pictures

2009 02 10

In Wellington

It feels like the time here in NZ is fast coming to an end, this week has been interesting because I've done lots of visiting people who I didn't see last time. Richard is sanding the flakey paint on our house and so has been in the neighbourhood. I wandered around the yard and looked at the growth of all our tree's chatted to neighbours as they walked past on the street and popped over and had a cuppa with some.
Our wee niece arrived on saturday so friday night was long and full of timing contractions, doing accupressure, passing drinks and povitive affirmations. It's the first birth I've been to that was planned as a hospital birth, the birthing units are OK, they move into the new hospital next week so I guess they have been better, but they don't stand the comparison to Liam's time in Denver Children's Hospital, and the ward is definately an experience I'm pleased to have missed. The new mother seems to be going well, today the men folk including Liam are helping shift them to their new abode.
My league experience is coming in handy, but I am aware that I haven't done calls for a while. I went to a LLL meeting here too which was a lovely huggy feeling with lots of people I've meet before and leaders I enjoy seeing.  

Today we're off to the park with the small and middle one's and a bit of shopping think we'll try to take the bus.

Back Down Under

The kids and I flew to NZ on Friday last week, without Richard who has some work to complete before he's allowed to join us. The prospect of flying with three children by myself was stressful, but the actuallity of it was mostly unevently. Our friendly airline concierge introduced herself to us at Vancouver Airport and helped us onto the plane. Mostly the older two were entertained by the onboard service, but I had enough other colouring books and things to fill the time. Most of the flight all the children slept, myself not as much but Izabel was on me as she's a lap traveler still and with nine infants on the plane, didn't manage to get a bassenet. Getting off the plane I did manage to leave the passports in the seat pocket but again my handy concierge was able to retreve tem for me and we were still out (through some extras special lanes) to the bags before they were on the carosel. Murray met us in Auckland which made the trasit easier, we had breakfast then continued to Wellington where we were met again and driven to Wainuiomata. The kids were excitted to see all the welcoming partys, Madeline had fallen asleep traveling to Wellington so she was still sleeping in the backpack to get of the plane.
So far since we've been here I've mostly collected the things we needed, undies, pj's togs, that weren't worth bringing and the kids have constructed and adventured around the Wainui yards.
I have joined the evening walk that mum and Ruth do, my knees don't think it's that great an idea but the rest of me feels better for it.

Today was the first venture out and the kids and I saw Cathie before a trip to some Wellington Parks and a Cable car trip for them and a Cafe lunch with Mere's antenatal group for Iza and me.

Seasons Greeting

Winter break is almost over but as we were winding up for Christmas the kids dance all had watching days.

These are from the tap class that Liam and Madeline were in together.

The last week had the school Christmas concert, Liam's ballet watching day and lots of snow (by Victoria standards anyway).  

richard (with a small amount of assistance) made a snow fort in the front yard so he and the kids had hot chocolates and buttered toast in it.

Liam and Richard went to a Salmon Kings game and the girls and I went to a friends Yule party and it snowed about 10cm while they were at the game. The roof of the fort colasped from the weight by the morning. 

The kids and I had a couple of days to finish christmas preparations including the annual Santa photo, Izabel wasn't keen on the big man so I'm in this years pic too. 

We had trouble getting children to sleep on Christmas eve rather than anyone waking up to early so the day started in a fairly civilied manner with stockings at about 8.30.  We followed that with Eggs benidict, 

home made hollindaise and all. Then presents, present construction and "lunch" at about 4.30.

From 2008 12 25

All of us have had colds over the break and Izabel still has a nasty cough so there haven't been a lot of outings but we have managed a couple of sledding sessions at Beacon Hill park and some bike rides. 

Today Richard, Liam and Madeline saw a movie and I did some sewing. 

Life in a snow globe

snowglobe home.JPG
Originally uploaded by XyV

We have snow!

Yesterday was grey and overcast still but today was really sunny and windy, so the snow blowing of the roof and whirling around in the sunshine gives a very christmassy feel. It's -5 with a wind chill making it feel like -18
I'm glad we brought the snow gear with us from Santa Fe, thou Madeline's is getting a bit on the small size.

starting to feel a lot like Xmas?

