Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Baby Leah

I don't know if any of you remember my post about baby Leah. I called about her. I wanted to know more about adoption and about the agency she was with. Unfortunately, you can not adopt a child from a Hague agency that is not in your own country and because the Hague adoption agency that Leah is with is in the States, there was no way that we would ever have a chance of adopting her. I was on Reece's Rainbow tonight and have discovered that Leah is in the process of being adopted!

Here she is! If you scroll down she is three pictures down! I am Sooooo Happy to know Leah is going to have a forever family. I cross my fingers and hope her family starts a blog so we can follow her progress in life!
http://www.reecesrainbow.org/familysponsorshipinprogress.htm

If you have a moment, I suggest you check out Reece's Rainbow. If you can help some of these families with a donation towards the cost of their Adoption, please do. These kids are well worth it and their lives will be forever changed.

I also want to take this moment to thank Charissa Urban and family. I know she only does what she does out of the undying love and goodness that she has in her heart, but i want to thank her. She and her family are amazing people! You are an awesome mother and an inspiration!

Saturday, June 20, 2009

MY BOY!!! HE WALKS!!!

This morning when I got up to head off to work, I went downstairs to find Bean and Daddy hanging out in the living room. They had been up since 5! UGH!

For the last few weeks we have been working on getting Hunty to take some independent steps, or to just stand on his own. He is doing FanFrigginTastic! Yesterday in the garden he was pushing HIMSELF to a full stand from a crouching position and then standing for a while all on his own. He is getting REALLY good at this.

WELL! This morning Daddy held out his fingers for the Beany to hold on to and turned him toward me so that he could go greet his Mommy! Dave let go with his fingers and HUNTY TOOK THREE STEPS TO HIS MOMMY ALL BY HIM SELF!!! I was so excited! I wanted to call Nana right away but I had to wait as it was only 6 am in Nanaworld. So I called her at 7 am Nanaworld time! LOL I just couldn't wait to tell her! This kid will be walking in a month!


I have 12 days off starting June 26 - July 7th. Daddy, Mr Sam, Hunty and my self, are going to Great G & G's for a few days next weekend. Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and possibly Monday if D takes the day off. We will get to do some relaxing, possibly some horse back riding, definitely some pool swimming, possibly some wiener roasting! I'm excited! Mind you I'm easily excited. But to top off this fabulous time away from home, Nana will be arriving on Monday night and Nana, Beany and I will spend some time doing some touristy things in and around the Cranbrook area. Then she will come back here to Calgary with us for a few days. I intend to change as few diapers as possible that week! WOOT!

Even D is looking forward to seeing Nana. He is actually quite sad that Nana wont make it for the beginning of our Cranbrook stay. She has a quilting engagement that she has to attend on Saturday, therefore she wont be able to drive the 14 hours to Cranbrook till Monday. I don't blame her. But this seems to sadden David. I think he really likes having a Momma, even if she is my Momma. I think the most important think for him is that Hunty has a Nana, as Samuel didn't get to have his Nana around for as long. :( Plus,my mother isn't like your typical Mother-In- Law Monster like some. She's fairly chill. Her only down fall is she is always right, but being my mother, I find this hard to accept, AND, She is a Grandbaby Mollycoddler! Hunter goes into withdrawal for a week after she goes homes from a visit with him.


"What do you mean no one wants to hold me?! Why isn't anyone picking me up!? I Grunted!! Where's Nana!!?"

We will have to get some more pics of Beany with Nana. This is the best one I have and I have posted it before. I also don't really have any pics of ME with the Bean, so I should get some of those too. Yay!


I was thinking the other day how ironic this trip to Cranbrook is. I was born and raised in Cranbrook until I was 13. When we moved to Vancouver it was the happiest day EVER! Finally some culture! And then for all of my teen years and a good portion of my twenties, I pretty much abhorred Cranbrook. It was a stinky, small town that had no class, no culture, no colour and nothing of interest for a young woman who wanted to experience the world. The irony is, now that I am 31 and have Hunter and a new baby on the way, Cranbrook is like this Ideal Vacation Get Away Spot.

