Who said firsts stop so soon????

Hello everyone, hope you are all doing well and keeping warm!

Just a quick post a little update on what our pride and joy Aidan is up to these days and a few snap shots of the kids!

A few weeks ago Aidan was in his room drawing and he came out with a picture for me. Assuming this was going to be the regular array of colorful scribbles I was prepared for my proud yet somewhat repetitive reaction of "wow that's beautiful.....what is it?" To my surprise when I looked at the picture for the first time I knew what it was! It was PEOPLE!!!! I didn't know who and frankly didn't care I snatched the picture out of Aidan's hands and gave him a big hug, ran to show Judd what our son had accomplished! I was literally on the edge of tears with pride. As proud parents do, I have attached a single person drawing that he did that same evening...I think this one is his Papa Jim.


Today was one of my days off so Aidan stayed home for some quality one on one time with me. Little did he know that I had been eagerly awaiting time alone with him so that I could teach him to write his name (or get some practise with the letters anyways) Not to say that I don't have faith in how quickly he can learn but I figured this was going to be at least an hour long event and did not expect him to get it down but, rather make some good progress. I ensured to provide a nutritious lunch and some lined paper and we began. I promised him that when he could accomplish writing his name A-I-D-A-N in full without help from me I would give him $20.00 that he could use to purchase his first Game Boy game using his own money, we shook on it and began. I figured first I would get him to spell his name out loud....check, then maybe see if he knew how to draw an A....check o.k for sure he didn't remember the "i" I taught him about a week ago....check. Now he didn't know how to write a "d" so I told him (did not show him) draw a circle with a line going up from it....and so again check, then another A....check and now an "N" one line up, one line down, one line up....this one I had to show him...once, check. So I was pretty blown away and a little nervous considering I did not have a $20.00 bill on me as I was not expecting this type of progress. I asked him if he thought he could do it without any help from me and he said "o.k." and then like before A-i-d-A-N with no help at all! Then his little hand went out and I gave him five and he said "No, can I have my 20 dollars now please!" I had to give him an IOU, needless to say I'll be hitting the ATM tomorrow morning so I have it for him when he gets home from daycare! We called Judd and Aidan told him what he had done and then did it again 3 times for Judd when he first walked in the door. I started to wonder if maybe he had been practising at daycare and he said no only the "A" and he couldn't wait to show his leader what I had taught him today....hmmm o.k so I get to be the hero!
I was quite amazed with our little one as he is like a sponge lately more than he ever was before.

Aidan's vocabulary becomes more impressive each day as well. Some new words that he is saying lately are: Guilty, Meteor, Universe, Intelligent, Thousand and now always asks us if we "noticed" things. I am really happy with the Assiniboine Children's Centre and how much they are focused not only on academics but on healthy living as well. Aidan is learning a lot about exercise and eating healthy and knows what is "good for you" and what is not with foods. Today I made him crackers with peanut butter and he told me he only wanted the peanut butter because the crackers aren't good for your body. I guess it's a good thing Judd and I are back into our healthy eating and exercising because from the sounds of it the next thing they're going to teach him is about how "love handles" aren't good for your body either!

Judd and I are pretty boring lately, like I mentioned we are both trying to eat better and exercise daily to maintain a healthier attitude about life for Aidan and ourselves. We are gearing up for Aidan's kindergarten orientation and registration next week and looking into which activities we want to put Aidan into (music, swimming, martial arts...so many to choose from!) I am getting ready to go to my Doula workshop this weekend and get that started up again which should stimulating. That's about it for all of us, nothing fancy yet...hopefully our year will get a little more exciting soon otherwise this Blog is going to start fading away. I'm sure something will come up soon as we don't tend to stay low key for long!

Oh and Ichabod is really fat now as you can see from the picture....he maybe should also consider changing his eating habits!

Take care everyone,

Love Judd, Sarah, Aidan, Kneesaa & Ichabod

Easing into 2007

Well 2007 hasn't been the most exciting so far.....I had just finished reading a magazine and realized I hadn't posted in 16 days now simply because there has been nothing interesting to say really. Our lives seem to be at a stand still which is usually what I hope the most for, however not conducive to keeping up a weekly rant about your family life. Here goes nothing I will try to make the past few weeks as exciting as I can for your entertainment!