The days are shorter the weather is cooler, I've just mixed up the fruit and booze for a Christmas cake so the house smells a lot like Chritmas anyway. Im trying to make and send cards but so far I haven't completed any, so don't hold you breath for one.

In fact my calander is completely stuff up, it feels like Christmas but then I expect it to be summer and I can never remember what month it is 'cause the weather clues are wrong.

Princesses at two o'clock

We're into the clean up and wash the dishes now but this afternoon our house full of princesses, and a couple of princes.
We have finally had Madeline's birthday party and she and all her friends seemed to have a good time. We started with a castle construction with the superfort, then made tiara's and followed that up with pizza, fruit and cake. Madeline got some presents and was pleased with them.

From Madeline's 4th Party

last night

 

So as you can see from the pictures in the last post we had a party with cake for the 1st birthday. Thrifty's the grocery store here does a free cake for first birthdays. They have quite a good bakery so it wasn't a bad cake.
Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, the kids enjoyed having friends to play and there weren't too many people so it din't feel overwelming for Izabel either. she got some presents too, which was unexpected especially since I planned the party between wednesday and friday, and most people didn't get invited till friday.

one

Today was the Breastfeeding challenge again. Last year it was outside and very cold. Today is a lovely warm day, but the challenge was set up at a movie theatre, I think it worked well as a venue. The unfortunate thing was that the microphone wasn't working. I don't know how many people were there but the theatre was full. The girls and I went and I/we got two prizes, one for how long I've been breastfeeding and one for how old my eldest nurser is. We saw lots of people we know from all sorts of places so it was a fun morning.

Liam's off at a birthday party for two of the children from his class. cake and bouncy castle, not sure how he'll be when he returns!
He's settled into school really well and has made lots of friends both in his class and generally in the playground (I know you're all really surprised by that). I feel like I've meet lots of new people too.

Madeline's enjoying preschool and its going well. She turned four last week and is concerned that her friends haven't come for a party. We took cupcakes to strong start (a preschool thing that Izabel and I go to too) and the kids iced them and sang happy birthday, she was pleased with that but wants a party with cake and goodie bags. I'm planning to do something but I haven't figured it out yet. We also have Izabel's birthday next week and we need to do something for that too.

Aunty Meg has been to visit which we all enjoyed. Madeline doesn't really think people should get to leave again, or if anyone's going on a plane she should get to go too. She's feeling a bit disappointed this weekend, no party, no plane, Liam has a goodie bag and she doesn't. Still she's had several presents she really likes.

Izabel is trying to stand up and she manages it for several seconds she walks around the furniture very successfully.

The weather is cooling down quite quickly and the days are very much shorter, these last two weeks I have had to convince the children that it is time to get up and moving even thou Madeline is convinced its not morning.

It's thanksgiving weekend here this weekend and I am thankful to still be here, in this house and not moving house or country this month. I am not doing a turkey. I do see the appeal of thanksgiving as a holiday thou, it all about friends family and food without the trouble of gifts.

The same but different

It's a little deja'vu feeling to be back in the same house we moved into a year ago, in fact we moved back in on the same day. The house looks much as it did but we have more stuff so it's taking longer to put things in places.
This time of course I have an almost one year old crawling around the place, pulling up on things. She finds the front loading washer fascinating. Pulls up on the door and watches it going around.

Liam is going to the local school this year. He's in a composite grade 1/2 class with Mr Borich so far (day 5) he likes it. Mr B as they all call him plays the guitar and this seems to be the main feature of school so far. That and he likes coming home with his agenda book and instructions for us. We walk down and back and so far I've only picked him up in the car twice, once Madeline's dance starts tomorrow we'll need to pick up in the car on tuesdays, the timing could be better, I have to get across town in 15min, which will be tight.

Madeline will start Preschool tomorrow and unlike any of my other school choices I have done no research into their style in fact its run by ECE's and they have no parent participants, but she'll go two mornings a week and it's conveniently in the same building as Liam's class.

