It's true!

Coming around the end of May 2012....

Little McCrimmon #2 is on the way!

We are super excited (especially Amanda, now that the nausea has subsided) to welcome our second baby into the world!

The Completed Tree

Here's a picture of our tree all decorated.  No complete family picture since Joel was sleeping at the time, and we didn't want to wake him. Maybe next year!

Christmas Tree

For the past five years, Dan and I have had the tradition of carrying our Christmas tree home over our shoulders. Last year, I was 9 months pregnant, ready to pop at any moment. This year, we have a one year old who we wanted to include in our tradition.

Joel added a bit of "stress" to the situation. We discussed various options for how to get both a Christmas tree and our little bubby home. Do we use the wrap? No, Amanda's back hurts too much. How about the backpack? Won't the tree stump or leaves be in his face? Okay...how about the stroller? Can we push it one handed and still carry a tree? Ultimately, the stroller won out!

Joel really enjoyed shopping for the tree. He would giggle every time I held up a tree and asked, "Is this the one?" That kid really loves nature...and especially pine needles.

Eventually, we chose our tree, put it up on our shoulders and proceeded to the local Starbucks for a hot drink (yet, another one of those wonderful traditions). By this time, it was past Joel's bedtime and he was starting to loose it. (Which may have had something to do with the creepy man outside who kept asking us questions and trying to touch Joel....which neither one of us liked.) Dan finally came outside with our drink (which spilled all over the stroller) and we proceeded to city hall for our annual photo shoot.

Joel basically screamed the whole time. We gave him a bottle, which we kept trying to pull out for photos. (He didn't like that!) Finally, we just gave up and walked home, where we put the boy to bed and the tree outside for a few days.

A few days later (after Joel's birthday party), we decided to put up the tree. Joel likes to touch the leaves, but isn't eating them (bonus for us!!!)

We let Joel put the star up on the tree. Okay, he didn't really put it on.He tried many times, but we just couldn't get him to get it up over the top of the tree. This picture is Joel taking the star off of the tree. But it still looks cool. Later that night we decorated the tree while Joel slept. Every day, Joel seems to take a decoration off the tree, walk over and hand it to us. He just hasn't grasped the concept of "don't touch." But its such a joy to see him stand by the tree, staring at the lights. Reminds me of when he was just born, and Dan was holding him. Joel lifted his head to look at the lights and he was just 20 minutes old.

How to Make a Shark Cake

Step #1: Spend two weeks worth of nap time scouring the Internet for images of shark cakes. Realize that this is the best one that you can find...even though its missing the second half of his tail and has a really large fin.

Step #2: Cut out the outline of the shark. Realize that it looks ridiculous and spend a few hours "fixing" the image. Basically, redraw the shark picture. Cut the outline of the shark out of the cake.

Step #3: Put the two pieces of shark cake together to form the shark.

Step #4: Ice the cake. And add additional cakes (seaweed and fish) out of the leftover cake pieces.

Step #5: Admire your finished cake.

Step #6: Add candle and allow birthday boy to "try" blow out candle. Blow out candle for him.

Step #7: Give piece of cake to birthday boy. Watch as he slowly pushes it away and melts down into tears. "Don't make me eat this bright blue thing!!!"

Step #8: Wait until following day. Give a piece of cake to birthday boy on a fork. Watch him eat it. Then watch him devour cake, piece by piece.

Step #9: Watch cake being eaten.

Step #10: Allow birthday boy to eat every last piece of cake. Or at least throw it on the floor until he's finished.

 

Christmas Baking

Our dear friends, Matt and Rachel came over a few weeks ago, so we could bake some delicious Christmas cookies.

In just over 3 hours, we had a TON of cookies baked, fudge cooling in the freezer, and some savoury treats to enjoy.


We each chose some of our favourite family recipes, and a few new ones to try out.

The evening was filled with wonderful smells, good memories and almost losing our treats to a vicious neighbourhood raccoon (Note to self: do not leave treats outside to cool, raccoons may abound). We thanked Rachel repeatedly for saving our treats!

We had a few good laughs while we assembled gingerbread men (and woman). By that time of night, we had eaten way too much sugar, and didn't have enough protein in our bodies. Things got a bit crazy....but were easily fixed by eating a few pigs in a blanket.

This is our half of the haul from the evening. Pigs in a blanket, quiche, sugar cookies, chocolate mint cookies, chocolate mints, butter tarts, shortbread cookies, gingerbread cookies. And missing from the photo, cookies and cream fudge and chocolate mint fudge. Yummy!

Our semi-annual Hospital Visit (around Christmas)

Last year, at the end of December, we took Joel to Abbotsford's newly finished hospital for an infected finger. This resulted in a 4 day stay.
This past Monday, it was Dan's turn. This would be his first hospital visit in 26 years. (Basically, he hasn't been back since he was born).

What necessitated the visit you ask? A lovely 1st degree burn to his arm (aka 1% of his body). You see, Dan decided that it would be a GOOD idea to catch a falling jug of hot water while at work. Please do not attempt EVER! This may result in a cloth diaper wrap (and wet bag) being put on your arm to keep the wet towel away from your bandage. (Basically, the wet bag started to leak, so we put a cloth diaper wrap around that to keep Dan dry, and the burn cool). As the doctor put it: "You have reflexes of a parent with a young child. Your first instinct is to catch anything that is falling."

