Okay, it’s been a long time since I’ve posted anything on here. Life has changed a lot, things get busy. I’m a little sad I did not document a lot of things that have happened, but there’s no reason I can’t start it up again, right? I am in the process of making another baby (26 weeks along) and I will be off for a year, so I’m hoping to have more time to devote to my interests. Stay tuned and I will have a lengthy update to cover the 2 year hiatus so I can start anew. I haven’t decided how I will change my layout yet, but for now I’ll start with some new posts.

Rest in peace my kitty friend. I’m sad you had to go. We had no idea how much you were hurting. You hid it very well. I’m so sorry. You will be missed.

My life is an insane whirlwind. We took some time out to go to Whistler as a family for the weekend. It was very enjoyable and relaxing. Stella was on her best behaviour and I think she really appreciated the new experience.

Ready for dinner!

Stella, wearing her shades on her head like Mommy.

Here we are ordering dinner on our first night in town. We were so hungry we stopped at the first place we saw. It ended up being horrible (never go to the Brasserie in Whistler village). But we laughed about it later. We relaxed in our room for the rest of the evening.

Stella, colouring as little girls should.

Stella had fun colouring and throwing her Elmo into the hot tub. We had a two bedroom suite which was perfect for us and Stella’s grandparents. She had a little trouble going to bed in a new place but she ended up sleeping ok and getting up at 7am!

The next day we had an epic walk that lasted about 3 hours. We found a playground hidden away on a trail that we had to ourselves for a while.

Stella and Dad on the tire swing.

Once we found our way back to the village, I stumbled upon the BEST candy store ever called “The Great Glass Elevator” Candy Shop. I could’ve spent all day in there, but everyone was waiting so I quickly bought some gum and continued on.

On our way back to the hotel to get ready for dinner we found a few photo ops that were set up in anticipation of the 2010 olympics.

Stella in the bobsled.

This last picture was funny because Stella thought the bobsled was an airplane. She was really excited about it and didn’t want to leave.

So we headed back to our hotel where we had an awesome Japanese dinner at Sushi Village. We relaxed and played games for the rest of the evening before heading back to Vancouver the following day.

It was a short trip, but much needed time away. I hope we do this every year! I’ll leave you with a photo of Stella working on a new puzzle her Grandma bought for her. She’s really taken to puzzles and is quite quick at figuring them out on her own. What a smart girl!

So I’ve been MIA lately (sorry). This summer is going to be insanely busy. I have 3 weddings, (and for one of them I will be a brides matron) and 3 babies being born (2 down, 1 to go), so every weekend is jam packed with fun stuff… and not to mention all the birthdays and our trip to Edmonton that is fast approaching. I’m barely hanging on here with everything that needs to be done!

I thought I would do an update of all the stuff going on. Stella is growing and changing everyday. She has 4 more new teeth and I can put ALL of her hair back into a pony tail!! I clipped her bangs and did her hair yesterday so here are some pictures of her.

I finally broke down and clipped her bangs!

I can finally put all her hair up in a pony tail.

Ok, shades and a soother… that’s just silly. This picture cracks me up!

She is still attached to her soother and I think Clint is getting antsy to get rid of it… I don’t let her have it during the day, only for naps and bedtime, so hopefully we’ll be able to get her off of it before she turns 2…

Anyway, We had a nice father’s day brunch last Sunday at the Hart House in Burnaby. Stella held it together pretty well considering we were sitting most of the time and she’s full of so much energy.

The Ladies.

The Dad’s with Stella on Father’s Day.

Other than that I’ve been struggling with my courses. I won’t go into detail about it, but CGA changed some of their policies so I had to defer my exam until December… DOH! So I wasn’t too happy about that.

Clint is working long hours these days to finish his project. It’s been hard, we miss him, but I’m doing my best to keep our household in order which is why I have little free time these days. My parents and Clint’s parents have been helping a lot, I don’t know what we’d do without them!! Anyway, we’re hoping he’ll get some time off so we can take a family trip later this summer.

I must get back to things, so here is one last picture of Stella and I!

Stella is 15 months old now and has taken an interest in drawing. This is quite wonderful for me because it can hold her interest long enough for me to do the things that need to be done, like cooking dinner and doing the dishes. She is doing very well and her Daddy has taught her how to hold the pencil properly so she can have more control. She also likes when you draw with her and she can guess what it is you are drawing. Her favourite things to see drawn are owls, kitties, teddies, spoons, guys, and flowers because she can say these words and likes to blurt them out when she recognizes what you are drawing.

Here are a few more photo’s of her in action. Enjoy!

The concentration.

The technique.

The masterpiece.

Okay, I’ve been awfully quiet these days! I’ve been hanging out on a little website called facebook. If you’ve used friendster at all it’s a similar idea, but way cooler and less ads. Basically, you can search for anyone you’ve known in your entire lifetime and you could quite possibly find them. I’m shocked at some of the people I’ve found, and who’ve found me for that matter! So check it out and make sure to add me to your list!

Today we decided to take Stella to visit Maplewood Farm in North Vancouver. It wasn’t raining like we thought it would be, so we took the opportunity to go out and get some fresh air. Stella had quite the adventure!

She was fascinated by all the birds! We could not get her to leave the duck pond. There were tonnes of chickens and ducks and geese running around. She loved it! She had her pointer finger out the whole time. Finally, I had to drag her away so we could check out the other animals.

