I've been on maternity leave for 2.5 weeks now and I'm already starting to feel anxious about "the big day." I've been trying to relax as much as possible considering the fact that I now have blood pooling in my ankle (good times as always with pregnancy), but I've also been nesting like crazy to try to prepare for our baby boy's arrival. Lucky for me Amber is still in daycare until the end of July so it gives me some quality time to prepare. I feel guilty dropping her off each day, especially when she says "Bye Mommy! Have a good day at work!" She does have a lot of fun there though, so I guess I shouldn't feel too guilty.
This photo was sent to me by Sarah (Amber's daycare provider). Amber loves to try on "cool dudes" and pose for the camera :)
As for me, I definitely feel as big as I look these days and waddling is my main pace it seems.
Although this is a fairly unflattering photo, it truly shows the bump!
Since our last post there have been a few family highlights. A big one was Tim's big surprise party that I had been planning for months. I was amazed that we were all able to keep it a secret right up until the big event. From the video I think he was definitely shocked :)
And what would a party be without the off-tune "happy birthday" song.
It's not a real birthday until Iron Maiden makes an appearance
In addition to a great party, Amber (and the rest of us) had a great time visiting with her cousins and Aunt SJ and Uncle Paul.
Enjoying a little lunch on the front porch
Since our great trip to Fernie, we have also gone to Science World with Papa McCourt for his birthday:
Unfortunately, Papa McCourt is usually the one weilding the camera, so there were no group shots with him in them!
We also made a trip to Sechelt on June 1st to gather together and remember happy times of mom on the one year mark of her passing. Hard to believe that a year has already passed. I know we all still miss her like crazy. Amber definitely helped lighten the mood while we were there as there was a new slide and swing added to Papa's Tree House!
Gotta have bubble time when you're in Sechelt
Driving the big rig once again
Needless to say Amber spent a lot of time playing in the tree house that weekend.
Here are a couple other notable events that we've had.
Feeding the duckies for the first time:
And riding the mini train in Burnaby for Father's Day:
Hopefully our next post will include photos of the newest little McNelson!
Recently Amber and I went out to Ottawa to visit Uncle Rick, Aunt Tracy and cousins Keira and Naomi.
Watching Bubble Guppies together
It was so nice being able to watch all the girls play together. There was lots of running around, laughing, shrieking (mainly by Amber), and my favorite...lots of toddler talk. By that I mean the talk that happened between the girls. There was lots of cute chatter that happened over the short week that we were there. Naomi often would tell Amber that she needed to eat lunch, or dinner....sadly Amber didn't take her advice :( Amber also took a while to sort out who was who between the twins, calling Keira "Naomi" or vice versa. She had no qualms, however, when it came to telling them that they should move away from "her" iPad. Needless to say....we are still working on the whole sharing thing.
Some of the fun places we went to included the Children's Museum:
Riding in a Tuk Tuk
Pausing for a snack in a teeny tiny pyramid
The farm:
"Hi Goat!" - Amber said that a lot that day
Checking out the baby chicks
The nature museum:
Checking out what happens to rock under high pressure and temperature
Going on a bird rescue
Say "Cheese Wizz!"
Amber was so overwhelmed with all the fun toys that Keira and Naomi had as well. Between the trampoline, hockey sticks and net, cars, shopping carts, swings, etc. she often refused to nap or go to bed in the evening because that meant no more play time. I think now that she's home she's slightly bored of her old toys, but she's been extra excited about Loca who she calls "Fuzz", so I think it all evens out.
Amber and Uncle Rick made some creative potato heads
All in all it was a great trip and we can't wait to do it again soon!
What would our trip be without this classic photo!
This Friday is my mom's birthday and I can think of thousands of reasons to be sad, but rather than focusing on the sad I thought I would do what my mom would have wanted and be happy and thankful for the good in my life and remember all the good memories that I will carry forever.
I often take a few moments a couple times a week to "talk to mom", I know this sounds crazy, but after years and years of calling to chat with mom it's hard to stop now. So I take time to think about all the things I would have told her had I been able to pick up the phone and talk.
Recent events I've told her about include:
You're going to have a new grandson! We just found out this week that the newest little McNelson is going to be a bouncing baby boy :) I'm not sure how Amber will take the news (once she starts to understand), but based on how she treats her toy baby I think she'll make a great little helper.
I finally got promoted to Senior Mechanical Engineer at my company. Woohoo! I've worked long and hard to get to this point, and I have to remind myself to sit back and enjoy the fruits of my labour sometimes. I'll admit, I've complained more than a few times about how things are going at work, but mom always said the same thing "I'm always here to listen".
I'm "famous"....well, ok...not really, but I am one of the faces of the kickboxing gym I train at (http://fit-factor.ca/). I offered my mug for a few hours to help out my instructor re-brand his school and now I'm on on the internet, in flyers and posted on the side of a building! Given the current shape I'm in now, it's nice to have reminders close at hand to know that at one point I was fit. Plus, it's something to aspire to after the newest McNelson makes his appearance.
The title of the blog was perhaps a little cryptic to some, but those that really knew my mom would remember that she loved tea. She loved tea so much so that during her hay-days in realty when she wasn't in the office people would remark "she's probably out for tea". Mom took the joke one step further by getting a personalized license plate that read "OUT 4T" so it would always be true :) So, in honour of your birthday today mom......I shall go out for tea and raise a cup to you.
Since our last post Little Miss Amber has turned 2!
We had a small family party again this year, just "Papa" and the Lee family. Although she didn't fully understand the concept of opening presents she definitely enjoyed seeing (and playing with) what was inside each one. She was spoiled once again this year!
For Amber's cake this year I experimented with Elmo cupcakes as Amber loves anything to do with Elmo.
I think they turned out fairly well for a first attempt. The real test was when Amber saw them I asked "who's this?" and she happily replied "Elmo!!"
Her favorite part of the cupcake was Elmo's eyes so she spent most of the cake eating part of the party asking everyone for "eyes?", which was the cue to give up at least one eye to the birthday girl.
The night before Amber's actual birthday, Tim and I spent a solid 3 hours setting up Amber's new kitchen (generously given to her by her Uncle Paul, Auntie SJ, and cousins Georgia, Oakley and Elwood). When Amber woke up in the morning and saw her new toy she said "wooowww" and eagerly started to play with it. Needless to say it took longer to get her to daycare that morning!
Tim passed out after a long night of assembling
Happy little birthday girl :)
In other news, I've been growing steadily.
This time around I feel like I've been growing much faster, which is apparently common. Nonetheless I still feel quite large for how relatively early it is. Over the last week or so I have actually started to feel the first kicks as well. Pretty exciting :) Although my memory has likely faded drastically since Amber was in my belly I feel like this new baby is a lot more kicky than she was.....hopefully I'm wrong!
This year the McNelson family spent Christmas in sunny Palm Springs where Amber was able to spend some quality time with Grandma and Grandpa Nelson. It was definitely nice to have a break from the cold and have some t-shirt and shorts weather again. Even nicer to have a quality visit with Marg and Roy :)
On Christmas Day Amber was very spoiled. At first she wasn't so sure about opening presents. She actually even had a tantrum when we told her it was time to open gifts! Once she opened a couple she realized that gifts are pretty great and quickly opened the remainder. She then spent the rest of the day packing her toys around the house.
This was also an especially difficult Christmas for me being the first without my mom. Although my Christmases will never be the same, I hope that I can create many great memories for Amber just like my mom did for me.
Our visit is sadly coming to an end, but we have had a great time to say the least. Great food, fun adventures (hiking and biking), and above all a fantastic family visit :)
This year we decided to do Halloween right and headed to a pumpkin patch in Richmond to search for the perfect pumpkin :)
Once we got there Amber (in serious need of a nap) didn't want to have anything to do with the pumpkin patch....nor did she want to set a single foot on the ground. So Tim and I took turns carrying her around.
The mode of transport to and from the pumpkin patch was a tractor ride complete with live music.
Amber really enjoyed the music and was completely enthralled with the fiddle player on the way back :)
Tim took it upon himself to find the biggest pumpkin at the patch. He scoured the far back field and eventually emerged with a 40lb pumpkin!
Amber also picked out a nice small pumpkin which would later be used as the "eaten pumpkin".
Tim was the carving master this year and designed quite a spooky pumpkin. Amber and I were both very impressed :)
On Halloween Amber wore her dragon costume to Sarah's (daycare) and went trick-o-treating with her little buddies Zoey and Leiland. Although she enjoyed the two chocolate bars she got that day, the biggest hit was the play dough she was given. She also painted a little mini pumpkin :)
Once we got home and had dinner, Amber was too tired for any additional trick-o-treating so I just dressed her up at home for a quick photo op then it was off to bed. All-in-all a great Halloween!
Yet another delayed blog post....and started at 10:30pm no less. Busy busy - story of my life these days. I often wonder how my mom was ever able to do it: full time job (sometimes even more so), two kids, meals to cook for the whole family and more.....and yet she always seemed so composed and stress free. I try to reach that level of composure constantly, but so far I'm still frazzled and way behind on all my non-work tasks. I guess there are still a few kinks to work out in my daily routines :)
I thought as a time saving measure I would do a mix-mash update of what we've been up to these days.
Back in August I helped out my old kickboxing instructor with some advertising photos for his new kickboxing school. Apparently the photos that were taken that day didn't turn out very well (black on black - I was a floating head in some photos) so none of them will get used, but there is another round scheduled soon.
I brought Amber along to the photo shoot thinking that she would find it fun running around the dojo with all the exercise balls, but she did not enjoy it in the slightest. She cried the entire time and each photo was taken in between cry breaks. Needless to say I rushed the photographer so I could get Amber out of there!
In other McNelson news we spent a nice long weekend at our Mt. Cain cabin. It was great because we had the entire cabin to ourselves (a rare treat). Not great, however, in the fact that we had new 'guests' roaming around......mice. It's a common problem up there, but a pain in the butt nonetheless. We managed to get in some family time in between wood chopping time.
The one unfortunate part of the trip was that Amber was teething pretty badly. So she shrieked for about 70% of the time. That's including night time - I didn't sleep for most of the weekend.
One of the only ways Amber (and I) could get some sleep!
Our most recent McNelson adventure was Thanksgiving in Sechelt. This year was my first "solo"dinner. I say "solo" because I definitely had help from my dad and Tim to get the meal to the table. It was a lot of work, but well worth the effort having everyone there with us. I think we would have made mom proud with the dinner we put together.
The next day we all went out for a walk to work off some of the dinner!
