Holden is 3 years old!

Holden turned 3 on November 19th.We had party at Little Ray's Reptile Zoo with Holden's friends from daycare and other close friends. He had a BLAST! In fact, everyone did. Holden was very brave and touched ALL the animals. here are some pics from this great day. Thanks to everyone for celebrating with us.

Holden and his best buddy

FLOPPY!

Non-smiling baby is not smiling

We went to Winterlude to go down the iceslides this weekend with Jason, Theresa and Bo. We had a great time, although Holden was very unimpressed with the slides. We thought he would either hate them or love them. Were we ever surprised by his complete lack of emotion. He seemed to much prefer when daddy carried him on his shoulders.

Here are some pics of Holden being very unimpressed:

Getting ready for the tube slide:


Down they go!
Holden's buddy Bo (what gorgeous eyes!!)

Bo & Holden:

Going down the slide with daddy:


Still not impressed:

New photos

*nom nom nom*




With William the bee:

Holden swimming

We took swimming classes this summer. Holden had a great time. Here we are doing a front float.

"Free time" with Curtis at the end of the class

... and with daddy in our fabulous baby pool.

Weekend visit

My old friend Miko and her new husband Michael came for a little visit over the weekend. They are from Toronto and came to Ottawa to visit family and dropped by to meet Holden for the first time. Holden really liked them, he loves being the center of attention!!

Playdate

We went to an awesome playdate today. I got to hang out with lots of friends and all the babies were cute and happy. Holden saw his usual friends as well, and met some new friends too. Here are some pics.

Holden takes a bottle!!! And other news...

On Friday, March 7, 2007, Holden Smith Davis Churchill officially took his first full bottle for the first time (and it's a glass bottle). Do you know what this means for me?!? A little bit of FREEDOM!!!!! *squeeeeeeeeee*!!! We can use those gift certificates to Le Nordik (thanks Lisa!!)! An extended brunch with Theresa! Shopping! A haircut! The possibilities are ENDLESS! Before you all start thinking I can't wait to leave my baby, well, you're right, but just for a couple of hours :)

Here's a photo of the blissful event:

"Look, mom, I'm all done!"

Last weekend was Jason's birthday (close friends of ours). We went over to celebrate. Bo is their totally awesome son who turned 1 year old February 27. Here's a pic of them together.


Later when the babies were asleep, we had cake: Jay & Tee:

Random photo from last week: Tummy time!

"Playgroup"

I hosted my first playgroup today! 4 moms came with their babies, all of which were born in October or November (other than Lauren who is 3 yrs old). I met some of them online, and the other is my neighbor and she brought along a friend. Here are some pics from today's playgroup:

Amanda with Kurtis (our neighbors) with her friend Vanessa and Ella:

(from top) Holden, Evan, Aureane:

Lauren:

Aureane & Holden (born the same day!):

Les tantes de la fesse gauche?!

Last weekend was a really nice weekend. My mom came to visit with two of her oldest friends, Pierrette and Ghislaine. I’ve known both of them most of my life and don’t remember a time when they weren’t my mom’s friends. Those are some looong friendships! So, my mom calls them “mes tantes de la fesse gauche”, which literally translated means aunts of my left butt cheek. French people are so weird *haha*. Loosely translated, it means honorary aunts.

Everyone got a kick out of my huge belly, and Pierrette let me know I’m still carrying too high to be going into labor soon. That’s a relief, I want another week off before he comes! As an aside, at my midwife apt on Monday, she let me know that Holden is now fully engaged so I guess he has dropped now and is ready to go. I’ve had no early labor signs though, so I’m taking it easy!

Back to the weekend… John made a FABULOUS dinner and impressed everyone. He’s truly an amazing cook! We started with a nice cream of leek & zucchini soup (which I made) and then John made BBQ steak with a potatoes & sweet potatoes dish, sautéed mushrooms, green beans, and crispy fried onions. It was amazing and his presentation was great. My mom brought desert, homemade apple pie (YUMMM!), cupcakes, and a fruit crisp. We STILL have leftovers!!

It was really fun, and went by much too fast.

