Groan....

I don't know why, but every evening at 4pm, I start to feel like crud. Crazy nauseousness takes over and I feel nasty, blah. Usually its my prime blogging time, but I find it hard to sit and type. Anyhoo, yesterday marked 14 weeks, whee. I took a picture, but I barely noticed a change, so I may do biweekly pics.

Not much exciting happened the past few days. On Tuesday we got out for a brief walk in the sun which was nice. Ariel wanted to wear her apple hat, she looks so cute in hats!


Yesterday we stayed home all day, and I will say, it was really nice. Ariel wanted to play dress up and pulled out some stuff from her closet for summer (might as well pretend until the good weather comes right?). I remember buying these from the clearance section back when Ariel was first born... I thought it take forever for her to fit them, but there she is, all big. Sniff, my big girl.


For those who remember my pregnancy with Ariel, I would call her my berrykin. Hence why I couldn't pass these up, even if it took a few years for her to wear them.


Here is one for Grandpa and Uncle Mike. The Canuck girl, woot.


Too cute!


Then Ariel was curious to see if her Tinkerbell outfit I made from our trip to Disneyland back in September still fit.... it did!


Strike a pose!


Today was another low key day. We went to the library to return some stuff, and stopped by the quilt shop to pick out some fabric for the binding on the cupcake quilt. Whee. I also decided I wanted to make a pillow case that would match, will post when it comes together. When we got home I called to find out about another ballet class for Ariel. Turns out the gal I talked to on the weekend was MAJORLY wrong about the dates, and it starts in April and goes till June. Yay! She originally told me that it was changed to start in June at a new location. However, what the girl said today was that 'ONE' class was changed in June to a new location. Good grief, glad I called again, plus I snagged the last seat in the class. Yay!


Ok, Ken is on his way home and I need to figure out what happened to Ariel's pants... did I mention she is in a naked phase? Yeah, so if you come over, your warned. Haha.

Yay!

After a long wait, today at our doctor's appointment we got the joy of hearing our little baby's heartbeat!!! Yay! I can't say how excited I was, as I was eager to hear this little one who makes me so sick, haha. It was special that both Ken and Ariel were there to hear the big moment, and boy it really feels real now. So cool, and we picked up some pizza from Pizza Hut to celebrate, woot! Its been a crazy weekend here with weddings and dinners with family, but we are still standing and ready to regroup for the new week.

Last Thursday, Ariel and I went to Nana and Papa's to have a lunch party with some family that came for a visit. Some couldn't make it because we had another dump of snow, ugh, so that was disappointing. I am glad we didn't get much here, as Ariel is pretty much sick of it. She freaks out if she sees it and tells it to 'go away!'


Ariel was very excited to help Marie blow out her candles!


Friday was pretty mellow, just did some walking around town and went to check out Cobbs that just opened in town. Got lots of free samples, yummy, and got a chocolate croissant to go. Came home and snapped some cute pictures of my goofy girl.


We thought she looked like 'Jay' from Jay and Silent Bob here, haha.


Never get tired of those brown eyes, so beautiful.


Then Saturday was the big wedding day for Graeme and Kalia. The rain held off, so that was so nice for them. Ken and I dropped Ariel off with Dad and Rita and went to the church to watch the big event. Its always such a funny feeling watching someone you held as a baby, be grown up and getting married. Knowing how fast kids grow, and how one day that would be Ariel on Ken's arm had me a crying mess. Hormones, whee!


Kalia looked lovely, and Graeme was glowing, it was so cute, hee.


They had Steve Bell come and sing, and if you aren't familiar with him, he is a well known Canadian Christian singer who is close to Kalia's family.


The reception was so much fun and we had a great table with friends from church. The video we made went over wonderfully, and I was so pleased. Watching Kalia's expression when the 'Enchanted' song came on was by far the best reaction I have ever gotten. She is a big fan of the movie, and had no idea we used the song, so it was a cool moment.


After the party we went to collect Ariel who was eager to show off her drumming skills. Can I say how happy I am that the drum set lives at Grandpa's! Haha.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Sunday morning was church, and the first service during Lent. It was a moving service, and when we had communion, we usually play particular songs by Steve Bell, so to have him there and sing them live was totally wild.

The afternoon was mellow and I got to take a nice nap while Ariel and Ken chatted with Grammy online. Then we headed to Mike and Jo's for dinner. Jo made super yummy lasagnas, soooooooo good. Ariel was a bit of a handful since she was overtired and discovered that this house has many fun places to jump from. Ugh. Ariel had Uncle Mike saying that she was good birth control. I guess I won't be an Aunt anytime soon, haha.

