Every year so far for Meredith’s birthday, Kris has taken the day off and we’ve gone and done something fun. The first two years were mostly for us, and we chose to go to Salt Spring Island as we thought the boat ride and subsequent wandering would be fun for her even while young.

This year, we asked her what she wanted to do, and she chose a boat ride. We thought we’d do something different this year and go out to Sidney Spit. However, the morning of I thought to check prices, and we realized that the cost was almost $20 for each of us, including Fiona! It occurred to us that we could go over to one of the Gulf Islands again for cheaper than that, even with a vehicle, and that there would probably be more to do. We decided to pick a different one, and so Mayne Island it was. Click on thumbnails to see larger pictures.

So of course, a boat ride started off the day. Meredith was really excited to be on a big boat. We met a neat family from Quebec who had a daughter around Meredith’s age. The girls played most of the ride while we chatted with the parents. The mom kept commenting on how nicely Meredith played and what a great sharer she was, and asked if she was in daycare.

Once on Mayne Island, we stopped by a local grocer for a couple of things we’d forgotten to bring, then drove to a park area the family we’d met had recommended for a picnic. Meredith had a blast on the nearby playground and we sat and enjoyed the quiet and ate our lunch.

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Then Meredith discovered the zipline, which brought a whole new level of fun to the day in her eyes. It’s not obvious from these pictures, but this thing went FAST. And she didn’t want Kris to actually hold on to her, so he just had his hands hovering around her. He had to run to keep up. At the end it kind of jerked to a stop and he’d catch her if she fell, but for the most part she was just fine on her own. She wanted Kris and I to each try too, and I’m impressed how well she held on. I found it difficult myself.

Near where we had our picnic was a huge Japanese garden that we decided to visit afterwards. The garden was planted and maintained as a way of commemorating the Japanese families who had settled on the island and been interned during World War II.

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Afterwards, we headed back to the ferry and home. It was a long and busy day, and Fiona was tuckered out.

I had baked Meredith a dairy-free chocolate-orange crumb cake. We served it to her when we got home but she was more interested in cutting paper. I asked her to take just one bite, for the camera, and so she took a tiny little bite and stuck it in her mouth, then asked for some peaches and went right back to cutting her paper. So Kris and I enjoyed the cake instead.

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Fiona is already over three months old. Unbelievable! She’s growing so fast and definitely not my tiny, squishy newborn any more. Now she’s my tiny, squishy baby. She’s very chatty, much more so than I remember Meredith being, though it’s hard to remember so long ago. She’s starting to be able to roll over fairly consistently on soft, flat surfaces, and occasionally on hard surfaces as well. She can sometimes balance a little bit to sit unassisted for very short periods too. She reaches for things and will play with toys. She already seems to adore Meredith, and smiles and reaches for her. Unfortunately, often she ends up with a hand full of hair. So far Meredith has been really understanding, and will normally just tell her “No grab my hair, Nona!” and pull her hair out. (Meredith calls her Nona or Nenona or sometimes Kiona. She can’t pronounce “f” yet.)

Meredith still seems to be doing well with Fiona, though she is going through a bit of a difficult (for us) phase right now. She seems to be much more sensitive to things like being hungry or tired, and as a result has a lot more tantrums. (I don’t love the word tantrums because it has such bad connotations, but I’m not sure how else to describe them in a way that’s obvious what I mean. I feel very similar to this author about tantrums and what causes them though.) And now when she has tantrums, she will often scream when we’re trying to talk to her or help her, and if we come near sometimes she will hit at us (though she hasn’t actually hit us yet) and scream at us to go away. It makes it especially difficult, because often when she’s really upset, all I want to do is hold her in my arms. Once she’s feeling better, she will usually let me hold her and I try to talk with her about how she’s feeling and why she’s feeling that way. Thankfully, so far she hasn’t taken any anger out on Fiona or the animals, though if Sorcha or Sebastian come over to see what’s wrong sometimes she will tell them to go away too. She hasn’t yelled at the kitten at all yet. These more intense tantrums are a pretty new development just in the last couple of weeks. We try and explain to her that it’s hard to help her when she’s screaming and we don’t know what she wants, and I’m hoping this phase is short-lived.

