January 14th, 2012

Happy New Year! Sorry for the delay between posts. The holiday season was wonderful but busy as usual. We got a new camera on boxing day, a Nikon D3100, and though Fabien has mastered it, I am not doing so well! I need to take time to figure out how to use it properly.

Luca celebrated his 3rd birthday on the 6th. Thanks everyone for passing on their birthday wishes to him! He is growing and learning. He is speaking tons, more and more in French, which I love. He is also exercises his right to his temper. It's a bit of a power struggle sometimes. He is potty training and we are hoping there will be an end to diapers soon!

Julie is three months old now and also growing tons. I have had to cut the feet off her 6 month old pj's so she fits in them. She has long legs! (Not to mention fat!!!) She is a very easy baby and only cries when she has a great reason. She sleeps well generally though I would love her to start sleeping 6 hours stretches consistently at night. It's a little different every night and depends more on her poops than her hunger. If she poops well in the evening she'll sleep for ages. She smiles all the time and likes to see what's going on.

Again I have put the pictures from most recent to older - by accident!

Luca helped himself to a whole tomatoe!

Just starting the Jolly Jumper.

This picture scares me a little bit! Feels a bit like our reality sometimes!

Merci Bea!

Luca is still the master of puzzles.

This was on top of the mountain just after Christmas. It had warmed up for a couple days and then frozen again so it was solid ice. We went way too fast down this hill! My butt hurt the next day . . . but man was it fun!

The picture requested by Jesse and Dad.

One of the first shots with the new camera.

Luca's Christmas show. Fab and I missed it by accident and I was devistated. Our friend took these pictures for us.

Look way left!

Singing Petit Papa Noel!

Our cheesy photo shoot! We promised Luca a candy if he smiled!

Will try to get some video soon but I haven't been using my video camera much these days.

December 3rd, 2011

Julie started smiling around the 4 week mark. She smiles all the time when the camera isn't around! She is now 7 weeks old. She is, in general, sleeping well and eating well. She smiled a lot at her brother in the bath this evening. She likes to talk and loves to be talked to. She has grown a lot and is wearing 3-6 month clothes!

Luca is very active as always. He loves to speak French and to joke around. He is getting excited for Christmas this year as he's old enough to understand surprises! He has an advent calendar so he's learning patience and the benefits of being good. He has a temper, but what two year old doesn't?! He loves his sister and invites everyone to see his baby!

Thank you for the blanket Dana, Paul and Piper! Merci pour le pyjama Danielle et Denis!

November 14th, lifting her head by herself. (One month old)

November 11th

Introducing Julie! (Sorry it's taken me 4 weeks to update this blog) Julie was born at 12:31 am Wednesday, October 12th, 2011 after only 3 hours of very intense labour. We are extactic to have a girl to complete our family! She came into the world at 9 pounds (4.1 kg) - Luca was 6 pounds 13 ounces (3 kg). Julie was born at 60 cm, 5 more than Luca was. Julie was one week late and Luca was 8 days early. Guess those two extra weeks Julie had added up to over 2 pounds extra! A home birth was amazing. Great to be in our own environment and I loved taking a shower right after! Felt like myself again! The midwives and my friend/doula Steph cleaned everything up and an hour after the birth our house was back to normal. Luca went to bed on Tuesday night and woke up Wednesday morning to have a new little sister!

Julie is a pretty easy baby. When she's upset though, she'll let you know! She has a wonderful assortment of noises - snorts and dolphin-like noises that she makes. She is much stronger than Luca was and it was days before we could pry her hands away from her face. She likes to be upright when awake where she can see what's going on and sleeps on her tummy like Luca.

Luca is an amazing big brother. He loves Julie dearly as you can see in some of the pictures. He introduces our friends to his baby and especially likes to hold her and take baths with her. He's noisy but gentle. He loves puzzles and trains of course, and Lightning McQueen and Mater.

Will try to add smaller batches of pictures more often in the future! I have little time these days to blog though! We have managed to take far fewer pictures of Julie than we did of Luca and mostly on our phones so the quality might be compromised. We are hoping to get a new camera soon. Been bad a getting video too. Julie's not awake often enough to get good footage these days!

About 9 hours old.

Julie's birthday!

Day 2

Day 3 and the first day we let Luca hold Julie. Hope you can see his excitement. He is a wonderful big brother.

Oct 21st

Oct 22nd

Oct 24th

Oct 27th, 2 weeks 1 day

Oct 28th

Halloween! These photos don't do much justice to how cute Luca was! He was (of course) Thomas the Train and it turns out, his costume did not do stairs at all! Fab had to carry him up and down each flight! We trick or treated for about 2 blocks with a bunch of friends. It was great! Julie was happy in the snuggly with me.

Nov 1st

Nov 6th, 3 weeks 1 day

Nov 7th

Nov 10th, 4 weeks old! (already)

Thursday, November 10th. 4 weeks and 1 day.