with only two visits to the hospital with Samantha, and one with Sarah but neither had to stay there. The team had enough players to play volleyball without me (I think) and Joe and I didn't get sick at the same time. Joe and Alex got to go skating - twice!
I understand that this stuff gets easier as they get older and since we made it through this week, then I think rest will work just fine :)
Weeks ago I showed Alex how to blow on a dandilion and make a wish. So today, while waiting in the yard with me for Joe, he picked one... blew on it and as the seeds flew around said "I wish I could fly a kite".... it was adorable.
After everyone's naps (about 11:00), we coated the kids in sunscreen, packed the family into bike trailers and left Dan's house. We stopped at the top of the street to figure out a destination.
First Dominion: no kite.
Next Zellers : Finding Nemo Kite - $5
We scooted down to Bowring Park and camped out on the hill behind the swimming pool to eat lunch and fly Alex's kite. He learned real quick and soon needed no help from us unless it hit the ground. Samantha chased him (or us) and Sarah ate. You should have seen the size of a chicken breast she decided she to eat!
We played until everyone started to look sleepy then packed them all back into the trailers and followed the old railway bed to downtown. After a drive by the waterfront and a quick jump into the bike stores, we follow the railway bed back to bowring park and up to McDonalds! By the time we finally got back to Dan's, it was 7:00pm. I wish I had some photos of this perfect day, but I forgot the camera :( You'll have to settle for this one that Natasha took of Alex with paint on his fingers.
I thought Alex would really enjoy a trip to Salmonier Nature Park so we piled ourselves into the van and drove there for the day.
He wasn't nearly as interested as we thought he'd be and in fact spent most of the walk in the stroller! Sarah and Samantha however, got very frustrated at being confined to the stroller and we eventually let them out leaving Alex with the whole thing to himself.
Sarah spend most of the walk in my arms with a look of total amazment on her face. Samantha held my forefinger and walked - literally- 1/3 of the park.
We were supposed to have dinner with Jen and Don, but were a little late getting there. After supper, we all spend some time in the garden. Jen and Don have a lawn tractor that Alex got to drive. Sarah and Samantha got pulled along in a trailer Jen just got and they got a real charge out of that. There are some cute shots here of the kids and Alex and Don on the tractor.
We are getting some major work on the house done and had to spend our weekend packing up the three biggest rooms in our home - the living room, dining room and (ugh) kitchen). We also had to get ourselves packed and out of the house with the 3 kids, dogs and cat. It was a crazy weekend that started Friday and finished midnight last night. My folks were not easily available, Joe's dad was on the West Coast, his mom out due to injury so we were kinda on our own. Luckily Stewart helped both mornings and when I talked to Jay and Megan on Saturday I was pityful enough to warrant help all day yesterday (they are also house sitting for us). Dan dropped by on the way home from the cabin and took Alex to "the park" which turned into several hours out with Ryan and Leanne (HUGE help). I don't know what we would have done without these guys this weekend. This was very hard.
Dan has loaned us his home while the work is being done. It was clean, he made all sorts of storage space... I just can't thank him enough for this.
Night number one was rough. No one got in bed until 9:10 and Alex didn't fall asleep until 10:30. I had walked him through were "mommy and daddy" were sleeping so he'd know how to find us when he woke up. Several minutes after going to bed he was at the top of the stairs pretty annoyed that we were not in there when he looked. I forgot to explain that we were not going to bed there and then. An hour later, Alex fell out of bed. Then Sarah woke up but took her pacifier and went right back to sleep. Then Samantha woke at 3:30 and got everyone up. It was after 4:30 before we had them all settled. 6:50, we were all up again.
Hopefully night number two goes better. If not we'll re-think the sleeping arrangements.
Every night our bed routine is the same. We all go upstairs, put the girls in the same crib, wait for Alex to get his "microphone" (stand up toilet paper holder), and after Alex announces "Ladies and Gentlemen, here's mommy singing the Dinosaur song!!" we break into "Everybody walk the Dinosaur" as the girls grab onto the rail of the crib and bounce up and down dancing to it. It sounds silly, but it is one of the highlights of our day. I will post a video of this, I promise.
After our performance, we do bath time (on bath nights) followed by story time where each child gets to pick a book and we sit down as a family and read them all. So last night, Alex wanted to get into Samantha's crib bundled in his towel waiting for Jen or I to dress him. Suddenly he announced that poopy was coming and he asked to go to the potty. Let me clarify that we have not been trying to actively potty train Alex yet. I scooped him up and ran for the upstairs bathroom, but he didn't want to use his potty in there and he didn't want to sit on the big person toilet. Downstairs we went to another bathroom where I rushed to find his other potty hidden under the sink. Once he was bundled up in a towel on his throne... he kicked me out! As added insult he told me to go upstairs and even closed the door behind me.