I’ve discovered too just in the past couple of days, that if we go out earlier and get home before 2 or 3, she seems to do a lot better. If we’re out around 2:30, she will often start getting upset over things that normally wouldn’t upset her, and is often inconsolable. If we’re home, that’s the time that she wants to do something quiet, like reading a book, cuddling and watching a movie, or even just playing alone in her sand box. So I’m going to make an effort to do things earlier in the day so that we can be home and have some quiet time in the afternoon.

Of course, most of the time, she’s still very sweet and I just love watching her imagination starting to take off (she’s making me all sorts of different foods and juices in her play kitchen as I type this ) and continuing to discover the world and learn and grow. We recently repeated the toddler science experiment we did last spring, and it was once again a big hit with the kids.

A lot of people tell me how much Fiona looks like Meredith. I don’t really see it. To me, Meredith looks more like Kris and Fiona looks more like me. But I’m bad at seeing those things anyway. I found a picture of Meredith around the same age Fiona is now. Fiona definitely has more hair. I thought Meredith had a lot too but hers was lighter so not as noticeable, but looking at the pictures there’s a difference in the amount too.

Fiona around 3 months

Meredith around 3 months

Lastly, our kitten is really awesome and I think he was a really good choice for us. He’s fun and friendly and loves to come cuddle on our laps. Meredith can be a little too much for him sometimes, but then five minutes later he will be following her around looking for attention. I hope he stays so friendly and social as he grows.

I have lots more to write about and some things bouncing around my head I’d like to say. We’ll see if I actually get to them or not. I’d like to start posting more regularly again. I see this blog as somewhat of a journal for myself to look back on. I want to be able to come and have a timeline of when we did things, and what’s going on in our lives at any given time. But I don’t want to spend so much time on the computer that I miss my girls’ real lives either.

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I may use this picture instead (though in a sepia tone, not stark black and white, I just have to get it off the disk):

Then here is the next page. I may switch around the order of some of the pictures, but otherwise I’m pretty happy with it.

I haven’t left room for margins. I won’t be printing them as a book, I’ll have individual 12×12 pages printed and then put them in an album that way, I just like how that looks better for some reason. I’ve heard that way a lot less ends up cropped off the edges, so I hope that’s true. I’m trying to find some place that would let me print out one or two as samples to check, but with shipping it often ends up being pretty expensive to just print out one or two pages. I guess it would be cheaper than printing out an entire album and discovering I don’t like something about it though!

The next page will be all the professional pregnancy pictures we had done, and then I’ll work on the labour and delivery page. I still haven’t finished Meredith’s scrapbook either, but hers is all paper scrapbooking and it’s so much harder to just spend 20 minutes at a time working on it because I have to get everything out and then put it away again. I have a big 6 foot craft table upstairs now though that has all my sewing stuff on it. I think I may clear off the sewing stuff and use it to try to finish Meredith’s book (and, uh, my wedding album lol).

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Otherwise known as Cricket, at least right now. Yep, we got a new kitten. Sort of on impulse, though it’s actually something we’ve discussed off and on for years.

Meredith loves little animals, and last summer we had thought of getting a kitten. We got a new dog instead, and then I got pregnant, and the kitten idea sort of fell away. Then this year it came up again. We discussed various options: Did we want an adult or a kitten? Where should we get it from? How could we best make sure it would fit into a household with two kids and a dog and cat already?

I looked on a few rescue sites and contacted a few rescues. We went to a local pet store that adopts out animals for the SPCA and there was a sweet, adult black cat there. Kris and I both have a soft spot for black cats, since Sebastian is such a sweetheart but was in foster care for 8 months even though he was a kitten. It’s hard to find homes for black cats. But this particular black cat was super sweet, and then scratched Meredith with very little provocation. I think it made us a bit cautious. It’s so hard to know what a cat is actually like in an environment like that, but we really don’t want a cat that will quickly move to scratching or biting.

For years now, I’ve wanted a Ragdoll cat. But it seemed a bit silly to get a purebred cat when there are so many cats and kittens out there waiting to be adopted. But it suddenly didn’t seem so silly anymore. Ragdolls are known for their wonderful, social personalities. With a busy household and a friendly, social cat already, we really wanted a cat who would be adaptable to noise and not be constantly wanting to hide. We did look in the classified ads at some kittens, but in the end I decided my standards for a cat were the same as they were when we were looking at dogs: either a rescue from foster care (or potentially the SPCA, but you get a much better picture of what an animal is really like from a foster home), or a purebred from a good breeder.