We visited the bunny cage where Stella got to pet some bunnies. We didn’t get a picture of it because we were too busy trying to teach her how to pet them… softly. It was cute and the bunnies seemed used to being handled.

Next we walked around to check out the scenery. There were goats, ponies, donkies, pigs, sheep, and cows. Everything you would expect to see on a farm. All the walk ways were clear and the grounds are well kept. It’s a very nice place to take your family for the day. There’s a nice pond with a path to walk around it. Here’s a picture of Stella playing with a stick her Daddy found for her.

Once we made it back from the pond we noticed they let the horses out. I snapped a picture because we couldn’t believe how huge they are.

It was kind of cold out, so we decided to make our last stop a visit with the miniature goats. It was cute to see them all standing on rocks. Some of them were playing together and butting heads.

Stella loved to pet them and I was very surprised at how gentle they are! One even came up to try and give Clint’s shoelace a chew.

Once our shoes were all mucky and our hands were cold we decided to head back to the car. We noticed a little playground close to the parking lot where we stopped to give Stella a ride on the swing. That concludes our little trip to the Farm. We will definitely have to come back in the spring/summer and have a picnic. Here’s one last photo of Stella on the swing.

Wheeeeee!

To start things off Clint and I hosted a holiday sweater party. Everyone had to wear a cheesy sweater and the person voted best sweater won a huge bottle of wine. It was a great time and I think everyone had fun, even Stella! It was nice to see our friends before we all went off to spend the holiday’s with our families.

And the winner is, Brady! Kate came in a close second!

Brady won the prize with his cheerleader chicken lady sweater. Woohoo! Kate came in a close second with her awesome 80’s mom ensemble. Nice job guys!

So we partied the night away and the next morning we headed off to my parents place for christmas eve dinner and to open presents. Stella was a little cranky that night and I realized she was getting 4 molar teeth!!! No wonder she wasn’t feeling good. I didn’t get any photo’s from that evening, but we did get some video footage of her opening presents. She understood how to rip the paper off but didn’t much care about what was inside.

We then headed over to Clint’s parents to spend Christmas day! When Stella woke up she got a BIG surprise…

Look what Santa brought!

Santa brought Stella her very own chair, and a monkey too! She had a great time examining her new stuff and opening presents once again. Here is a shot of her playing her new piano from her Aunt Marilyn and Uncle Ron.

Stella playing her new piano.

Les and Dianne cooked Christmas dinner for us and some of Clint’s family. It was a full house and Stella didn’t know what to make of it, but it was really nice to see everyone!

After all the visiting and partying Clint and I were pretty tired so we left Stella with Grandma & Grandpa and went home to play some Warcraft all day boxing day. It was a really fun Christmas and a nice first Christmas for Stella! I think she enjoyed it. It did throw her schedule off a bit and we’ve spent the last week trying to recover in time for her birthday this weekend…

I hope everyone had a nice holiday!

Stella in her Christmas party dress.

I hope everyone is enjoying their time off! We stuffed ourselves with turkey at both the grandparents’ houses. My parents on Christmas Eve and Clint’s parents Christmas day. Thanks guys, it was very yummy! We were all spoiled rotten by Santa. I’ll do a separate post regarding Stella’s new toys and clothes. She’s very excited to have received 3 piano’s!! hee hee… I’m back to work tomorrow so I have to get to bed.

I just wanted to say MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Follow this link for some Christmas cheer!

We’ve had some crazy weather lately. A recent storm caused our drinking water to become “turbid”, so we are currently on a boil water order until it clears. It’s been about a week now and it’s a real pain having to haul bottled water back to our house. On top of that we got a major dump of snow! It’s the first time Stella has ever seen it, so I decided to take her out to see her reaction.

Here’s Stella finishing up her breakfast. She’s in a good mood today and you can see she has a few more teeth now. Eight of them to be exact. She’s starting to eat on her own and she’s walking more and more. She’s also saying a few words. Currently her favourite phrase is “OoooOOoohhh, What’s that?” as she points to various objects. She can also say Daddeee, Mum Mum, All done, Teddy and Cheese. So she’s doing pretty well for being ALMOST 11 months old!

After breakfast I bundled her up and we headed down to our green (or rather white) space on the 3rd floor. Stella didn’t know what to make of all the snow so I plopped her down in it and took a few pictures.

I encouraged her to try and crawl to me and as soon as she fell forward she was NOT happy about it. I guess it’s just too cold and wet for her.

Since it was WAY colder than I expected I scooped her up and took her back inside. I think we’ll stay indoors today.

If you’re wondering what I’ve been up to, things have been busy as usual. I’m trying to finish up my course and Clint has been working a lot of long hours on his project at work, so it’s really hard to find time to study and get everything done.

We just celebrated our birthdays last week so I’m now 29 years old! ACK where did all the time go?! Anyway, thanks to everyone who wished us well. We got to have a night out for dinner and a movie while Stella stayed at her grandparents.

Other than that I’m returning to work December 7th. A lot of changes have happened since I left so I almost feel like I’m starting a new job! I guess we’ll see how things unfold in the next few weeks.

I will leave you with one last picture of Stella looking cute and a promise that I will update more often. I have a few more things to post so check back in a few days!!

What a cutie pie!