It's been a while, and for good reason...

Life around here has been a little zany lately. I think having a newborn should make it crazy enough, but add to that getting going on my little Norwex business and finding out I have my very own, actual disease (I am a celiac, it turns out), and having a toddler that thinks he's too good for naps but not for whining, and a baby who's a dream sleeper during the day and a gas-man at night, 3 colds (Julio, Luke and me) and learning how to cook basically everything from scratch so that it's gluten-free...yeah, life has been zany. That sounded like a very whiny run-on sentence, hopefully the rest will be less run-on and whiny but I'm not promising anything. Besides the aforementioned challenges, we do have bright lights in our days, mostly due to our kiddos. Luke is forever making me laugh with the things he says and does...he likes counting now and it goes something like this: one two three four five six seven eight times! (I think nine and ten = times, not sure though). And one time he was counting something and I asked him what he was doing to which he responded, "I'm one-ing!" He understands the -ing verb ending quite well and has told me that he is trucking, lawning (mowing the lawn with one of his outside toys) amongst other things. His new favorite thing is to sing anything to the alphabet song...anything BUT the alphabet. I've found out that two-year-olds sometimes know the alphabet but whenever I try to teach it to him he changes it up. A few personal faves are the version "baketball, baketball, baketball hoop, baketball baketball baketball hoop". Or "Jer, Jaimee, Jer, Jaimee, Jer Jer Jer Jer Jaimee" (Jeremy and Jaimee are friends from our small group at church). We have the Jer Jaimee version on video which is below, although he was aware he was on camera and it just doesn't have the same pizzazz as usual. Note the drumsticks/microphones.

Sammy's fun too, he's quite a little smiler these days and also a good napper! What a treat. I don't feel like I have a ton of funny stories to share about him, but I sure feel a lot of love for the little guy. It's amazing how your own children just capture your heart like nothing else. I love quiet evenings when Luke is in bed and I can just sit and hold Samuel and take him in. He's a gentle soul and very obliging, especially where his big brother is concerned. And don't get me wrong, Luke loves him a lot and is very gentle, he's just loud and very much in Samuel's face a lot of the time. But today I found Luke going to Samuel when he was crying and trying very patiently to get Samuel to keep his soother in his mouth. There was surprisingly little ramming, as other soother attempts have been, but rather a pretty patient Luke trying to hold the soother in saying "no spit it Sammy!". And on that note, here's a Sammy clip. May not make the Academy Awards but we like it. (Blogger is having trouble posting it, perhaps they were looking for more action, I'll try another time.)
And as for me, well, I've been trying to cope with the news that I have celiac disease. Celiac disease is caused by gluten intolerence, where gluten has done damage to the small intestine. So what it means is I have to adhere to a gluten-free diet for life. Which means no bread, chocolate chip cookies, perogies, normal cereal, cakes, cinnamon buns, etc containing wheat, barley or rye flour. It does mean experimenting with gluten-free flour, many of which come from beans, and making chocolate chip cookies that taste like peas. I can almost eat anything with chocolate in them, but this was a bit much for me. The scary thing was, my friend Tricia, also a celiac, actually thought they were good, and I fear I'll one day think anything resembling real chocolate chip cookies are good. Last night for supper brown-rice crusted pizza was on the menu. I think if you didn't actually try and fool yourself into believing it was supposed to be pizza, it may hold a certain, healthy-like charm. Mostly it just tasted like a lot of brown rice with pepperoni and sauce. But on a positive note, some of the new recipes we've tried have been excellent and brown rice pasta is surprisingly a lot like real pasta. So life isn't all bad. And I'm learning a lot too, mostly about fibre and grains like quinoa and sourghum and amaranth and xanthan gum and all sorts of (mostly useless to the rest of the world) interesting health information. But it's amazing how many different things contain, or potentially contain, gluten. Tonight I went to Starbuck's with a friend and was geared up to have a fancy coffee of sorts, but the ingredients were too sketchy so I just had an Earl Grey tea. My nice friend had a no-fat no-whip aka no-fun latte so we were kind of on par. I still can't understand why in a place that mostly serves beverages, most things are off limits because they could contain wheat. Why would anyone want wheat in a latte? Grrr. All in all it's not so bad, I think I will be eating more healthy eventually which will be positive. Although right now I'm just so excited about anything I can eat that I'm probably gaining weight on peanut butter cookies and M&Ms. I figure serving sizes don't apply to celiacs, we have it rough enough.

And now for our life in pictures.

I also have a picture of Luke and me hanging out on the couch, but he wasn't covering the mommy tummy so it didn't make the cut.

The boys hanging out. I was so excited to put them both in the tub at once, it felt so sibling-ish. I hope their nudity isn't too offensive for the web.
Julio and Luke in their new favorite activity...

Time for a haircut boys...

Before...
After...

It was high time. Luke was looking more and more like a hobbit to me with his shaggy hair around his ears and neck. He is now shorn. He hated it. We did Julio's first and kept saying how much fun he was having but Luke wasn't convinced. He did lots of crying and freaking out for the 5 minutes or so it took to cut it all and so now you see why we buzz it so short and let it grow so long...the fewer the haircuts the better.
On to other things, Luke keeps making me laugh with all the funny things he says and every time I sit down at the computer I forget them all, but there's a few that are fresh in my mind so here it goes:
Yesterday while playing hockey downstairs with him I got a "jood (good) job Babe"! Now, I'm sure there are some refined, proper people out there that can not imagine anyone letting their toddler call them babe, but I find it way too amusing and so I let it slide. He knows it's funny too because he always says it with a smile. The boy is addicted to nicknames. I'm mom, Corinna, Auntie Corinna if we've been around the cousins, Momuel (like Samuel), and one day he even called me darling. And Julio gets the occasional "Julelo" and I feel like we named Samuel just for Luke because there are three names in one with that one - Sam, Sammy, Samuel and they all get used regularly by our sweet Luke.
While we're still on the "babe" subject, when I was overdue with Samuel I had a few weepy moments just wanting to be unpregnant, and one time Luke looked at Julio and said, "Babe wants baby out, hey dad?"
This morning he looked at me and said that he wanted to do puzzles, and then he informed me that today was "puzzle day...BIG puzzle day"! And often I hear that it's "blocks time" or "movie time" or some other kind of "time".
We went to the library this evening with the kids and looked around for a while and got some books, and then while I was taking them out Julio and Luke went downstairs to look at the kids books. Luke looked around and asked Julio where the toys were. And then he saw some styrofoam ball with stuff sticking out of it and said, I want that! So glad to see he's really embraced the concept of a library. (He actually really does love books, just for the record...)
The other day we were at the mall and all of a sudden Luke says to Julio and me, "I check someping (something)" and runs down the hall saying "bubbles"! Sure enough, down at the end of the hall was a big picture of a grandma, mom and daughter all lying in the grass with bubbles all around. I guess he just had to check that it was still there! It had been weeks and weeks since we'd been there too!
This morning we were getting ready to go and Luke was playing with his dump truck and I said, "okay Luke, it's time to go". To which he responded, "No! I trucking!"
I think my favorite thing in the world right now, though, is how much he loves Samuel. This morning I got him out of bed, went to do something and then went to look for Luke and found him lying in our bed beside Samuel just talking to him. And Samuel gets an abundant amount of kisses and hugs from Luke, all gentle surprisingly enough, which of course just melt my heart. He talks to him in the car too and I love eavesdropping on all the things Luke talks to him about...it's all mostly about the tractors, trucks or cars Luke happens to see.
That's all my memory and time are allowing me for now...

Here's Samuel at 4 weeks (he's amazingly fun too by the way, even if he doesn't talk. His soft baby hair makes up for it though):

Is that a smile?!?

Here is our little Samuel at exactly 2 weeks of age. That smile is Julio, 100%. Too funny.

Luke is TWO!

