Reminiscing

Ringing in the new year has brought with it some reminiscing. I was going through all our pictures, organizing and sorting them, and saving them on a backup. Wow, going through photos of my first meeting with Yonas, of our time in Ethiopia, of our airport arrival, of his baby days, brought back a flood of emotions. I wish I could go back to those days...just for a moment or two. They go by so fast.
This was our first meeting...one month shy of 2 years ago.

It makes me want to adopt again really really really bad. And although I can't compare it to having a biological child, I truly do think it is absolutely the most amazing experience. I'm not saying I love Yonas more than someone loves their bio child but when you wait so long and work so hard for something, going through so many ups and downs, I think you appreciate it more. I'm not sure what the future holds but I do know I want at least one more child but how that will happen, or even if that will happen remains to be seen.

Merry Christmas!!!

Merry Christmas everyone!!! This month has been a little insane, hence my lack of posts. I have so much to write about but I'll try and catch up later and just keep this post mostly Christmas related. December was a doozy of a month. So busy with trying to get ready for the season tied in with exams, and me getting a nasty stomach flu for a week (my first time being sick and being a mommy at the same time, and wow, when I was pretty much the only one to take care of Yoyo it was NOT fun...talk about feeling a lot of guilt, especially when he hauls up a 4 litre jug of chocolate milk and a cup to my room upstairs and asks me if he can "pwease hab a little drink?"). But we both survived.
So, onto Christmas....let me say what a FUN age Yonas was this year. He was so excited about everything, from the lights, to the tree, to the decorations, to Santa. We took him to see Santa, and just like last year, he was excited until we got close to him, so once again it was a family picture with Santa and one unhappy looking child!

Yonas thought decorating the tree was fun for about 2 seconds. After the first couple of ornaments, he just wanted to play with the decorations instead of actually putting them on the tree.

The final result.

The weekend before Christmas we made a quick trip to Toon town to do a little celebrating with my family. 10 hours of driving for about 18 hours of visiting, but it was worth it.

Yonas opening up his first Christmas present of the year!

On the 23rd we went over to some friends for a little festive celebration and all Yonas wanted to do was hold the baby :) He's been asking for a baby sister lately?!?!?!

And on the 24th we went to Mama Leslie's for for celebrating!

And he found a new game he loves...pool.

When we got home that night we put out cookies and milk for Santa, which Yonas helped himself to a few bites... hope Santa didn't mind ;)

And finally Christmas morning arrived! He was super excited to see that Santa had arrived! But after about the 3rd present he wasn't too excited about opening them anymore so we were bribing him with smarties!

His dinosaur piggy bank.

Two of his favourite gifts were his new skates and hockey gloves. Those gloves stayed on for the rest of the morning...which made opening presents a little difficult!

He wouldn't take them off!

The only thing he had asked Santa for was an air hockey table, and lo and behold, Santa did not disappoint!

So now things are finally settling down! We went to an Oil Kings hockey game tonight and Yonas was in heaven! Well, until the mascot Louie the Lion came over to say hi. He was obsessed with the goalies and was talking about how he wants to be a goalie. Ugh, I thought just having him in hockey was going to be expensive, but if he wants to be a goalie, I'm gonna need to win the lottery to be able to pay for it.

There's so much more to write about but I'll have to save it for some future posts. Hope all of you had a very Merry Christmas :)

A Year Later It's Still His Favourite Song!

He's still got the same good ol' moves, just maybe a little more perfected ;) And yeah, probably poor parenting to let him dance on the toilet...possibly a little on the dangerous side.

If my kid was white....

...I suppose this is what he'd look like.

Last week I put him down for a nap as per our usual routine. All was quiet so I foolishly assumed he was lights out. That was until about a half hour later I heard "Mommy, open the door!"...which was a weird request, as usually, if he doesn't want to nap he just bangs and hollers. And then when I did open the door, I just about fell over. It took me awhile to figure out what exactly it was he had slathered over his entire face, and then in the back corner of his closet I found the empty container of bum cream. Yes, he had lathered himself in diaper rash ointment! And as you all probably know, this type of cream is a liquid barrier so the bath that followed was a loooong one. It took forever to get him clean...and around his eyes was no fun for anyone involved!

