Merry Christmas!

Much to our surprise, Violet decided, at the last minute (not to mention when she was wearing a mismatched outfit and hadn't had a bath) that she LOVED Santa and wanted nothing more than to hug him, sit on his lap and get a photo. Until this fateful evening at the mall, she screamed in terror at the sight of any Santa, real or fake. Go figure. When she said, "I want to see Santa" we took off her plaid dress (which she insisted on wearing over another complete outfit which thankfully matched) , ran fingers through her hair which was slightly tangled due to all the food that had collected in it and gave her a spit wash on her face - and look at the result! Our gorgeous kid :) She waled right up to Santa and gave him a hug and they had a big chat. I think it helped that she had spoken to Santa (Jon really) on the phone recently.

We had a wonderful Christmas. We had a Christmas Eve dinner with our friends Mike and Diana and their daughter Annika as well as Kym, our friend who lives across the street and her son Jeremy. It was very laid back and a lot of fun - the kids were really having a great time and we even captured Violet on video playing a christmas song for everyone.

Christmas Day and the following three were quiet and restful (as much as they can be with an almost 3 year old). We watched movies and read books and went for walks. We also cooked and ate a LOT. We splurged on a free-range turkey this year and it was the best we have ever had - wow it was good!

Violet had a wonderful christmas day - she was so spoiled by everyone and with the exception of about 20 minutes of demon child time when she realized just how many presents she might get to open, she was an angel and had a really fun time. The highlight of Violet's Christmas, other than eating chocolate for breakfast, was getting her own scissors! She actually got two pairs, one from Santa (Grandma and Grandpa) in her stocking and another from Santa (Mom and Dad) in her new craft box which was filled with all kinds of new things to make a mess with! She is having a great time creating.

She has also had great joy out of trying on all the new clothes, shoes and dress up clothes she received and playing with all her new toys.

We have lots of photos and video which I will upload soon. Promise... :)

A couple of notes about our big girl. She has officially given up napping, though she still has a quiet time and does sometimes fall asleep during it or in the car/stroller but we avoid this like the plague as she is so hard to get to bed if she snoozes. V is also fully potty trained now, we felt that she would have been trained sooner had the house not been full of construction activity but once all of that quieted down, she was home more and within a couple of days was fully trained. She is even making it through the night or getting up to pee in the night if she has to. Finally, we had high hopes of getting rid of her soosie (pacifer) by giving it to Santa so he could then give it to the babies who really need soosies, however at the last minute, Violet decided that Santa could have them all but one... We are still working on that one :)

Happy New Year with love from the Gleeds

Halloween

This was really Violet's first proper Halloween, even though its the third one she has been around for. We were out of town on the last two halloween's and V was just to young to care - not this year! Wow she had a lot of fun! She wanted to be an orange cat but decided last minute that she actually wanted to be a butterfly - that worked for us as finding an orange cat costume was not really panning out and there was NO WAY possible that one of us was going to try and make one :) We ended up with a Thumbelina costume as that was the one that was closest to her majesty's wishes. She has no idea who Thumbelina is but when she saw it she was thrilled and decided she was a butterfly princess which is why she added her tiara to the emsemble.

We visited the pumpkin patch with our friends Mike and Diana and their baby girl Annicka. We brought home four pumpkins and of course Jon had fun trying to come up with something that would wow the kids trick or treating (those who complimented the pumpkins got a lot of candy I noticed :).

Violet went trick or treating with her buddy Jeremy from across the street and she figured out how great trick or treating was pretty quickly! We went to about 10 houses on our street then handed out candy for a while - Violet the princess butterfly tried to scare the kids by saying boo at the door - she got a lot of laughs instead... Just after 8 we headed to the neighbouthood bonfire - it was great but we didn't stay too long as Ms. V was over tired and having a sugar crash so we packed her up in the stroller and let her fall asleep as her parents enjoyed a Halloween stroll on as it was a beautiful evening .