Then this morning was ballet class. Ariel only has one class left, so that is kinda sad. Not sure when the next one is offered, so I need to look into that. That pretty much leads us up to our doctor appointment this afternoon. So that catches you all up, and I am off to eat some of that yummy pizza. Have a good week everyone.

Hello Second Trimester!

Well, we made it! Woot! I can honestly say the past week I have felt my energy returning. I think I may be able to cut out the lunch pill, which is great. If I can get to one, that be good. I was only taking one for the rest of my pregnancy with Ariel, but I still needed that one pill to keep from being sick. I will try in a few weeks going off them completely to see if I do in fact still need them, but at this point, I am still quite nauseous when I grow close to the time I usually need another one.


I managed to take a picture this morning and even put on make up! I will be using my pink dress for the second trimester pics since its so pretty. My face right now is reminding me of high school days, I have so many blemishes I call myself pizza the hut. (Little Spaceballs joke for those who get it). Thank heavens for cover up. I actually got some maternity make up in my swag bag from the Oscar party. They are colors that help you look like you are naturally glowing, which I totally need since I never seem to actually glow. I am also letting my natural curl out a bit more since my hair is so limp and icky right now. The curls seem to mask it better.


Today was PINK Shirt day, to wear it to stop Bullies. Ariel and I both got our pink on for the occasion. I was bullied for years so I feel very strongly about this. I think back to how I took my time getting my things together before going home because there was this boy and his friends that would wait to chase me home, push me into a bush and throw things at me. If I waited long enough he would just go home...


I was too shy to speak up and embarrassed to say what was going on. Not to mention back then you just 'took it'. The whole ignore them and they will leave you alone was the norm. I hated those few years and I can't imagine someone doing that to my daughter! I won't stand for it, so next year join us and get your pink on!


Well, need to get dinner finished! Have a good night!

Back on the Air!

I can't believe its been a whole week since I posted, yikes. Sorry everyone, life got crazy... really crazy. So sit back, grab some snacks and see what we have been doing around here.

Last Wednesday marked the big 12 weeks and the last week of the first trimester. I was feeling EXTREMELY gross that day and so I skipped the picture, but here is a little look at the belly growth during these 12 weeks. Crazy!


Thursday was a blur of packing and preparing for our trip to Port Alberni on Vancouver Island for my cousin Ross' wedding to Kailey. It also became a day of panic because the outfit I had planned to wear wasn't looking so great on anymore. Basically, the 'girls' grew a bit more than I thought and lets just say I looked more like a waitress at hooters than a nice respectable girl going to a wedding. Haha.

So Friday morning Ariel and I rushed out to Richmond to hopeful find SOMETHING for me. Thank heavens Old Navy had a maternity dress in a beautiful berry color that was perfect! It was literally an answer to prayer. It was so pretty, and fit perfectly and I felt lovely. For a girl who hasn't felt very attractive lately, it was the cure. Yay!

Ariel wasn't going to be left out, and we found this cute little dress on sale, and of course she was pleased as punch!


She even got a little snail purse that matches her shirt as a potty princess reward. I am proud to say Ariel is the master of #1, on the BIG potty now!!! Poop is still a bit of an issue, but at this point, she has accomplished so much in such a little time that I am so impressed, as is she.


Friday afternoon we met up with Aunty Kara! She showed us her new car, a cute 2000 Echo, I love those cars! Ariel seemed to as well as she wasn't wanting to get out of the back seat. Haha.


We had lunch out and it was nice to catch up with Kara as we haven't seen her in ages with all the busy schedules.


On the way home we got to pick up Ariel's quilt from the quilt shop! Oh my goodness, the gal who quilted it did such an AMAZING job, it has totally brought another level to it and I was practically speechless when I saw it. All that's left is the binding, and then we have a finished quilt, yay!


A few close ups on the details, the cupcakes...


... and the 9 patch blocks.


The rest of the day was last minute packing and loading the car up for our trip. We picked Ken up at the loop and drove to the ferries and caught the 6pm boat to Swartz Bay. We would have preferred to go directly to Duke Point, but the times of that boat were not great and we didn't want to be up super late so we opted to do a longer drive up the next morning.

We stayed in Saanich overnight at this cute hotel called the Waddling Dog. They even had a real dog mascot that greeted you when you arrived. His name was John the 4th. Ariel was a little bit shy around him, but John really wanted to give her kisses. Such a sweet puppy, only 9 months old. Aw!


The rooms were cute and old fashioned and we tucked in for a quiet night.


