Four Point

Alistair is so fun to watch right now as he's very motivated. All throughout the day we can find Alistair with his knees under his bum and using his head to attempt to get up on all fours.

That's when I run over and give him just a touch of assistance and viola up comes his head. Love it! The neatest part is that he really gets a kick out of himself in this position. He literally starts to giggle and smile with delight.Now a few times a day while we just leave him be we can turn around and find him doing it all by himself! Every few days he seems to gain a tad more strength to allow him to stay in this position just a little bit more. Its tricky catching him on camera as by the time you catch him and grab the camera he has done a good ol' face plant into the mats. But its just fantastic for us to see him accomplishing this. In the picture above I would say he was up in "four point" (as our PT calls it) for a good 8 seconds!

I have a video below showing his enjoyment of rolling over and gaining ability. I have some other videos too but I take them for too long and then they don't fit on the blog. You get some good giggles in this one though so enjoy...I DO!

Family, Food, and Fun!

Christmas this year was definitely about family, food, fun and mellowness! Having been to Vancouver on the 21st and 22nd and then coming home to work the night of the 23rd and 24th I was definitely a tad bagged Christmas morning. But as usual, it proved to be a wonderful relaxing time.....we just had to do things a tad differently as I couldn't keep my eyes open past 9am!

Jason was wonderful in getting Alistair all invovled in his present opening. However, Alistair seemed much more interested in the gift bags and the wrapping paper than anything else!

Since I had to have a snoozaroo realtively early Jason cooked brunch for all while I had a nap.

Then when I woke we had another session of xmas present opening.Then everyone was ready for a snoozaroo! :D
For numerous evenings including Christmas Day we sat down to hours of board games.

Over the month of December Alistair has decided to take another leap in his progression which is of course the best Christmas gift for this family. For one, he's become alot more cuddly but he is also increasing his eye contact substantially with us all which is really neat. On top of that he's become very keen to be on his tummy and get up on his elbows and hands. Although it lasts momentarily and he comes down on his head into the rubber mat he seems to keep wanting to go for more. In addition, we do a lot of standing/dancing together on a daily basis. He obviously loves it as he giggles endlessly. (Thats another thing he's into is the giggles!)Now the most recent thing he's doing is attempting to feed himself a bottle. Although its messy and he'll only do it with one hand the fact he's doing it is fabulous to us!

(the video below shows his fabulous mess!)
On top of the busy Christmas holiday season my cousin Jessica and her fiance Paul decided to tie the knot New Years Eve.

So we got to have an extra special New Years Eve with family and friends in Fort Saint John to bring in 2012. ~ Happy New Years Everyone. I hope it proves to be a great year for all! ~ Julie

NORMAL!!!!!!!

Well the 21st was a pretty heavy morning. I got myself down to Women's & Children's from PG here for my 945am ultrasound. Now of course the tech can't tell you want they are seeing but they can tell you what they are looking at. So I got to see the little bambio bouncing around and of course over anaylze why they are spending so much time looking at this, that, and whatever. Thankfully, I had to only wait until 1130 to see the genetic counsellor for the results but that just felt like the world slowed down and forgot to turn. Geeze thank goodness I didn't have to wait any longer than I did. So waiting patiently in the genetics room Patricia came to the door and said "I have great news" Well I just burst into tears. One doesn't realize how much pent up angst one has until these moments. I just couldn't stop crying to the point that I even had Patricia get all teary eyed. Anyhow I got ahold of myself and basically felt a tad in shock. But basically to the best of their ability they can tell me that this kidlet is going to be NORMAL. (thats my favorite word!) Plus to top it off I had received the quad screen blood results a week earlier and was told that came back all negative as well. That created another great melt down to the point the doc called me at home to make sure I knew negative results were a good thing! O course I had but again it was just a HUGE release. I've also always dealt with my pregancies with the idea of "Expect the worst and HOPE for the best" So ya life is incredibly lovely right now. I was so strung after receiving the ultrasound results that I felt I needed to get out and walk for a bit to blow off some steam. Luckily the weather was brilliant while I was down and I ended up walking from Women's and Children's to my buddies place right down by Stanley Park. On the way I bought myself fancy smancy drinks and goodies, window shopped, took in the environment and ended up walking a total of 6km. It was great. Since I had planned for a possible amniocentisis I didn't book my flight home till late the next day. Fortunately, we didn't end up needing to take that route and my buddy Kim and her family opened their doors to me and we hung outfor the rest of the time. We headed to Granville for some breakfast and in the afternoon we hit up all the fancy hotels and checked out their decorations. One of the hotels had a gingerbread house competition and it was truly stunning what people had created. Kim and Grady are standing in front of a life sized Gingerbread house. Yeppers thats real gingerbread! This gingerbread display was the most amazing of all. It was done by one of the culinary schools down in Vancouver and the detail to it all was stunning. It was quite bizzare to be down there at this time of year as the grass is green and the temp is hovering around zero while everyone is completely bundled in huge parkas! One fella even had a beaver hat on...not sure what this lot would do if it truly got cold! Anyhow this was just a lovely Christmas gift for our whole family and now we can proceed with this pregnancy as a NORMAL average pregnancy......JUST BEAUTIFUL! Have a wonderful Christmas everyone ~ Cheers Julie Jason, Alistair and bambino to be!