Here are more pics and videos from this month - be sure to check out Violet's solo rendition of itsy bitsy spider on ukulele (thank you Mike :) and the tap dancing (thank you Nanny :).

You may also notice some pics of Jon and Christine and other random shots from Violet's world - she loves taking pictures these days - her is one of her best shots - yes Mom Violet takes better photos than you :) - sorry had to do it!

Grandma and Grandpa are coming here next week for a visit - Violet is very excited. We are looking forward to the visit and madly trying to get the house in order with the reno still ongoing - as long as we can move our bed out of the living room we will be quite happy :) We are actually almost there and things are looking great!

Love to all!

Summer 09 and some of the Fall...

Once again, we've been away from the blog for so long....

It's been and interesting, busy and wonderful few months with renovations, vacations, lots of work and a lot of fun watching Violet blossom into a little girl.


To catch you up, here are photos and videos from July, August and September with a special album for our PEI trip.


We have been under renovations since the end of May and the end is in sight. We now have a new bedroom, bathroom, office, laundry, deck, storage area and improved guest accommodations with a proper room and bathroom - no more raised throne for those of you who have stayed with us before! The finishing process has started so we are very excited and hope to move in soon! Jon has been working closely with our friend and contractor, Mike, to make most of the decisions and come up with solutions to things along the way. We are very much looking forward to having our living room back (currently its our bedroom...) and doing a REALLY thorough clean of the house when it all comes back together.


Violet and I spent about a week and a half in PEI. It was wonderful to have some family time with everyone but we really missed Grampy. A lot of people went out of their way to spend time with us and we really appreciated getting to have some great visits at the cottage. Baby Haylee is one of Violet's favourite people she fed her a bottle on a couple of occasions which was incredibly cute, especially when Haylee started grabbing her nose. Now every time she sees a baby she asks me if she can feed it.



We also spent a week in Vancouver after going to our friends Lisa and Mark's wedding. We had a lot of beach time and walked many many miles exploring the city.

Its hard to describe the number of changes that Violet has made over the past couple of months. Here are the ones that really stand out to us:

- potty training - we are getting there! We have not pushed the issues, though we have been VERY tempted, and happily Violet decided that she is ready and uses the potty every day now. She is still in pull ups but once this reno is behind us we are going to try and take the next step and go big girl pants most of the time! What we find truly incredible is that when she uses the potty, she now wipes her own bum, pulls up her own pants, pours the pee into the toilet, washes and dries her own hands and of course makes an announcement to anyone and everyone available of her accomplishments.
- language - she just wants to use every word possible. V's sentences (I mean paragraphs- the girl is a little long-winded :) have become complex, inflected and almost always end in a question or a simple -why? She has uttered the odd swear word unfortunately. The strange thing is that she seems to get that they are bad words and only asks..."why did you say f--- mommy?" but make no mistake, she wants a good answer to that question. We don't think of ourselves as potty mouths but let's just say we have learned out lesson, I think!
- play - she is pretending and using her imagination so much. Its often embellishing adventures that she has read or watched on shows like Dora (oh yeah and she has watched sooooo much tv due to the reno - we are currently deprogramming her with great success :)
- girlyness - ok its nature. There is no question in my mind! Violet looks at things and calls them boys or girls depending on what colour they are. Good luck getting a blue item of clothing on her these days )unless of course its a girly blue - that's ok) When they didn't have the fleece sweater we wanted to buy her in in her size in pink, we eventually decided on 'chocolate' colour instead. It's still a battle everytime we want her to wear it. A pink vest helps. Oh yeah and there's the shoe thing - she is an addict. Her current favourites are sparkly gold mary janes ( I thought they would be just for dress up...)
- general independence - we are building more time into the day for Violet to do thing by herself. She likes to choose her own clothes (wow we've had some interesting combos!) but will usually settle for choosing one of 2 things that mommy or daddy offer her. She dresses and undresses herself, usually without mishap. She also wants to try things like buttering her own bread, making a sandwich and pouring her drink.
- favourite things - dancing (more than ever), playing with other kids, all things princess, chocolate (I don't want that treat daddy - I want chocolate!), babies (real and play), books, swimming, cooking and the beach.