We were up early to eat our free breakfast and get on the road to Port Alberni which was a 3 hour drive from where we were. Although, it was a long drive, it was sure beautiful. Everything was great until we hit Nanaimo and the winding roads got the best of Ariel and she threw up. Poor thing totally freaked out and kept yelling 'I coughed!' We pulled over and got her cleaned up and changed and headed on our way, only to have her do it again shortly outside of Port Alberni. There was no place to stop since it was all forest, so we had to keep driving while she wailed. It was heartbreaking.

For some wacky reason the directions we got online suddenly weren't making sense as we came into Port Alberni The road it said we were to turn on didn't exist! We had to get some directions from the gas station and thankfully arrived at the hotel on time! We thought we were going to have enough time for lunch, but they wanted the families for pictures before the ceremony, so we ran inside, and got changed and cleaned up in under 15 minutes. Got the the photo site, stood for our 3 pictures and made our way to the church. Ariel was happy to run around and showed no signs of being sick anymore, yay! Although everyone she talked to, she mentioned that she 'coughed' in the car... good thing that they didn't know what 'cough' really meant. Yuck! So if she tells you she needs to cough, better grab a bucket.

When the mother's lit the candles to start the service, Ariel started singing happy birthday, haha! It was a lovely wedding and Ross and Kailey looked very happy. I am so happy for my cousin, he has found a wonderful girl and we wish them the best!


The wedding party...


At the reception we stuffed ourselves with sandwiches and fruit, as we were starving. I even got Mike to steal more food from the table that no one was at, haha, the pregnant gal was hungry!


Ariel and Me, after many fancy sandwiches, we were very happy, hee!


When things wrapped up we stuck around to help clean up since we couldn't help with set up on the Friday. Ariel spent most of her time trying to eat all the left over chocolates.


Ken had some cuddle time with Ross' son Ethan. Such a cutie!


We came back to our hotel and had a wonderful steak dinner with Dad (Rita had gone to bed already), who was kind enough to treat us, thanks again! Ariel was still very hungry and made her huge grilled cheese sandwich disappear. Since we had promised Ariel a dip in the pool we took her, but only stayed a moment as it was REALLY COLD! It was enough to please her though, so that was good.


We tucked in for the night and I watched the Food Network while Ken and Ariel played on the computer. There was a guy making a southern breakfast hash that looked great.... then he topped it with fried chicken! GACK! I am still laughing about that one, just kinda funny for some reason. We slept well and were up for breakfast, again someone paid, we have no idea who did, but thank you! We also got to see and say goodbye to Ross and Kailey. They were on their way to Victoria for a honeymoon and we headed to Nanaimo to take the ferry home.

On the drive, we noticed that the car was a little bit weird, not totally having lots of power when going up the hills. Thankfully we made it on the boat and home with no problems... that was until we left for the evening to go to our Oscar party. After dropping Ariel with Dad and Rita, we got into Vancouver only to barely pull into the corner gas station. UGH!

Called Dad who came as well as the BCAA guy. Turns out our alternator that we though was ok, really wasn't. It was completely dead now, so Dad was kind enough to lend us his car so we could get to our event and had our car towed home. I can even express how terrible I felt that Dad came out to stay with our car and get it towed. I am so thankful for my Dad and all his help, we both are. We are also very blessed this didn't happen on the island, I can't imagine how expensive that would have been to get the car back here.

We made it to the party by 530pm, just missing the opening of the show (we did catch it later online). After filling up on a fabulous steak dinner, we went to watch the show on the big planetarium screen, it was crazy huge! Both of us really enjoyed the show this year, I loved the changes and it made for a fun night, even though both of us still were thinking about the car. After the show, we collected our swag bags and headed home. We brought Dad a bag for all his trouble that night and got our sleeping girl home. I didn't end up taking many pictures since we were late, but I did get one of 'Oscar' himself, haha.


Today I took Ariel to dance class, although I was feeling pretty gross this morning. When we got home we got a call that the car had been fixed, and we are all hoping that its the last of the trouble for a long time. Well, I am going to get back to cleaning up all the junk we just dropped in the living room when we got home yesterday. Will be a better blogger this week, promise!

Much Overdue Update!

... do you hear that? Its silence... yes, the house is empty... except for me! My friend Brenda from church came and took Ariel home to play with her 3 kids until supper time! Talk about a lovely gift and I am enjoying it to the fullest. I am going to blog, have a bath and a rest. Easy dinner tonight, so no prep work, whee!

