We learned a new word.

Okay, maybe not a new word, but certainly a new application.

Long video for those on high speed, or who really have nothing else to do.


Short video for dial-up, or if you only want the most pertinent parts.

Why is the dog sleeping on my shoes?

Does she not have a nice squishy bed to sleep in?

Why yes, she does. But she also won't make the cat get out of it.
And while she's content to snuggle with the cat if the cat comes to her, she won't go to the cat.

The snow finally melted enough to get to the swing set the other day. Katie was so happy that she could finally "fwing" again. Of course, it's snowing again this morning, but it seems to be warm enough that it won't stick around for long. Of course I could be wrong. I was looking through old blog posts this morning and remembered that when we got home from Europe last year on April 22nd, we got home to about 2 feet of snow. Doesn't look like we're quite in for that today, but we'll see.

So brave. Aunty Sharon stopped by this afternoon and wondered if we'd been somewhere special because Katie was wearing this dress. Katie doesn't need a reason to wear a dress, she just likes to be "fancy."

Cute story from this day though, we had actually been running errands in the city. Katie was very excited to go to the city and kept asking when she'd get to play with toys, which I took to mean that she wanted to go to IKEA, because they have a toy section to play in. Apparently, I was wrong. When we were leaving the city, she informed me that she had wanted to go to "the other city. Where we listen to the baby." My doctor's office also has toys to play with.

For Papa.

This is a picture of placating a restless kid who just wants to go outside on a very cold, rainy day.
Painty toes again!

She likes color, this kid. My toenails are blue too, because Mommy had to match.

23 weeks

This is last night. I do tend to stick out a lot more at night, but Andrew thinks that makes better pictures.

My little foreman.

First, Mommy made smoothies for breakfast.
And they were yummy.

Then we needed to work on finishing renos. That's our project for while Daddy's work is slowed down. Katie really wanted to be in charge of the hammer, but I was able to talk her into a measuring tape and a pencil instead when I told her that she could be the foreman. She was thrilled.

Then we decided to have a walk. Katie's legs got tired, so she had to find a pack horse.
Look! Our snow is almost gone!

Our weekend

Saturday we went to Katie's Aunty & Uncle's house for a visit and some yummy supper. Before supper though, the boys went for a quad ride and us girls all went to see Aunty's horses.

Katie found a stick on our walk.

And poked it in every puddle on the way back.

Then she got to sit on Fancy. She'd have got to go for a ride, but it's spring time and the horses are a little bit riled up, so we thought it best to stay in one spot.

Sunday was Easter, of course, so we had a little egg hunt. She wasn't sure how to figure that a bunny left eggs in the yard, but she was very excited to look for them. She's still 2 and not terribly observant though, so she had to look pretty hard.

But she was very excited when she did find them!

And we dyed eggs. A little late, I know, but it was fun anyway.
She stirred the dye.

And she put some eggs in.

And stirred some more.

And then we took out the eggs and they were "SO BEAUTIFUL!"

So beautiful, in fact, that I couldn't get her to give me anything buy goofy faces.

She just wanted to look at her eggs. For an hour after we were done, she just sat there at the table looking at her eggs.

Spring!

Ever get the feeling you're being watched?

This is Katie's new shirt, she picked it out herself and she is so proud. Okay, technically, she picked the one that was 5 sizes bigger, but I made her get a smaller one because I knew she wouldn't be happy waiting until it fit properly.

Playing on the deck the same day as the above picture, April 1st. Mommy & Daddy shoveled off most of the deck, and she has her little shovel and is doing her part too. We can't keep her inside anymore. Notice the poor dog peering in at the gate. It's funny now, most of the time, Bailey is a really happy-go-lucky sort of dog. We wonder if she's even aware of her surroundings at times because she just misses so much. Not when her kid is outside though, she's on high alert, letting all those scary birds know that they need to stay away.