I had actually contacted a Ragdoll breeder who had an adult female Ragdoll available who she had decided not to breed after all. I’d kind of wanted a male (they are supposed to be friendlier, more adaptable, and more social), but we figured we’d at least meet the female. I also contacted another Ragdoll breeder who I’ve talked to before. She has a male on her site who I am absolutely in love with.

When I contacted her, I asked if she had any adult cats available, and as a bit of an aside I also asked if she had any kittens that might grow to look like him. We were still sort of thinking a kitten might be better because we could adjust him or her to our family right from day one.

She emailed me back and told me that she actually had a male kitten who she had been planning to keep as a breeding cat who is half-brother to the cat above and who she thought would look very similar. He ended up developing a black marking on his leg that would disqualify him from showing. She had just decided that very same day that she would have to sell him as a pet kitten instead. So long story short(er), he is now ours.

Meredith wanted to call him Happy Birthday Cake at first, but we all seem to have settled on Cricket. His dad’s name starts with C and his mom’s name is Lady Bug, so it fits. He is a sweetheart. The first evening we brought him home he started coming to us when we went into the room we are keeping him in. He sleeps at night with us and loves to cuddle and purrs all night long. He’s a little cautious around Meredith still, but he will generally run over to her and rub against her legs, purring the whole time, as long as she doesn’t move too quickly.

He loves Fiona. I think he thinks she’s another baby kitten or something. If I put her down in his little room he will go over to her and curl up with her or rub himself against her. At night he likes to curl up right next to her. She is still a bit flaily and will grab at him or kick him and he doesn’t seem to mind at all. In fact, I think he thinks she’s trying to play with him.

We’ve only had him three days, but he seems to be adjusting very quickly. We’ve let him loose a bit the last few evenings and he really wants to explore more. He’s fearless about Sorcha and loves to bat her ears and tail. She is tolerant, and I think really wants to play. She can be quite rough when she’s playing though and I don’t think I will trust them unsupervised together until the kitten is much sturdier and faster. She’s showing zero signs of aggression though and is listening quite well when I ask her to down or leave him.

Sebastian is a very laid-back and friendly kitty, but he seems a bit put off having a kitten in the house. When the kitten has been downstairs he usually goes to another room. He’s hissed a few times, but we’ve been giving him lots of attention and treats and I think he’ll be fine in a few days. We’re taking their introduction really slowly though, as we want it to be as positive as possible for both of them.

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Considering that we went to four different grocery stores on Saturday, spent the whole evening cooking, then spent all day Sunday and I spent most of the day Monday cooking, Meredith was so patient. She mostly was happy to entertain herself and seems to realize that something is going on. I had a dream about the baby last night (I dreamed it was a little girl and I gave birth to her in water), and then the first thing Meredith talked about this morning (after asking if Daddy was home, which is always her first question in the morning) was about how the baby was a girl. I hadn’t mentioned the dream to her at all, so that was a bit odd. I still have a feeling the baby is a boy though. Not sure why. I don’t think I put much stock in all those old wives tales, but if you do, most of them point to this baby being a boy. So maybe subconsciously I believe them more than I think. We’ll see in just a few weeks or less at this point. (My ticker on the side is almost down to single digits, eep!)

I got a package in the mail yesterday that’s making me really want to have this little tiny baby to dress him or her in these adorable, tiny clothes. They’re from my sister-in-law. I have a few more shirts in the works too and another pair of pants, plus I am making a shirt for Meredith and one for a friend’s son and hopefully a few as gifts too. I’m not sure they’ll all get done before the baby gets here, but it shouldn’t be too hard to sew at least a little bit with a newborn in a wrap. On my to-do list for this week though is the baking, Meredith’s and my friend’s son’s shirts, and trying to clean out our study so we can move the change table down here. I’d like to get at least one more coat of paint on the kitchen and our living room painted this weekend, and then I feel like we’re mostly pretty much ready for baby to come whenever.

I’ve always wanted a spring baby. The weather has been absolutely beautiful and it looks like I’ll get my wish, even though it technically won’t quite be spring yet.