His reaction when he saw himself in the mirror!

The following two pics are backwards. It started off with him doing his "business" in the bathroom, which he prefers to do in private. When I heard the water running I asked him what he was doing and he replied he was washing his hands. So I opened the door to check things out and there he was sitting amongst bubbles galore. Then he took his shirt off so "have a bath in the sink". Ah well, what's a little soap and water all over the bathroom floor?!?!

Who is this kid?

Yoyo has been at his new dayhome for two weeks now, and wow, what a change! Before, at the old dayhome, when we got home at the end of the day it was a non-stop battle with multiple trips up to timeout (which is even less fun when you have to carry a fighting, kicking 2 year old up to the second level of the house!). His behaviour was not pleasant and it sucked cause it felt like the few hours I had in the day to spend with him was just more misery than happy. It felt like his mission was to push my every button! But now, he is a new kid! He is happy when I pick him up and now we have FUN! He's in a good mood when we get home and we play and he listens (well, most of the time), and he is just all in all an enjoyable kid again.And we are actually enjoying our evenings together with lots of tickles, laughs, and smiles! Now don't get me wrong, the old dayhome wasn't all bad. He loved it there and asks all the time if he can go there. And I know she adored him and treated him like one of her own. But I think it was the whole structure thing...she's not much into a routine with her kids and they kind of have run of the house. She's the parent that lets her kids run around the restaurant and thinks it's cute. To make a long story short, we just have different ideas when it comes to raising kids. I feel sooo much better about things now. I have a happy and enjoyable kid again which makes me a very happy mommy!
And just a couple of snapshots of the little dude cuz what's a post without at least one or two pics of the little ones?!?!

Happy Halloween!!!

We started off our halloween week with a little baking. For the sake of my waist line, most of the mini pumpkin cakes were taken out of the house to Yoyo's dayhome and a couple to our neighbours. I did however sneak one for my self one morning for breakfast (this was before Yoyo was awake so as him not to see!!).
Yoyo was an expert decorator!

The finished product.

Then Friday night we carved our pumpkins. Wow, what a mess it turned out to be with a two year old who insisted on taking out the pumpkin guts all by himself. Which then led to pumpkin goo on the floor, which the dogs ate, which led to some frequent nighttime poops.

The end result. Yoyo wanted a happy pumpkin, I carved Craig a scary pumpkin (he was working), and for myself, a cat.

Then finally the big day arrived. A friend and I took our kids to West Ed Mall for the afternoon. A great idea for kids, especially if the weather is cold (which it wasn't....it was +10). Almost all the stores were handing our candy and Galaxyland was all decorated and they had a place where kids got a halloween bag and got to fill it with coloring books, stickers, and halloween goodies.

Yoyo was a little unsure at first (he's terrified of anything scary and especially masks) but once he got his first couple of candies in his bucket he was a little more excited about the whole idea. That was until life-size Elmo showed up. While all the other kids were absolutely thrilled, Yonas was screaming in terror!

And then of course once he saw people playing hockey, that was it. He could have cared less about getting anymore candy.

Around 3 we left for home and he fell asleep. After a nap and some supper, we went trick or treating to a few friends' places and then back home. We only went to a few houses on our street and then it was home to hand out treats to our own trick or treaters!

The "dinosaur", which is actually a dragon costume, but shhhh don't tell him that.

Just a lipoma

That's what Cassy has. Just a big ol' tumor of fatty tissue that thankfully is non-cancerous. It will most likely need to be surgically removed if it grows much bigger. But the bigger it gets, the more difficult the surgery so I'm thinking maybe after Christmas I'll get it done.

Halloween is just around the corner and although Yoyo is terrified of costumes and the scarier looking halloween decorations, he has been asking me every day to go trick or treating. I'm not looking forward to all the candy...for two reasons, one, I don't need a 2 year old hyped up on sugar for days on end, and two, I don't need my waist to expand anymore!!!
I bit the bullet and bought more halloween decorations for outside today. I wasn't going to but Yoyo was asking about his stolen pumpkin ALL the time so I felt bad. And by golly gee, if someone steals these ones, I am going to snap. So weird that everybody else's halloween decorations on our street have been left untouched.