Embarrassed Shrug...

Yes, it's been almost three months since we posted anything...but we're beyond being embarrassed about it. It's tough to keep up with stuff with two working parents and a busy 3-year-old. However, we are kind of sad that we've neglected to capture some of the hilarious and ee-diculous things coming out of Amanda's mouth these days. Some of her current favourites:

• "This is ee-diculous!!"
  
• "Well"...this usually said in response to what she obviously thinks is a dumb question, as in Me: So who was at daycare today? Amanda: Well (turning up hands and making an exasperated face) Anika and Ysa, like always.
  
• "Last Off" - as in: "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, DON'T SAY 11 BECAUSE WE'RE ONLY COUNTING TO 10!!!, LAST OFF!!"
  
• "Or something", used as a modifier to just about anything (Jeff: Why do you think the fish are swimming like that? Amanda: Maybe they're cold or something)
  

One fun development in the past few weeks is that we've started music classes. I say "we" because I, too, go to music class every Tuesday evening...apparently the many years of music instruction weren't quite enough for me. We decided to go with the Music for Young Children program, and so far it's going great. I must admit that despite having tons of music around the house constantly, I was pretty dubious about how much music a 3-year-old could learn. But after only about half a dozen classes, Amanda can find 3 notes on the piano with no problem at all (D, F, and C), instantly calls out "piano" or "forte" for different volumes of music, and is learning the difference between quarter notes and half notes (we call them "hops" and "turtles"). The way everything is taught is really quite amazing. The most important thing is that she's really enjoying it and looks forward to class every week. We have to do a few minutes of "practice" each day, but often this is just cutting pictures out of magazines (like things that start with C, or people whispering) or singing songs. And since we started classes, Amanda has been singing even more than usual - she's always done a lot of singing, but now pretty much everything turns into a song. She sometimes uses tunes she knows, like Twinkle Twinkle or Rockabye Baby, and other times she makes up songs on her own. She's very good at getting words to fit into the rhythm, and sometimes they even rhyme! It's pretty amazing to us to watch how her language and music skills are developing.

Hmm, what else is new...Amanda is also starting swimming lessons in a few weeks, after spending quite awhile on the waiting list. What's up with the rec centres that they offer a million classes during the middle of weekdays, but hardly any during evenings or weekends (except for, like, 12:30 pm on Saturday - just what I wanted, to waste my entire Saturday with a swimming lesson in the middle of the day)? For those 5 weeks things will be crazy, as we have swimming on Mondays and Wednesdays and music class on Tuesdays, but it's worth it to keep weekends more or less free. It's also a good thing, since our weekends seem to be filling up faster than we can keep track these days. I always expect December to be hectic, but this year that's extended right back to mid-September. It's taking a lot more coordination to keep things organized these days! I must say, my Mom Agenda is helping considerably - I love it!!

As for us, we're just barely keeping heads above water, as usual. I'm not sure how other people do the two-working-parents thing, but I'd say we are perpetually in a state of chaos and three steps behind everything that needs doing. One of these days I'll turn into one of those organized moms who always has nutritious meals and snacks planned and a well-stocked fridge, has an immaculate house, and is universally adored at work...OK, probably not. (Anyone who knows me even a little would have been snickering from at least the immaculate house part.) How people do it with 2 or more kids is beyond me!! We can't even manage the one well-behaved kid we have. Oh well, we keep plugging along as always.

Photos...lots!! Although we've slowed down considerably in our photo-taking in recent months. Here are a couple of recent favourites:

Only the Beginning...

We are way behind on blog posting again...ack! This summer just seems to be disappearing before we know it!

We will try to catch the blog up soon, but in the meantime I had to post something that happened in the car today. We were driving and listening to some of Amanda's music on my iPod. When the song Evermore by Alison Kraus came on, I immediately said to Jeff "Oh no, this song always makes me cry". It is such a beautiful song and every time I hear it I dissolve into a puddle.

The forests of April awaken from sleep,
And flowers unfold through the snow,
And the wind rushes high, and the river runs deep,
And it sings what you already know, you already know:

(Refrain) Evermore I will love you, evermore I will stay,
Ever right here to hold you, never so far away,
And though I know sometimes you go to find your way alone,
Evermore I will love you, you are ever my own.