And here's the same dog a week later, tickled pink that one of her bones had reappeared from a snowbank. Of course, she still can't let her kid out of her sight, so she sprints around the yard to find a good observation point where she can chew for a while.

And this is what the little girl was doing.

Short video clip here.


Splashing in the "bee-utiful mud." We circled the driveway probably 10 times with her running for all she was worth through every puddle she could find. And, as you can see, came in with her pants dripping and her boots full of water. She thought that was hilarious.

And a bit longer video clip here, 12 seconds.

And finally, a picture from yesterday. Notice how the necessary attire has changed. It's getting fairly warm now, we're loving it.

I have to apologize for the terrible quality of the video clips, apparently my editing program kills the picture. I'll have to see what I can do about that.

Want to see a picture of my insides?

Don't worry, it's just a little bit.

Had my ultrasound today, baby looks good, pretty squirmy though. Apparently quite shy as well, because most of the time it just had its back turned to the tech.

Or hiding its face with an arm, as you can see here.

And, sorry Great-Grampa, but there's definitely only one in there this time too.

Twinkle little star.

I tried to get the full song, but as soon as I turn on the camera she thinks she needs to perform. Still awfully cute. **This video is about 30 seconds long, may not be dial-up friendly**

Here's me again, 19 weeks and change puts me about halfway.
Carrying quite a bit smaller this time than I did with Katie. Everything's measuring properly, just more tucked in I guess. I keep telling people it's the horse riding that tightens those core muscles.

Snapshot from Daddy's phone, waiting for Mommy to get done in the grocery store. Too much cute for me to handle.

A trip down Memory Lane

Remember these?

How about these?

I'm going to have to dig the camera out this afternoon when we go feed Charlie. It's been fairly warm here the last few days, so Katie and I have been spending a bit of time outside in the sun. She is loving it. This morning, we shoveled part of the deck. Well, I shoveled, and Katie put as much snow as she could back into the part I just shoveled. But we had fun and got some fresh air, and that was the point.

Back to the stone ages.

Well, our internet is out. Again. We're very seriously considering switching providers, as this is getting ridiculous, we'll see. So tonight I'm posting on dial-up. And ridiculously slow dial-up for that matter.

However, I know that some of you go into withdrawals when there are no new pictures. *cough*lindsay*cough* But you're also going to have to put up with low-quality cell phone pictures, because my camera seems to have stowed away in Andrew's work bag, and wasn't home today when I was taking pictures.

Of course, that also means that all the other pictures I've been saving on my phone are finally on my computer too. So you finally get to see this one:

The world's cutest ninja.

No, it's not really that cold in our house, she's just 2 and insistent about wearing her pretty things at every possible minute.

Here are the ones from today.
I made her pull her own sled while I pulled the hay wagon when we fed Charlie. She thought that was tons of fun.

Then I let her ride for a while. Something tells me that she won't be so eager to pull it herself tomorrow. She's come a long way, a couple months ago, she was scared to ride in it because she didn't feel stable enough, today she was leaning over to drag her hands through the snow.

In other news, I'm feeling tons of kicks this week. This new baby seems well on it's way to making my belly just as sore as it's big sister did. Big sister got to go to the doctor with me on Monday and hear the baby's heartbeat. She thought that was so cool, it was very cute.

Painty toes.

In case you haven't noticed, my little girl is a very "girly" girl. Which is quite hilarious to some in my family, since I am very not. Katie loves to wear dresses any time she has the chance, and insists on having "fancy" hair most days.

One thing she loves more than anything else, is having her toes painted. It started last July, just before a wedding we were going to, Aunty N came over and we all painted our toes for it. And now Katie wants her "painty toes" all the time. She will even tell you, should you ask, that she has to "sit really still" for painty toes. We painted toes when Grammy was here, but Katie picked a very pale blue sparkly color that was quite hard to see, so this time she wanted something brighter, apparently. This is what she picked.

Orange, with blue star "sprinkles."Nevermind the sloppy painting, it's hard to stay in the lines when the brush is bigger than the toenail. The outside the lines part washes off in the bath anyway.

