Happy New Year

Hogmanay here but it's 2008 in the UK already- Happy New Year everyone! We got back yesterday from a short 4 day road trip in Ontario. Highlights of the trip included exploring Kingston, seeing Chris and Julie's new waterfront house, a good walk on the beach, an excellent game of Risk and seeing Carmel and Gordon and their lovely new house. We are back in Montreal now for a couple more days. Not doing anything exciting for hogmanay- we might break out a new movie to watch and toast in the New Year with a glass of red (ribena).
Back to Fredericton on Thursday. Possibly via the states. The road from Montreal to Fredericton is deathly boring. 9 hours of trees. Although the icy St. Lawrence was pretty impressive.

Christmas Fun

We had a wonderful Christmas Day. Started fairly early (5.45am) when Brendan decided he didn't want to go back to sleep. He was probably feeding off our excitement vibes. (Steve and I both love christmas morning!) Fun stockings, lots of good pressies, toys to play with, books to read... The rest of the day involved lots of eating. Steve's mum made a delicious christmas dinner and we started eating the gingerbread house we made the day before. Also went for a walk and ice skating so Siobhan could try out her new hockey stick.
Thanks for the gifts and cards. Hope you are all having a good time and enjoying being with family.
Off on a whistle stop tour in Ontario to visit various friends. More later.

Busy week

We've had a busy week. Steve's birthday, three Christmas parties, Mya's baptism, two playgroups, a school concert, ice skating, dinner with Steve's colleagues and a French test for Siobhan. We've also managed a little bit of shopping and Brendan and I made some Christmas cards that involved making a big mess with paper and paint. Brendan and I enjoyed squeezing oranges, drinking the juice and getting very sticky from head to toe. This was quickly followed by a fun bath playing with giant ice cubes with toys frozen inside them as they melted in the hot water.

Brendan's favourite things at the moment include the books That's not my dragon and Dear Zoo, going "quack, quack" when we talk about ducks, playing with light switches, standing up in the bath, crawling through tunnels and emptying drawers and cupboards.

I'm writing this because I just want to have a record of some of the things we get up to and I haven't been very good at writing in the diary recently.

Winter is here

The first snow storm brought us 40cm of snow!! We love to get out in the snow with Brendan in the backpack or in his new sled but he usually falls asleep as soon as we start moving. We are ice skating too- Brendan and I take the buggy right onto the ice during the week and Steve plays hockey at work. The outdoor rinks will open soon too.

Brendan is fantastic. I'm a very lucky mummy! He stands up all the time now and swings his arms about but hasn't taken more than one step yet. Any day now.
We are off to Montreal next week for Christmas.

Brendan with Granny, Grandad and Uncle Scott.

Brendan and Siobhan arrived in Montreal on Friday to stay with Tommy and Linda for three days before going on to the UK. We met new baby cousin Duncan for the first time and all of us went to the eco-museum to see the bears, racoons, wolves and lots of other Canadian animals. It's 23'C and fairly muggy- not what we imagined for the end of October.

Meanwhile... up near Quebec City Steve is busy at work... missing out on all the fun!

Where we are right now

It's October, Brendan is almost 9 months old, it's getting colder here in New Brunswick, Steve is working crazy hours at the moment and Siobhan and Brendan are off to the UK for a month in 2 days time.
Siobhan is writing this, looking at the computer screen with one eye and watching Brendan with the other. He is a fantastic little chap. Very happy and chilled out. His personality is emerging and he masters something new every day. He likes to walk behind an ugly plastic walker thing and when he bumps into the wall at the other end of the room he sits downs and yells until I point it in the other direction. So let me find a pic.

This was taken in Halifax a couple of weeks ago.

For starters

Thought we'd give this a go. The plan is to post little updates on what we are up to and how Brendan is getting along. We'll also include the odd photo. Take it away...