Blue turns Four

The days have flown by and this year sure did soar. 

It's hard to believe that today Blue turns FOUR!

Getting ready to open his birthday present!

He's not letting Piper help at all!

Four pupcakes for our four year old!

Licking the icing off first,
just like any other 4 year old!

Blue being stared at.
This is the reverse of our normal life!

I LOVE PARTIES!!!!

Look who can pull herself to standing!

These photos were taken last night, September 28th at bedtime.

Piper was playing in her crib and winding down after a busy day, while Mark and I chatted about out plans for the next day. Next thing we knew, she was standing up looking at us. We didn't even see her do it. I actually asked Mark if he pulled her up, while he said the he didn't touch her. 

Sneaky little thing. She seems to perform all of her "developmental milestones" without any warning. If you've forgotten, the first time she sat up on her own was in the middle of the night and we only knew about it because I woke up and saw her on the screen of the baby monitor! Now that I think of it, she could have been doing that for months. lol.

Busy busy busy baby!

xo

Ha ha! You guys have funny looks of surprise on your face!

If only you knew how many more tricks I have up my sleeve.
Hee hee!

Just Being Silly

I have a face cloth on my head!

Just sayin'! 

Happy Birthday Daddy!

Today was my Daddy's very first birthday as a Daddy!

And he's the best one ever! 

xoxo

Today is also sort of my cousin Jack's birthday. 

His birth certificate says that he was born on September 28th,  however, my mother received the call from Aunt Krista at 11pm on September 27th Yellowknife time!

Sooooo, from that day on, Jack's Uncle Mark, Aunt Karla and Piper (and any future cousins) will faithfully celebrate his birthday on this day!!

:-)

xo

Happy Birthday to you!
Happy Birthday to you!
Happy Birthday dear Daddy!!!!!!
Happy Birthday to you!

WHAT are those things? 

New books from Nanny and Poppy!

Thank you so much to Nanny and Poppy Lynch for my new books! I was so excited to see them that I couldn't choose which one to read first. We started this collection of Ladybird Classics and The Three Billy Goats Gruff tonight! It was a hit!

xo

Which to read first???

ALL OF THEM Momma!

Raise the roof!

Today Piper and I ventured to the Field House for some free-play time on one of the indoor soccer fields. They literally throw a bunch of balls and play things on the field and let the wee ones 'have at er'.

  

My inquisitive little princess spent the first while checking out the turf and the lines drawn on it. 

Then a fellow mom plopped a pop-up house on top of her. Piper was curious about where she was at first, but then was much more interested in who her neighbour was.

And then, as usual, she went into DESTRUCT mode. 

Fun times. Fun times. 

I wonder how long it will be before she wears the knees out of these tights. 

One pair has already bitten the dust!

xo

Checking out the turf!

Hello? Yoo hoo! 

Excuse me neighbour! Who are you?

Realizing that she can lift the "house". 

Raise the roof baby girl! Ha!

Daddy's Girl

Really?! Is there anything more attractive in this world than watching your husband playing "dolly" with your daughter?

LOVE

xo

Bed-head in public? Why not!

Here we go again! Another play date at the Field House has turned out some fun photos of Piper and her pals. 

As we all know, Piper has a full head of hair that draws a LOT of attention. Duggan's mother was laughing at Piper on our last play-date, saying that she had Justin Beiber hair. (So true!) She then requested that I bring her to play some day with her hair exactly how it looks when she wakes up... so we did! 

This actually a good day since we wore a hat en route to the play-date! 

xo

Piper and pals

Either the boys look REALLY tall here,
or Piper looks REALLY short. Ha!
I love this!

Peek a boo!

No rest for the crawling!

First of all, our visit with the doctor today was wonderful. He is very happy with Piper's leg right now and feels confident that we can stop using the antibiotic cream and the 'spot' should disappear soon.

Relief.

Looking back, he thinks that it was a spider bite and not the Molluscum virus. Nice.

Moving on... and on and on and on...

Piper is crawling up a storm now. You can't take your eyes off of her for a second. I was warned about this, but I really was not prepared! Is anyone ever prepared for a baby on the move? My hat is off to you if you were!

xo

She just keeps going, and going, and going!
After the police truck...

She spies the camera...

Attack the camera...

Up the stairs...

Or not...

Attack the dog...

Found the satellite receiver...

And she's stuck!

Piper's Leg Update

I was looking back over my past blogs and realized that I may have come across as a little bit crazy when I saw the photo that I posted of Piper's "bug bite".

