this and that...blah blah blah

i am finally done the end of the school year frantic pace thing and have a desire to write about some of the things that have happened...now that i sit down i have nothing. let's just say there were ballet practices and birthday parties and ballet recitals and achievement nights and ballet exams a gazillion doctor appointments and then ballet. the good news is...it is over for awhile and mic got highly commended for her exam (that's a really good score.) the bad news is...never mind. i don't feel like getting into that right now.

so...brent has gout. he has become an old man. and i think i have rheumatoid arthritis so i have aged right along side him. to me, he is too young to have gout. he shouldn't have anything with such a yucky sounding name. doesn't one of the less favorable characters in one of jane austen's stories have gout? and i feel that i am too young to start having to live a life of chronic pain. it is actually rather depressing to me.

on a happier note,my baby just seems to get cuter every day. as she grows i keep thinking that now she is in best stage. i guess that i just love every stage. she is becoming quite the little parrot now. she says akeeya for her sisters and geen for food and drink. she can say light and night night and baby and woof. she even sings the gilmore girls song whenever she sees me put the disc in. she loves balls and often carries her favourite one in her mouth as she crawls. yesterday we went to the church for adriel's party and she sat happily for quite awhile hugging a basketball. she is usually so happy and sweet and i feel such a close bond to her.

anyhoo, here are some photos that chronicle our life over the last couple of months:

we just can't seem to resist the bath pictures


and now she has teeth


in one of her many easter dresses. can you guess which child star she reminds me of in this pic?

 

we went to shack island--you had to walk over a bed of oysters to get there.



and now she's crawling


see? she is such a sweetie!





we went camping with the strattons


she gets to try some yogurt because she is on antibiotics for impetigo


she's not sure if she likes it










poor nat was sick and spent most of the time looking like this


elizabeth's first birthday







enjoying her first freedom with food--birthday cake!


frisbee golfing



this is what happens if you try to use "red eye" on a baby

I'm Bored

yes, i'm bored. so that should be a tip off to you about the tenor of this post. it isn't going to be that interesting. i sometimes get bored on sundays now that we don't have family get-togethers anymore. today is probably exacerbated because i didn't go to church. i went to the doctors with nat and the bamboni and from there to the pharmacy--that was the extent of my contact with the outside world. interestingly enough we had no wait at the clinic and even got to see our regular doctor. when does that ever happen i ask you? nat has an ear infection. she has had it since thursday which is past the 3 day limit for viral infections. before that she had a fever and so she missed a whole week of school. luckily elizabeth is fine. other than her moluscum contagiosum which is supposed to go away on its own. the problem is, i have to be careful not to spread when i apply sunscreen. i have the flu which is one reason why it was i that stayed home with the sickly nat. i'm sure the flu is affecting my lethargy too. if only i had a good book to sink into...i already read twilight again (ok for the 3rd time) and the next book is just too blah for me to want to get into it right now. i'll read it when i'm nursing or maybe i'll only read the parts that edward is in. and i read north and south online and then watched it again on youtube already (what can i say? i have an obssessive personality) we didn't have sister movie night because i was sick and we didn't have it last week because sarah was sick. i crave a good story to lose myself in right now. is that so much to ask? since i can't just sleep away my discomfort?

on other topics, here are some tidbits about elizabeth. she is just growing in her top two teeth and has developed a new smile where you can only see her new teeth. she says hi and waves now too. she crawls around scavenging for any crumbs she might be able to pick up off the floor. it is kind of like having a puppy. when she finds something you can tell because then she makes a happy humming sound as she crawls with it in her mouth. the funny thing is she will do that for a long time with just something little like a grain of rice in her mouth and never swallow it.

ok. now that i've spread boredness around a little, i'm going to put you all out of my misery and stop rambling.

i am tired

it is 12:40 am as i sit here to type this with elizabeth on my lap. we are having some sleep issues. today things took a rare turn and she went down to bed when the other girls did and i had a baby free evening...right up until i was falling asleep. so i got her up, nursed her, she fell asleep, i put her down, she woke up. after repeating this scenario twice, she was awake so here we are.
it is now 2am. i got her to sleep but she woke up 20 minutes later. i tried to bring her into my bed and continue on with my sleep but no such luck. i find it pretty much impossible to sleep when she keeps unlatching and relatching. at that point i felt like pushing her off the bed, so here i sit again. like i said, we have sleep issues.
as for the rest of my life, i have nothing to say. it is not blogworthy. (not that this is)

i'm done being a ghost

so, yeah...i feel like i'm the ghost sister in the family and now i'm done--at least my part of being a ghost. being a ghost is basically being there but hardly being noticed or thought of or there really. i'm sure you may not see it that way but i do and i have for some time and i know that i am partially to blame for this. the reasons i think that i am a ghost are these:
1)i have not participated much in the blog world but when i have i've just sort of "ghosted" in, reading a few of your blogs here and there and not often commenting.
2)i have read your blogs after i have done things with you and it is hardly ever mentioned and if it is, it is mentioned sort of in passing.
3)when major life changing events happen in my life it hardly seems to be noticed by others
4)major things have happened in your lives and for many of them i never knew until way later.

it has saddened me to see this happening in my life so i have thought long and hard about why things are this way for me and i think it is partially because of my personality, partially because of my where i am in life and how it is different from so many of you, and partially because i withdrew from the blogging community.
so...i am going to try to get back into the blog thing and to do anything else i can do to not be the family ghost because i care about you and what is happening in your lives and i want you to care about what happens in mine.

so here is what has happened recently in my life:

 

we went to bowen park for "the tradition"

 

 

elizabeth consumes my life

 

so that's all for now. i will try to do better and be more involved.

It is almost 6am and Elizabeth is not letting me sleep. We've been up since about 3:30. She did let me doze off and on for a little bit, but I've given up on the whole "sleep" thing for now. So I thought it was high time for me to post. A couple months ago Sarah and I were on a walk at Neck Point with the young women. This is what it looked like:






1alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5274080082321158306" /> Wildlife aside, it was absolutely beautuful.

And that is why I live in Nanaimo.

may and june were such busy months for me and there would have been plenty for me to write about, but nooo time. now that school is out and life has calmed down there isn't much of interest happening to me. the girls and i have started the summer holidays on a good rhythm. they have to clean their room every day and do one chore before they do anything else. at first there was a lot of complaining and they were taking all day to clean their room when it just had a couple of things that needed tidying. but then brent bought wii. (we don't really have that kind of money but he returned his laptop and we had an instore credit for...let's just say a lot of money at future shop.) the first morning after brent brought it home the girls woke me up with breakfast in bed (a piece of toast with butter) and a note saying good morning and that they had cleaned their room and done a chore. so could they please play wii? so finally my house is starting to look like it did before the crazy hecticness of the last 6 weeks. and i filed my taxes. i'm looking forward to having a little money. there are some things i really need. nothing exciting--stuff like new undies and a new bathing suit. we went to the pool to celebrate the last day of school and my bathing suit was suddenly so thin. and the skirt is all stretched out. it was ok when it was cold but now that summer has set in i want to go swimming. not really looking forward to the shopping for the bathing suit bit though. i don't know how to do that and still feel good about myself. try on a suit and suddenly i see all my flaws....see? i don't have anything to write about. here are some pictures that capture some of what happened the last 2 months: