SO busy...

Jeff carving a piece of wood at the beach with Olivia's name...
Olivia picks out some rocks to throw at the beach...
Sparkler time...
Happy little guy smiling at his big sister...
Briar in the stroller at the beach...
Olivia's new 'do'....

Hi everyone,
I am sorry if we haven't been in touch for awhile. I am feeling like my head is spinning with all the stuff we've been doing in the last while.
Jeff has finished both courses he was taking (Marine Stability and Mariner's First Aid). He found the traffic heading into Victoria crazy each morning and was late because of accidents. Pretty frustrating. He came in second in the class for the first aid course and had 100% on the final for the Stability. Yay!!
Olivia has started ballet lessons again as of today. She had a fabulous time and listened to the teacher SO well. I was really proud of my little peanut. She told me afterward that I am allowed to watch but "don't smile at me while I'm dancing, Mommy." It is hard not to smile when you see her dance, jump and spin. I love it!
Briar is his happy little self. He has decided that sleeping just isn't that important, unfortunately. Consequently, I am pretty pooped. He wants to get up at about 5 am for the day. I take him downstairs so we don't wake up Jeff and Olivia and play with him on the play mat. Occasionally, I wake up on the carpet beside him while he bats away at the toys and sings his baby songs.
I have had to drive into Victoria a bunch of times this week. Once in awhile is fine, but I find doing it a few days in a row is extremely tiring. I've had tonnes of errands and appointments and have had to cart Briar along to most of them. He is pretty patient but by the end of the day he's pretty owl-y.
Eli, my dog, has been quite ill and had to be taken up to the vet in Nanaimo last week to be checked out. Poor guy. He was acting really oddly and I thought maybe the bear was coming back for more plums. Instead, his tummy upset caused a few nights of cleaning floors in the middle of the night. It really freaks me out thinking about Eli's mortality. I've had him since I was 18 and I guess I have always felt like he'd be here forever. Anyhow, he is feeling better now but I was definitely worried there for a bit.
Jeff has introduced Olivia to sparklers. She loves to go out to the garage with him, turn off the lights and wave the sparklers all over. It's funny to watch. All you can see is this moving light and occasional flashes of Olivia's light face with a wide open toothy smile as the sparkle passes by. So cute.
Well, I want to go put my feet up and take a rest. Here are some pictures of the last week or so...

16 weeks...

Briar is now 16 weeks. As of Monday, he weighed a whopping 17 lbs 14 oz.
Yesterday, Briar rolled over!! I don't know if he realized what he did. He was holding his toes and rolled onto his front and then rolled back. He didn't look surprised or amazed. He played it cool and acted like he did this amazing feat every day.
Briar is sleeping well again. I am SO glad. I was going insane with his 'twitches' all night. I feel so much more sane and capable with some sleep...Who would have thought?!
Olivia has been having a fabulous time. She and Jeff have been playing hide and seek and hop scotch (Isn't the thought of Jeff hop scotching rather hilarious?). She and I have been dancing our faces off and doing 100 pieces puzzles constantly. I must admit that I am rather addicted to these little puzzles. I have a huge sense of accomplishment when they are done. Oh, the small joys of being a mother!!
Anyhow, I don't have a pictures downloaded from the camera so I will have to add photos later.
Taa taa for now...

Some pictures...

Occasionally, I have difficulty adding pictures to the blog. Today, for some reason, it was no problem; so, I have added a bunch. Here is Briar in the stroller...
Again, our big boy in the stroller...
A picture that I assuming Olivia took with my camera. I found it when I downloaded the pictures onto the computer. Creepy....
Our Bean and the flowers...
Swinging Briar...
Briar and I pose for Olivia...
More pictures of Olivia's day in the pet show at the Sooke Fall Fair...
Olivia and her hot dog. She ate the whole thng!! (Notice the woman beside my poor pink lunged kid smoking a filthy cigarette. I didn't notice at the time. Oops.)

