Tired Monday

I am still recovering from a very busy, incredibly fun, extra-long weekend. We had the pleasure of hosting our friend Becky Gifford and had many adventures. She arrived Wednesday night and we just played games and I can't even remember what we had for dinner. She got to meet Jericho for the first time and fell in love. She kept saying he was so precious. We agree. Then Thursday we slept in and finally decided to go see the matinee showing of Transformers which started at 3:40. Becky and I liked it for the Josh Duhamel reason. Nate said the plot was lacking, and we failed to notice. We were late in returning home to clean and prepare for Becky's spa party. But we made it, barely. I went without dinner, but whatever... we had lots of food at the party. We had 11 people and it was great. I made ice cream sandwiches from scratch and decided they were quite tasty and ate three of them. Ordered some fun Beauti-Control items and can't wait for them all to arrive.

Friday was sleeping in, again. Then we went to IKEA and Toys'R'Us and the Shoe Company and Winners. Spent money. Good times. I was particularly wanting to go nuts in the Babies section of Toys as there were so many items I could really use for Jericho. I put quite a few back in the end for budget reasons, but made a fun inflatable purchase for him to play with as well as a more practical baby toothbrush set. Fun and busy shopping time. In the midst of this, we had been planning for this really yummy dinner. We had some chicken in a brine and came home to prepare the Ultimate BBQ Chicken with a Bacon Cornbread. The chicken was the most amazing any of us had ever had. So moist and like candy on the outside. Look up the food network Tyler Ultimate show to find the recipe. HIGHLY recommend it. I'm getting hungry just thinking about it. Don't you love it when a recipe turns out WAY better than you ever expect?

Saturday was more sleeping in and by far our most exciting day. I don't remember who, but one of us had the idea of visiting a bunch of Tapa bars downtown. We dropped off the boy at my Moms with plenty of toys and food, then headed to Stella's for our first experience. It was still fairly early so they were still serving brunch, but we each had some, plus Becky and Nate were able to try and highly enjoy the best beer they had ever. I don't like beer much at all so I refrained.

We then headed to Bin 941 - very good food! We had some fun tapas and loved it, especially the guest book. After that we went to the tasting bar at Lumierre... which is Rob Feenie's restaurant. He even walked by THREE TIMES!!!! Fantasic. That place was way expensive, but so worth it. I had the Char and the Char was good.

Yesterday Nate and I got to go to a wedding of a friend of mine I haven't seen in 11 years. We've reconnected on facebook believe it or not. It was a cute, beautiful, fun, entertaining wedding. And I even won a centrepiece for dancing to YMCA. Fabulous.

So Congrats to Noel and Emily and thank-you to Nate and Becky for a very fun, memorable weekend that will take me a long time to forget.

8 Months

Guess which little man is 8 months old today!!! I can't believe how much time is flying by. And he gets a little cuter every day. He's still climbing on furniture a lot... yesterday I left Jericho with Nate so I could go pick up a few groceries and I didn't notice but as soon as I started walking down the stairs, Jer crawled all the way to the top of the stairs really fast. Nate had to quickly close the gate, but then Jericho pulled himself up and started shaking the gate and crying "Momma, Momma, Momma" He said it was the saddest thing. My poor little guy has become quite attached to his Momma.

200th Post

Not too much to say, could say a lot more than I will... But alas, I am tired and time is short. My son is growing beautifully, my sister is getting old, my brother has been married one year... Life is good.

Saturday night church was funny. That balls comment almost did me in. Too bad for pastors who don't read over their notes in detail. I love you, Pastor Derrick :)

My hubby is holding my son and feeding him his last bottle of the day. Jericho's eyes are slowing closing and he's becoming that sleepy, cuddly child who I wish existed at every moment of the day. But he is active, and I love him. He's on his way to bed, and so I must bid you all good night. Thanks for listening all these posts and making me look forward to writing.

Too Cute!

So THAT's what they were up to...

This blog will give you a small glimpse into the trip the males in my family took this past weekend. Not for the faint of heart:

robinsonantics.blogspot.com

Jericho can do WHAT???

I realized I haven't really been giving updates on the little man and on everything he's learning to do. Right now he is crawling. He will be up on all fours for a little while and rock back and forth a little - then if he sees something he really wants he will inch worm across the room in no time. I've had to hide phones, books, remotes, diapers, anything that looks like something he isn't supposed to have.