Well we have left so much to talk about, first off.... THANK YOU for your prayers for Dianne and Chris, third times a charm I guess as they are now the proud parents of little Elena! I woke up at 5am Thursday morning and walked around our house praying. Finally at 630am I went back to bed and fell asleep and woke up right at 830am. I ran to the computer and checked Dianne's blog and saw that beautiful little girl's face smiling and I wept and shouted for joy. I can't wait till we have the honor of meeting her in person, what a day that will be. I made the calls to Nana and Ken, and everyone was so excited. Yay. (Dianne was kind enough to let me post her picture, isn't she darling!)


Also when I left you all, we were just making some dramatic progress in the potty training adventure. Can I just say, my little girl is doing AMAZINGLY!!! I am shocked, really, after day one I was so ready for the worse. Ariel is just wearing panties now, and even has gone through the night and woken up with dry pants! Mommy and Daddy are so excited and Ariel has been given some little rewards for her efforts, a new My Little Pony toy and a big coloring book. We started dressing her in clothes by the weekend so she could work on getting things off and on, and she has done very well. Then on Sunday night she really blew us away when she did a poopy on the potty. Crazy! Good bye diapers and pull ups, we will see you when the new baby arrives.


Friday morning we had breakfast with Dad and Rita at a restaurant to celebrate Valentine's. Ariel was excited to see them and didn't have any accidents at the restaurant, woot. She stuffed back a big breakfast of a pancake, eggs and 2 pieces of bacon. She loved her little bag of goodies, especially her Mr Mutt, a dog that has a magnetic bone to make him do tricks.


We came home and had a lazy afternoon. I had fun taking some pictures of Ariel since she was in a photogenic mode. She has mastered saying cheese and not looking silly. Haha.


Talking to our neighbor who was coming home from work. We have some lovely neighbors who love chatting with her, which is very sweet.


Saturday, Ken went off to teach and Ariel hit the store to pick up the last items we needed for our fancy dinner we were making Daddy for his Valentine's present. We then had lunch with Nana and Papa, fish and chips - yummy! Don't these guys look like two peas in a pod? Haha.


Ariel loved her little gift of a red bear, chocolates and the card. This girl loves cards, can you tell?


We came home and prepped for dinner. Ariel helped me dip the strawberries in chocolate and set the table. Here is the final look, very pretty. Its amazing what a scrap piece of fabric can do to add some color. I got this great bag of organza materials from Stella one time, and I use them as table cloth overlays, so cool.


Ken got home and surprised me with a single rose and a box of chocolate! Woot! He was so cute with his card, as he printed out an old picture from when we first were dating to tape inside. Such a sweetie!!! He even got me an itunes gift card, so unexpected but a lovely gesture. I got him some jelly bellies Valentines mix to go with his fancy dinner, that he was eager to see. So lets begin the dinning experience. Whee.


First course was a tomato and red pepper soup with sour cream heart. It was from the new line of Knorr soups in the color line. This one is called red and I thought it was right for the occasion. Ken loved it and my added touch of adding the heart.


Next we shared a portobello mushroom that was stuffed with Italian Sausage. I picked it up from our new fancy meat counter at Safeway. Thought it was worth a try and Ken loved it!


Then the main course was one of our favorite recipes of Cornish game hens with apple sauce glaze baked over the stuffing. Its from one of my favorite Company's Coming books, Cooking for Two. Very, very yummy! Then added a baked potato and veggies.


Dessert was our chocolate covered strawberries and some heart shaped sugar cookies we picked up at the cafe. The perfect way to end a yummy meal.


Ken was full and very happy from his meal made with love by his girls. Sadly our evening took a nose dive shortly afterwards as I got a nasty headache and went to bed early. Perhaps a food hangover, haha.


Sunday morning I still had a sore head but had to be in the nursery. Thankfully it went well and fast and by lunchtime I was feeling better. I went to the bridal shower for Kalia at church and had a wonderful time visiting and snacking on goodies. Nothing better than getting away for a few hours. Ken had taken Ariel to the park since it was a beautiful day, so I knew they were having a good time too. When I got home at 5pm, this is what I found. Tired out from all their fun, awww.


Today was ballet class and Ariel again did well. Miss Nicole told me Ariel is getting more confident every time, so its great to see. Its weird since she is so lively at home and yet when she is with other kids sometimes gets shy. Guess she is like her mother a bit that way. After class we drove to Costco to FINALLY get the toilet paper and paper towel we desperately needed. Ariel didn't have any accidents and went on the big potty when I helped her. Yay! We had a hot dog before leaving, Mommy needed a pick me up. Hee.

That pretty much leads me to now and my house of quietness... ahhh. Ok, time for a bubble bath and a nap. Byeeeeeee.