Great G & G will be there. I wont have to do a bunch of packing, cleaning, cooking, spending of money. There is a pool on the family property, a nice fire pit, lots and friends and family to visit with, and it will be really warm and quite. I can go for a walk with Hunter and not have to deal with traffic. We can hop on a bus and go for ice cream and it will only take 30 minutes. We can go up to the lake and have a wiener roast and do some swimming and it doesn't have to be an all day event. There are cousins and kids for Sam to hang out with, Great Gram makes the best meals I have ever eaten, they are always the same, and ALWAYS exactly what a person needs on vacation. Homemade potato salad! Buttery Pancakes swirling through the house, waking me up with the scent of Fresh Syrup! OI! Walking 1/2 a block to the family pool knowing that we wont be late for lunch! Knowing there is no one I don't know staring at my pregnant belly in the pool! Even D feels more comfortable going for a swim there.

As you can see I am very excited. I probably wont have time to upload any pictures when I'm there. Although I will take a bunch. Actually, if I find time I will upload a bunch of pics to Great G's computer so that she can have copies, so if I can squeeze in time for a blog post as well I will. We leave on Friday afternoon next week. I have my 18 week Ultra sound that morning as well. So there will be a lot of catching up to do when I get back!

YAY! Vacation FTW!

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Blue Bins FTW

Finally the City of Calgary get's it's shit together!

We got our blue bin today!

I'm so happy to finally have a curb side pick up for recycling! The first bins were delivered in April and the North East section of Calgary is FINALLY getting their bins this week. The bins are fabulously huge and fabulously blue! Nothing screams "I RECYCLE" like a giant blue bin full of cardboard and milk cartons on garbage day! Ironically, there are misers in Calgary that think the bins are "too big, and too blue".



Neighbours see red over

'gaudy' blue carts



Apparently, you can paint your cart, so long as the lid and the address are UNpainted. I say we have a fancy Blue Bin Paint Off, much like Kimberley and their stylish fire hydrants!
We'll show them the meaning of "Gaudy"!


Home

Here is a trailer for the movie project called Home.







After you watch the trailer, if you are interested in watching the entire movie, you can watch the whole thing here. Home Project Full Movie.

Just a little something I stole off of Mike's Bloggity Blog, to share with you, my hippy, tree hugging, earth loving friends!

Monday, June 15, 2009

Rolling Around In My Head

I spent a few hours tonight catching up on blogs that I read.

Hunty has an Occupational Therapist from the Alberta Children's Hospital who comes to see him every month like clock work, provided mommy remembers she is coming! Tsk Tsk!

Last month our OT mentioned that she was going to Halifax for the Canadian Down Syndrome Society's Annual Conference, and I wondered aloud to her if Dave Hingsburger would be there as a speaker, as he speaks at so many conferences and this would have been a fairly large one. I told S (our OT) who he was, what he was about and kind of described him.
Sure enough, when S came over this morning she mentioned that she did indeed see Dave at the conference. He was talking to a young man with Down Syndrome who was a self advocate. S mentioned that Dave had asked the young man if he could write about him in his blog, Rolling Around In My Head, nee Chewing the Fat.

I told S that I had been slacking off in the blog upkeep department lately. Not just the upkeep of my own blog, but also in the general keeping up with of blogs I enjoy reading.

I found the post that Dave wrote about the CDSS Conference and I would like to share it with you. I cried! I know, I'm a suck. Dave is an amazing writer and I love the way he sees life. Today was his 1001st blog post! I thank Dave Hingsburger for his wonderful blog that constantly keeps me coming back for more. He opens my eyes and helps me to see the world a little differently. He constantly reminds me that I am human, that life is funny, and that people are just people. He is a wonderful advocate for people with disabilities and a teacher to all who have disabilities or people who love someone with a disability. On top of all this, he is a fabulously funny Canadian!




Sunday, June 14, 2009

Bean Rocks So Hard It Hurts!

For My Uncles Eric and Andrew!





Knotty Girl!


I am currently in the process of Dreads. It's long and arduous! Trust me!

They don't look all that pretty now but they are coming along. I know there are lot of people who hate dreads but I like em. I have only had them since Mid April.





The tips and the roots are in constant need of maintenance!