His favorite thing is to sit up. He has the straightest posture I've ever seen. It's as if he has a board up his shirt. He will be crawling, then will turn around and be sitting up within 3 seconds. Usually when I pick him up from his bed, he's sitting up. He's also pulled himself up onto the furniture a dozen or so times. He tried to climb into the bathtub once as well.



He is also making LOTS of noise. This past weekend he was clicking his tongue over and over and when my mom was watching him Friday night he said "uh oh" when he broke a toy. Hasn't said it again though. He's quite good at saying "Mama" and says "Dada" still, but mostly it's just gibberish. I'll say something to him and he will just babble back to me. Sometimes he'll try and copy what you've said. The cutest is when he says "hi". It's mostly just an "h" sound, but he flaps his arm like nuts.



We're quite surprised as he isn't 8 months until the middle of next week, but he is developing quickly and seems like a fast learner. I just hope he isn't walking by 9 months or something silly like that.

Long Weekend

So I had a lot of stuff going on this past weekend, but most of it had to do with my husband being away. I am so glad he doesn't have a job that requires him to be away for long periods. I just appreciate him so much.

The baby was really good up until Saturday night. We both could hardly sleep. He woke up at least 3 times. But we still managed to make it to church on Sunday....somehow. I will admit that we were about 5 minutes late though.

Shopping at the outlets was awesome. I didn't buy too much - three shirts and some hair stuff... but it was fun. Then we went back to my aunts and ate good food and did each others nails. There was even some foot baths....very nice. Jericho and I had to leave before Music & Lyrics was over because he was getting fussy and it was late.

Nate got home yesterday about 5 pm and he was filled with stories of crazy adventures. They had a great time on their quads and jeeps and dirtbikes. There are a few injuries, but nobody had to go to the hospital... not until Hope that is. There are some classic pictures and insane videos, but I'll leave it up to him which ones he wants to post.

Sigh.

I have some stuff going on right now. It's personal and it's stressful and I can't say a whole lot more than that, but if you are praying folk, please keep me in your prayers tonight.

PS - In spite of the above, I am still in love with my new car!

Should be a good weekend

Nate is away. He's gone with my dad, brothers, brother-in-law, uncles, and cousins camping up at Chute Lake. He's gone until Sunday afternoon. Tonight I'm going to a stagette and tomorrow hanging out with the Robinson women. We'll be headed to the Outlet mall on Anacis Island. Should be fun.

We bought a new car last night and it's really pretty.

Pictures taken for Fathers Day

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=3604&l=f25ba&id=511695451

I had fun

I went to the Gwen Stefani concert last night. Yes, I am 28 years old and yes, I can still enjoy and good concert. We left my house at 4:30 as we wanted to take the Skytrain and go to Moxies next to GM Place first. Well, we went walking the wrong way - long story - and finally ended up at Moxies at 6:15. The concert started at 8, so it wasn't a big deal... except that last night was also first day of training camp or something of that nature for the Lions and it was SO crowded down there. A sea of orange and black and SKIN. It was easy to tell who was going to Gwen and who was going to football. Well, the wait at Moxies was a 1/2 hour so we sat at the bar and were practically glaring at people to leave their tables. Hehe. I think it was almost 7 by the time we were seated. We then made the mistake of ordering some started dishes - the wings were cold! But we were in a hurry and you do not complain when you are in a hurry. The rest of the meal was great, but we didn't really notice as well, we kinda just gulped it down. We wanted to make sure to get to our seats on time. Didn't happen. We arrived just as this loud obnoxious music was pumping. Lady Sovereign ring a bell to anyone? Don't really care for her angry Kelly Osbourne-ish type music. Sorry.

But then, AKON came to the stage. He's really good. I don't really care if people think I'm a loser for liking him because I do. Can't help it really. He had this shirt on which said "I still believe in Africa". That made me like him more for some reason even though I've never been to Africa. I knew some of his songs, but for the past few months Philip has been singing "Nobody wanna see us together, but it don't matter, no - cause I got you" to Jericho. Don't ask me why, but he calls it "their song". So when Akon started to sing it, I got a little pang and started to miss the baby - but that was soon swept away.