Judd and Aidan did attend Ukrainian Christmas a few weeks ago with the Gawronsky's which proved to be a great time for both of them. I opted out of going as January 1st I caught the dreaded disease going around and have yet to fully recover from it and I also had to work on the Sunday as my work schedule is getting less and less favorable as my length of employment becomes longer. It worked out for the best as I was able to take down our Christmas decorations (far overdue) and it allowed Judd and Aidan to spend the whole weekend there as originally planned (before I had to work). They experienced the traditional 13 (I think) meatless dishes Judd saying the Borscht (spelling?) was his fave and Aidan helped make stuffing (or so I saw pictures) and had fun opening some more Christmas gifts. Later Josh and Joey had a contest to see who could lay in the snow in their underwear the longest which I was also privileged to see pictures of (and haven't had a good nights sleep since....) Apparently that was not tradition per say but may become one in the future considering how entertaining it turned out to be!

We also attended my God Daughters 2nd birthday party which was one of life's little pleasures to see such a beautiful darling finding her individuality. She was quite the hostess for the entire event and we loved sharing that day with her for sure! It is nice for Aidan too that more people we know have children now as apparently when we had him others were forbidden to have children??? He always enjoys a good birthday party and is still reaping the rewards with the infamous "goodie bag" he received!

As for Mr. Aidan he is doing well, however we have found him to be a little bratty lately and have had to resort to some of our old disciplinary tactics (counting to 3 and taking away a precious toy) It seems like so long that we've had to resort to these measures however it appears he is entering a stage where his independence is very important to him and he does not like to be told what to do (eating, sleeping, personal hygiene, manners, bed time). Hopefully it will not last too long as the rolling of the eyes, back talk and stomping of the feet is getting tiresome quickly. I don't think we can start the whole "Santa won't bring you presents" speech yet so I am unsure as to how much leverage we really have!

Yesterday Aidan became a target for abuse at his daycare and needless to say I picked him up only to find an "incident" report in his mail slot. He had been punched in the back hard enough to leave a mark and pushed into a bookshelf....poor little guy. He stuck to his guns though and did what we told him, told the bully he didn't like that (confront your attacker) and the 2nd time it happened went and told a leader (get the jerk in trouble!) Didn't hear anything today so it appears the bully has regressed for now.

And all that's left is that it is so frigging cold that I went grocery shopping today and forgot my mitts at home so I had to buy a new pair to load the groceries and then waited for Judd to come home to unload them as I was too big of a suck to do it myself...decided to put an attached garage on my to-do list, and mittens on a string! The sweet luxury I had of leaving 15 minutes before my shift at work and getting there 10 minutes early has come to a bitter end as they have moved to a building on Osborne St. Now I have a parking stall at my mom's new apartment on Corydon and then a 15 minute walk to the new place...better than taking 2 buses I guess but not if it stays this cold! My sister in-law says it's funny how when I started this job I was all gun-ho and now when someone asks me how work is going I say "it's work" it has officially become "just a job" however I am not complaining as it is indeed a job and a job is what I needed!

We are also in the beginning stages of planning a wedding, and no not for someone else, ours! It will be abroad somewhere undetermined and more information will be shared as it is known, however you can guess that we are very excited to be finally taking the steps towards making this thing "official". I think after a child, a cat, a dog, a mortgage, a car payment, joint loans and credit cards we are finally ready to commit and yet I don't think we left much of an option not to there!

Anyhow....there are no pictures, I checked the camera and only found New Years ones so that will be my resolution for 2007....to take more pictures! I can add that to the multitude of other resolutions I've made (I like to think if I have a lot of them the odds are better I can stick to 1!) I did however accomplish last year's which was to quit smoking and I celebrated my 1 year quit anniversary on January 9th and am only back up to a pack a day (Just kidding, haven't even touched one!) so a little pat on the back for me is in order and trust me I've given myself plenty already....feels good to breath!

Hope you are all happy and healthy in mind, body and spirit.....or on your way to getting there!

Love; Judd, Sarah, Aidan, Kneesaa & Ichabod

And so that was Christmas.....and a Happy New Year

Hello everyone,

We hope you are all recovering nicely from the holidays and New Years festivities wherever they took you. We certainly had a lovely Christmas and got to see a lot of friends and family we don't usually get to.

