vacation

It's been a great couple of weeks for us. We spent our first week of vacation at the cabin and actually had pretty decent weather. It wasn't nice enough to swim or anything, but it was nice enough to hang out on the dock and watch Vergil fish. Kai and I bought him a fishing rod for his birthday and he seemed to enjoy himself, even if he didn't catch anything. Here's a picture of Kai watching his daddy fish:

After a very pleasant week relaxing, fishing, walking around Lac du Bonnet and hanging out in the hot tub (don't worry, the water was only body temperature - I wasn't about to boil my babe),

we headed off to Edmonton for a week to visit my family and meet my new niece, Jadeyn. Kai did really well on the plane, I was very proud of him. He didn't cry at all.

It was sad to leave my family after that, especially now that my sister and I are both moms. It would be so nice to just be able to hang out, compare notes and all that good stuff. It would also be nice to be able to go over to my mom's whenever I wanted. Oh well, I guess you can't have everything. *Sigh*

Anyway, here are some more pictures of my beautiful niece and my cheese-ball son from our trip to Edmonton:

Meeting cousin Jadeyn for the first time

Napping with Jadeyn on the couch

In his Sunday best

Jadeyn sucking her thumb

Jadeyn and me

happy baby day!

Good news today in our world - my sister Sheri had her baby! Little Miss Jadeyn Nicole was born at 12:30 am this morning and weighed in at 8lbs 5oz. Mom had to be induced because the little girl was far too comfy in the womb, but everything went really well and mom and baby are both much happier this way. Especially mom. :) My new niece has a mess of hair and I have to say I'm a little bit jealous. How is it that all the white babies I know have been born with whack loads of hair and my little mixed baby, who was supposed to come out with a baby faux-hawk of thick, black hair, is as blonde as I was when I was small? Genetics are a funny thing, I tell you!

Anyway, here's a picture of my beautiful new niece (who looks just like her mom when her mom was a baby - see the picture of me and my sister below for proof):


Hahaha - I just realized that they even have the same kissy lips! Oh, I love it!

I'm very excited to meet my new niece. We're headed out to Edmonton next week Saturday to do just that and I can hardly wait.

Unfortunately, I do have to temper this very happy post with a serious prayer request. My former art/bible teacher from junior high, Gerald Folkerts (no relation), who is a very talented artist (recently involved in the Invisible Dignity project, which some of you might be familiar with), was just diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. Apparently brain tumors are symptomatic of cancer elsewhere in the body, so it's a scary situation. You can follow their story on their blog. Be sure to check there often and to pray/think of him and his family often. Thanks!

sicky sick sick

It took seven months, but Kai's got his first cold this week. And so do Vergil and I. Well, not our first, but you know what I mean. We're a family full of sickys today. Poor Kai's got a snotty nose and bright red cheeks because - well, I don't know why his cheeks are red. Either that's part of his cold or he's teething some more. Or both. Or maybe the cheeks have nothing to do with anything - what do I know?

Feels like I know less than nothing about babies these days. Not that Kai is becoming more difficult, he's just had some really bad days that leave me totally at a loss to know what to do. He's been sleeping like a newborn this last week and I don't know how to fix it because I don't know what his problem or problems are (teething? growing? sickness? all of the above?). We don't have anything resembling a nap schedule yet and I'm hesitant to try to implement one before October because we're going on vacation and won't be at home for two weeks so it feels ridiculous to try to implement anything new before we're back.

So yeah, that's pretty much our life right now - making things up as we go along and trying not to over-think things and trying even harder not to take his bad sleep habits, hatred of his playpen, restlessness in his stroller and his excessive suckiness personally.

Anyway, on a completely baby-free note, the wedding we officiated last week went really well. It was a lot of fun and I think the bride and groom enjoyed themselves. I accomplished my goals of not making the bride cry or laugh too hard and as far as I know, they are officially married. At least, all the papers are signed and mailed away. Hopefully they don't get rejected or something weird like that.

The wedding itself was really small, but that was because the bride and groom spoiled us with a six-course meal at Amici's including bison carpaccio, seared Ahi tuna, wild boar bacon, elk steak, a light meringue dessert and cake baked by the groom himself (who is a chef by training). Pretty amazing stuff. It was a really nice day out for Vergil and I, except for the fact that we had to work for our meal! In addition to being the officiants, we were also the Emcees at the reception. Ah well, it was all worth it.

I'll post a picture of us with the bride and groom as soon as I get it. I had to order them from their photographer, so you'll have to wait patiently with me.

In the meantime, here's a picture of our son showing off his new skill - pulling himself up on EVERYTHING!