Well, we weren't able to celebrate Luke's birthday right on the day, but a week later we had a little birthday celebration with some cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, a great uncle and even a great gramma. And it turned out to be a great day. Luke had such a blast just playing outside with his cousins, getting a few new gifts and diving in to his birthday cookie. And of course the helium balloons have been a huge hit. Daily fun and excitement as long as the helium lasts. It was 25 cents more for the 5 day helium as opposed to the 1 day helium and worth every penny.

Here are some highlights of the birthday party:

Fun with cousins in the sandbox Luke's birthday cookieYum yum!
His new drill...he had one once upon a time but it broke and he's never fully recovered. He looks rather awestruck here. The early morning drilling I could do without, but at least he's happy.

Cousin Jake trying out the drill and goggles.So there's a glimpse into his birthday party day. I must say, Luke continually amuses us with his crazy way of saying things. For example, he got a Mr. Potato Head for his birthday which he affectionately calls "Table Head". So of course now so do I. I heard a speech therapist say once how you should never imitate your child's bad pronunciation of a word but rather continually say the correct version of it. Yeah right. And today we got a homemade loaf of bread for supper from a friend of mine and he looked at it and said "Big buffin, hey mom?!?" (buffin = muffin, by the way). And then there's candles which, in Luke language are "happy birthday yous". I really love this age and can't believe how grown up he is already.

And for those of you needing a new Samuel pic, here you go. Sadly this is the only one from the week...second child, birthday party, what can I say?!? I think I'll make tomorrow Samuel photo-shoot day...

Samuel Elijah

After 14 days of waiting, the little one showed up, fast and furious and has blessed us with his sweetness ever since. I didn't know how much I could love another little one, but he has definitely wiggled his way into my heart. Here are a few pictures. And if this isn't enough for you, check out www.kevingrant.ca/sammy for some more baby greatness.

And for those of you who like numbers, here are the Sammy Stats:

Born: August 9th, 12:58 am

Weight: 8lbs, 8oz

Length: 21.5 inches

We couldn't be happier. Thanks for all your love and support as we waited, and waited, and waited, and finally got to meet our newest little man.

And the wait goes on...

11 days overdue and counting...I've heard this can't go on forever but I'm starting to have my doubts. The next post will surely be what you're all hoping this one was...

Here's a few pictures of our post-due-date life.

Tinkertown...

My shadow at 41 weeks. The second one was modified with photoshop by my crazy sister.

Still waiting...

(At my friend Jeannie's wedding, July 21st)

Of course I would love for this to be the post where I put pictures up of our lovely little bundle of joy and I talk about how actually the labour really wasn't as bad as I was anticipating and Luke just adores his new sibling and life as 4 is grand. But this is not that post. No, this is the post where I say, yes, I'm STILL waiting, yes, I'm 4 days overdue, yes, I've heard numerous stories of people who go at least 2 weeks overdue (is that supposed to be encouraging somehow?!?) and yes, at church on Sunday I did get 6 or 7 "oh, you're still here!" comments. I figured instead of getting annoyed at them I should just count them and make it a game. It's funny, I'm a games person but it wasn't my favorite game in the end. Oh well. If you're reading this and you told me you went 2 weeks overdue or said "you're still here" at church, don't worry about it, I'm starting to find it all rather amusing. Why do doctors bother giving due dates anyway!?? I was going to be so good this time about not fixating on a due date but that's turned out to be impossible. Probably also because for the last two weeks I've had mini contractions and keep thinking I'm going into labour, but as you can see, no such luck. I'm actually starting to believe that maybe this is just my new look and I should get used to it. I've actually had so many compliments on my pregnant body that I should probably not be so eager to give it up. I mean, truly, when have my abs been tighter?

In other news, I did deal with the kitchen papers. I just feel better about you all knowing as opposed to thinking that my husband is working like a dog and I just sit around eating m&m's all day. I'll have you know that I've varied my diet slightly today and ate an ice cream cone and a half (Luke didn't finish his), an oreo, toast (today surprising without nutella) and some watermelon. I'm a firm believer in a varied diet.

