Summer!

Well, it's officially summer, and therefore obviously high time for a new blog entry.  So much has happened since my last post, however, that I feel very... daunted to say the least.  So I'll try to keep things simple.

1. Juniper grows up.
Really and truly - as my belly has gotten progressively bigger over these last couple of months, Juniper has seemed to mature just as quickly.  This is, of course, a mixed blessing - with all the new skills (especially communication), and independence, comes stronger opinions and frustration on her part.  For instance, yesterday Juniper told me how she wanted her hair done ("little braids"), and sat still just like a big girl while I did them, but then had a HUGE meltdown when I tried to use the "wrong" elastics. These opinions (and potential for meltdowns) can extend very easily to other common-day occurrences such as which clothes to wear, what shoes to put on, what colour bowl she would prefer at any given moment, and whether or not she should be allowed to "drive" the car before heading out somewhere.

More than just being opinionated, however, Juniper has seen a lot of changes in these past couple of months.  For instance, as of a few weeks ago, she is now no longer breastfeeding (!).  I thought it might happen when I was a away in Winnipeg for a week, but it kind of gradually tapered off on its own about a week before I left.  It was a pretty natural progression - I had no more milk left (due to the baby, of course), and so it's not like Juniper was actually getting anything when she nursed, anyway.  She still brings nursing up a lot (usually at least once a day), but she doesn't ask for any - instead, she just reiterates what I told her - that the "nums" are gone from mama's breasts, but the new baby will bring them back.  That seems to satisfy her, as does the knowledge that if she's interested, she can nurse again when the milk comes back.

Also, I hate to jinx a fabulous thing, but for almost a week now, Juniper has fallen asleep in her crib on her own, without anyone in the room with her, and has slept until at least 6am! (she still wants to come into bed at that point, but will usually sleep for another 1 or 1.5 hours, so no complaints).  Here is a picture from the other night - she sometimes gets herself in these precarious positions, which seem to be one of the only things that truly wakes her up (so we try to keep an eye on it). She has a "big girl bed" set up, but we haven't transitioned her to it yet - I figured we'd ride this falling asleep on her own wave for a little while yet, until it becomes the norm. 

 

 Also, Juniper has taken a keen interest in the potty as of late.  I don't feel like we're really and truly "potty training" - just following Juniper's lead and encouraging her when she wants to use it.  When she is at Cheri's (her daycare provider, when she goes twice a week), it's especially fun, as it becomes a real social event.  She and her buddies take turns and celebrate each others victories.  At home, it's not just about peeing on the potty, however - sometimes it's more about tricking one of her obliging parents into reading a whole slew of books, or about helping teddy as he, too, attempts to potty train.  Here is a little video of that phenomenon:

2. Farm weekend
When we went to Fredericton for Easter, we just weren't able to fit in a trip to the farm (where Clark's dad and stepmom live).  So we decided we would choose a weekend in May, and make a special trip to just visit.  As it turned out, it was a real Richards sibling reunion, as Brad,  Theresa, Elizabeth (and Patrick) ALL showed up at one point or another, and there was a big dinner to celebrate Brad's birthday.  Jam-packed action all weekend long - Juniper had a ridiculously fun time.  Here are a bunch of photos:

Driving the tractor

Reading with Grandma

 

 

 

 

Canoe ride!

Towing the motor boat down to the water

Motor boat fun!

Fiddleheading

  

 

These wooden clogs were pretty much Juniper's favourite things. No exaggeration.

More shoe business.

Visiting with great-grammy

The Richards siblings! (l-r: Bradford, Elizabeth, Juniper, Patrick, Clark, Theresa)

Visiting Andrew in Sackville on the way home

Here is a little video montage I put together from the weekend:

3. Baaaaabbbbbbiiiieeeeesssss!

One of the most exciting events int he last two months has been our dear friends Zsofi and Will moving back to NS (Lunenburg, to be precise) - with their beautiful twin girls, Eva and Sylvie!  Though it's a little over an hour away, we've still managed to have lots of play dates since they've arrived.  Juniper LOVES spending time with the "baaabbbbbiiiieeeesss" - as you might imagine, there is a whole lot of kissing and hugging every time we get together. Here's a few pictures:

I meet Eva and Sylvie for the first time!