Though nothing's as certain as seasons and time,
Though nothing will be as before,
Still every way and always it's certain that I'm
With you forever, evermore.

So, as I sat in the front seat thankful for my sunglasses that hid my embarrassing flood of tears from Amanda, she must have picked up on how I was feeling. She asked several questions along the lines of "why is she going away?", which were interesting to try to explain.

Then, just after the song ended, she suddenly said "Mommy? You know why I'm sad? Because I won't see Baby Tristan anymore." Her little lip started to quiver and the next thing we knew, she was full-on crying in the back seat. Of course we reassured her that of course she will see Baby Tristan soon - probably even tomorrow - and I tried to explain that sometimes songs can make us feel strong emotions. After a few minutes she calmed back down and was back to her regular self.

But Jeff? Was not. I think this was the point at which he fully understood what it sometimes means to be the only guy in a sea of women. A few minutes later, he turned to me and said "Please, please, if we have another child, let it be a boy."

If he thinks that was bad, I can't wait to see how he deals with having two hormonal women in the house in another 10 years or so!!

Congratulations Rosalie & Miguel!

The wedding we came down to San Jose to participate in is over! Rosalie and Miguel were married in a beautiful ceremony on Saturday evening. Amanda was the perfect flower girl - she is such a pro now, with this being her 3rd wedding as a flower girl! She walked down the aisle at just the right speed, throwing her rose petals as she went (this was a new twist - she'd never had to do the rose petal thing before - but we did lots of practice throwing ahead of time). She looked beautiful and she was so well-behaved...we are very proud parents!

The rehearsal dinner was on Friday evening at the hotel where the wedding party was staying. It was very nice, and it was good to meet the wedding party and Miguel's family, as well as to catch up with family and family friends. Amanda got to meet her cousin Vincent and the two of them had a good time running around, trying to avoid sleep:




The weather was a bit cooler on Saturday (like mid-80s instead of 90s+), which was great! The ceremony was held outside on a hilltop under a gazebo...it was a beautiful location. We had to be there quite early (2.5 hours before the ceremony started), so we had some time to kill but Amanda was extremely patient.




The bride was beautiful, of course...



It was a very nice ceremony, with many of the parts repeated in Spanish for the benefit of Miguel's family, who were originally from Mexico:



And then it was time for the party! Amanda once again had a fabulous time, dancing like a crazy person. She found a few little friends - her cousin Vincent, Miguel's two nephews, and a family friend who looked to be 1 1/2 or so:



We didn't leave until close to midnight, and we all had a good sleep and a late morning on Sunday!

(More photos on Flickr).

Do You Know the Way to San Jose?

Yes, we're in San Jose! (Well, technically we're in Santa Clara, which is where our hotel is, but everything is very close together down here.)

On Tuesday evening (yes, Amanda's birthday) we drove down from Vancouver to Seattle. It was a bit of a marathon trip - we didn't get away until almost 7 pm, then we stopped for dinner in Bellingham so Amanda would at least have something reasonable to eat for her "birthday dinner". We ate at Red Robin's and they gave Amanda an ice cream sundae and sang to her, which she found quite thrilling. We also had a few small gifts for her to open in the restaurant. After all that, we didn't arrive in Seattle until very late - probably around 11 pm - so it was a long night.



The next morning we were up bright and early to catch a 7 am shuttle to the airport. Our flight was at 9 am, and we made it on board without any problems. Amanda was excited beyond belief - so much so that people were commenting on it in the airport! She kept kind of dancing around, and she was really hyper. This was her first airplane ride and we'd been talking about it for several weeks, so she'd really been looking forward to it. She was absolutely perfect during the flight, sitting quietly with some books and toys and pointing to things outside the window. And, for those of you who are wondering, she did the whole trip (drive down to Seattle and flight) in "big girl underwear"! It was quite funny...I took her to the washroom on the plane as a preemptive measure, then she "had to go" another 2 times during the flight...the first time just to show Daddy the toilet that worked like a vacuum, and then I think another time just for fun. :) Hey, whatever works! Luckily we were only a few rows from the back so it wasn't a big deal for her to get up often.





