All smiles

Finlay is now ten weeks old and we have been getting 5-6 hours of sleep at night, what a difference that makes....no congestion, no 2 hrly wake up calls and no 1 hr settling back to sleep. He has found his thumb and is great at soothing himself to sleep.My mum will be pleased to hear this, as she flys here for a 2 1/2 week holiday and was probably thinking that she would be helping out with the night shifts, however it seems that she may get some sleep and feel that she is on holiday. It will be great for Heather and Finlay to spend some time with her and continue to get to know her. It will also be great to have an extra pair of hands around the house.


This week Finlay is beginning to enjoy his bouncey chair and is aware that when he kicks his feet he can make it play a tune. He loves his baths and enjoys making the water splash.

Holiday in Nakusp

We were all very excited for this week to arrive. For James it was a well earned break from working way too hard, for Heather, it was the joy of having the attention from both parents and having some quality time with daddy and for me it was the joy of spending time with my whole family and having an extra pair of hands around while looking after the kid's needs and wants.


We left for Nakusp at 05.30, with Heather bundled out of bed and into the car with her teddies and her duvet.We were thinking that she may fall back to sleep, but she was too excited and kept talking about going on "holidays". We were able to stop halfway and enjoy the recreation centre in Revelstoke and Heather enjoyed the water slide and wanted to do it again and again......keeping dad fit by climbing 2 flights of stairs over and over again for about an hour and a half.

The weather was great for the whole week, which is very unusual for us, we are hoping that Finlay is our good luck charm and may break the spell of frequent bad weather that surrounds our vacations!!!! This great weather allowed to spend alot of time outdoors, by the beach, in the lake and many short hikes and exploration.


We had an exploration in mind for Heather to Halfway hotsprings, also known as "Hippy hotsprings". There were instructions and a map left in our cabin on how to get there and it involved an 11km drive up a disused forest logging road, 4 wheel drive and a good suspension required. Once parked up it told us to take a well defined trail to the left, to reach the river and then to head down stream for 30ft....sounded easy enough. So we took what looked like a well defined trail to our left, however the trail soon started to get steeper and steeper and steeper with trees and roots and rock to negotiate. At this point it was turning into more of an adventure for mum, with Finlay in the snuggly and for dad, with Heather in the back pack. We were grabbing on to trees and branches and scaling rocks and tree trunks. This was evidently not the correct way, however we could see 2 people by the river further down. We met this couple who were also trying to find the hot springs....and this was their second attempt in two days!!! They could tell us that we had decended too soon and that the pools were further upstream, so we followed them, again scrambling over roots and under branches.
Finally we arrived at the shaded cove and found a couple of lovely warm natural pools. We all enjoyed a soak in the water.


So Finlay has experienced his first adventure hike with mum and dad and also experienced a dip in some natural hot springs....not bad for 8 1/2 weeks old.

Finlay eight weeks old

Finlay is now eight weeks old and it is time for his immunisations. A big day for mum and Finlay. We arrived at the public health unit, and as I also work there casually, we were greeted by a group of cooing women, Finlay was taken aback by all the attention and didn't quite know what to do with himself, quite overwhelming for the wee man.
He now weighs 9lb 2oz and is 21 1/2 inches long.
He is doing so much better these days, now sleeping for four hours at a time overnight and is settling soon after his feeds. He is still happy to go to bed at the same time as Heather,with no crying, which is a god send and means that we can have some down time in the evening and enjoy a meal and a beer. Four hours of sleep seems to be the magic number and everything seems much more manageable.
This week he has really started to focus on objects and peoples faces, is starting to vocalise and make cooing noises and is starting to come up with some cute smiles.

Portable Pottying 101

Grassi Lakes Hike, Canmore.

Heather has now been out of diapers for two weeks now and is doing really well despite the few accidents here and there when she is busily playing. She is even letting us know in the night and we go into her room and she uses the potty and in the morning she is dry. I have come to realise though that she is reluctant to pee or poop in any other big toilet when we are out.It may be that we are half way round the grocery store and she will mention that she has to pee, I take her to the big toilet, but no pee, but within 5 mins of getting home, she will go and use the potty. Good control, however I would still like her to become comfortable peeing in different environments.
Because we spend alot of time out doors I knew it was impotrant to get her used to peeing and pooping while she is out and about. So one day we went to the park, took the potty which she never used and I knew she wanted to pee. So on the way home we walked through the woods and as I needed to go too, I took it as an opportunity to teach Heather how girls pee in the woods. I squatted down and told Heather that this is how we do it outside and she stood, looked at me, smiled and then just stood there and peed!!!! I then had to explain about the squatting so we don't get our pretty shoes wet!!!

Congratulations Heather!!!!

