Happy Halloween!

Hello all, hope you ebjoyed your Halloween as much as Aidan did. Since we didn't have any stairs we decided to head out for a night on the town. Saw a couple friends and some family and did some trick-or-treating along the way. Aidan did rather well up until the end when he was getting pretty tired...he was actually snoring on the ride and when we got home he advised me that it was too late for a story and he would like to go to bed now!

He had a wonderful time at daycare as well, they made their room into a haunted house and had a big party! He came home with a good start to the candy even before trick-or-treating began. He also got some presents from people this year..a bucket full of quarters, two LEGO sets and an awesome goody bag courtesy of Steve and Josie...he is quite happy!

Judd is already into the candy upstairs. I can hear him rustling through the bowl as I am writing this.

I didn't get to go to the Doula workshop this past weekend and will be going to the February one instead which is fine. Sucks that I didn't go to this one as I really wanted to start attending births but I am glad that I will be able to make it up early next year. Started working part time now (today was my first day) It's really great as the shifts are only 4-5 hours and the job is pretty entertaining, the people are great too (well most of them anyways!) I don't have to work a weekend or an evening until December so thats pretty good too!

November is going to be a busy month for us...birthdays, wedding, shower and it keeps piling up....maybe since we are staying close to home for Christmas our busy time will be this month coming up instead of December as usual.

Aidan and I are going to do one of the charity boxes at Safeway sometime this week or this weekend which should be lots of fun as I am going to let him pick out some of the things to put in there.

Ichabod is sneezing alot, so I will probably be carting him off to the vet any day now and Kneesaa loves the snow! If it is snowing outside though she will usually bark at it. She loves to go outside and run around in it...she actually escaped and came back on her own tonight so I think she is becoming more obedient as she gets older...we still have a ways to go though as she is still always under foot it seems and in to everyones business.

My mom purchased a piece of family history for me this past weekend which I cannot say enough about! It is the last sweater that Grandma has which she knitted from their Angora rabbits back in the day. I think pretty much everyone wanted it so my mom decided to buy it so that Grandma and Grandpa didn't have to chose who it went to...I am a lucky girl indeed!

Anyways enjoy the pics of the pumpkins that I carved over the weekend and of our visit to Grandma & Grandpa's.....the Frankenstein one was done on the pumpkin that Grandpa gave Aidan which he grew himself! Didn't get any pics of Aidan tonight unfortunately as we were all over the place!

Love Judd, Sarah, Aidan, Kneesaa and Ichabod

Boo at the Zoo

Nothing really new on the home front this week to tell you all about. We are all just getting used to the cold weather that kind of snuck up some how. I will have to go out and get Aidan his winter boots for the year which is early as I usually don't have to go until after Halloween! I'm sure everyone was a little caught off guard this time.

We went to Boo at the Zoo on Wednesday, had lots of fun watching Aidan fight all the bad guys with his spiderman webs and he really enjoyed the rides that they had this year so we'll be sure to take him to the Ex next year. He takes after me there, as Judd can't even play ring-a-round the rosie without getting an upset stomach! I am sorry to say though that Spiderman was defeated in 2 instances, the first with Frankenstein and the other with a werewolf, on both occasions spiderman went running in the opposite direction and there were many tears involved. Oh well he gave it his best shot!

Aidan has picture day next week which is really nice of them to do for the daycare kids so I will make sure to order enough and send everyone his first untechnical school picture!

I am also starting to work only 25 hours a week on Oct 30, 2006 so I will be able to do a lot more visiting and stuff before Christmas hits. Oh and for anyone who doesn't go to Safeway on a regular occasion they have a shoebox gift for children program going on there where you buy a shoebox and pick a specific age and gender of an underprivledged child and fill it up with gifts etc and they will send it off to the child for Christmas time. It's an inexpensive way to do something for the holiday season and anything with kids is worth it for sure so be sure to check it out and send one off if you can. I think the deadline is the 2nd week of November so don't delay! Aidan and I are going to do one for a 4 year old boy so that should be fun to go shopping for!

That's it for now, here are some pictures of Spidermans rise and fall for all of you!

Love Judd, Sarah and Aidan (Kneesaa and Ichabod too!)

Another Week Gone By

Hello to all of you out there! This week was pretty good for us although the weather sure wasn't!
We had a lot of great news...one of my friends twins got to come home from the hospital this week, antoher one of our friends got engaged so it was a happy week overall.

JUDD - Is busy working outside while I am writing this, he is furiously trying to get things completed as he wasn't expecting the snow to fly so soon so now he has a limited time to get it all completed. And Steve.....he will be calling you to come tomorrow so don't worry! He's happy as I brought home beer for him last night which he doesn't get all that often anymore! Yesterday I caught him watching my recording of Oprah....he says it was one on the war in Afghanistan...yeah yeah sure it was.