It really doesn't look that bad in the photo. Certainly not bad enough for a trip to the ER.

HOWEVER, if you could have seen the real thing, you would have gone too.

And if you could have seen how much worse it got over the next week, you would understand why we went back to the doctor AGAIN and why I was in the process of booking a flight to Edmonton to see a dermatologist. (A lovely friend who is an OR nurse talked me out of this at the time. Thank you Sally!)

Either way, I was an absolute mess worrying about this spot. I couldn't eat, sleep or relax. It was just a very stressful time.

Day after day the 'bite' kept getting bigger and badder. The third doctor that we saw suggested that this may be the Molluscum Contagiosum virus, which is pretty common in kids. I'm not convinced that this is what she has, since the spots are normally 2-3 mm wide and are the same colour as your skin.

Take a look at the photos below. I don't think this looks anything like what is described. Ugh. I really think it was a bee or wasp sting that got infected, but who knows!

Thankfully we are seeing a lot of improvement. We continued with the antibiotic cream for 10 days and are due back a the doctor's office tomorrow for a follow-up. We'll see what he has to say then!

Here is the 3 week photo timeline:

August 28 - Day 1

September  8 - Day 12

September 13 - Day 17

September 14 - Day 18

September 15 - Day 19

September 18 - Day 22

Happy Birthday Mommy

Today was my very first birthday as a mother. Well, I guess last year sort of counts since I was carrying Piper around with me everywhere that I went. (Not much has changed there!) Ha!

It has been a wonderful wonderful day. First of all, Daddy got up with Miss P at 7:00 am and let me sleep until 9. Then it was breakfast in bed (peanut butter and banana stuffed french toast) followed by a long hot bath!

Lunch would have been nice, except I ate far too much peanut brittle and Sweet Georgia Browns (thank you Purdy's & Mark) and had a tummy ache, so we all went for a walk to the dog park instead.

A lovely afternoon playing with Piper followed the park. She didn't want to nap, so I tried to stuff her in the Pampers box that my sister used to send me a package. If I could have gotten her in there, I think I would have shipped her off to Dreamland so that I could also take a rest. Lucky for Piper, she is just too big for the box! ;-)

Dinner was at Pizza Hut, since it is one of the very few restaurants here that are child friendly. And friendly they were!! The waitress even stole Piper and one point and disappeared! I think she may have gotten a private tour of the kitchen. lol. Piper didn't care. I think she was just happy to get out of her chair!

The cake and candles were followed by giving Piper a bath filled with new bath toys and then an express pass straight to bed for Miss P. I will be following closely behind her, as soon as I finish this post... and this glass of Baileys! Mmmmm....

Happy Birthday to me!

xo

I think another word for multi-tasking is
"mothering".  

Thanks for sending presents,
but the box is by far the best part!

Me - trying to stuff her in to post to Dreamland.

But she's like freaking Jack-in-the-Box.
She just kept popping back up! Ha! 

Self explanatory!

Helping mommy blow out her candles! 

Piper and Blue helping to open my present.
Christmas is going to be seriously interesting!

Yogurt Face

I'm sleepy. Too tired to blog, so just posting a quick photo and then going to bed!

Piper tried yogurt for the very first time today! I think it would have been a bigger hit if it hadn't been so cold.

Yogurt Face!

Please post my bail!

Thrown in jail for being too darn cute!
(It's really a big play piano from the other side!)

Practicing crawling!
(I was doing this at 5am today too!)

Must explore now that I can crawl!

Where's Waldo... oops, I mean Piper?

Piper has been "practice crawling" for a while now. Rocking back and forth on all fours has been the norm, along with quite a few face-plants into the floor.

Every now and then she will crawl a little bit, but mostly she will get on all fours and then launch herself forward, repeat, repeat, repeat... until she reaches her object of desire. (Usually something she is not allowed to have, like my camera.)

Today, however, she somehow figured out how this crawling thing works, and then BAM, we have a mobile baby!

I now feel like I'm living a version of "Where's Waldo - The Piper Series". I turn my back for one second and when I turn back it's "Where'd she go?'

Let the fun begin!

xo

ONE SECOND. I turned around for one second.
Can you find her? 

Piper?

Hi Mom! 

Oh, you have the camera.
I will crawl for the camera!

Must stop and rest. 

On the move again...

until I realized there was something else to explore along the way!
(Still keeping an eye on the camera if you didn't notice.)