A week later, after lots of good holding control and avoiding public peeing, we all went on a local hike to Grassi lakes, it took us a while as Heather wanted to walk part of it herself, of course she needed to pee on the way back to the car, we got her into the right position and hey presto she peed outside. Later we went to our favourite cafe for a coffee and as we left she wanted to pee and as we had the potty in the boot of the car, we got her to sit there and try, after a while she did perform again!!! Congratulations Heather, passing Portable Potty 101.

Family self portrait.

Gassy smiles

Week seven, and this saw a change in a few areas of Finlay's life. From the sart of the week we had him waking up every 2-3 hours and taking about an hour to settle afterwards due to congestion and gas,(by the way, the doctor said that the congestion may be due to the fact that I had a precipitous delivery and probably due to the fact that the amniotic fluid had not been properly squished out of his system, the congestion can evidently last for weeks, so it seems that although there are definate advantages of having a quick delivery, these come with its disadvantages, which for me lasted 6 1/2 weeks). By the end of the seventh week his congestion suddenly disappeared one night and he began to lengthen out his sleep to about 4 hours. The gas and constant pooping is still present, but this week we were pleased to see gassy little smiles from him!!!

It seems that babies suddenly grow in spurts. I can honestly say that sometimes I put him in his crib in the evening and by the time his next feed is due, I go to him, look at him and swear that he has grown and changed.......feels heavier too.


James is having to work such alot these days,as I am on maternity leave and still haven't received any benefits as yet. He leaves early in the morning for either the fire dept or to do roofing and at the moment we are lucky if we get one day off together. However, as frustrating and challenging as this maybe I am aware that it is a necessity and we are aiming for a family holiday in Sept.
There are times when it can be extremely challenging caring for two children single handedly and my children are well behaved. The challenges seem to arise first thing in the morning when they both seem to wake at the same time and Finlay needs feeding and Heather is hungry and eager for her breakfast., often having to pee and poop in the potty.Also challenges occur at dinner, bathtime and storytime, as at some point during that time Finlay needs feeding or changing or just needs holding and I feel that I am unable to attend to Heathers needs fully, she either wants more food or wants down from her chair.or needs to be rushed to the potty or wants up.Then there is bathtime which is fine if Finlay is sleeping, however is challenging if Iam attempting to bath them together, or feeding Finlay, or Finlay needs attention. The worst time seems to be at storytime, when we are settling down for a story and again Heather seems to become more boistrous, stalling for bedtime and and wanting to go on the rocking horse, wanting to bounce around or go and see Finlay in his crib, she often uses the potty to stall the bedtime routine, but what do you do when she says that she has to go? You can't just ignore it just incase she does actually go, and often she does squeeze a little pee out. I find myself almost loosing the plot and have to remind myself that it is not there fault and have to count to ten and try to keep my patience. I am trying to figure out an alternative bedtime routine inorder to make it less stressful when I am on my own.......I'll let you know!!!

Some advice to those who are going to be mothers for the first time as well as a second time....I had a stomache bug yesturday and decided to go to bed after settling the kids for the evening, so I was in bed by 8pm, which I have never done this time round. Thankfully Finlay didn't want to feed until 12 mn and I had had 4 hours of uninterupted sleep.....and I still had the rest of the night to go.

So girls, if you can, get to bed when the kids go. That's if you can leave the dishes, the washing, the tidying and looking after your husband!!!!!

"Hi everybody, it's me"

Turning two

Birthday Girl!!!

I don't know who was more excited about Heather turning two.....was it Heather, or was it mum?......I think it was mum. After all she had started making the cake two days before the day. Now for those of you that know me, I'm not the most creative or artistic person, and I did get an 'F' in high school for wood work and design. So starting two days before was 1. to give me room for error and 2. also because it was likely that it was going to take that long with all the interuptions which face me as a mother of two.
Since our visit to the Okanagan, Heather has loved steam trains, and her favourite train is Percy from Thomas the tank engine. Subsequently, I took on the task of making a Percy cake for her birthday.

"How did I do?"

She had balloons, banners, birthday cake,dressing up, face painting and lots of 'Pink'.....Pink aeroplane, pink princess castle and more pink clothes!!!
Finlay enjoyed the balloons too!!!

Even Finlay got some of the action.

...and mum too!!!!

Canmore Highland Games

Sunday 31st August was the canmore highland games. We woke up to about 2 inches of snow, cloudy skies and a temperature of 1 degrees. In true Scottish style we didn't let the weather hold us back and we decided to take the family down to see some pipes, drums,dancing and caber tossing.
Heather wore her kilt, woolly hat and winter boots and enjoyed playing in the puddles and stomping through the snow. She picked up a piece of icey snow from the ground and was talking about how cold it was , but didn't want to let go of it.....about 30 mins later she was astonished by the fact that it had gone!!!!