AIDAN - Is growing up way to fast for my liking. He comes home and talks about all his different friends and is excited about the snow, well more eating the snow which I try to get him not to do. Again on Thursday he was so exhausted that he just crashed right after daycare and slept all the way through until Friday morning. He can actually carry on a pretty good coversation now which is pretty fun for us, we still at the dinner table enthrawled with the little guy as he has so much to share! It was his turn with the "Book Bag" this week at daycare which I think is a great idea. They send home a bag with him and in it there is a book, a puppet that has something to do with the book and an activity card which gives you ideas on how to interact during, and after reading the book! He learnt a lot about crickets and self esteem as it was a book about a cricket who wants to be a butterfly because a frog told him he was ugly. For all you moms and dads out there it's a really good read with great illustrations called " I Wish I Were a Butterfly" by James Howes. Aidan is still loving his daycare very much but he calls it his "school". He is really excited about Halloween and we should have fun going to BOO at the Zoo next week!


SARAH - Not up to much these days, same old. Working still full time should be part time in another 2 weeks. I found a bunch of old friends through the internet which is good and now I'm catching up with them a bit. Trying to get a handle on this doula thing and trying to study as much as possible! I'm starting to become somewhat of a breastfeeding advocate as I attended a LLL meeting this past week (breast feeding group) and some of the women were sharing how they have been discriminated against for breastfeeding their babies in public. Some were asked to go in a private area, some asked to leave all together and another mother is breastfeeding her baby in her car at lunch hour because here co-workers do not approve! For anyone that is reading this who are uneducated about the benefits of breastfeeding here are a few little tid bits to consider:

1. A woman can significantly decrease her risk of breast cancer if she breastfeeds for a total of 2 years throughout her life

2. Children who are not breastfed for a minimum of 1 year are prone to obesity, disease and allergies

3. Mothers who breastfeed are also prone to less illness. Diseases such as type 2 diabetes and arthritis can be forced into remision during breastfeeding

4. It is a womans natural and LEGAL right to breastfeed a child up to the age of 5 in any public place....so if you have a problem with it YOU leave!

Finally.......breasts are not sexual objects, this was never their purpose society has made them this way. Woman have breast tissue to produce milk and colostrum for their babies there is no other use for them so PLEASE let women use them for there purpose without making them feel dirty, uncomfortable or wrong for doing so. Treating women this way who are only nurishing their children in the best way possible is just plain IGNORANT!

Oh and please explain to any children that are close to you what breastfeeding is and why it's done so that future generations will not have to deal with the discrimination of breastfeeding.

And now that my rant is over I will leave you with some pictures to look at! Hope you are all happy and healthy!

Love Judd, Sarah, Aidan, Kneesaa & IchabodAidan making a b-day card for his Grandpa Miller


CHEESE!
Great, now we gotta buy him a snowmobile and a Quad....Thanks Josh

What a Great Day With A Pro!

Thought we could do a little update on the family and then display some great photos that we had taken today!

JUDD - What can I say about the man, he's doing great! Always working hard and trying to keep me happy and Aidan entertained. He had finally agreed to let me have another dog, however we are in no rush so I told him I would take my time finding one. He is ready to wrap up the major home renovations until after winter now and only has a few minor things to finish up this weekend before packing it in for a long winters nap! He got his friend Jason who is planning on becoming a professional photographer to spend a few hours with us today and get some family photos which was really fun, and what a great day to do it!

AIDAN - He has been learning a multitude of new songs at daycare, so many I can't even keep up with him. He learnt one about a frog, one about a bumble bee and also can sing "I've been working on the railroad" all the way through even the Dinah in the kitchen part. It is quite amusing I must say and keeps us entertained. He's been really tired this week after daycare as they have been doing a lot of new things. On Wednesday he had a dance party for Manitoba in Motion and when he came home he took of his socks and jeans, crawled into bed and we could not get him to wake up until Thursday morning when it was time to go back! On Thursday his class had a Yoga instructor come in and they did Yoga for the afternoon. I think I was more excited about it then he was, oh how I miss Yoga!

One of his leaders told Judd that Aidan is very popular and the other children revolve what they do around what Aidan wants to do. Right now I guess he is the leader of the pack. When I go and pick him up at the end of the day all the girls ask for hugs before he goes....so cute! He also got invited to his first party for Halloween however Judd says he can't go because he wants to take Aidan trick-or-treating, I think there is a little seperation anxiety going on there, I would have let him go with his friends!

He has already picked out his Halloween costume for this year and he has decided to be Spiderman. He looks so cute in his costume, you can't even tell that it is him because he has a mask with it. We can't wait until Halloween in this house! Other than that he has joined Kneesaa and I at the dog park a few times this week which he always enjoys!

SARAH - Nothing really new here. I've started my pre-workshop study guide for the doula workshop at the end of October and am finding it a lot more difficult and time consuming that I expected. It took me about 2 hours to answer like 2 questions as there is a lot of medical terminology and I have to know alot about the anatomy of a woman during pregnancy. I have to answer over 60 questions like "List the emotional state of a woman in transition" and Physiologically what happens during a uterine contraction?" Gee they didn't teach us this in sex ed, or did I skip that day? Anyways I'm trying to keep up with it and am getting really excited as I will be able to attend actual births starting in November...now all I have to do is find some women who will let me be there when they give birth, no easy task I'm sure!

Here are the pictures from today....they are in really low resolution so that the photographer could send them all to me via email as there were 180 of them so you can imagine how good the real pictures are! All photos were taken by Jason Fiwchuk, if anyone is interested in having photos done by him let me know and I can forward you his contact information. We think he did a really great job in such little time! These are some of our favorite shots: