Our Family & Our Life

Dear Diary, Yup, I got bored last night and changed the blog again... may change again soon but I think I'll leave it like this for awhile. Will post again sometime soon....

Dear Diary, Isla LOVED her excersaucer that she had at my parents house but when we left Canada, we didn't have room in the van to take it with us. We knew we had to get something for her to jump in so I went shopping and found her the Rainforest Jumperoo! She loves it! She is a bit short for it but she can still jump to the moon and back again The Jumperoo is the second Fisher-Price Rainforest item we bought. We also have the high chair but it's not that we planned it, it just sort of happened. Don't worry Mom, she doesn't miss her saucer.

Dear Diary, I've missed posting on the blog but we've been busy... First of all, Isla turned 8 months on October 17, she had a baby wellness check up and she got another 3 teeth, all in one day (more about that later on in this post). Here she is on her 8th month birthday. Mom and I decided it would be nice to take her to the pumpkin farm and apple orchard down the road. She loves going for walks and "sings" while we walk... My little pumpkin in the pumpkin patch: With her mom: With her doting Oma: She loves animals whether it be cats or dogs, yes, even Tasha!! Before we left for Denver I took her to the dr. for a wellness check up. She is a peanut at 27 inches long and weighed 17.5 lbs ~ that is 1 stone 3.5 lbs. for those Brtis! She is right on track developmentally and is sitting quite comfortably but not crawling in the true form of crawling if you know what I mean. I wish I had a photo to post but the new thing is to go on all fours and "stand" on

Dear Diary, This morning when I was speaking on the phone to beloved in Denver, he mentioned that he hasn't seen Isla's two teeth yet. I think he's seen at least one but has forgotten. It's sad, isn't it, he can't remember how many of his daughter's teeth he's seen. That just goes to prove how much time we've spent apart the last four months. Anyways, here you go dear, two teeth.... And even one of me - a self-portrait with the little pean ut. Yes, I know, more chins than a Chinese phone book as they say.... Our beautiful little sweetheart, everyone who meets her, loves her. I was feeding her this morning and I'm sure she said "Oma"~ to say the least, my mom was tickled pink! She's been "talking" a lot lately, there has been a lot of "Dada" but no"Mama" yet. I'll try not to be offended but I think she's a daddy's girl, what do you think? She's also started sitting up and she's quite

Dear Diary, A few bits of good news: 1. Isla's amended and correct Canadian citizenship card arrived. Hooray!! Now I have to go back to the Passport Office in Hamilton and request a passport for her. When I was there earlier in the month they told the processing time was 2 weeks but others are telling me they got it within a week. Cross your fingers it's a week 'cause we plan (plans are made to be broken as per my husband) to leave for Colorado after Thanksgiving on October 14. That at least is the plan. Colin still has to have his holidays approved for two weeks and he has to book a flight before we make arrangements not to mention we still don't have the van... Maybe I'm jumping the gun a bit, eh? and..... 2. We're thankful Colin arrived safely in Denver on Friday night and he has a business visa issued for 6 months. The Border Patrol officer suggested that he have his employer write a letter to Homeland Security and ask them to extend it for a year. It's

Dear Diary, I am on my way back from England, however I have to go direct to Denver to help the guys out there until things settle down at Metro Taxis. They have been working 12 hour shifts recently. The system went live last Monday at 3.30am mountain time and since then Metro have done nearly 10,000 jobs on our system. Initally there were a few issues with people not really knowing what they were doing, but the more they use it the smoother it becomes. I hope to be able to fly up to Heather and Isla as soon as I can and then take a few days with them and drive back down to Denver in the Pontiac Montana van with some of our belongings and the 2 cats. That will be interesting getting over the border. Anyway the important thing is that I have my visa and I am on my way back to them. I do dearly miss them and when I call Heather I hear Isla in the background making all sorts of noises now. I guess she'll be saying 'mommy' soon.. Here is the picture that I had taken for the vis

Dear Diary, Well as I mentioned in my post yesterday, I was hoping to have some good news to report today. I do, sort of. Colin was in Dublin this morning for an interview at the American Embassy to get a 6 month business visa. He got it BUT since he was in the States for 3 months already they wouldn't issue it with a specific expiry date. That will be determined the next time we cross the border. It's not really what we wanted. We wanted the full 6 months and get back to a normal family life, some permanence in one location TOGETHER, just the three of us. We think they'll issue the visa for no more than three months as this visa is good for 6 months and we've used up 3 months but we won't know until then. It will take another 5 business days for Colin to get his passport with the visa back to him, then he'll fly back to Canada for Isla and myself and then we're thinking about driving to Denver. It's a 24 hour trip, without breaks, so it would tak

Dear Diary, Our little munchkin is 7 months old today! She is a little monkey, rolling all over the place. My dad taught her to "cough" or fakeys as I call it. Dad just walks into the room and she starts "coughing". Silly girl! The introduction of solid food to her diet is improving as well. A couple of weeks ago spoon feeding all of sudden clicked and now she can't enough. Her little mouth opens like a bird, it's so cute. She has mastered cereal (organic brown rice) and vegetables. I would introduce fruit but I don't have any in the house at the moment so the next time I go to the grocery store, I'll buy a few jars. Eating solids is a messy business though. Every night I soak carrot stained bibs and pants sprinkled in peas. Yuck! She is also 50/50 sitting ~ sometimes she can do it and other times not. She's working on her balance and just like eating solids, one day it will click. The picture below shows her ability to crawl - not quite the