Here are some Peyote Stitch Dread Sleeves that I made yesterday.


One is a gecko and the other is a butterfly.
I appologise for the shoddy pictures. I will have to get my mother to take some pics when she comes to visit for the summer. My camera does not have a fancy macro setting and the beads are very shiny so there is always glare.






This picture, Courtesy of David!


I said, HAIR DAVID NOT BOOBS!


And there is my tummy. It's not that big yet, but it's plenty big enough!
I'm honestly surprised you can see it under those Guns!

Bean's Room

This is just so you can get an idea as to what the Bean's room looks like before we do some baby room rearranging.







Watermelon FTW!





I suspect someone MIGHT like Watermelon!

The Beasts Go To The Zoo


This was our trip to the Calgary Zoo!
In May, my girl friend Christine and I took the beasts to the Zoo.
You have met her daughter Lorelai before in one of my previous posts Here!
Ok, So here we all are in line to get tickets!
Don't the babes look so excited?





Bean is wearing a shirt care of Granddad here. It says "I do my own stunts"
The Rocking Jean Jacket is care of his Nana and Granddad for his 1st Birthday!

Here we have perdy Giraffes being fed.

They sure are tall!



This is a picture of the ugliest, meanest looking bird I have ever seen.
He just looks so GD Miserable!

And these are the baby Pumbas!
These are 3 little baby Warthogs that were running amok!
I had to snag a photo.

Then, as we headed outside we heard a crazy racket coming from a small bleacher area.
Here we found this beauty.
At the Calgary Zoo, the Peacocks just roam around freely. I am not sure if they can fly, or if their wings are clipped or if they even CARE to go anywhere else. When I was about 8 or so I went to the Calgary Zoo for the first time and I remember the Peacocks from that visit. They are all over the place, and when the boys are excited, WATCH OUT!

He showed us his backside.
Not as pretty!



Here are the kids standing at the bleachers watching the peacock and each other.






Here is a wee baby Giraffe!

Here she is again with an adult. She is quite little.
She was born at the zoo on July 29th, 2008.
HERE is a link to a video on Youtube where you can watch her being born.
If you like that kinda thing. It is pretty amazing.
The video is VERY obviously a birth so if you are easily queasy be careful.
What's amazing is that she is walking in mere minutes of coming out of here mothers womb!

Moving on!
We saw Lions!
They were very handsome, but I could have posted a video of them NEXT to a picture of them and you wouldn't be able to tell which was which.
Very uneventful!

~ HERE WE HAVE TWO BABY ROOS~






These two make fine friends!




HA HA HA!
I love these four pics.
It clearly shows the difference between boys and girls.
Above we have Lorelai delicately eating her cheese sammich.
Munching away all sweet like. Picking bits of sammich off and putting them IN her mouth.


And here we have Bean!
Ripping and shredding his sammich to bits and jamming it into and AROUND his mouth area!
There is bread and cheese flying, drool is pooling under his lip! Sammich is sitting on his chest!
Nice work boy!

Baby Flamingo!


Much Mo Flamingos!

Lorelai with her Momma!

Dis a baby gorilla Sleeping all curled up in a ball, though you can probably BARELY tell.
I wasn't sure my self at first.

And this is it's beautiful momma.
She is chilling in a wheelbarrow bucket.
She was wide awake, watching the people come and go from the window.
When I got up close to her, she looked me right in the eyes and the shock it gave me was something else. I was so taken with her look, her intelligence, her emotion. She pressed her hand to the glass and was playing with her toes.
It was wonderful to watch her.

Wild Dogs!


We only very briefly took a jaunt through the Primate house.
Our trip was pretty short that day. I have bad sciatic nerve pain if I walk for too long and I had to work at 4 pm. The Calgary Zoo has much more in the way of exhibits and gardens than we had time to see. There is a stunning botanical garden, a butterfly sanctuary, a cool Nocturnal exhibit and a temporary Koala showing. There are lots of other outdoor areas as well but as I said we just didn't have much time that day.
David and I might take the kids this summer, perhaps when Nana comes to visit. I will be sure to take more pics then. I will have two more hands and much more patience. :D