Then, as we were waiting for the Gwen set, there were a few black dudes standing near the back of the sound area where it was just open. Now, we had floor seats, but were quite a ways back, 35 rows. But we had quite a good view of these guys. Then all of a sudden a whole bunch of people just SWARMED one of the guys. Lisa and I realized it must be Akon. We then noticed the aforementioned Africa shirt. So we left our seats and took a few close ups of him. Like I said, I may be a loser, but that moment felt pretty cool.

But as Gwen started singing, Lisa and I looked over into the sound area and DIRECTLY in line with us was Akon..sitting there with his peeps bouncing and grooving to Gwen's music. We then spotted the dude we had, along with about a thousand other people, taken pictures of. Apparently we must have gotten some sweet shots of one of the band members. Oh well.. we must not be THAT great of fans to not even be able to tell if it was him.

But Gwen was fantastic. The show started with these Asians girls in stripes running from one end of the building to the other... with spot lights and "Cops" chasing them. Then Gwen popped up from beneath the stage in a 'prison cell' singing "Sweet Escape". It was pretty cool. I don't own a Gwen CD, nor do I listen to her music often... but I do know "Wind it Up" and "Hollaback" and that Extraordinary Girl one and some others I can't remember right now. But she sang a song last night that was so beautiful that if I was still pregnant it might have made me cry. It's called "Early Winter" and if you have not heard it you should check it out. Towards the end of the concert, Gwen had just stopped singing and she stepped down towards the front row, then RAN around all of us in the floor section and went up on the sound area. She was about 3 rows back, about 6 feet high. Pretty cool. She's soooo small!! So she talked there for a bit, then started to run towards the stands and went up about 20 rows and started to sing with people ALL AROUND her. I would have been seriously claustraphobic had I been her... Then she ran down and back up into another section and sang with those people - but she had even gone down one of the rows abit so she was REALLY in there. I couldn't believe it. At the end of the song, the funniest part was how she was wearing this mid-drift shirt and all you could see was the HUGE black arm just enveloping her and pushing her through all the people.

All in all, pretty amazing. I had fun with Lisa - as we always do... looking at her pictures, laughing about how I thought I could read lips - but apparently cannot, trying not to get pulled over by that cop....etc... fun times. And why is that McDonalds ran out of ice cream at 12:30 am? Does anyone else see anything seriously wrong with taht? Argh.

The only real downside to the concert were the guys in our row smoking weed and the guy behind us who was falling down drunk. Apparently security thought it was enough just to give them a strong talking to. Yep, I'm sure they learned their lesson.

Anyways...thanks Lisa!

Argh

So yesterday... I noticed I do start a lot of posts that way.... I went grocery shopping by myself with no hubby and no baby. Usually we make it a family thing and it's really easy and kinda fun. I thought I would take Jericho and just go as Nate was going to be at the library and that way I could have the car... My mom called and offered instead to watch J here while I took her car. I also had to run an errand to POCO nad in the middle pick up Philip from school. Not a big deal. Well... I picked him up, took him to my parents, drove to the grocery store and started to load up. My mom lent me her cell phone too in case she needed to call. Philip called me about a 1/2 hour later and needed me to pick him up again to take him back to a foods class that was going to be at my aunts house. And my mom's car needed diesel. So I rushed. Tried to find everything... and headed to the Shell station as my mom has an Easy pay. Traffic was starting to get nuts and Phil was going to be late. Argh. Then this lady pulls in ahead of me to the Shell and partially blocks the diesel pump. Thanks. Alot. So then I had to turn around to the other side. Argh. I fill 'er up and start trying to locate the easy pay on the pump. Non-existent. Great. I go inside, realizing I'm already really late. Easy pay won't work, at all. I go back to the car and pay...not a big deal, but frustrating as I'm already really frazzled. I finally pick Phil up, take him to his class and my aunt says, "Phil, it's almost over!" She was totally kidding, but not helpful.

It was awesome to get all my groceries alone, but I just felt stressed in the end. My mom was really great taking care of the baby and holding down the fort, and I was glad she was able to spend about 3 hours with him (yes, THREE HOURS), but I think next time I'll go with Nate and make it fun again.

Okay, enough with the grumpies. Thanks to all of you who commented on my last post. I'm not deleting the blog or even considering it. This is like a journal to me that other people can read and appreciate and I won't delete it. At least not for awhile. Not until it starts becoming more a hindrance than a release. I like being able to write about my baby and my family and my experiences. I don't do well when I have to handwrite it anyhow. It just turns into crap.

