New Kid on the Block

Yes...I know...I have yet again gone almost another two months since the last blog post, but hey, it has been a VERY busy couple months, so can you really blame me? The last couple of months have been months full of new things.

As you are all aware (or at least you should be) we had a new arrival to our family on June 18th, Izzy's little sister, Charlotte, was born. It was a normal...well as normal as a c-section can be...surgery. We all did pretty well with the transition to a family of four. Isabelle has been a wonderful big sister. She will rub Charlotte gently on her head and say "Hi Arlotte". If Charlie is crying she will take a blanket over to her to cover her up, or sometimes she will just tell her "No!", which sadly is from me saying no to the dog when he barks for no reason...lol. She likes to help us change Charlotte's diaper too...to bad she couldn't change it for us.

In July we moved into our new house. Isabelle (and Charlotte) now have a big backyard to play in, as well as a swing set to play on. It is great having some extra space for everyone to roam in. It certainly makes for less stressful days. Isabelle loves playing on her swing and crawling up the stairs; unfortunately she did have one big tumble down them, but luckly she did not hurt herself...thank goodness.

In other big news Isabelle has finally decided to use walking as her main mode of transportation! She started walking towards the middle of July, and since then she hasn't looked back. It is so amazing to see how much she has changed since she started walking. It seems she is learning new things and words everyday. Some of her new words are...no (her favourite), good girl (although it sounds more like goo gur), Charlotte (Arlotte), okay, ball and I am sure there are many others.

Another new favourite passtime for Isabelle is singing. She will go around the house with her head back and her eyes closed "singing", I guess the best visual I can give you is the way that Stevie Wonder looks while singing, it is quite adorable. The other night she was in her crib singing and was just singing "No way" over and over...a true toddler I think! :)

Isabelle has been gaining weight well now. She is up to about 23 pounds, which is great, seeing where we were sitting just a few months ago.

She has grown into a wonderful little toddler, with a very BIG personality. Mostly sweet and kind hearted, but with a little stubborness thrown in (well...sometimes a lot)...lol. But we love her dearly and often at the end of the day when she is in bed, Mike and I will just talk about how great she is and how lucky we are to have two wonderful girls.

I must say, having the girls certainly makes me realize why parents do the things they do. Do I agree with everything when I look back at things that happened to me...well no...but I certainly understand the reasoning. Children are these little things that you bring into this world and love with all your heart. I truly believe that no one REALLY understands that love until they have children of their own. Hopefully Izzy and Charlie will realize how much they are loved (of course when they are older...lol), but for now we will love them just the same.

Anyway that is all for tonight...don't worry there are pictures too!

Enjoy!

Amie

Playing with Daddy in the pool at Aunt Barb's

Having her first horse ride

Meeting Mario...more for Daddy then Izzy ;)

Loved eating corn on the cob on her own

Helping Mom with the cleaning

Getting the mail with Daddy

Big Smiles :)

Hitching a ride with Auntie Amanda

Playing with Charlotte

Being goofy at Nana Sue's work picnic

Taking some of her first steps

Wake up time...look at that crazy hair :S

I knew she loved bananas...but didn't realize she wanted to be one

Our last picture as a family of three...that belly was huge...taken the morning Charlotte was born

She's here....well...over 10 weeks ago!

Charlotte Elizabeth was born on Friday, June 18th by cesarean section (scheduled) at 5:51 pm weighing 8 lbs 7oz and was 21 inches tall.

We knew that Charlotte would be born on the 18th (also Nana Palmer's birthday). The days leading up the the 18th were filled with lots of packing and cleaning as we had purchased a new house and would be moving a couple of weeks after Charlie arrived.

The day she was born we went to the hospital at 10am, in order to have a lunch time delivery. I was pretty nervous going in. I knew what to somewhat expect, seeing that Izzy was born via c-section, but I was also on some good drugs when I went through that with her. When we got to the hospital they took all my vitals, they hooked me up to all the fun things (not so much :S) and then they had me wait in recovery. While waiting they needed to take someone else in for an emergency c-section, so they moved me to a delivery room. We then went on to have to wait through two more surgeries. The doctor came in at about 4:30pm and said they wanted to get me in by 5pm, seeing that I had been fasting since midnight. We still hadn't heard anything by 5:15pm so things weren't looking good and that I would go home for the night. At 5:30 pm though the nurse cam rushing in and said they were just getting everything ready for me (the day surgery staff was gone, so the nurses in L&D volunteered to help the surgeon so I could have the baby). They whisked me away to the ER and gave me the epidural and hooked me up to more machines. I must say that was probably the quickest and most surreal 10 minutes of my whole life. I was very, very nervous but luckily things went very quickly. By 5:51pm she was here...with a beautiful dark head of hair.

Our hospital stay went very well. She was a pro nurser just like her sister, which made things go very easily. We were all very happy to go home, even though it was ridiculously hot that week (40+ with the humidex).

We are so happy to have a little family of four :) Isabelle has been a wonderful big sister and Charlotte has been a wonderful baby. We are very lucky and fortunate parents. We have gone through alot of bad things over the last few years...but...these two little girls have brought so much happiness into our lives, and we are extremely blessed...they made everything worth while!

Welcome to the world sweet Charlotte!

Love Mommy, Daddy and Izzy

Here are a few pictures of Charlie...enjoy!