Santa's in Town

So we went to the mall and decided to get pics with Santa ...... it took a couple of takes and I wish I had a video rather than a still....Alistair literally tried to rip poor santa's beard off! It was quite funny but luckily Santa was quick on the draw and kept his beard to his face....not sure how it would've affected the other kidlets in line if he hadn't!
We also got to see Santa again at the Northern BC Children & Families Hearing Society Xmas Party. This time Alistair was enthralled by his slinky rather than Santa's beard!

For the past couple of years we've gone to the local store and bought a tree. We always missed the actual day of searching for our Charlie Brown tree so Jason and I went for a walk about on Mom's farm and found a couple of Christmas trees that would work perfectly. One for her home and the other for ours. Jason did all the physical work and I did the cheerleading.

Alistair is quite taken by all the shiny objects on the tree.

Alistair also loves reading the paper with Dad....actually he loves to attack the paper as Dad attempts to read it and Dad loves it!

Well I'm off to Vancouver tomorrow for another Ultrasound so hopefully all is well and we can experience the life of a plain old average pregnancy! Have a wonderful Christmas!~ Julie

Amazing MAMA

If I can be even slightly like my mom when I grow up I'll be thanking my lucky stars....I aspire to have her contentment, insight, as well as her positive outlook on life. She's truly amazing!

So in my attempt to spoil her on her 29th bday (tee hee hee) Jason and I cooked her a nice Greek dinner which included spanakopita, a juicy roast of lamb, and some roasted lemon potatoes. For dessert we got to sink our teeth into a rich raspberry cheesecaske that I had thrown together and I have to admit it was absolutely delicious.

One of Mom's latest favorite sayings these days is...
"I don't mind getting older as the other option isn't too good. "

LOVE YOU MOM! ♥ Pickle (Mom's nickname for me growing up)

I also added a little video of Alistair attempting to figure out his little switch toy. Its all to help progress his communication. If he is capable of getting a handle of the switch toy in this context perhaps in the not too distant future he can start to use the switches to get across what he'd like or not like... Whatever the case he's pretty darn cute in it! ~ enjoy

3 + 1 = 4

Thats right folks we've made an addition thats brewing away and is already 16 weeks in the making! We're so super excited/nervous but I've already made my way down to St Pauls Hosptial in Vancouver to see how things were progressing and the radiologist said that all looked well. Actually the ultrasound tech really took her time as she knew I was a nervous pervous and showed me where the heart was, the diaphragm outline, and even the stomach. It was very lovely of her as it put me a bit more at ease with it all as of course we've heard all the statistics in the book telling us the chances of this that and everything else and to be honest I'm bloomin sick of hearing statistics because statistically Alistair is the only one of his kind on this planet as they don't know why he is the way he is! LOL So ya don't talk to me about statistics. Anyhoo I'm feeling great. I've passed my bitching, emotional nauseous period and now life is just skippity doo so lets hope it stays that way. So I figured with all the changes coming our way I should give the blog a new fresh look that goes hand in hand with this pregnancy. I picked the jelly beans because unfortunately I can not get my hands on enough candy! I especially love the good ol' sours that are all dried up at the corner gas station. I am preventing myself from totally gorging on them but yummers! So life is good all around for this family at the moment. Jason remains busy as a self employed carpenter which is pretty nice at this time of year, I'm continuing to work part time in our crazy emergency department, and Alistair continues to surprise us with the progress he makes. He's now rolling on his tummy, maintaining that stance and playing with a toy momentarily! Love it. OOOooo and the gluten free diet ROCKS. We have decreased Alistair's laxative to half a tsp from a full tsp and I think we're going to beable to take him right off it. Plus now when he has a toot he doesn't cry and he doesn't spend three days attempt to have a good ol' BM. Now he's regular schmagular....so nice nice nice... We've also stuck him on a low dose of melatonin at night to help him with his sleep and it does seem to help but I don't think it removes the terrible two attitude he has a bed time. However the melt downs have become less and less which is lovely with this upcoming babes on the way. So ya life is great...so lets hope it is the same for you on your end...cheers till next time ♥

Two Week Challenge

So after endless nights with random awakenings throughout I've decided to attempt a gluten free diet for Alistair. My friend Lisa has just started doing the same for her son and raves how much better he is in just a week. Considering Alistair already has low tone which includes his bowl perhaps this change for his system will be beneficial in many ways. I've decided to give it my best for two weeks and re-evaluate the situation after its all done. To my surprise most of the products I was looking at buying were cheaper in our local health food store rather than the big box grocery store. This wouldn't have been my first guess. I am going to try making some bread as the stuff I've bought is so dense and heavy and Alistair just wouldn't beable to consume this stuff. The little munchkin has a full set of teeth but hasn't realized the benefits of using his little chompers to break things up. So we can give him textured stuff but it does have to be just right for him and the bread just doesn't cut it. To my relief though there is all sorts of hot cereals we can give him which is what he loves for breakfast. So I bought a selection: rice, quinoa, and oats which all get to a palatable consistency for him. I'm also going to start giving him some high fat shakes too beef him up a bit as his metabolism is so high. I've been told its due to his high resperation rate due to the funky lung. Anyhow, I don't think I will stick so strictly that I worry about the odd sauce but overall he'll be a gluten free kid for then next couple weeks! Wish me luck : D ~ Cheers Julie