happy joshie day!

Wow! Two posts in one day after no posts for a month - this MUST be a special occasion!

All I can say is that I can't believe that my baby is 2-years-old. Happy 2nd Birthday, Joshie! Most parents know the term "Terrible Two's", but even with the terrible 2's, I love this age! I feel like I learn something new everytime Josh learns something new and he seems to learn something new everyday! Today, for the first time, he said, "Happy Birthday. Josh blow candle.". He used to say new words each day and now he says new sentences each day! It's amazing.

During the cruise, my brother (who has 2 young daughters) said to me, "There's baby-sitting and then there's Josh-sitting." Josh is a wild toddler. He's not afraid to go off on his own, even if Mommy and Daddy are out of eyesight. He just seems to trust that we'll find him. He also doesn't listen very well. Bad combination! He loves to climb; he loves to run; he loves to play in the water. In the past year, we've seem a very active, adventurous and independent child blossom. It's amazing.

We're doing our "official" birthday celebration next week, but I still wanted to mark the day for Josh. Here are some photos of him over the past couple of months as well as his birthday candle blow out...

Watching the planes fly overhead at the airport

Joshie's bonding with Nikita these days

Irresistible smile

Josh as ringbearer with this cousins at Lenny and Tini's wedding in October

Josh's only Hallowe'en party this year (we spent Hallowe'en in Orlando)

OK, how did Josh learn to give the stink eye?!

Joshie and Brian bonding in front of the tv

The birthday boy with his birthday cupcake

disney magic

We went on a Liem family vacation at the beginning of November to celebrate my parent's 40th anniversary this year. In a word, it was fabulous. There are 19 people (plus a half!) in my family and we also had honorary Liem's - Gordon and Andrew - join us.

We all met up in Orlando for a couple of days of shopping and reuniting before we boarded the Disney Magic and set "sail" for a 7-day western Caribbean cruise from Port Canaveral. Now, I can't speak for everyone in my family when I say that we had a fabulous time, but I think everyone had a pretty fabulous time! I think we're lucky that way.

In early October, my youngest brother, Lenny got married in Toronto. The whole family was there for the wedding (2 1/2 weeks before flying to Orlando for the cruise!). My mom's friend commented to her at the wedding that she was lucky that all her kids and their spouses got along well. I never really thought about it, but we DO all get along!

I love spending time with my family. I love it when Josh gets to meet up with his Liem cousins. We always seem to get along (even when we exasperate each other because it takes us FOREVER to get anywhere!). And I know I'm lucky to have such a loving family. It's a hard feeling to explain, but I know that I was very sad when the trip was over - not only because the vacation was over, but also because I wouldn't get to see my family together again for awhile.

As for the Disney cruise, I HIGHLY recommend it for a family vacation. I've never been on a cruise before, but I don't know why anyone would take kids on any other cruise?! They just seem to have everything covered for kids of all ages. All of my nieces and nephews seems to have a blast and one of my nieces even cried when she realized that we weren't going back on the ship!

And though the cruise isn't really meant to cater to adults, Disney does not forget that parents need a break too - they have their share of adult-only areas on board, so if we needed a break from the kids, there were many places to go.

One thing to mention, though, is that this is my second big vacation when I was 4 months pregnant. Ugh. Though I didn't get any more nauseous than I already was (in fact, my nausea improved in the warmer weather!), I wasn't able to partake in the culinary delights that most cruises are known for. Actually, that may have been a good thing! Though, I can't WAIT to take a vacation where I am NOT pregnant!

So, I can't say much more about how amazing our vacation was, so I'll just post the photos now...

Brian and Josh celebrate at the Cast-Away Party

Brekkie with Mickey

C, Little H, Josh and Big H with Cinderella. Josh decided to "pick" a present for the princess...

Family Bingo!

Jon and Caroline's interpretation of "working out"

Josh and Little H in Mickey's splash pool

Josh, C and Big H are SO full...

Swimming with the sting rays on Grand Caymen

Jon feeding a sting ray

Disney Magic at port on Cozumel

Starfish and kayaks on Castaway Cay (Disney's island on the Bahamas)

C, Big H and Josh enjoying an ice cream cone, Castaway Cay

Pirates in the Caribbean, Castaway Cay

Sunset from the ship

Celebrating Josh's (and cousin L's) birthday with Disney

The Liem women

iDop v2.0

So, I'm sure that most of you guessed why I haven't been blogging. Either that, or I've already told you. iDop v2.0 is on the way. It doesn't promise to be better than iDop v1.0 (nicknamed "Josh") but it definitely promises to be newer!