Its a rainy saturday morning in Victoria. We had had a spectacular summer and fall and it appears we now have to pay our dues for the rainy season - we're ok with it I guess. This weekend we are getting Violet an orange cat costume, visiting the pumpkin patch and getting her some new rubber boots (her feet have bloomed to size 9!) and getting the house in order - sort of.

We've moved the blog in hopes of making it faster and easier to do updates... wish us luck :)

Happy Canada Day!

We had a 'birthday party' for Canada today at Matt and Liz's house. Our hosts indulged Violet's current fixation (yes its serious - first thing she wants in the morning and last thing at night) on birthday parties by getting everyone to sing happy birthday to Canada when the Canada Flag cake was served.

Violet is awfully hard to keep up with these days - she is counting (to somewhere around 16 - those teens mess with her head), learning her letters and numbers (early days with these), 'reading', running, jumping and using her little imagination in ways that surprise us all the time.

She is really starting to pretend a lot and role play real life - LOTS of time is spent going shopping, having tea (and of course birthday) parties, reenacting or making up Dora episodes. We do feel that her love of Dora (a little less lately) may make her a little bit of a drama queen - no laughing out there! She often comes out with things like 'oh no mommy/daddy the baby can't find his mommy, what are we gonna do? We have to help him" This is of course followed by a lot of excited gibberish that we try to stay out of until the baby is rescued/finds his mommy/gets foods etc.

Our little gal turns 2 and a half next week - incredible how fast its happening.

Oh yeah and she NEVER stops talking! Her two favourite words are "I want":)

Pics from Saltspring visit...

This video is called 'You'll never find your sandcastle now" another Dora reference to Swiper the sneaky fox who is always swiping Dora's stuff.... this is at Mount Doug beach which is one of Violet's favourite places to get naked and play in the dirt. See the photo below for the full monty visual...

Tough Day tough girl

Poor Violet had a rough day today. Not only does she have a cold (still) which has her face covered in green goo most of the time. She also got her finger caught in a heavy door hinge - pretty traumatic- she was helped along by smarties and now has a very purple finger that will definitely lose its nail. ouch!

Oh yes and then she capped it all off with a tumble down the stairs ending in a face plant (that will probably leave her with a shiner) at the bottom... double ouch

Of course she's fine, I think her parents are a little worse for wear though.

Chatterbox

We had a great little getaway for my 34th birthday to a cabin on the beach about an hour from Victoria. The weather ranged from amazing warm and sunny to full on rain storm which just made it all the more fun :)





Guess who can stay in the cold water longest?








Here is a video of Violet at the dinner table having some polite conversation for my birthday dinner - a bit long but pretty cute (her parents think anyway).

We have entered the princess stage of Violet's life - not sure how but all of a sudden she wants to wear only dresses (called princess dresses) and loves anything pink. Today I took her for a little treat to a specialty bakery and told her she could have any treat she wanted. She picked the girliest thing in the place - a raspberry truffle meringue - bright pink and very pretty - lucky for me it was only 75 cents.

Though she loves everything girly and in addition to the clothes also requires jewellery with her outfitts as well as just the right colour ponytail holder or clip - she loves nothing more than throwing on a pair of rubber boots with that outfit and getting it good and dirty.

We are starting our renovation on June 1st - but apparently there is some initial demolition about to begin on tuesday - wish us luck!

Nanny's visit

Delinquent once again - here are some photos and videos from Nanny's visit last month. We had mom here for almost 2 weeks. Needless to say Violet was spoiled a LOT - Mom's excuse is that she now has to spoil Violet for herself and my dad :) At this point, Violet says 'Nanny buy it for me" in reference to basically anything she owns - particularly clothes but even things like her pull ups.

We have had a tough week with our girl - she is so moody! Let's hope this is not what 2 is going to be going forward. She is so Jekyl and Hyde that we are a little scared of her right now...