Storytime

Showing the girls a thing or two (Sylvie, Juniper, Eva)

4. Camping Trip

So, a couple of weeks ago, I took an almost week-long trip to visit our dear friends, Judith and Simon.  They are currently living in the small town (or, I suppose, officially, VERY small city) of Winkler, Manitoba (but moving soon to Ottawa).  The trip was Clark's suggestion - he pointed out that I'd never spent a night away from Juniper since she'd been born, and that I will be on duty for many, many months after baby #2 comes along.  Ergo, I needed a break.  So, with enough aeroplan points to get me there and back, the vacation came to being.  I won't lie - it was actually really difficult to leave (there might have been some bouts of crying on my part), and I missed Juniper horribly, but I think it was, in the end, a really good exercise for everyone involved.  I just relaxed, ate yummy food, gabbed, knitted, and SLEPT.  And Juniper and Clark (and my mom, when she came down to help a bit later), had a grand ole' time.  I don't think Juniper missed me one little bit.  The big adventure was a camping trip that Juniper and Clark took together - brave man!  I'm obviously not in a position to write much about it, as I wasn't there, but I will include some lovely pictures, which clearly indicate that a good time was had by all.

Ready for a hike! (notice her own backpack)

Close-up

Tent site

Splash! (throwing rocks)

5. The gang

As usual, there have been many a fun day lately spent with the gang.  Here are some pics from one particularly gorgeous and fun Sunday not too long ago (Isabella was supposed to come, but couldn't at the last minute):

Our friend, Mr. Earthworm

The three gardeners (Patrick gets a turn with the worm)

Patrick, Calla and Juniper.

 

6. Day-to-day

Just a few random shots from life as usual:

One of our many swimming excursions (Tawnya, me, Ashley; Caleb Juniper and Calla)

Making muffins

Riding her bike!

Clark and Juniper's "secret spot" in the back yard

 Here's a little video of Juniper keeping herself amused in the car by flipping through pictures on the ipod.  I include it, because it seems like such a crazy example of the type of technology this generation of kids is becoming comfortable with - in this case, before their 2nd birthday!!!

7.  And finally:

A contraband shot of baby #2!  For those who don't know, unless you find yourself on the "high risk" floor at the IWK, you aren't allowed to get pictures from your ultrasound.  We managed to get a contraband shot of Juniper (we just happened to have our little camera with us when the technitian left the room for a few minutes, and were able to take a picture of the shot she had left on the screen for us).  So we brought the camera again this time around.  Unfortunately, the ultrasound tech left us with a pretty crappy screen shot, but at least it's something!  My best guess - close up profile of the head.  And no, we don't know the sex, and won't until the baby is born.  But I have been pretty convinced that I'm having a boy since the beginning.  Let's see if mother's intuition is right the second time around as well!

April catch-up

Happy belated Easter!  I had actually planned to do a post before Easter, knowing full well that a holiday trip to Fredericton would warrant a post all it's own, but alas I never got around to it.  So now I offer a condensed view of all of April. Here goes!

1: Juniper the handywoman!

Clark picked up this soft tool set when he was at Ikea earlier in the month, and Juniper has since taken her fix-it duties very seriously.  On a side note, I believe that Juniper's hair has become an entity unto itself.  It will get cut one of these days, I swear.

2. MEC ad...

Is it just me, or could Juniper and Patrick start a side career as Mountain Equipment Co-op models?  Rain gear this adorable means that at least there is a perk to the seemingly endless rainy days we've been having around here.

3. Ride-em cowgirl!

Besides being just a cute snapshot of Juniper riding her beautiful rocking horse, I love this picture because it showcases her new-found interest in her stuffed animal buddies.  It seems as though a month ago, a few choice animals suddenly celebrated an elevated status in her world (she had relatively no interest in stuffed animals before then).  One of them is this teddy she got for Christmas - she will diligently find a pillow and blanket, and put him down for multiple naps during the day; he rides with her on her horse; and, having just acquired a hand-me-down doll stroller this past weekend, Juniper now spends a good chunk of her day strolling him around the house.  Yesterday, in fact, (in the two seconds that I turned around to put something in the oven) I caught Juniper with Teddy and stroller down by the (already wide-open) front door .  Apparently, they were about to go find "dada". 