Briar has started Mother Goose. It's a baby group where you learn and sing nursery rhymes to the babies with other moms. I'm just glad they keep the doors closed when we're all singing away. I am sure it is not a 'heavenly sound'.
Jeff is home from a course in Comox. He's stoked to be back. He and Olivia picked blackberries today.
We had an incident with a bear in our backyard the other day. It has been eating the plums and tore down the back fence. I couldn't figure out why the dogs had been acting strange for the last few days (I actually thought there was going to be an earthquake. Don't they say that animals know?) Anyhow, the bear broek down the fence and ate the plums. Then the deer got in and ate every leaf and peach off my dwarf peach tree that had just grown peach this year. The kicker is that they took a bite out of each one and then left it. Couldn't they figure out that they didn't little it the first time? I guess Bambi isn't know for his abounding intelligence...
Anyhow, kids calling. I'll write more some other time.

Jeff is home!!!

Briar sitting on the counter...
Olivia's first day of preschool...
Olivia and the bees...
The picture Olivia won 1st prize with...

So much has happened since the last time I updated. Let's see if I can remember it all.
Olivia and I didn't end up going to Saanich Fair the other week. Instead, we went to Swan Lake Nature House. We had a great time. We checked out the snakes, turtles, bees and ducks. There is a reading room there and we read many books and did some puzzles. Olivia loved the little science experiments. She says she wants to be a 'bird scientist' when she grows up.
Briar has changed noises from blowing raspberries to growling almost incessantly. He communicates almost every emotion with various pitches of growling. Jeff thinks it's hilarious and they have little growling 'conversations' with eachother.
Jeff is home. We've all been enjoying his return. This week, however, he will be going to school in Comox taking a stability course...Marine stability, not mental stability.
Olivia has started at her new preschool and loves it. They made apple sauce and fed the miniture horses the first day. She is completely enthralled by a tiny door that she found in the side of a tree at preschool and has been asking all about fairies ever since. Olivia wore a purple boa to school on her first day. I thought it was pretty cute.
Briar has become so interested in everything around him that he has begun to not sleep as well as he has in the past. I must admit that I was a bit smug about his sleeping habits. He is waking very frequently this last week and doesn't fall asleep as easily as before. I don't know if it is the change in routine since Jeff is home or if Briar is just switching up due to teething. Kids are a mystery...
Olivia entered the Sooke Fall Fair with her dog, Freckles, a photo, a drawing and a flower arrangement. She won 1st prize for largest pet, 3rd for best dog trick, 1st for her photography, a book with her flower arrangement, and a participation ribbon for her drawing. She won $4 for her ribbons in the pet show. We had one proud little girl here. She loved it and is already talking about what she'll enter next year.
Today, we are taking my mom to catch the bus to the Vancouver airport. She is flying to Australia to visit my brother, Adrian. Olivia is going to miss her Oma a lot.
Well, I think that is about all.

The end of August...

Wow! I can't believe how fast time goes by when you're busy. It's already the end of Summer!
Olivia starts preschool again next week. She'll be going to a new one but this one has mini horses and pygmy goats just like her old preschool. Her little buddy, Angus, will be going there as well. We bought her lunch box the other day. She's pretty happy with her new pink Superman lunch kit.
Briar is doing really well. He seems to love women with glasses on. He laughs hysterically when he is talked to by senior ladies with their specs. Pretty cute.
Briar is now taking his baths in his 'tummy tub'. He loves it. The water seems to stay warm longer and I think he likes sitting up. It does look like he is just sitting in a bucket, though. Olivia thinks it's hilarious how his legs and feet are magnified in the water through the see-through plastic.
Jeff should be home soon. He's pretty homesick for the kids. I can't wait to have him around to share all their new feats with him.
Olivia and I will be going to the Saanich Fair this weekend. My mom will be having some time with Briar while we're at the Fair. Olivia tells me that she wants to go on the ferris wheel.
We celebrated my birthday the other day. Mom came with a cake for after dinner and hung out with Briar while Olivia and I went to the beach. It was a nice quiet day.
My grandparents and dad came out for a visit a couple of days before my birthday for a birthday visit. Dad held Briar who fell asleep on his lap...When Dad got up to leave he had both spit up and diaper leakage on his shirt. Oops!
I have switched to cloth diapers recently. I actually really like it. They are so soft and cozy. Everytime I change Briar's diaper with a cloth one, I feel satisfied that it is one less diaper for the land fill...I do use more water now but...I hear that a baby creates one tonne of diapers for a landfill per year and that cloth can save $1000 on diapering costs.
Anyhow, that is the most recent news.