I fear if I continue I'll just be pleading with you all to pray for my uterus to contract and that may just sound a bit desperate or ridiculous (but go for it if you'd like) so I think I'll just post a few pictures and call it a day.

Luke in the Mr. Rooter van...

Self-portrait using our new camera Babysitting my nieces...I answered a phone call and came back to see Alexandra reading a story to Victoria and Luke. Maybe we should look into getting a six-year-old as well as a baby.My beautiful friend Jeannie getting married a little over a week ago. What an absolutely beautiful wedding it was too!!!

Waiting for baby

(Almost 37 weeks here...due date, July 26th!)

So, my life these days consists of the following:

Trying to get as much sleep as possible

Making lists, either mentally or on paper, of things I neither have the ability or the energy to do but feel it absolutely necessary to get done before the baby comes

Lying awake at night wondering how to get sleep and to get the items on my lists done.

Isn't the end of pregnancy grand?

Really we have accomplished a TON in the last month, as now our basement is fully carpeted and even has furniture and toys down there, but it seems like the lists are never-ending. Oh well, in the end all a newborn needs is some clothes, diapers and milk and they are as happy as they are going to be. So I'm telling myself not to worry about my lists. I still think I may go fabric shopping tomorrow and try to make curtains and an easy quilt for Luke's bed though. Is that unrealistic? Probably.

Besides all that, summer so far has been great. We've been to the wading pool, back to the cottage and even had a week of "Pioneer Days" at my mom and dad's place. My parents took care of my two neices for a week and my mother is probably one of the most creative people I know, so she decided it would be fun (and a lot of work) to put together "Pioneer Days" for the kids, every day from 12-2. It happened twice and was amazing both days. She made little bonnets and skirts for the girls, put together a general store with cans stacked in a pyramid and baked goods to be bought, made a well out of a hanger and a bucket and margarine containers, organized a field day with races and high jump, and made up a little school complete with lunch pails and Oh Canada and age appropriate activities. (Luke got his very own slate, boy was he proud). I keep hoping my mom's creative genetics will somehow jump over to me, but I still haven't mastered the art of abounding creativity with limited resources. She is a true pioneer.

Another thing I've decided to take on (because as you can see I'm obviously not busy enough) is to start selling Norwex products. Actually, now that my first two parties are done I think it'll be quite do-able and I'm really excited about it. The products are amazing (great for the environment and health, easy to use, much cheaper in the long run) and after my first fairly successful go at selling the stuff, I have made no money but will have a lot of great cleaning products which will, of course, make my life easier and save me time and money. I truly do believe this, all sarcasm aside, which is why I wanted to get a bunch of stuff BEFORE the baby comes. So tomorrow I get my mop and toilet bowl brush and that's why, if you come over tonight, you will be quite unimpressed by the state of my bathroom and floors. Actually, my floors aren't bad as long as you don't look under the couch. I haven't been that keen in a while. I wish they had an environmentally friendly way of organizing kitchen papers because I'm sure I'd spend through the nose for it, but I have this funny feeling that that particular chore might require a human brain. I'm wishing it wasn't mine. The way I like to deal with all the paperasse (French for paper crap) that comes into my life is to put them in various piles throughout the house and hope that sometime I go back to it. I even got so keen one time as to organize the junk into a little filing system, but I suppose the only useful thing about that would be to go back and look through it once in a while. Instead, I now have a bunch of papers beside my little filing system, to be filed, as well as the more pertinent junk sitting in another pile in my kitchen. Julio will probably groan severely or wonder why I'm writing about this instead of dealing with it, but somehow this is much easier. Julio is an amazing organizer, I feel that spouses should compliment each other in giftings and I'm more than happy to let him have this one. The only problem is he's also the furniture mover, the kitchenette for the basement installer, the electrician, the plumber, the swing set putter-together-er, and, oh right, family provider. I'm feeling convicted, I think tomorrow is my day to deal with paper. Surely that isn't an evening job, right?!?

Okay, this is a babble post. Sorry about that. On to more exciting things. Here are a few pictures of our recent lives.