Work Baby Shower & potluck

Yesterday I had a baby shower at work combined with a potluck. It was so fun. It wasn’t a surprise, I’ve been at Accurate long enough to know that I was going to get one. We’re an office varying from around 14-17 people, and there have been TEN pregnancies since I started here almost 7 years ago. That’s a lot of babies for a small office!! So I knew what was coming.

We had a great meal with LOTS of food, and the office spoiled me with gifts for little Holden. We got a baby bath, baby bath products, towels, and toys.

My co-worker Di who is currently on maternity leave (one of the TEN pregnancies) also dropped by with her 2 kids, Hanna & Adrien. So cute, and great to see them. Her family also bought Holden some very nice gifts. Lianne (another one of the TEN pregnancies who’s on maternity leave now) also dropped by with her daughter Charlotte (Coco!), who might be the happiest baby on the planet. Although now that I think of it, my niece Kiera might actually win that battle.

Only 1 more week of work before I go on maternity leave! CRAZY!

Baby Shower weekend

I had my baby shower on Saturday, and it was sooooo much fun! My sister-in-law, Lisa, threw it for me, what a sweetheart! As an only child, I’ve never known what it’s like to have a sister, and now I have 2 wonderful ones, it’s really great.

It was wonderful to see different groups of friends and family all come together and get along so well. Lots of friends came, some with their babies. Bo, Evyn, Madeline and Liam were there with their mommies and everyone had fun cooing over them. Liam is such a big boy now, I didn’t even recognize him at first!! My mom came from Montreal with my aunt, and it was great to share the day with her, even though it was a short visit.

And, of course, Holden got lots of wonderful gifts, he was truly spoiled! We’re ready for him to come now, we have all the necessities, and lots of fun stuff too!

The Friday before the shower was also a great day. I took the afternoon off and had lunch with John and his mom and sister, who came from Guelph just for the shower! We had a great meal, then Danielle, Paula and myself went around Westboro for a little baby shopping. It was great fun and nice to hang out with just the girls. I really lucked out marrying into this family, they’re all wonderful people and have welcomed me from day one. I love you guys! Now I’m getting all sappy, might be the pregnancy hormones *haha*

I’ll be posting some pics from the shower soon.

I’m now 36 weeks pregnant!! Here’s how big he is now, almost 6 lbs!
http://www.babycenter.ca/pregnancy/fetaldevelopment/36weeks/

Miko & Michael - Oct. 7, 2007

John and I went to a wedding in Toronto this weekend. It was the wedding of one of my oldest friends, Miko. I've known her since I was 11 yrs old, and we were best friends in high school. We drifted apart in college, moved to different cities, lost touch for a couple of years, reconnect, etc etc. We had lost touch for 4 yrs and found each other on Facebook about 4-5 months ago. Just in time for her to announce that she met the love of her life, was getting married, and invite us to the wedding! And just in time for me to let her know I'm pregnant!

Knowing how I felt about seeing her get married, my only regret is that we didn't reconnect a year earlier for her to see me get married. She would have gotten a kick out of that.

Here are a couple of pics from the weekend. I didn't get any good pics of the groom, so here's some of me, John and Miko. Sorry Michael!

34.5 weeks pregnant:

New arrival

Congratulations to my friend Amanda who had a baby girl August 21. Everybody is happy and healthy.

Yes, I'm shocked too!!

It was a great and busy weekend

This past weekend we had Part II of our Bringing Baby Home class. It was a pretty fun class. The owner of Milkface came in with a bunch of different baby carriers that we got to try on with fake babies. John and I liked the same two carriers, so we’ll probably buy them both. One is a Baby Hawk (like a mei-tei) and the other is a ring sling.

Babyhawk:
Ring sling:
We also went over breastfeeding stuff, and got our carseat installation inspected. It passed! So we can transport a baby now, if anyone needs help with that :)

After the class we went to Eggspectation for lunch downtown. I LOVE it there and haven’t been in probably a year, so it was a real treat for me.

Sunday morning my buddy Diane and her family came for brunch. I made fresh squeezed OJ, yoghurt parfaits, from scratch buttermilk blueberry pancakes and sausage. It was delicious, if I do say so myself. Her daughter Sonya especially liked the yoghurt, and had quite the slather on her face to show it!

And then Sunday afternoon I workd *bla*.