Christmas Eve we spent going to Grandma & Grandpa Feenstra's house for a short visit and some lunch. This was the first year since Aidan was born that we all got to go there so close to the holidays to visit them and we are so glad we did. Got some really great fish (Jack) from Grandpa too which was a bonus. After that we went off to the hospital to meet one of Judd's closest friends new addition to their family born that morning and oh boy was he a sight to see, such a little darling with a full head of hair! All giddy with baby love we of course discussed having another baby as we always do when a new little one is introduces in our close cirlce and then it was off to my closest friends house for a relaxing sit down dinner with their family. We managed to make it home not too late where Aidan got to open his remake of the original "Night Before Christmas" book and he also chose to open his present from Uncle Greg and Aunty jodi which was a Spiderman mask and glove which shoots webs (oh did we forget to say thank you for that....wonder why???) Just kidding Judd and Aidan had lots of fun with it later on and all the webs are already gone so we promised Aidan we would buy him some more later on. Then it was off to bed for our tired little one and we got busy wrapping gifts for Santa and stuffing Aidans stocking. A few last drinks and some quality time together and we all headed off to bed as well (Judd, Mom and I).

Christmas day started rather late suprisingly....we had to get Aidan up at around 9:30 to open presents and it was hard to get him out of bed. We had already done so much visiting the week before I think the season was already starting to wear him out. After a little yawning and stretching he got into opening his stocking. We think he was a little confused as nothing in his stocking were things he asked for from Santa so he was a little dissapointed....we don't think he gets the whole stocking thing. The presents got opened slowly but surely with very little reaction until about half way through where he kissed his flascards that he got...hmmm we wondered about that. He didn't really seem to be himself so we opened a few more and then decided to leave the rest until later when maybe he was more awake and less grumpy. We had Christmas breakfast which consisted of crepes, strwberries and whipped cream mmm mmm good! Aidan and I headed off to see Papa Jim and Heather and his best friend Eric where he got to open more goodies and this time he was really excited about all the Playmobile and Lego stuff he got. His most prized possesion of the morning though was the squishy ball he got full of fake maggots and blood....it took me a while to warm up to that one however. I went home quickly to start my first Christmas dinner and get that turkey in the oven while Aidan stayed to play for a little while.

The rest of the day was spent reorganizing Aidan room so that all his new stuff would fit in there and Judd and I did a little tidying up around the house so that we could enjoy the evening. We all pitched in together and had a wonderful Christmas dinner with only a few minor glitches (me being mostly afraid that the turkey wasn't cooked enough and we were all going to have salmonella for Christmas...we lived after all and the turkey was sooo nice and moist!) After dinner Aidan continued opening gifts and was much more enjoyable this time around he was ripping through them furiously and doing so with a big smile on his face which was a nice ending to the present opening! The rest of the evening was spent relaxing and playing with Aidans new toys....it turned out to be a very nice Christmas indeed!

Thank you to everyone for all the wonderful gifts you got Aidan...he has enjoyed every single one of them so far and there was not one that he wasn't really happy to have! We hope to see you all soon so that he can say thank you in person!


On Boxing Day we headed over to my brothers house for the Miller get together and decided to start the day off early by going for a brisk winters walk and a bit of tobogganing. It was really a nice time, the kids had lots of fun and it was nice to get a bit of fresh air after being cooped up for a few days! We had a gourmet dinner of steak, green beans and potatoes cooked to perfection by my favorite chef in the world and later had some cherry pie and iced cream for dessert. We spent the evening chatting, playing with our oh so cute niece and watching the kids opening presents, it was nice to get everyone together especially since our family had grown by 1 in the last year. Aidan got more good stuff to haul home and of course his favorite present was the bag of gooey severed body parts....I guess this is what it means to have a boy, a house full of disgusting toys! The holidays came to an end for us there and the next day Judd and I both had to work and it was off to daycare for Aidan to tell everyone all the fun things he got to do and all the wonderful gifts he received!




And finally we rang in 2007 at Uncle Al and Aunty Betty's house eating chili outside by a cozy fire and snacking on fresh banick cooked over the open fire. It was a very relaxed evening which was a perfect way to celebrate another year past and a new year beginning. I think this turned out to be after all the best Christmas for us yet....we are so happy that we had all of you to share it with. All the best in the New Year and we hope to see you all soon!

Love Judd, Sarah, Aidan, Kneesaa & Ichabod