3 Months Old!

Yesterday, Olivia turned three months old, time is flying! She is healthy and growing. She had her second set of shots on Monday and weighs 11 lbs. 9 oz. She now measures almost 23.5 inches, which means she has gained 1.75 lbs and 1.25 inches. Needless to say she is eating well! She's a pretty content baby and does all the normal stuff, cooing, giggles and the lastest and greatest lay on her stomach and look around. She's quite nosy so laying flat doesn't cut it anymore!
Lochlan and Miah are well. Lochlan attended a friends bday party on Sun. and seems to be growing older all the time. Hard to believe he starts school in the fall! He still loves his books and is quite the little runner. He is turning into a quiet (well outside of home) but affectionate little boy.

I wonder somedays if I will make through to Miah's teenage years and shudder to think what that will bring. She has started to throw regular tantrums and "assert herself" with No being a regular word. I seriously think it's a gene attached to the red hair. She however does has a soft side and can be warm and funny. She also talks a mile a minute and picked up a Brit accent on some words such as Mummy and No. It's quite bizarre to hear it come from your own child!

Here are some pics and a couple of movies I thought were cute. L

Oh Miss Miah!

Where to start?

Monday morning we're getting ready for the day, everything is going smoothly, kids are ready, I showered the night before, I just have to run upstairs to brush my teeth and slap on some clothes 3 mins (literally). I come downstairs and check on the kids: Lochlan's reading books, check, Olivia's coooing in her chair, check and Miah is hmmm awfully quite. Another look confirms that Oh yes.... she's found the diaper cream and has decided to moisturize with the "cream"....hair, face, clothes and we don't want to leave out Maggie, she looks dry too! Oh and that carpet that Dad steam cleaned literally last night, well of course it needed a little something!

Tuesday Lochlan and I are playing in the Rec. Room and I hear noises on the stairs, Miah coming down from her nap. I go to say hello and realized she's commando. Ah oh! I run up stairs to her room and see a tiny bit of poop on the floor. Not too bad, not rubbed in. The sheets are clean nothing in the diaper. Phew. Miah's saying "poop potty" so I put her on...nothing. I go to put on a diaper and lift up her shirt and more poop falls out, lift it completely up and realize her chest and belly are covered, smeared in it. Gross! I bath her, put clean clothes on and then go to figure out how her stomach got covered in it when her hands and everything else are completely clean. I check the sheets, floor and then the new quilt, yes arrived last week from Canada, there it is. Not just on there but smeared in. She must have pooped then turned around and slid off the edge of the bed through the poop. Lovely!

Wednesday. Is it only Wednesday? The kids and I are upstairs. I'm doing laundry, Lochlan just went down stairs and Miah is playing with the toys. She comes along with a couple bath toys, but wait how did she get that soap in her hair? Oh well, it's probably just a few bubbles from the bath toy, wait a minute, that's not bubbles that's ???? - vaseline! But how did she get that? It was in the nursery closet and the closet door and the main door were closed (purposefully). So I check it out and sure enough the two doors are open (she has a new skill)and there's the jug of vaseline on the floor. Lucky for me that's it. Miah wants to go downstairs with Lochlan (who left the gate open)and starts down the stairs. No big deal she is pretty good on the stairs except lately she's been wanting to walk forward down the stairs which we have a lot of. She's about halfway there when I realize this and tell her to turn around, she looks up at me and turns at the same time which causes her to fall down the remaining stairs, I fly to the bottom of the stairs and pick her up, (she's crying but ok) just in time for the doorbell to ring, it's one of the neighbours from down the street, with her son...they've dropped in to play!

I'd like to also add that my couch has Crayola marker on it and the back of the bathroom door has crayon on it (bath crayons that are meant for the bath not doors!)......Oh Miss Miah!

In my defense, she has never bothered with any sort of cream until now and has just recently started opening doors. Hope your week has been better than mine!

Laura

PS here are a few pics of the kids.

Trip to St. Ives

Well, we decided last minute to head north about 15 miles to a town called St. Ives. It was much bigger than I thought it would be, and there is absolutely no rhyme or reason to the layout. A big surf town, some of the best beaches are between St. Ives and Hayle, and there were plenty of folks out catching waves. I couldn't believe people were out in the water on Saturday, because it was absolutely freezing... (for Cornwall, that means 8' C) We managed to stop at a nice pub for lunch, and were happy to find that they had Cornish Cream on tap, one of our favorites (and Grandpa Kotzer's too, if I remember correctly).



We will have to get a babysitter some time and head back... lots of art galleries and shops to check out. Hope this finds you all well, M.

Are you alright???