Jon is off on a boyz camping weekend - hope they stay warm. I'm sure the beer will help (and the cord of wood they have loaded into Mike's van!)

These are pics from a recent 'nature walk' - one of our favourite things to do on a weekend.

Growing up so fast

at the petting zoo

Violet on the front steps

We are never without excitement and surprise these days with the things coming out of Violet's mouth. She is so funny and knows it! She has really become so much more content since her language skills have blossomed (I shouldn't have said that should I!?). Don't get me wrong, there are lots of tantrums, mostly they can be ended with a distraction (tonight it was an LED flashlight and all was forgotten), but she generally is less frustrated by everything because she can tell us what she is thinking and more importantly - what she wants!

She has started to tell us things in story form, there are lots of words in her stories that are either made up or we don't understand but she is loving having the ability to tell us about things that happened in her day. It's really fun at the end of a day to come home and ask her about her day only to get a happy earful about dance class, swimming and reading books - usually with a lot of animated hand talking included!

Catching Up...again

We have a lot to catch up on! Since Christmas, we have been busy with lots of things, sad and happy.

As you can see from these pics, Violet still loves to be in the kitchen - she 'cooks' something everyday. We had a system going for a while where she had her spices that she played with and that seemed to keep her happy but now it seems to take every messy ingredient in the kitchen to make her 'cooking' a success. She has started to wash all the vegetables for dinner - she will spend a good half an hour at the sink washing anything she can get her hands on.

Here is a picture from her first day at dance class - she LOVES it.



We celebrated the New Year with friends and Violet was the perfect party animal - stayed up past her bedtime eating junk food and dancing and collapsed in bed without any fuss when she was totally partied out. We were able to stay out past our bedtime too as she slept away in Matt and Liz's spare room until the pots and pans started banging at midnight (a west coast thing I think - everybody goes outside at midnight to bang on pots and pans and scream and shout!!??) when we bundled her up to take her home to her own bed.

Two of my pals from university came to Victoria for a visit in early January - Alicia was on one of her west coast adventures from Toronto and Renee, Jarod and Sam came to visit on their way back to White Rock from Tofino. It was a short but fun visit - the boys kindly went on a little pub crawl one night to give us girls some time on our own. Aren't they sweet :) Violet is a few months older than Sam - they are very cute together and have a lot of fun playing. She asked for baby Sam for a week after they left.



We had a lot of worry in the early days of the new year trying to get an understanding of dad's diagnosis and what it really meant. We thought we were just getting our heads around it when he was taken from us so suddenly. Everyone is doing ok I think. We miss dad terribly and worry about each other a lot. I don't think it is really real for anyone yet. Mom is coming for a visit next month which we are really looking forward to.

We had a pared down birthday for Violet this year, we were thinking of having a party for all her little friends at a rec centre but with all that we had on the go, we decided on a smaller gathering with a few people who spend the most time with Violet and would want to celebrate the day with her. Even though it was a pared down event, Violet had a fantastic time - a few friends, helium balloons and a cake totally make a party for a two year old!

Here is a link to some photos and videos from her birthday. Violets Birthday Album

Note the Elmo cake which was baked by her mother and decorated by her father - we are very proud and are already planning the cake for birthday #3... that plan involves ordering a cake from a bakery!

Here is Violet's big girl bed which she has been in for a couple of weeks now. She LOVES her bed and loves the freedom of getting up when she is ready too. We have had a lot of early mornings that started with a toddler staring us in the face - delighted to be waking us up in person.



This is Violet and her buddies TJ and Taite going for a ride in the wagon around the neighbourhood. They chatter away with each other - its very cute. This trip also included their favourite babies.


A little diddy that Violet put together for you all... You wouldn't know it from this video but her language skills have just exploded over the past weeks. Its really fun to see her experimenting with bigger, more challenging words and longer phrases. Some of her favourite things to say at the moment are... no (obviously - she is 2) but her no is usually in a phrase like 'no mommy I do it self' or 'no doggy no doggy'

A recent favourite of Jon's is 'I go upstairs wake up mommy now' (evil grin included)
A few other favs that she uses all the time are - 'no way dad', 'dink a waya (drink of water) pease', 'I done now' and of course "I wan watch (insert favourite show of the day - Elmo, A Aygo (Diego) or gabba gabba) now pease" - this one is often repeasted at increasing volume and pitch until her parents find a distraction or give in. Happily she has also started saying 'yes' instead of grunting 'em'....



Still writing... The last quick updates - we have had plans drawn up to add an extension to our house for a master suite - just finally deciding if we have to gumption to build it! Jon is doing lots of painting and really doing some beautiful work. Work is good for me - like most businesses, we have had some setbacks due to the economic times but are rallying and planning to be busy in 2009.

Love to all! (If there is still anyone out there... :)

Dearest Grampy

I've been trying to find the words to write about my dad. Every time I try I just can't seem to get further than a few sentences. I've decided today is the day and I am going to post whatever I can manage to get down and hope it does justice to the wonderful man that he was.

After a short battle with cancer, he died on January 11th. Dad was diagnosed just after Christmas and was only in the hospital for 2 weeks. He was so strong and positive about everything and he was so grateful for the good care that he received. I don't know how he found the strength to be so amazing as he was poked and prodded and on the receiving end of bad news on so many days. But he was and I was so incredibly proud of him for that.

I wish I could have been there while he was in hospital, to help take care of him. I would have been there if any of us had known that he would be taken so quickly. I am forever grateful to my brothers who were on the front lines of everything from receiving devastating news to taking care of any need Dad had to taking all the phone calls from concerned friends and family and making the final arrangements. And of course for being there now with Mom.

It still does not seem real and we are so heartbroken to have lost him at such a young age. He was only 60.

Violet's grampy is gone but will never be forgotten. The short time that Violet and grampy had together had a lasting impact and I truly hope we can help her remember him. He died exactly 2 years after Violet was born and now Grampy and Violet have a special date to share when we can celebrate both of them each year.

If you didn't know my dad you truly missed out. He was a special person who spent his life giving of himself to other people and because of that he had many, many friends. He was king of the pranks, he loved his family so much and was incredibly proud of his 3 grandchildren, he was my mom's love and friend for more than 35 years and he was a kid at heart.

Violet, Jon and I spent about a week in PEI with my family and have some wonderful memories of the time we all had together even though saying goodbye to my dad was one of the hardest things I have ever done. I know he is looking out for us now and he would have been amazed and proud to see the incredible turnout of 1300 people at his wake. He would have laughed and been delighted at seeing 3 of his pallbearers wearing their RCMP red serge and at the police escort for his funeral procession that stopped traffic.

There is so much more to say and I eventually hope to find the words to say it. We all miss you so much Dad.

Christmas 2008

Dinner with our friends


My gift to Daddy

Daddy got Rock Band!



Still catching up! Christmas seems like a long time ago but we still haven't posted any pics. Violet (and the rest of us) were very spoiled by our friends and family - thank you everyone!

Violet really 'got' christmas this year. When we talked about Santa and how he brings presents to good girls and boys she would point to herself and say "I too?!" We had a lot of fun decorating the tree, lots of Christmas music for Violet and Jon to dance to while mommy put the decorations on the tree - somehow Violet ended up being naked by the time we were ready for her to put the angel on the tree.

Violet had so many gifts to open that we had to stop and take a break for some breakfast - seems to be a tradition at our house :) We usually go for a christmas walk but our attempt at a walk didn't seem to fit with Violet's plans, even though we took her out in her new red wagon from santa! We had a wonderful dinner with our friends Elise, Travis, TJ and Taite - a rowdy and fun day it was!

It was our first white christmas in Victoria - turns out Violet loves the snow (especially to eat) but not the cold so much. Jon had a LOT of shoveling to do as he was helping out 3 neighbours and doing our driveway, walkway and sidewalk as well. All is green again and we are happy about that!