After picking up our car at the airport (we got upgraded to a "luxury car" for free since they were out of our original request), we grabbed some lunch, then headed to our hotel and relaxed for a bit, including a dip in the hotel pool. Amanda was understandably very tired after the late night and early morning and all the excitement. Wednesday evening we met up with Thelma, Danny, Rosalie, and Miguel for dinner and had a very nice time chatting. True to her normal form, Amanda took a few minutes to get over her shyness, but then turned into a monkey and was very animated for the rest of the evening...but again, very well behaved. We do know how lucky we are to have a child who behaves herself in restaurants!!

Thursday morning after breakfast we hopped in the car and drove down to Santa Cruz. One of the things we wanted to do on this trip was take Amanda to a real beach. We had a really great time - Santa Cruz has a huge boardwalk that has been around for 100 years, and the atmosphere was a lot of fun. We did agree that it would probably be crazy in the summer, but this time of year (and on a weekday) it was about perfect. There are miles of beautiful beach, and tons of pelicans and seals play in the water - several times we saw seals within 10 or 12 feet of swimmers, which would freak me out but oh well! We did lots of walking, traveling the length of the pier and walking up and down the beach and boardwalk a few times. Amanda's favourite part of the day was walking in the water - she loved how the waves would come in and "move her body"...we think she was talking about how the sand swirls around your feet and almost turns into quicksand stuff. She would get the giggles every time a big wave would come up. A few times we got quite wet when I misjudged how big the waves would be, but for the most part we were relatively unscathed. In other big news, Amanda had a great time on the rides on the boardwalk. As soon as she saw them, she kept asking us to go on them, and it turned out there were lots of kiddie rides. Of course, she wanted to go on the big rides...she kept asking about the pirate ship thing and the ones that spin around really fast (i.e., the ones that make me sick). It's obvious she has no problems with rides, and Jeff is looking forward to when the two of them can ride together (since I never want to go on the big scary rides, except at Disneyland). We enjoyed a quick ice cream, then headed home. She zonked out in the car and had a good nap, after all the excitement!

One other funny thing...Jeff got a navigation system for our rental car (which is handy but has also sent us on a few wrong turns...a story for another day). It's not too obtrusive, but it does say things like "in 500 metres, turn right". Well, Amanda started repeating the instructions for us, like she doesn't think Jeff can understand them (which kind of makes sense, seeing as how we've had trouble following them sometimes if the truth be known!). So the navigation lady will say "Turn right, then keep right" and Amanda will repeat it..."Turn right, then right Dad!". What's really funny is that she can never remember which one is right vs. left, so she doesn't actually understand her own directions...in fact, sometimes she'll say "are you turning right, Dad?" just to make sure he's following her instructions.

We have taken about a million pictures (big surprise!), so check out the Flickr site. And it really is as hot as it looks - since we've arrived it's been around 30C. I think it's supposed to cool down by a few degrees for the weekend, which would be about perfect!

There are lots of photos linked above; here are a few more:

Thanks Be To God

Just had to get a quick post in to capture this story...

So today is Amanda's 3rd birthday. Yay Amanda! At church on Sunday, our priest Father Joseph asked us to come over to the rectory and gave Amanda a couple of beautiful art puzzles - one Noah's Ark, and the other David & Goliath. It was very nice of him, and Amanda was very good about saying her thank you's, etc.

Last night, we spent some time making thank you cards for everyone who gave Amanda birthday gifts. Again, she was great, helping me come up with the wording to go in each card and colouring in the pictures. After she was in bed I put them all in envelopes to pop into the mail today, and even remembered to put them in my purse so I'd remember to take them (a minor miracle in itself!).

This morning, she walked past the dining room table where we'd been doing our colouring and asked what happened to the cards, so I told her I was going to take them to work to mail them. Then her brow furrowed and she said "Hey! We didn't make a card for God!". I was a bit flustered, thinking maybe I'd misheard her, and trying to figure out how I was going to deal with a big theological discussion at 6:30 in the morning. Then again, "But what about God? We didn't make him a card!". Jeff and I looked at each other, puzzled, trying to decide how to even begin this conversation. Then the light bulb went on. "Do you mean Father Joseph?" I asked, and Amanda smiled and said yes. Aha! And yes, she was totally right - we did forget to write a thank you card for him. As I think I've said before, the girl has a memory like an elephant.

I can see where she was coming from with this, since we've told her that the church is God's house, but now I'm groaning inwardly as I think about all the misconceptions that probably need clearing up...oh well, to deal with another day I suppose!