December 09

Thanksgiving Photo Shoot

We had a professional photo shoot back at Thanksgiving....here are the preview shots.

BC Trip 2009

Slacking Off

Ya, so I guess I've been slacking off on the blog recently...as one might expect, however, the truth is that two things have been rather hard to come by of late: 1) time and 2) energy.

So, I think from now on you can safely assume that only the most momentous of occasions will make any sort of splash on this blog.

Instead, I will be favoring a much-less-labor-intensive approach combining my YouTube Channel for videos and my Picasa Web Album for photos...to provide the world with their supply of us from here in Ottawa. The links for these are also on the right side of this page.

I think the YouTube stuff is publicly available, but the Picasa stuff is both public and by-invite-only. If you're not already on my distribution list (you would have received an e-mail) and want in, you can just e-mail me and I will get you on the list.

Here's a teaser...

More Makena pics

Here are a couple more pictures...her big dark eyes are getting lighter every day...who knows what color we end up with?!


This is the first "family" shot...


This video is about 2:00 minutes long and despite my efforts to get her to make some noises, is pretty much just us hanging out.


As for Makena's room, here are some before-and-after shot of the renos that we have been tinkering with for many months now...it's all done, though!

Peeking in from the doorway, before:

...and after...


Opposite view, before...

...and after...

Makena Jane

After much anticipation, Makena Jane was delivered (by her dad, no less) on May 12, 2009 at 12:08am, weighing in at 8 pounds and 9 ounces.


Laura had 4 hours of labouring and most of the notable action took place between 12:03a and 12:08a...I guess it was time.

Here, Makena is all of 6 minutes old.


8 pounds, 9.5 ounces


First "together" shot after things began to settle down a bit.


Katherine is basically ecstatic about 1) having a little sister and 2) being a big sister. Having to share Mommy and Daddy, however, is another issue altogether.




Just a shot of the two of us cozying up at the hospital.


Laura is, as one nurse put it, "made for making babies", as evidenced by her relatively quick recovery and return to home a mere 36 hours after childbirth.


I will get some video up soon, but sleep comes at a pretty high premium these days, so off I go.

Happy Easter

Front Row (L-R): "L" for Laura, "K" for Katherine, Daddy.

For those who care to check it out, there's video on our YouTube channel on "the making of...", and another bonus video...

Easter morning and the egg search was on!


Look what I found!


The prize catch...


Katherine likes to help us write the shopping list, so this morning I had her write a few things we need...pretty impressive, if you ask me...or her.


Eggs (Katherine)
flour (Daddy)

Apples (Katherine)

Soap (Daddy)
Soap (Katherine)

Milk (Katherine)
Olive (Katherine)
Chips (Katherine)

WOOHOO!

For those of who care (or cheer for other teams) this is just to inform you that, minutes ago, my Vancouver Canucks won the Northwest Division and the third seed in the Western Conference for the playoffs.

Woohoo!

Sugar Bush

Last Sunday I took Katherine out to a sugar bush on the other end of town.

Mmmm....pancakes and maple beans...good stuff.


Katherine was scared of the big horses, but still talks about seeing them.


For those of you who remain uninitiated, they do this thing on a bed of finely-crushed ice where they pour some maple-syrup-based-stuff on the ice and give you a Popsicle stick to roll it onto as it cools and solidifies...again, good stuff.




One of Katherine's favourite terms recently has been "taking a lax"...here we are doing so...

Performance

At school (daycare) each class puts together a little performance for the parents/family...about every 4 months or so.

Katherine's first one was a week or so ago. Despite our best efforts to get her attention and encourage her, she remained somewhat awestruck and nervous...as evidenced by her chewing on her hand.

In any case, brilliant stuff...

More singing...

I think Katherine has the "singing" gene from her mom...as completely random as it can seem to be...

Ponytails

The other night, Katherine asked for more than just her usual single ponytail...





...and followed it up with a dynamite version of her ABCs...

Play-Doh Boogers Are Hilarious

Now that I have your attention...

It has been a while, but we've been sick for most of February (Katherine still is) so haven't been taking too many pictures and stuff to share.

Anyway, there have been a few, so here you go...

A few shots of the snow situation on the first of February...

...out the back of the house...


...our the front window...I particularly like the snow drift hanging down off the roof...


Katherine is growing out of her kinda-freaky-smile for the camera and is much more of a performer...




...and more to the point indicated in the title of the post, you can now bear witness to the profound influence that a father has on his daughter...



You may also care to know that Laura is doing well, counting down the weeks (days, really) of work left before baby comes...no doubt looking forward to mitigating the "profound influences" of daddy...

Baby's Second Pic

Oh ya, and here are #2s second pictures, taken December 23 (about 5 months along, I think).



Apparently it's growing very well; even dad has been watching/feeling it move around for some time now. We've even got Katherine saying "Hi" and giving a kiss/snuggling baby.

Parliament

For those of you who have yet to visit Ottawa, or just haven't come to see us yet, I thought I would post a few pics of what it actually looks like...every holiday season they have an open house and we went to check it out again this year, mainly to see the refurbished Library of Parliament. My pics didn't turn out great, so you will have to google that part!

The holiday-lit Centre Block from out front, with the Centennial Flame in the foreground.


The House of Commons (taken from as far in as you can get)


The Senate

Holiday Update

With only 24 hours of my holiday vacation left I must acknowledge my gross negligence of this blog over the last two months or so (longer for those who don't know/care about Almost Live).

Along with my profound apologies for preferring my video games recently (NHL '09 hockey in HD is good stuff), here's a brief synopsis of what we (again, mostly Katherine) have been otherwise occupying ourselves with outside of work.

Nana Barb came for a visit back in November...good times were had by all.




We were lucky to come into some tickets for the Senator's game on Dec 6 playing host to Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, and the rest of the Pittsburgh Penguins. Katherine has been to a few games now and has a pretty good time, even after asking to go before the first intermission! I seem to be neglecting my fatherly duties as Laura has done a much better job explaining things to Katherine, who now knows they're skating and trying to put the puck in the net...


I just like this one.


Uncle Jason and Aunt Pam came out from Vancouver (where I think they actually has worse weather!) for 10 days over Christmas. Again, fun was had by all...

After bringing home a tree almost obscenely large for our room and proceeding to trim over a foot from the top and bottom, we finally got it set up and decorated all pretty-like...


Christmas morning Katherine decided she wanted to dress herself in a nice summer dress...


Her dress didn't last long, but the gift seemed to keep on coming...


Milo was just along for the ride...relaxing in the sunlight on the back of the couch...


Katherine got her own Dirt Devil vacuum cleaner...we find her particularly amusing in this clip because she's not a big fan of our canister vacuum, so you can hear her asking Mommy if she's OK and telling her not to be scared...


Another one I just like...


Laura, Katherine, and Pam making sure the turkey was looking good...


The Christmas spread...


Katherine likes to help in the kitchen, so this gift from Granny (I'm pretty sure) was a big hit.


Another of Katherine's gifts was a set of washable bathtub crayons...one of her earliest works on the tub wall was a portrait of daddy...not sure what to make of the red nose!


Milo has a really rough life.



Katherine also got a digital camera for Christmas...here are a few of the first pics...her hands are a little small to consistently reach the button, but she's gettin' there...




And finally, here's a clip of Katherine and Laura working together on some pastry we had leftover from making turkey pot pies with Christmas dinner leftovers...