Other Happenings and a Video Tour

My parents stayed with us until December 11th. We got to celebrate an early Christmas with them. My mom bought a gingerbread house kit from Superstore and the kids had fun eating - er, putting together the cookie, candy, icing treat...


On the last night they were here, we made a yummy Christmas dinner and opened Christmas presents with the kids. For Micah and Keziah this time of year is a little bit of present overload:



Keziah putting her birthday dolly into her Christmas cradle:

Micah having fun with all his new GeoTrax toys:

We dropped my parents off at the airport on Thursday morning and ran into a few other people we knew. Keziah ran off with some kids to see the Christmas trees and Micah looked up at me with genuine concern. He said, "I'm afraid Keziah's going to get lost! She's my best friend!" I assured him that we would keep an eye on her but suggested that maybe he could hold her hand - which he gladly did for awhile (though I'm not sure Keziah appreciated it). I'm not sure why he doesn't share this same love/concern/affection for her at home instead of the chasing/teasing/bugging big brother that he usually is :)

Micah's actual birthday was on Saturday and we spent most of the day with family since it is also his Auntie Rosanna's birthday. I think he had a good day and he seems pretty excited about being 4!



On Sunday night we decided to take Keziah's crib down and try putting her to sleep on a mattress on the floor. When bedtime came she spent about an hour playing in her room, enjoying her new-found freedom, but eventually she had a pretty decent sleep. Then last night I woke up for one of my many bathroom breaks at about 1:30 am. I was about to climb back into bed but thought I'd check on Keziah first to make sure she wasn't sleeping in some weird position. When I went into her room I couldn't find her anywhere! When I couldn't find her anywhere on the 2nd floor I got a little bit panicked. I went down the stairs and called out her name a couple of times before I heard her pajama feet padding across the laminate. She was holding her blankie and smiling. I think she probably woke up and figured it was morning and time to get out of bed!

I am actually considering potty-training her next week. We really don't have much planned for the week even though it's Christmas. But, we'll see if I actually have the energy when next Monday comes!

I finally had a chance to get some footage of our new place for the blog. I decided to take a video tour to give you a better idea of how our place looks. First of all, here are a few "before" pictures from the day we took posession. We debated long and hard about the floor since it didn't look too bad (as you'll see in the pictures). But in the end we knew we wouldn't be totally happy with it - especially since it wasn't laid very well - and changed it to the same antique laminate from IKEA that we used in our old place.

Kitchen/Eating Area - I wasn't a fan of the blueberry blue :)


First Floor 1/2 Bathroom - this room received the most drastic change which you'll see in the video:


Living Room:


Living Room view #2:


Dining/play room looking into kitchen - you'll notice on the video that Erik trimmed out a lot of the entry ways on our main level:


Micah's Room - we decided to keep all the carpets on the 2nd floor and they cleaned up quite nicely:


Keziah's Room - this was the worst paint colour. I liked to refer to it as peach vomit :)


Master Bedroom - the paint colour we chose is actually quite similar to this:



And here it is now...



It has been cold here. Cold for Abbotsford. And windy! Windy like crazy. It rattles the whole house and makes it hard for me to fall asleep at night. Today doesn't seem as windy, but it's still cold. I wish that we at least had some snow if it's going to be this cold. Micah prayed for snow on his birthday and we actually did get the tiniest little bit that evening. Micah was so thrilled about the sparse flakes that had gathered in the cracks of our sidewalk and kept commenting about ALL the snow! I just told him not to expect to build any snowmen until we got a little bit more!

To end off, here's a picture of me at bout 25 weeks (taken a week ago). I'm feeling pretty good these days though I still need to have a short nap most afternoons. I'm getting close to the 3rd trimester mark and it's starting to sink in more and more that we are going to be, once again, entering those post-partum days of breastfeeding, sleepless nights and post-labour recovery. For some reason, thinking about all those things is making me excited :)