Pioneer Days:

Luke peeking out from the horse-drawn carriage (my mom was the horse, she's probably glad she's not in the picture). Note lunch pails (aka yogurt containers with handles). Luke walked around with his proudly for a long time.

School. Luke is very intent on his work, I'm so proud.

Alexandra and the one-room school house woodstove. She was the oldest so it was her responsibility to stoke the fire once in a while.

More cousin fun, not during Pioneer Days. Luke loves Auntie Marcia because he gets pedialyte freezies from her. I love Auntie Marcia because this was taken while I was out fabric shopping, sans Luke.

Another reason to love Auntie Marcia and her stuff. They have a kid's golf set which he requests when we go over there. Papa Ron would be proud of this pose I should think!More cottage fun. We do the same things every time we're there (walking, beaching, hanging out inside) so there isn't much variety from the last post, except for the shirtless beach shots this time. Don't worry, I didn't participate.

We saw these two baby foxes on the road by our cottage. If I had Robyn and Kevin's paparazzi abilities you'd be truly impressed.I went out for about half an hour and came back, only to find out that Luke and dad had a major photo shoot with all the forts they made. Julio is more fun in half an hour than I am in a week!
Luke was "tucking Bear in" here. Bear is suffocating at the bottom of the pile somewhere.Don't worry, Bear made it.

And now for some Luke stories. Current favorite Luke phrases:

"I show you works" (translation: I'll show you how this works)

"Be back!" (spoken like a tough guy with his index finger in the air, as in, I'll be right back).

"Big truck" or "Big tractor" or "Big van"...again, spoken in a lower, more masculine tone.

Any number of random comments, followed by, "hey mom?".

He has also decided that men need vehicle/power tool associations. For example, "daddy...van". Or "Papa Ron...big truck!". Or "Stan...lawn-mower" (he's never even seen Stan's lawnmower but he says this almost daily). Or "Uncle Nino (Dino)...big truck!". Those are the most common. Once in a while Papa Ron gets a table saw or Nannie or Gramma Anne get a car, but the afore-mentioned are the most common. His other new favorite thing is a little song I made up to the tune of "The Wheels on the Bus". It goes "daddy in the van says I'll fix it, I'll fix it, I'll fix it...". I'll often hear him singing when we're in the car, "daddy, fick it, fick it". It's way too cute. Sadly he almost never sings the mommy verse. He more often requests the "bear" verse which goes, "Bear in the van says What is plumbing?" because I figure Bear doesn't have a whole lot upstairs. So I'll often hear "Bear...plumbing, bear...plumbing". Oh well, I've given up being jealous of a Bear. I have too many lists to think up.

My sweet Luke

The other day Luke and I were lying down to take a nap, and as he was lying there he suddenly asked me, "mommy, sad?". And I said, "no Luke, I'm happy". And then he smiled, and paused for a second and said, "happy...too".
And on the topic of sappy Luke stories, tonight I was having a moment, as I was singing Luke songs before putting him down to sleep, of hoping that once our new baby comes the cuddles with Luke won't have to stop too much and that I'll still get to hold him and rock him and feel that closeness with him that I've been feeling so much lately. And so I started to cry a little and Luke looked at me and said, "hug?" and of course I said yes and he gave me the biggest squeezer hug. But I wasn't done my moment so I still had a few tears and so then he looked at me again and said, "daddy, hug?". He's really connected with the fact that Julio can fix stuff. I thought it was sweet. I'm so glad he's such a sensitive little guy, for as busy and active as he is. Sometimes I can't imagine a more amazing kid, but I guess we'll meet another version of amazing in a few weeks...
(To perpetuate the sap, check out the "see a falcon, live!" link on the side. It's a mom and her falcon babies on top of the Radisson Hotel in Winnipeg and you can watch it live all the time. Luke doesn't like it when "Big One Bird" (the momma) is gone though, so we mostly only watch it when she is around giving her babies "snacks" as I refer to them (dead pigeons, etc). It's quite addictive, really! Okay, we don't have a tv, but still...!!)