We went to Amanda and Tasia's house this morning. It was fun to watch both babies play. Tasia is about 5 weeks older and about a pound lighter. Jericho is finally BIGGER! They are starting to play pretty good together, just as long as Tasia doesn't touch him on the face or try to topple him over and as long as Jericho doesn't have a toy Tasia wants. So we're trying to get together more so they can adjust to each other and learn what it is to share everything but soothers and diapers. Ew.

I'm going to Gwen Stefani tonight. I'm excited. Two Friday nights in a row where I'm not sitting at home watching TV or doing nothing. And next Friday I've been invited to a stagette. Need a sitter.

Alright, time for lunch!!!!

Growing Boys

Yesterday was Riley's family shower. It was quite good. There were a number of clothes I took home for Jericho. (kidding) The cake was one of the cutest baby shower cakes I've ever seen and my cousin Emily made it. One of the highlights was Megan opening a present that Jericho had got for Riley. We made a card and put pictures in of them and wrote this note:

"To my cousin:


I like it when you come to my house and when you let me play with your soother. I like it when our Moms take pictures of us and when you like to play with my toys. I like that you are only a little bit smaller than me and that soon we’ll be the same size. You are an okay kid and I like you.

I got you a little something and hope you like it cause I do! Have fun trying on all your new clothes!"


Jericho had fun with all the attention and you could barely tell he was teething and not feeling well - runny nose. We walked there from our house and I was able to get some exercise in the slight drizzle. Meanwhile, Riley received a lot of great stuff like rainboots and a rainjacket...that we really could have used...lol.

We went to the doctor this morning to make sure he didn't have anything else wrong besides the leaky nose and all is good. Plus, he weighs 17 lbs, 4 oz now! He's still on the same 25th percentile, but he's growing with the curve which is good.

Enough with all that... I've noticed a few people have deleted their blogs. Not just stopped writing, but full-on deleted. I don't know how I feel about that. I guess some might feel like a blog is very personal and just don't want that info out there anymore, and I can understand that. I just don't know if I could ever delete this. I'm working on printing it out - but I'm copying it into a word document so I can play with it a bit. A lot of what I have printed here is stuff I want to put in Jericho's scrapbook. I'm only up to when I was 6 months pregnant and I already have over 60 pages. So I might have to make it a really small print.

I guess the only way I would delete this is if I printed it all off and had another format for keeping track of stuff that goes on with me and my family. There have been a few times Nate and I couldn't remember when something happened so we just looked it up on the blog. I also might delete it if I found my readers never made comments or just seemed bored with it. Even then, I have people who read and don't comment but still enjoy it...so we'll see. For now, count me in on the blogging game. I'm just getting started.

Funnies

I just was posting on another blog and wondered. If pigs were to speak Latin would it be pig latin or just Latin? Hmmmmm.

This really nice lady at the church gave me a gift for Jericho the other day and the card said: "Sara, you are so special to me so I'm happy you have a nice husband." I wondered what she would have said if she didn't like Nate. "Sara you are so special to me and I'm so sorry you're husband is a tool." It just seemed like a funny haha comment.

A note to Rachael - someone came up to Nate today and asked if he was the Nate who was going out with N tonight. Small world. News travels man.

Hope everyone else is having a fun day laughing too! Look below for a cute video of Jericho waving bye-bye!

Say Bye Bye!

Who is this time monster and why is he eating my todays?

Karin: This picture-filled post is dedicated to you.





Time is flying. My little Bubbah will be 7 months old tomorrow. I can't believe I'm old enough to have a 7 month old...haha. He's doing so well and growing and learning. It's amazing to watch a baby learn. Now it's all about playing on the floor and seeing how much of the rug space we can crawl over in the space of an hour.



He will seriously just play on the rug for an hour! And it's more like a scootch and a pulling of the legs than a crawl, but he has pulled himself up on his knees a few times. I just look at him and smile because he's so darn cute and I love him.



We went to the Pitt Meadows Day parade yesterday. It was good. And hot. I received quite the gift of redness from my friend the sun. I have to remember that I am quite fair and NEED to apply sunscreen when outdoors for long periods. Sometimes I forget and other times I think that maybe, just maybe, I'll be like my brother Matt and get a glorious tan from being outside for 10 minutes. Hasn't happened yet. It's been 28 years.




Do you know what I'm terrible at? Making social appointments. Nate and I are both bad at it. We usually don't do much unless we get invited out or we realize we haven't seen so-and-so for awhile and we really need to get togheter. It's amazing that this day in age with all the technology - I mean.. we could call, email, page, text, skype, blog a comment (there's nothing wrong with that), add someone to facebook...it's crazy. And yet sometimes all we want to do is cuddle on the couch and watch a movie. Don't get me wrong, those times with my husband are amazing, but we need to get out more. Especially me. I don't have the same social network I once did and I love Jericho but he needs to see another face besides my own once in awhile. I don't want to be a parent who doesn't go out because of my kids. I mean..kid. Singular. No, I'm not pregnant.

But tonight we have some great friends coming over. You know when you meet a family and you just click with them and just have fun? This mom and her son are like that. We love them. And they like games. BONUS. Nate's going to pick up some Papa Murphy's (which is yummy btw) and we're just going to hang out and crack open some Cranium or Ingenious.



Wow, J's been asleep now for 2 hours. The kitchen is cleaned, the rug is vacuumed, tables been Murphied Oil Soaped up, and all his bottles are clean. This Momma is hot and not in the "That's Hot" sense, but in the man, that sun is stinkin warm and I love it but I'm sweaty kinda sense.

Jericho the actor doing various facial expressions:






There are so many other things I want to say but I'm not sure I have time to say them all before the child wakes up and I think I would rather spend some time watching TV or reading my book before the rest of my afternoon arrives.

Oh, I almost forgot.. Look what I found in the laundry:

Quick Blog. No Time.

In a hurry. Point form.

Got pulled over yesterday. Cried. Let off with a warning. Cop had young baby, knew cost of diapers.

Jericho is tall. 28" tall. Puts him in 75th percentile for height. Still 25th for weight. Skinny tall boy.

Slightly crawling, resembles soldier crawl thingy.

Parents in Hawaii, I have car. Vroom. Must pick up Phil from school everyday. Vroom.

Having party - Girls night next Friday. Invite said Saturday. Oops. Friday. Don't come Saturday.

Nate working on thesis at library. Too distracting here. Smart man, tired wife. Result: Night off for Mommy, might shop.

Not ever on skype same time as T & R. Plus Nate take laptop with skype to work on thesis. Will try nighttimes. More promising.

Want to go to Europe. Bad. Before next baby.

Tired. Whew.

Had to post picture, only one I could find on this computer that has to do with me. Fat me, pregnant.

I was nervous

Last night our church had a service to celebrate the fact that we'd been around for 70 years. It was an awesome service. We must have sung at least 17 songs from all different eras - some I haven't sung in eons. I thought it was really a great service. About a week ago Helen asked me if I would give testimony as to what was going on from 1987 to 2000 with my Dad. So we went up and talked about our church joining with Burnett and what that was like...about building the church on 123rd...about various memories, etc. I was so nervous about it all day yesterday. I basically typed up what I wanted to say and had butterflies for hours. But once I got up there it was all good. It was fun to reminicse about so many different things. I couldn't believe how many things I remembered. In the end I was glad I said yes that I would speak, but I didn't tell many people I was going to do it because I was scared I would back out at the last minute.

Anyways, Jericho is crying for his Mama, so I'll talk to y'all later.

A busy day makes for a tired mama

This past week my husband was only able to have one day off. Generally he's off Thursday-Saturday, but this week he needed to be at work for Thursday & Friday. That left Saturday. Every week we try and have "Family Day". We try and make it fun, but the point is just to be together - the three of us. I'd been seeing commercials on TV for " Eat Vancouver" and told Nate I thought it might be fun for us to go. In the meantime, he had found a bike trailer for us to cart Jericho around in on craigslist (I LOVE CRAIG AND HIS LIST!). So we decided to leave at 11 am yesterday and head in to pick up the trailer and go to the food show. The trailer was perfect so we stuffed it in our car with the child and his stroller and diaper bag. The car was full, but not overly. Then we headed to BC Place and enjoyed sample after sample of some really good food. We had parmesean reggiano, blueberry juice, smoked salmon, kiwi smoothie, ravioli, cheese, kettle chips made in MR, gelato, pizza, etc. etc. etc. I ate alot!! Which wasn't good for my diet, but most samples were so small and I was walking so much that I excused it. Tsk tsk. But we also got free samples - about 8 bags of rice and a razor each. Not sure what razors have to do with food - but I'm excited to use mine.