Madeline, Izabel and I went to a creative play morning last week at the James Bay Project. Madeline enjoyed it more than Izabel, thou she had a nice sleep and enjoyed the songs at the end. Izabel and I might go to a toddler drop in tomorrow, which will be quite a novelty.

Victoria is having a long balmy summer this year, I'm sure it was colder last year, thou the nights and mornings are getting cooler I find that halfway to school the extra layer I put on is no longer necessary.

We had a good trip around northern BC at the beginning of August. We took the ferry from Port Hardy to Prince Rupert then drove to Jasper National Park, along the Icefields Parkway and back. We spent a lot of time in the car which the kids got a bit sick of. I'll put some pictures up one I download the camera.

This week has included...

Summer in Victoria

Friday was sportball for Liam, they were doing soccer then it was medal day at gym, there are still two more gym sessions but only one more sportball each (Madeline's is thursday) everything is winding up for summer, there's a teacher who is at gym and she was commenting on all the work doing the assessment and sorting out for the end of year, and how much easier Christmas break was when classes weren't changing as well as all the assessment. She thought she'd keep what she was doing when I said the NZ did end of year AT Christmas!

We walked over to the park on Monday and had a great time, next time I need to remember to either take, a change of clothes or dress the kids in swimsuits. Even Liam got wet, which is not his usual style. We had a picnic and hung out.

Liam and Madeline had their last swimming lesson on Tuesday. Liam's got much more enthusiastic about going underwater, and is gliding, side gliding and spending most of the lesson underwater. The pictures are on my ph. and I haven't figured out how to get them from there to here yet. They'll doing some more swimming in age group classes over summer.
Liam's doing some sailing, and music too if I get organised and take in the paperwork.

There are new pic's in Izabel's album too, she's trying to get onto her hands and knees, with some success, though not sustained yet, she might get a whole lot less popular when she can move!

a geography aid

My score was pretty rubbish.

can we have candy for lunch?

In the Pond

iN TH

happening

I keep thinking I'll post once I get the photo's off the camera, I don't seem to be managing that so I thought I should write something anyway.
Liam's birthday has been and gone now, he chose to go to Boston Pizza for dinner and has spent lots of time on the lego he received in the post. Hi s biggest excitement seems to be the loose tooth he has currently 'I'm only eating hard food today'. It's been bugging him that none of his teeth were falling out and he was almost seven. I just hope the next set have all their enamel.

I've been out to dinner twice this week, I think that might double the amount of resturants I've been to in Victoria.

Izabel is doing lots of pushing on her arms and sometimes starts to get the middle section off the ground. She is very keen on broccoli, bananas, pumpkin yams (kumara), squash and chicken.

Madeline has toilet trained it was very quick once we started with her, and now she's not in nappies at all, even at night.

We have a big weekend coming up this weekend, Liam and Madeline are both in Thumbelina, their Dance schools production. Today they have the tech rehearsal and saturday afternoon is the performance. They both seem enthusiastic, but not nervous - so far.

Friday afternoon we go to see Cirque de Soleil I got the tickets as a birthday treat for Liam, when I told him about them he was very unenthusiastic, "I've been to the circus", still he's pretty keen now.


There's a definate summer hint in the air, some days are glorious other s are a little cloudy, apparently it rained yesterday, but that must have been while I was sleeping.

Delightful

It's Sunday and Friday came last week and the Canadians let Richard in this time.
So he doesn't have current plans to leave in a hurry.

Liam is recovering, we've done a second lot of ultrasound images as the first set didn't show an AV fistula, which they thought they'd seen on the CT scan, neither does the second set. I think this is a good thing, but I'm sure the surgeon would rather have his diagnosis confirmed and move on with solving the problem.

So we've had a quiet weekend around the house,Liam and Richard are building a model farmyard, and those other kiwis are coming over for dinner.

Days you can do without.

We (Christine, Liam,Madeline and Izabel) took a trip to Denver. We left Victoria on Good Friday and meet Richard at the Denver airport, where he had flown to from Texas. Saturday was a good day, set up things for Sunday, when Liam and Richard had skiing lessons. We went to Loveland which is about an hour out of Denver. They both enjoyed their lessons, Liam was worn out after his full day of skiing.