If any of you have been checking the translation section, you would have noticed that "y'alright" in the U.K. = "how's it goin'" in Canada. When I first got here, I found it really strange when someone would ask me if I was alright. My first response was usually, "why...?does something look wrong with me...?I think I am OK, yep, I feel OK..., why are you asking me if I am alright?". So I mentioned to a lot of the folks I work with that in Canada, when someone, specifically a stranger, comes up to you and asks if you are alright, it almost always means that you look like something is very, very not right. A ramble I know, but here comes my point... Today at work, someone in the shop asked me, and I quote, "how's it going?". So long since I have heard those three words... took me right back to Canada. I said I was doing fine, and thanked him for his Canadianese... he laughed and told me that he spent 3 months in Suffield (Alberta) and told me he said it that way on purpose because he knew that was how Canadians's said it. That is what it is like coming here. It seems the same on the top, but there are so many little things that are different. Hope this finds you all well. M

Good Morning From Lochlan

Lochlan wanted say good morning to everyone. We were up a bit earlier today... 6:00 here, so for some of you, that is still yesterday! Lochlan wanted to show off his new sweater...

Olivia Cooing

Here is the video that I tried to post last week... a couple of weeks old now but still cute.

The Eden Project

Today we went a bit touristy... we travelled about an hour to a place near St.Austell called the Eden Project. It is kind of like Montreal's Biodome, but different in a few ways. It is much bigger, and the founders have a purpose of trying new ideas with the goal of supporting sustainable development. They collect their own water from rain, make the fuel for their tractors from vegetation they grow on site, and try to recycle almost everything. Pretty cool (we did a little ice skating on the only rink in Cornwall), but also pretty warm (especially the rain forest bit!). Take care. M

Sunny Long Weekend

I will be the first to admit I miss the snow, and we probably won't see any of the white stuff for 3 more years. Still, when you get the kind of day we had on Friday in the middle of February, it kind of offsets it a little bit. Very warm, even for here, so we packed up the crew and went off to the boating lake (i.e. duck pond) for a picnic. On our return, a good nap gave us the energy we needed to mow the lawn! (Actually, Laura did that). We miss Grandpa's lawn mowing effort's that's for sure... Yesterday Miah was looknig out the window at our neighbour across the way mowing the lawn and was saying "Grandpa! I miss Grandpa..."



It is really easy to get outside, which is nice when you are carting a 2 month old around. Tomorrow we will head off to the Eden Project... it was once a decrepid strip mine, but has been converted to a series of bio-domes with flora from all around the globe.

In other news, we have some Canadian's who will be up to see us in May, and we are really look forward to that! Uncle Clay, Aunty Ev and the whole crew will be putting on some serious miles to see us (please bring some Clam juice, rye, KD, etc..:). Should be a good time, and whether it is warm enough or not, Clay and I will have to go do a bit of surfing. Or, we could alternatively rent "Point Break" and drink a few beers... either way I am happy. It will be great for the cousins to see each other again... it will almost have been a year at that time.

Oh yes. Something also very new for us here in Cornwall. Music. Nice Music. The type of music that reaches into the depths of your childhood soul and makes you want to dance, but especially run. Run and chase. Chase the....... ice cream truck! That's right, the ice cream truck. Coming to a neighbourhood near me, every day. I am guessing the Ottawa ice cream truck business would be very jealous.

Hope this finds you all well. M

Olivia's Baptism

Well, it has been a busy week/weekend. Mark made it home safe and sound Thurs. night. Fri. night we hired a sitter and celebrated Robbie Burns night a week late with our neighbour from Edinburough. We had haggis from Scotland and other traditional dishes. Very tasty! Sat. I attended a girls night and Sunday Olivia was baptised. The ceremony was lovely, albeit short, as it was done after mass instead of during mass as is traditional. The priest is a dodgey sort of bloke and had his own ideas about things. However, our neighbours John and Fran, Simon and Tracey and Canadians Keith and Mandy attended. John acted as proxy Godparent as Jeff and Heather (my brother and sister-in-law)couldn't make it. It turned out to be a really nice event with a luncheon at our place afterwards.

Things are a little more normal this week and I'm trying to catch up on laundry. It is GORGEOUS here today, sunny and plus 12 in the shade. There is a long weekend here this week with Fri. and Mon. off so Mark and I are thinking we may do some local exploring, check out some of the touristy stuff. The kids are doing well, keeping busy and keeping us busy! Here are some pics of our babe in her beautiful dress that Nana made and a video of her cooing another day. Our neighbours took pictures of the ceremony and I haven't received them yet. I'll post a few later. Cheers!