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The times Kris has drawn them for her, he’s always had ants going up and down the hill, with a few in front and sometimes more around the bottom. Then he puts a queen ant on top. So I assume that’s what those are. She wasn’t using his drawings to go by or anything though, I don’t keep his.

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I have always loved photography, since I was a little girl. I got a camera at a young age and I’ve rarely been without one at any event or gathering ever since. It’s only been recently though that I’ve delved into the DSLR world.

I’m really wanting to get more practice, and taking pictures of my own daughter only gets me so far. She’s gotten to the point that she’s almost too easy, and will sit still and smile when she sees the camera. I also really want to do more maternity shoots. I’ve only done one and I’d only had my camera less than a month, and I think I’ve come a long way since then.

I’ve decided to try and see if I can pick up a couple of photography clients. Not a lot, especially to start with. A couple a month maybe. I guess we’ll see how much interest I get. I plan to charge really low prices to start because the main point would be for me to build up my portfolio. I’ve been working on a website, but I’m not going to share it yet because it’s still a major work in progress. But I thought I’d share some of my pictures here. When and if I get any clients, I’ll likely start a photography blog, but for now this will have to do. Click on the pictures to see bigger ones.

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5 weeks and 6 days

6 weeks and 4 days – what a difference in just 5 days! This is in the morning when we just got up and hadn’t eaten yet, so not bloat. I thought maybe it was twins (but I’m measuring right on so I doubt it). I just woke up one morning and thought, wow, a belly! And it never went away.

9 weeks and 1 day – obviously not actually a belly shot but you can see my belly peeking out there

14 weeks and 5 days – I think I’m definitely at that stage where people start to wonder if I’m putting on weight or pregnant lol

Still 14 weeks and 5 days, but my hands are covering it a little bit in the one above so thought I’d include this one too.

Meredith wanted to be included in the pictures, and when I squatted down to be on her level for one, she thought she should squat down too.

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Potatoes from the garden.

I’d almost given up on getting any potatoes this year. I misread how to grow them. You’re not supposed to water them until they start to get leafy, and I had mistook that for don’t water at all. So we did lose a few plants with no potatoes. But I went out yesterday to check and there were lots! The big ones on top are Yukon Gold. The smaller ones are Russets. There were actually some nice big Russets too, but we ate those already. The Russets were a bit of an experiment. I put them in a spot that gets literally no sun and very little water. I didn’t think anything would grow, but we got a fair number of potatoes. I’m sad that I can’t use the same spot for potatoes again next year. Not sure what else will do so well. There are more potatoes to be harvested too, but the plants are still looking good so I didn’t want to pull them up until these ones are mostly gone.

These are paintings that Kris' grandmother (who recently passed away) painted. There are two or three in each package. I can't wait to get them open and find places to put them. Random toys in odd spots are just the story of my life right now.

It's a bit of an eyesore, but we got this pool for $3 last year at an end of season sale. It was regularly over $40. We kept forgetting to put it up while it was hot, so it might be too late this year but hopefully we'll get some use out of it. The hose hooks up to it and it sprays water in the middle.

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The weather was beautiful most of the trip, though on Friday banks of fog kept rolling in throughout the day. No rain though, so that’s good. It means we’ve still never been on a rainy Tofino trip, quite an accomplishment I think! Here are some pictures from the weekend. I didn’t want to bring my good camera on to the beach (though I did once) and we don’t have a point and shoot, so the majority of these pictures are taken with a cell camera.

Meredith on the beach. You can see the cabins we stayed in behind her.

The fog rolling in

Taking a break from building sand castles and splashing in the water

Meredith had a blast climbing on these rocks.

Here's to give you some idea of the height. At least twice as tall as my head. Kris is trying to get her to put her hands up in victory after climbing.

She would need a little bit of help coming down, but then she would just turn around and climb right back up again. She was really good at finding hand and foot holds and would try out different routes up. It was neat to watch. She was pretty fearless too. Here she took off up the rock before Kris was even remotely ready for it lol.

The fire isn't really a raging, out-of-control bonfire; camera phones just don't have great shutter speeds. Meredith kept signing and saying "hot" and trying to blow on it.

I have more pictures and other places that we went, but I don’t want to make this post too long so I’ll split the rest into another post.

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