Story time

Katie thinks that Bailey needs stories. Bailey's not so sure. She'd much rather get up and play most of the time. But you can see that Katie has quite the audience anyway, even Remy, who is still trying to convince himself that Bailey is scary.

Pictures again. Hooray!

Mommy went to have a soak in the tub by herself the other night, and it looks like Double Trouble found the camera. How can you resist this cute?

Katie's been getting very excited about hockey (she is Canadian, after all.), so we decided to teach her some of the ropes. She thought this was hilarious.

My 2 crazy-haired girls yesterday morning. Bailey got a haircut while Katie was napping, but I left her ears long, so she looks pretty funny.

And finally, because I know my Mom, at least, is chomping at the bit to see a picture of the belly, here it is.

Argh.

Well, we finally, after 6 days, have internet service again. Our provider is about to have a mutiny on his hands, I know of at least 6 families on our road who use the same service and all of us have a business that we use the internet for. And we've all been out of service for a week. Ridiculous.

Also, I keep forgetting to recharge the batteries for my camera. Hence the lack of pictures. Rest assured that a small child is getting bigger every day. And outgrowing her clothing at an alarming rate. In case you're interested, we are mostly buying 4T clothes these days, because 3T are hit & miss. She's getting her Daddy's long legs, shirts fit great, but the pants are too short.

Hmmm.

Katie got the tiniest bit of a haircut last night. Just about an inch off the back to even things up a bit and hopefully help get rid of the ends that seem to want to do nothing but tangle and make her miserable. Trimmed her bangs up a bit too because those were driving her crazy as well. She was very excited that I was cutting her hair, it was pretty funny.

She's also becoming more and more opinionated. Trouble is, she's not always sure what her opinion is. She wanted a cheese sandwich for lunch the other day, but told me "don't cook it." Then after she took a couple of bites, she decided that it was too cold and I needed to warm it up. Not sure what she thinks cooking does.

What a day.

I had a doctor's appointment today in the city. Thankfully, I decided to get a sitter for Katie. The one she loves, who she quite literally pushes me out the door for...

I got to the city in good shape, but when I stopped to get lunch, there was an ominous clunk when I rolled my window down. Very ominous, it turns out, since the window wouldn't come back up again. Fortunately, it wasn't too terribly cold today and I didn't have to go far to get to a glass repair shop that could fit me in. The repair shop was also only a few blocks from my appointment, so I didn't lose too much time walking back & forth.

I got to hear the baby's heartbeat, very strong at 150 beats per minute. And measuring right on schedule for one baby. (Sorry Great-Grandpa, you're going to have to share again.)

And now I'm exhausted, so I'm going to bed early.

CHEESE!

When Grammy visited last week, we set her up on an aerobed (thanks, Linens-N-Things, for that going out of business sale). Katie did not want to take it down after she left. Apparently, it's the perfect place to watch cartoons on the big screen.

She found a picture of me packing her around in the pouch and decided that she should try that with her baby. Unfortunately, she's put on about 7 pounds and gotten a bigger baby since this pouch was made, so it didn't last long. Better get on that.

This one is from a couple of days ago. She was throwing a fit about something, then decided that she needed a picture of "my cry."

P.S. Dear Grammy, send pics.

12 weeks.

I'm sure most of you have heard by now, we're expecting a new little one in August. We have the estimated due date, and the ticker you see above reflects that so you can see actual development, but based on when Katie came, we're not going to get excited about anything before about the 24th.

Katie doesn't get it. She knows she's going to be a big sister, and she'll tell people that once in a while, but she doesn't understand what it means yet. If I ask her if we should have a baby, she runs to get her doll. And the one day I told her that there is a baby in my tummy, she told me to take it out so she could give it a kiss. Not just yet sweetie.

Not much happening here.

A little bit of playing cowboy.

And a little bit of eating Daddy's berry crisp & ice cream. Yum!