Needless to say, Dan was sent home from the hospital all bandaged up with some nice pain killers to boot (they hand out morphine there like its candy! And tetanus shots.) The next night, we uncovered his arm and found a nice reddish/blackish burn staring back at us.

The pharmacist gave us some nice burn cream, a very expensive non-adhesive sheet to place over his burn and then some netting to cinch it all in place.

Fast forward two days and the blisters have started. Gross! A week (minimum) off work and Dan should be well on his way to recovery. Stay tuned for next week when Dan attempts to catch falling knives!

You know you're a parent of a young child when...

... you go looking for your pots and pans in the toy box, rather than the cupboard... sleeping in consists of 7:30am
... staying up late consists of any time after 10pm
... you know that the washing machine can remove stains, but crumbs are a whole other story
... everything you own that has any value is at least 4 feet off the ground and progressively climbing
... your vocabulary is reduced to derivatives of "no" or "stop" and the ever favorite "don't touch"
... the most used implement in your house is a broom, closely followed by a vacuum

Mt. Baker

Friends of ours sent us an email inviting us to hike up Mt. Baker this past Saturday. It read as follows:

"The plan is to hike in the Mt Baker area, up to the Coleman glacier on this side of the mountain... Most of the trail is pleasant hiking up through the forest to treeline, with one steeper section from treeline to the glacier, around 2 hours one way (5.5+ hrs round trip w/ breaks). "

I think that the description was slightly inaccurate (sorry Matt!). The pleasant hike up, should have been described as "hike up through the forest with a few small sections of level walking."

This picture best shows the "steeper section." Just below the tree in the center of the photo is a person (can you find them?) Oh, and that tree is about 1/4 of the way up the steeper section.  It was 600 ft of vertical ascension with very minimal lateral movement!

We were OVERJOYED to make it to the top and be able to sit down!

The view was incredible!

As was the wind. Dan is trying to brace himself and Joel, so as not to be blown off the mountain!

Joel enjoyed a lunch of rocks and grass, with a few sticks for snacks. Apparently apple sauce and chicken isn't as good as what God can provide.

But overall, we are happy we went. It was a pleasant day of hiking, amazing views, great fellowship, another check off our bucket list and good memories.....

....that are haunting every muscle in our body days later!

A Summer Hiatus

Its been a full summer. The empty shelves have now been filled and restocked with scrumptious goodies. Five varieties of jam, tomatoes, salsa, peaches, apricots, pears, pear butter, pear sauce, cherries, green beans, carrots (from the garden) and pickles. We ran out of jars (and space) before we got around to canning apple sauce. But maybe in a few months when the jars begin to empty, we'll be able to remedy that situation.

 

The dehydrator is finally put away and all those berries (strawberries, blueberries, cherries and raspberries) are stored away for the winter. Dan sure is happy that he doesn't have to pierce any more blueberries by hand to help with the dehydration process. We've frozen berries for later use including strawberries, blueberries, raspberries and handpicked blackberries.

The ugly egg dresser (its missing the bright yellow knobs) has FINALLY been painted.


And yes, we did complete the job with new dresser knobs that aren't sooo ugly. Silver ones to be exact.

We've tried our hand at making yogurt in the crockpot. It turned out great, and is now added to our lovely repertoire of handmade things we enjoy.

I've spent endless hours putting books back onto the shelves. And yes, my desire for "perfection" and nicely lined up books has been thrown away. I've learned to "let it go" and I'm mostly just happy to have the books off the floor!

The cesspool of germs has commenced and the kids have infiltrated our house once again. Mostly just one or two additions. This picture shows the odd day, when I had three extras. (Have I mentioned how much I hate the slow integration of kindergarten? Worst idea ever!)

The garden has finally granted us some bounty. My first tomato of the year. It tasted about as good as it looked (which really wasn't that great). But no need to worry, we've had a few more since and they have been much better. This year's garden was pitiful due to late planting and bad weather. But we got beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots and celery from the garden. I was disappointed that my zucchini failed again and that I only got a handful of peas before the plant died.

Our summer has been busy! We also went to three weddings, and took a two week road trip to Eastern BC/Alberta. Our lives have been full of winter preparation, raising a young man (and a few of his friends), and trying to rest in those days off. We hope to be more purposeful in blogging a bit more frequently (but that's no guarantee). Especially since we have succumb to the parental bedtime of 9 o'clock! But you would too if your kid didn't sleep well at night! So, we apologize for the summer hiatus. But we hope the fall and winter brings a "bounty" of blog posts.

It's Happened!!!!

Our lives will never be the same after today... Joel has learned how to crawl!!  He has been lurching forward for the past couple of weeks and coming closer and closer to the real event.  Then yesterday he finally put one hand in front of the other just once or twice.  Today he was up to four or five hand over hands movements at a time, slowly making his way across the room.
The baby proofing has begun earnestly today with electrical outlets plugged, coasters put away and anything else that we think he could get into moved out of range.  There are sure to be things that we've missed and he will get into, but that's all part of the wonderful adventure of parenthood.