After a few mins alone he yelled out "mommy mommy I pee'd in the potty!!!!" which he did....It was all worth it.
OK, so we are not actually from Mount Pearl but you have to give good ole Steve Kent and the Mount Pearl city council credit for the annual winter festival they have called the "Frosty Festival". For a family with young'uns, it offers all sorts of activities. For example, today, Alex and I attended "Frosty's Birthday Party" at the Glacier. There was face painting, tattoos, magicians, acrobats, some talented fellow making a beautiful ice sculpture, 4 square "bouncys" and two long ones, free ice cream, milk and cake - it was like heaven for wee kiddies. Even a bunch of kids favorite characters came like Dora, Blue and of course, Frosty! Frosty was late attending, I guess in part due to all the other activities on right now. Alex was adamant that we couldn't leave until we wished him a happy birthday so I was pretty happy when he showed up :)
Mom used to have a big boxing day meal for the Byrne family when we were still the "kids". We all still poke fun at the "kids table" that most of us sat in well into adulthood with some hope of eventually graduating to the "adult" table.
This year my cousin Jennifer and her family have abruptly moved home (much to my glee) and the tradition saw a comeback at thier spotin the East End. Three of the Byrne "kids" were in attendance (Jennifer, Brian and Frank) and Nancy called while we were there. Ed, Jon, Ken and Sharyn, some friends and relatives from the Byrne side. Mom, Dad, Dan, his lady friend Leanne and her son Ryan all went. Also, instead of one or two cooks this was a potluck and there was some damn tasty food!
Sadly Joe missed out on the event. He spent most of the day at the hospital about his bad back and I suggested he stay home to rest it up. It was hard trying to get through the day with the 3 kids, feedings, baths and trying to cook for the potluck on my own. By the time Joe got home and I got to Jennifer's I was almost 2 hours late but it was well worth it! Joe was asleep when we got home and well.. he still is! He has definitly beaten our record hours of sleep since the girls come home. I'm jealous :) There are a bunch of Photos of the gathering posted. Thanks Jen and Derrick for the hospitality!
Poor Alex didn't quite grasp the tradition of "daddy" going downstairs first and him having to wait until Daddy was ready for the kids to come down (aka turn on the tree and get the video camera). The poor child almost started Christmas morning crying! When he reached the livingroom and saw the train set Santa left for him, he was so excited he couldn't get past it to any of the other presents. We have it on video which I will post but for now I'm just going to get some pictures up.
A surprise treat was Sarah's reaction to the train. She'd stand by the train station watching as the train did the track and everytime it stopped at the station and made the associtated noises, she's go into fits of laughter. It never got old for her or us :) After we opened our presents, Kathy, Mike and Dan came over so we could open those we had for each other. You'll see a walking toy that both the girls are playing with from Kathy and Mike and a VERY LOUD tractor and dump truck they gave Alex that dad is playing with.
Unfortunatly Joe seems to have done something to his back and he thinks he might have a muscle in spasm (yuck).
PS: Sarah has a tooth!
Until recently, Alex has been at a home daycare (Lisa) and she is/was just amazing. I wanted to take advantage of my time off and we'll need someone to come into the home when I return to work so I decided to keep him home. This was the first week that I had all three kids and though overwhelming at times, I'm very glad of the decision I made. Here are some pictures of Alex and I making a cake while the girls were asleep. I tried to make one from a box but didn't have the right ingredients so we did one from scratch. Chocolate cake with coffee butter icing. Yummy yum!
First food day! After supper we sat Sarah, then Samantha in a highchair to eat for the first time. Tonight's menu - Oatmeal mixed with baby's milk. I've posted 3 video's. The first is Sarah being fed by Alex and I, the second is a continuation. The third video is Samantha. We expected Sarah might enjoy food but that Samantha would go mad for it because she has the bigger appetite and she has been following us intently when we eat. Boy was I in for a surprise! When feeding Sarah you can hear Samantha getting upset in the background (nothing wrong with her lungs). Joe had to stop video taping and pick her up. Of course as soon as we started to pay attention to her she calmed right down and started laughing. Alex was a great help as usual and actually fed Sarah some food by himself! Enjoy :)