The photo above was taken during my dating ultrasound. iDop 2.0 was only 7 weeks at the time. It's not much of a picture, I know. You can barely see the baby - my uterus is the black oval near the centre of the photo. The baby is the bit of fuzziness inside the black oval. Cool.

So, why haven't I been posting?! Well, from about 5 weeks until the last couple of days, I've been extremely nauseous and tired. I just passed the 12 week mark, so it's been 7 weeks of hell! Now, I haven't been puking up a storm - it's more like all-day nausea that causes alot of coughing and heaving. But between that and the fatigue, I've been keeping a pretty low profile. My doctor even prescribed a 2-week medical leave from work so that I could rest - I guess working and trying to take care of Josh wasn't really helping my situation!

Is it much different than when I was pregnant with Josh? Well, I'm not sure. I recall that I had all-day nausea when I was pregnant with Josh and it lasted well into the 2nd trimester. But I never missed work with Josh and I never took Diclectin. I think the difference is that this time around, I have to take care of Josh too! I don't have as much downtime with him around and that contributes to the fatigue, which contributes to the nausea. This is what my acupuncturist tells me, anyway.

I think Brian has been happy to keep a low profile too. With me laying on the couch most of the time I'm home, Brian has been doing the lion's share of the work around the house. He's been AMAZING! But I'm sure he's looking forward to me getting over this nausea and fatigue stage as much as I am. Well, maybe not AS much, but pretty close!

I'm due April 29th and I'm currently contemplating a VBAC, but my mid-wife says that I can change my mind at any time and opt for a scheduled Caesarean, in which case, they will refer me to an obstetrician.

We're also not going to find out the gender this time around. We found out with Josh because I felt like we needed to know to be more prepared. But this time, we don't feel we need to know to be any more prepared than we know that we are not! Plus, I also wanted to know what it feels like when the baby pops out and the caregivers says, "It's a {insert gender here}!".

To sum it up, I'm not very good with pregnancy, so I haven't been that good with this one so far. But don't get me wrong - I am thrilled that our family is growing again! It's been such an adventure being a parent and I can't imagine what happens when you throw another baby into the mix. Half the time, Bri and I feel like we're barely able to keep our heads above water trying to keep up with everything. But for some wickedly insane reason, we want to add to the craziness. It's AMAZING!

I can't wait to see what I say about life soon after the baby is born...YIKES!

teaser

OMG. I haven't posted in over a month. What is going on?! Stay tuned to find out...

labour for who?

Labour Day is such a bittersweet day because it's a holiday, but at the same time, it marks the official "end of summer" for many. For us, it's not such a big deal yet, since Josh is not yet in school. But for the crazy creatures at the Queen's Park Petting Zoo, it marks the end of the "petting zoo" season for them.

You've gotta wonder what a remarkable temperament these animals must have to be constantly surrounded by kids each day in the summer. I personally feel sorry for them, but the kids LOVE them. I just hope they get some good R&R at the Langley farm where they are sent for the winter (at least that's what we were told!).

On this closing day at the petting zoo, some of us Baby Talk moms went with our wee ones to say bye to the animals. Josh and I went a couple of times over the summer, but some of the moms were bringing their kids every week. They're not quite sure what to tell their kids when go back to the park next week and the animals aren't there!

Tammy and Fox, Alex and Joanna, Josh (doing his Michael Jackson imitation) and me

"No, Josh, it's not a puppy, it's a goat!"

"OH! A goat! Woof. Woof." Notice the death grip on mommy's finger.

"Can I put my finger in here, Mommy?"

Josh, Syriana and Ruby are watching the ducks in the duck pond(or was that zoo staff cleaning the duck pond?! Either way, they were fascinated!)

owie

We use the term "owie" with Josh to describe anything that is, well, an owie! A couple of weeks ago, Josh got a pretty big owie. He got bit on the nose by a dog. I'm not going to go into any of the details about who's dog it was and where. We've dealt with the matter with the dog owner.

The important thing is that Josh is fine. The bruising below was completely gone after a couple of days and there doesn't seem to be any emotional bruising. Josh is completely fine with Nikita, still giving her unprompted pats and hugs. I think mommy's emotional bruising lasted longer! I definitely won't forget this for a long time. It's the worst feeling in the world when your child gets hurt.

I guess I'm posting this as a reminder as Josh gets older that he will have many owie's along the way. How else will my hair go completely grey?! The most important thing is that he comes out okay in the end and that we're there to love and comfort him.

P.S. Please ignore the california roll all over his face!

where in the world are the van dop's?!

I haven't posted in August because we've been a bit busy! This is what we're working on...
You can tell we're not done yet (look on the left). In fact, we're only half way there! Ugh! I'll post more about this and other stuff we've been doing in August once we're done with all this painting!