Monday we went to the downtown aquarium and the children's museum with friends from Santa Fe who have moved to Denver. Both places were great and the kids all enjoyed playing together at the park in between too. It was nice to catch up with their move and set up in Denver.

Tuesday morning was fine really, we did some shopping, got some activities to do in the hotel room the problems started with the scissors, Liam wanted to cut the game pieces out for one of the ladybug games, he is not clear about how, but the sicssors went into his right leg,behind his knee,so I think he was standing and sat down on the chair with the sicssors in his hand and sat on the sicssors. After he screamed in a more screamy way than normal I put Izabel down ( she was feeding) and walked around the couch to see Liam's trousers colouring with blood,I pulled them down and the blood was pumping from his leg, I automatically got him lying doiwn and put my thumb over the hole,too hard according to Liam, but I stopped the bleeding, then needed a phone. I couldn't reach the room phone but my cell was on top of the stroller next to me so I called 911 and spoke to the operator who put me onto the ambulance operator and dispatched some paramedics. Once they arrived I called Richard, he met Liam and the team downstairs once they had decide where to take Liam. Which changed from what they discussedwith me so they went to Littelton Adventist Hospital. Richard went in the ambulanceand I stayed with Madeline and Izabel planning to follow for the pick up once we knew where and when. The surgeon at Littelton decided that it needed the specialists at Childrens hospital, as it was now rush hour it was decided to take Liam in a chopper, Liam really enjoyed this, he wasin pretty good spirits most of the time.
The surgeon at Childrens called in a Specialist Vascular surgeon from University Hospital and they operated on Liam's leg at about 10pm, it took until midnight and they sutured his artery. Richard stayed with Liam, the hospital is really well designed for parents to stay with children. There was a foldout couch bed in the room and shower facilities and toiletries in the hospital, there is also accomodation for families to be able to stay,but out of the patient rooms.
Madeline, Izabel and I went up to the hospital the next day. Izabel wasn't allowed in PICU, (Pediatric Intesive Care Unit) where Liam was so Richard and I swapped who was with Izabel or Liam. Madeline missed Liam alot, she woke up in the night worried about where Liam was, so once she was in his room and they were drawing or watching tv together she was happy, she didn't really want to go back to the hotel that night. Liam spent two nights in PICU, but the second was because they were short of space on the regular floor. He keep the nurses entertained, they all thought he was delightful, especially as they are used to much sicker children. Thursday afternoon he moved to the sixth floor where his room even had its own full bathroom and xbox system. Each of the regular floors have an activity room with all sorts of games and toys and craft activites. We had visited the one on the eightth floor earlier in the day. Richard and Liam tried to play baseball on the Wii which was amusing. Liam's physio had given him a walker, like a mini zimmer frame and a leg brace. Thursday night Richard stayed again and friday morning we returned again and the kids played in the activity room on the sixth floor until about mid morning when they said we could take Liam home, mostly they were organising follow up care in Victoria.

The rest of the time in Denver was good, we visited with people and went for a drive and looked around Denver and its surrounds. Monday we got up at 4AM!!! to get to the plane for a 7am take off. They had to deice the plane which Liam found amusing. Then he, Madeline and Izabel all slept till about the last 30min before we arrived in Seattle. We had little cart meet up off the plane so we got to our connecting gate really easily and were on out flight to Victoria at 10am The local Ice hockey team, The Salmon Kings were returning after playing Frezno and were on our plane. Liam didn't realise until we were all leaving customs and hestarted asking about what was in the big bags (hockey sticks) then he was asking then all kinds of questions about sticks and asking everyone if they were a Salmon King, most of the team said hi to him I think.

So today is tuesday again and I called the pediatric surgeon who we'd been referred to,since they hadn't called yesterday, and those were my instructions. She saw us today, 11.30 was the appointment at 12.30ish we saw her and she was concerned about the strength of the pulses in Liams foot, Sooo we went to Victoria General for a CT scan, and the vascular surgeon. He was not pleased with the results, there appears to be a connection bewteen the vein and artery, so tomorrow we go for ultrasound to confirm that finding then we see him again to decide how to proceed.