Welcome baby Charlotte

Sleeping at the hospital

Snoozing with her gift from Aunt Janet...a Koala Bear all the way from Australia

Cuddling with Nana

Hanging out with Auntie Manda

Her first day at home

Looking good in her new outfit

Sticking out her tongue

First bath in her tub

Just after her bath wondering what the heck just happened to her

Sisters

Silly baby

Sleeping Sweetly

Little smiles

Just for Nana Palmer...

Isabelle wanted to talk on the phone, so Mike called Nana and here is part of the conversation.

Enjoy!

Amie

Can you believe it...

Two posts in less then a month!! Incredible :P

Isabelle has been up to her usual tricks, being absolutely cute with a some terribleness thrown in...lol. She has started to say a few more words...hi and all gone (in her own way). Besides that she is still not walking, but is getting more confident standing on her own everyday though.

It is hard to believe she is going to be a big sister next week!! We are very excited to have another little person to add to our family, but at the same time it makes me a little sad to realize that our time with just Isabelle is coming to an end. Sometimes I feel a little guilty about it, that I am taking away the attention that she deserves a bit too soon. I know all will be well, but I love this little Izzy so much, that it is hard to think of another coming. It will be interesting to see how she interacts with the new baby, I am pretty confident though that she will love having a little baby around...well most of the time!

I thought I would put up some recent pictures as well as a couple of videos that I have taken recently.

The next post will hopefully have pictures of new baby too!! Crazy!! :)

Enjoy!

Amie

Izzy in a drawer (she climbed in there by herself....no idea how)

Izzy in a box...discovering how fun a box can really be

Enjoying the sunshine

Hanging out with Daddy

Playing in the cabinets...her favourite activity

Playing with her new tea set...well part of it

Playing in her ball pit

Playing with bubbles

In the ball pit with Daddy

In the ball pit with Mommy (it was a tight squeeze with the belly :S)


Saying "All gone"...in her own way :)

Saying Hi....

Playing catch up

Wow...I had no idea as to how long it had been since I last made a post on here...almost two months...oops.

Isabelle has been up to her usual antics...being super cute! This past week she has started to stand some on her own, which is very exciting, seeing that she is now 15 months. She loves "talking" up a storm and reading her books. Isabelle has also taken a recent liking to my DS...not sure if it is a habit I should support or not though (following in her father's footsteps I think). She is becoming more aware of different words and associating them with things...Dada is of course Mike...pup-pup for Koda...a kitty type noise for Nala...she will sometimes say the full word for banana, but usually it is nana, which is the word she seems to associate with all foods and drinks. She can say mama/mom, but she has yet to associate a word with me, I think mainly because she is home all day and when Mike comes home we say Daddy is home.

It is strange to have a new baby coming though in less then 5 weeks now, and not being able to really talk much about it with her (seeing that she doesn't understand what is happening). I do point to my belly and say that there is a baby in there and she will come over and pull my shirt up and kiss my belly button and then sometimes she will show me her belly after. It will be interesting to see how she will be with the baby, she is so loving with all her dolls that I think she will just want to kiss it all day.

I figured I should put up a few recent pics, as well as some videos that we have taken of her, so everyone can see all the new and fun things she has been up to :)

Enjoy!

Amie

Isabelle with pig tails

Isabelle with Mommy and baby belly

Isabelle giving "the look"

What colour to choose?

Giving her glow worm kisses

"Playing" with Mommy's DS

Colouring with Daddy

Head Banger

Too hungry!

I Wanna Rock and Roll All Night....

Well we just got back from a great shopping trip to the states! Mike and I had our first weekend away in quite a while and probably our last for a while...:). We spoiled ourselves a little and spoiled the babies a lot! Isabelle spent Friday night with Nana Sue and then Saturday night with Nana and Papa. She was a great girl all weekend! We were very excited to get back home to see her!

While we were away we bought Isabelle a drum that came filled with lots of fun shakers and drumsticks. Here are a couple of recent pictures and a video of her being a rockstar!

Enjoy!

Amie

Showing of her new drum!

Sporting her new Blue Jays hat.
This is the real way to wear it Dad.

Don't worry...we are still here!

Wow...it has been a while. My intentions with this blog was to keep it fairly up to date and try to have a new post at least once a week...well that hasn't happened. I feel a bit bad about that too, because I haven't really been keeping track of things in a baby book, so I was depending on Isabelle's blog to remind me when different things have happened. Oh well..that is the life of a pregnant Mom with a one year old I guess.

Isabelle turned 13 months yesterday! She is growing like crazy too! At her doctor's appointment last month she had gained 3.5 pounds in one month, so that brought her up to just about 19 pounds. She is still not walking, although we have been trying to encourage her to stand on her own by slowly letting go when we are helping her walk. She will sometimes stand for a second but then will get down on her bum. She seems very afraid of hurting herself, but I am sure she will get the hang of it soon. She loves to play with her toys and read her books. She also has a huge love of music. She will dance away whenever she hears music playing, it is pretty cute, and she has pretty good rhythm. She gets cuter everyday and her personality gets more and more prominent. She has discovered the evil eye and her new favourite noise to make is an "o" sound. All in all she has been doing very well.

Here are a few pictures from the last month as well as some shirts we made for Isabelle and the new baby.

Enjoy!

Amie

Watermelon shirt for Izzy

Onesie for Baby

Mario Mushroom shirt for Izzy

Mario Mushroom onesie for Baby

Baby's "first" pearls

Smiling Izzy

"I'm on the phone here!"

Watching the ducks

Eating Birthday cupcake

Monster Baby!

Exploring "her" cupboard