Though I don't have a picture of them, the other two animals that have become very important to her are a bunny and a sheep that she has decided to sleep with.  A couple of weeks ago, she also decided that if they were all going to sleep together, she should also be offering them breast milk.  Juniper now gets nursed twice a day - once when she wakes up, and once before she goes to bed.  So, recently, we'll lie down to breast feed, and she'll loudly proclaim "BAAAAA!", meaning - "wait! Go get the sheep!", and then "bunny!" (ie "don't forget bunny"), and they both get first dibs at my breast before she does.  Little did I know I'd be feeding three hungry mouths at once!

4. Drawing 101

Here is a little video of Juniper drawing.  I don't know - it might not be as interesting to everyone as it is to me, but I find the whole process very cute.  One quirky thing she's been doing (as you'll see) is referring to herself as "you".  It makes sense  - we address her as "you", but I have been finding it VERY difficult to explain using "me" instead of "you" to refer to herself - English sometimes makes no logical sense!  Also, you see at the end of this video the way all videos seem to end these days - with Juniper jumping up and asking to "see" the shot.  It means many videos and pictures are over before they even begin.  I'm sure Juniper won't be able to fathom that her parents grew up with cameras that a) didn't take videos, and b) didn't show you an immediate image after taking a picture. 

5. Ring Around the Rosie...

Toni introduced this to the kids at a playdate a couple of weeks ago, and Juniper has been obsessed with it ever since.

EASTER!

Easter this year was very... mixed.  I shouldn't say that - Juniper had a ball, and so did everyone who got to spend time with her, which was really the whole point of going.  I, however, got incredibly sick with some form of bronchitis or pneumonia, and was just miserable the whole time. Also, because I was so sick, I didn't get to see my cousin Claire and her new(ish) little boy, our friend Christie and her new(ish) little girl, or my grandmother - I didn't dare expose the very young or old to my plague.  Boo! But on the upside, I had loads of people to help take care of Juniper while I sat in a corner and hacked up a lung, and there were many adventures to be had by the healthy folk.  Here are some highlights:

1.  Market madness!

 No visit to Fredericton is complete without a Saturday trip to the market. As you can see, my sister Andrea (far left) made the trip home for Easter, which is the first time she'd been able to come home from BC in over a year.  We also got to hang there with my brother Paul's son David (right next to Andrea), and my sister Kelli's family (Ali, Ethan and Sawyer, and Jamie at the back).

2. Pretty dresses

The weekend before we got there was the bi-annual M.O.M (mothers of multiples) sale in Fredericton, and my mom managed to score a bunch of beautiful dresses.  These are just a couple of them, but I was more than happy to have such a good excuse to dress Juniper up.

3.  Hanging with the cousins

Boy oh boy, does Juniper love hanging out with her older cousins.  This is especially true of Ali, who Juniper clearly idolizes.  Ali was all she could talk about before we even left for Fredericton, and then she couldn't wait for some quality one-on-one time.

4. Egg decorating

Juniper was just as big as everyone else this Easter, participating in an afternoon of egg decorating fun.  We tried some natural home-made dyes this year (using turmeric, blueberries and beets for the three primary colours).  It didn't work as well as the professional Ukrainian dyes we used in years past, but I felt much better about Juniper being involved this way.  Maybe I just have to perfect the technique to get the vibrant colours I was hoping for - I'll try again next year!

5. Backyard fun

Juniper LOVED hanging out in the backyard this trip, no matter what the weather offered.  This was especially true if there was someone (or preferably multiple people) that would bring out the wheelbarrow.  Here's a little video of some of the seemingly never-ending wheelbarrow shenanigans:

6. Easter egg hunt!

And finally, an Easter post couldn't be complete without some footage of Easter morning.  The bunny had hidden mini eggs around the living room, in conveniently low and pretty obvious "hiding" places.  I wish I had had the camera at the ready for when Juniper first climbed the stairs, because she had a hilarious (and somewhat unsurprising) reaction to the scene: Stuff as many mini eggs as humanly possible into her mouth as fast as she could, and then run away before anyone could tell her to stop.  She spent a full five minutes or so trying to process the great gob of chocolate in her mouth (drooling chocolate and unable to speak), before we were able to convince her that the real object of the exercise was to find the eggs and put them in her bag.  This is a video of when she first made that transition - unfortunately, my battery died just after that, so I didn't capture the pure joy of the egg hunt that ensued.  She loved it so much that we spent the rest of the trip doing multiple egg hunts - she would grab a handful of eggs, give them to one of us, and then hide her eyes while we placed them around the room.  She'd them squeal with delight as she found them, put them in her bag, and then demanded that we do it all over again.  I'm thankful that this all happened at my parent's house, because if it was here, she might have expected daily Easter egg hunts for the whole year!