We hung around there for about 3 hours and headed home. On the way, I suggested to Nate that maybe we could bike to church. Seeing as we had this great new bike trailer all we needed was a bike for me...and a helmet...and a gel seat...and locks....So we went to Canadian Tire with our little VW filled with baby, trailer, rice samples, stroller, etc. So we bought me a bike. It's cute and red and a got a helmet to match - YAY! And we managed to stuff everything in our car. The poor baby just would stare at everything around him... mostly wheels.

We basically got home, unloaded everything and while I got Jericho changed and dressed and packed his bag... Nate got the bikes road ready. Church is about 12 kms away so it was a great ride, it just took me awhile to get used to the gears and the hills and how to use them both together properly. But we did make it in time, and we even rode home too.

THEN, when we got home, our friends Cam & Nikki were there waiting for us! We hadn't seen them since before I was pregnant, but they are good friends who just live far away. Now Nikki is expecting and looks glowing! We put our bikes away and chatted for awhile before we headed to Red Robin for a late dinner.

It was a fabulous day and I think we made up for Nate only having the one day off. Now I think I'll go back to sleep seeing as the babe was up every hour after 3 am. Doesn't he know how tired Mommy is?

Weight Loss Update

I'm posting this to keep myself accountable and to let people like MIL know how I'm doing. I've lost 1 lb this week and 1 " around my waist. Other inches were lost in other areas, but that was the one area I'm the most concerned about. Wish me luck! I'll be really focused on this for 6 weeks and we'll see how it goes.

Jericho Saying "dada"

Too lazy to think of a title.

Yesterday I had high hopes. I was excited, beyond excited, to go to the gym with Megan. Nate was home, but we were both going to take our babies. She had some trouble with Riley and with leaving on time as he sometimes takes longer to feed than she would like. No problem. I wasn't going anywhere. She got here and we left all worked up to work out. We walk in and the two ladies behind the counter just kinda smiled funny and addressed Megan, "You like know we don't have kid care after 1 right?" No, we didn't know that and that's why we're carting in our two small babies to work up a sweat with us. I'll be honest, it bugged me. I'm a young mom with a child who is trying to work out once in awhile to get back in shape. I honestly never paid attention to the hours of the childcare... just thought for many reasons it would be open all the time. It's a women's only gym, there must be single mothers out there who would love to come work out at the gym and have there be someone there to watch their kids for an hour.

I didn't even feel like taking the babies back home for Nate to watch while we went back to the gym. I felt like my thunder had been stolen from me. It's not a big deal, but I was frustrated.

Anyways.... on to happier things... Nate and I go to our chiropractor twice a month. I've been going for longer than he has and today was my 100th visit. I didn't completely think it was a big deal, but my chiropractor did. He gave me this exact replica of a spine keychain. No word of a lie. It's the ugliest thing ever, but very appro-po I think.

Tonight we're going to D & R's to hang out with Tahnee for one last time before she moves back to NYC. I'm sad, but I'll probably be communicating with her more once she leaves. I didn't really get to see her as much as I wanted while she was here, but last Friday sure made up for it. hehe.

Well, I should go help my wonderful husband make some din-din. My son has started to say both Mama and Dada now. Super cute.

I am SLOWLY getting smaller.

On Monday, Megan and I started to cut certain things out of our diet so we can jumpstart some serious weight loss. I've cut out anything deep fried - chips, fries, fast food... plus any really sugary things like cookies, cake, ice cream, etc. And I've just invested a bunch of money into a lot of veggies. So it's day 3. So far so good. I haven't cheated once. But I was tempted when Nina brought over cheesecake today. CHEESECAKE! I LOVE cheesecake. And yesterday Matthew offered to buy pizza. How is it as soon as you start cutting out stuff, that's when all the yummies show up?

Wish me luck. I just wish Nate hadn't taken the camera to work because we put both babies in Jericho's crib and they were so cute!