A long hiatus... and news!

I believe this has been the longest hiatus I've taken since starting this blog up almost two years ago (two years???), but I have a good excuse.  I am (drum roll....) pregnant again!  I am about 13 weeks along at this point, and I can safely say that this is the first time in almost 2 months that I haven't felt like complete and utter crap.  Like, 100% useless.  If it was this bad last time, I have forgotten the details, or else I wouldn't have been nearly so gung-ho to give it a second go.  On Monday of last week, I thought I had turned a corner... I had Juniper all by myself for the whole day, and we did some baking (first time I had felt like touching anything in the kitchen in many many weeks), and then BAM! at around supper time, I got hit with one of the most awful stomach viruses I think I've ever had in my life.  I'll spare you the details, but it was wretchedly terrible.  Then Clark got it, and then Juniper.  It is only today, over a whole week later, that I feel it has truly left my system.

Juniper, enjoying the fruits of our labour

Anyway, I won't spend any more time complaining, but trust me - no one would have even wanted to read a blog post from the last couple of months.  Also, I'll be honest - I have not done nearly as much photographing and video-taking as I normally would.  So unfortunately, I don't have a whole lot of goodies to share with you... just a few pictures, and a few pretty cute videos.  But that's better than nothing, right?

 

From a party at the Sharps' (Patrick, Isabella, Juniper, Calla)

I got a genuine smile by asking Juniper if she had "tooted".

And finally - some videos!  This first one includes some "musical moments" from the past couple of months - a choice few of many.

This second video is a sampling of how well Juniper takes care of her rocking horse.  Sure - she likes to ride him, but there's a lot of care involved in owning a pet!

This last video is of Juniper CLEANING.  Honest to goodness.  I have no idea where she gets it from.  But as soon as she gets a tissue in her hand, there are a LOT of things that need to be cleaned.   Or maybe dusted - I'm not sure.  I didn't even know what dusting was until I was like 8 years old.

That's all for now - hopefully I'll be a better blogger in the weeks to come - especially with the added incentive of spring.  My guess is there are a whole boatload of new adventures just around the corner!

Winter musings

I don't have anything spectacular to blog about today, but it seemed appropriate to pull together some of the wintery things that have been going on around here - especially since we are now fully committed to February (how in the world did that happen so fast?)

Full on winter storm

One activity that always just seems so much more appealing in chilly winter months is knitting. As such, I bought some really pretty yarn over Christmas and attempted my first knitted dress (for Juniper, of course!) Knitting baby and toddler items is just so satisfying - a relatively big project is so quick and painless compared to anything adult. Anyway, here is the dress, from the front and back:

I'm already working on another one, in a slightly bigger size, from yarn that I hanging around. I'll post if it also turns out!

We've also been having loads of weekend get-togethers , which usually deserve at least a picture or two!

Trio!

Calla and Juniper

And... what better way to beat the chilly winter than swimming! I haven't yet found a way to actually take swimming pictures and videos without ruining the camera, so here are a few adorable change room shots:

Back at the home front, Juniper likes to keep warm by putting on all her outdoor gear, all the time. Or maybe she just likes the practice - these days, we have to add quite a bit of time onto the whole getting ready to go out routine, because Juniper usually categorically refuses to let anyone help her get her gear on. Like, meltdown material. I think she considers it a huge insult.

Though it doesn't really have anything to do with my "winter activities" theme, I thought I should probably add this picture of the day Clark decided to dress him and Juniper in identical outfits***. He claims he "didn't realize". Yeah right. I caught photographic evidence.
(***Edit from Clark: I didn't dress her. She choose those clothes from the wardrobe herself. It was much like trying to get her outdoor gear on - she wouldn't let me intervene.)

And finally, what better way to enjoy winter than getting outside? I'll leave you with a couple of pics from a recent sledding adventure on Citadel Hill, and a video with some shots from said sliding adventure, as well as Juniper's first skating adventure!

The gang!

Patrick was strapped in. He didn't have a chance.