Week of the Grandparents

This week has gone by relatively fast. My in-laws have been staying with us for only the second time in Jericho's life. He's at the perfect age to really enjoy. We've been having fun feeding him oatmeal, veggies, and giving him some fun firsts - like his first swing ride! He's been such a good baby this week, hardly fussing when we go on shopping trips, sleeping really well, etc.

And we, the grown-ups, have been working a lot on the garden. Nate and his dad were able to build me a planter box just for strawberries! It looks amazing. Marie and I were able to plant all the flowers I seeded weeks ago. Hopefully our front yard will be awash in pink soon. I don't pick plants for good reasons, I only pick then for their colour. Lame. But co-ordinated.

And how about this gorgeous weather? Hopefully I'll be able to enjoy my first Mothers Day in it. Almost thought I would be a mother twice over already...but that's a whole other story. Enjoy the pics, they are some of my favorites!

One more thing, the other morning my son was waking up and started to fuss. He said "Mommee mom". And lately he says "Mama" when he's sad. I think that was the highlight of my week, even if he doesn't really know what it means, it's still pretty cool to hear.

Weddings and Cinco de Mayo

I think Phil might be hurt that NOT ONE person commented on his poem below.. I still think it's very well written and I'm proud! We went to a Cinco De Mayo party tonight - which was great fun, thanks KARIN!!! And Joel & Nicole watched Jericho for us. They were at a wedding, but I thought that was ok... so he just hung out there. Apparently the Mother of the Bride (I think) discovered him a fell in love. They said she had him for over an hour and he was dancing to Michael Jackson and he loved it! Wow. I'm glad my kid had fun, I looked in on him sleeping just now and he looks like he'll sleep til 11 am tomorrow. THANKS NICOLE!!! Kisses everyone!

Moment

I have my little brother Philip's permission to print a poem he wrote the day after our uncle died. Today is the service, so I thought it was fitting to post it. Think of us at 2 pm as we joyfully say goodbye and remember him. Also, Jericho is 6 months today...time is sure flying...anyways - here goes:

Moment

Do you remember that moment? That moment in your life when everything around you that used to be real to you doesn’t make sense anymore? The instant that you feel something is missing from your life and you don’t know what it is exactly? That burning in your brain and the gnawing in your heart start to be more than unbearable? You think you know what it is but you’re not entirely sure. The moment passes and you wonder about the feeling you had. You wonder at whether it actually happened. Your mind starts flying at a mile a minute. You start to question yourself and your decisions in life. You start saying to yourself “Why do I say those things to my parents?” or “Why do I have such a short fuse?” or “When will I ever grow up?” Integrity is defined in Webster’s dictionary as “Moral soundness”. In that moment you will also question your integrity and your longing for something more. You can’t control your curiosity when you’re in this moment. Your mind goes wild with possibilities like “did I do the right thing?” or “am I not giving enough to people?” or “there must me more than this”. Your thoughts turn into a churning abyss of confusion, the waves bringing a new thought every time. However, the confusion comes down to one thought. This thought is “Why? Why am I here? What am I here for?” Then not long after you think that thought, that person comes. The person that cares about you, this person just swoops in and notices you’re down. This person can always see your distress, he hears your cry. He will never leave you in this moment. You never notice him until this moment, the moment in which you are in deepest pain. His love seeps in and transforms the pain and suffering. It turns into something else entirely, something more powerful than anything else. An understanding in the pain, a hope in the pain, a whole other meaning to the pain that you are experiencing. He helps you realize your worth and how incomplete you are without him. His love is so great you will never know its worth and greatness. You will never be without the love, and you must realize this. Nothing you do will ever change his love for you, ever.

- Philip Robinson

Soggy Mail Much

We have our new tenant moving in today. Our old tenants were here until at least 11:30 last night moving the last of their stuff. We had promised the new tenant we would shampoo the carpets so Nate was up at 5 am to make sure it got dried in time for them to move in on clean, dry carpets. We also wanted to wash the floor and do some other cleaning this morning... and in the big rush a lot of the cleaning supplies are still sitting downstairs in our foyer. Including a mop bucket filled with dirty Mr. Clean water.

That being said, we are some of the lucky few who have mail delivered to our door. None of this using a key down the road, every morning it makes a big noise as it's dumped into the little slot. Well, this morning it made a big SPLASH as it fell into the lovely bucket of mop water. Good thing our income tax refund arrived yesterday.