2 Girls!

It's probably not news to anyone now that we are expecting another baby girl (its been ALL over facebook :). We are so excited and Violet is over the moon at the thought of a baby sister.  We had an ultrasound last week and everything is coming along as it should. Baby is healthy and BIG. She is in the 90th percentile for the measurement of her head, length of her legs and size of her tummy (actually a little more than 90th on this measurement). This has pretty much solidified for us that I will have a scheduled c-section for this delivery. I was seriously considering a VBAC to try and have a natural delivery but these babies of ours with the big heads aren't really great for that option.  We have already met the obstetrician that will do the surgery and he seems great so we will see him again soon to have the delivery scheduled.

Jon has had to repaint the baby's room as two of the walls were messed up during our reno. Its a fresh start with a sunny yellow colour and plans for a flower mural.

Here are some recent pics which include visits from from Nanny in March and Grandpa in April.

Violet's been really focussed on her friends lately. She has playdates with Jeremy (2) and Samantha (3.5) every week, they are kids who live on our street and we try to get her to see other buddies, especiallly her friend Quinn as often as we can as these two girls LOVE playing together. It's really fun watching her young relationships bud, Violet is so content when there is another kid around to entertain her.

She is also really using her imagination a lot which is quite fascinating to watch. She uses her stuffed animals to hold tea parties, play games and dance around the house. She has lots of conversations with them and likes to treat them like they are friends or babies - some interesting conversations are occuring.

Jon and V finished swimming lessons this week. Jon is going to teach her himself for the summer and then look at lessons again in the fall. We gave up on gymnastics in after 3-4 classes. It was a bit of a gong show. She was spending half the class either confused or waiting in line - which no one in the class really knew how to do. She did learn some things so its too bad but now its warm outside so we would rather spend time at the playground on a saturday morning anyway.

I am feeling a big large but otherwise pretty good. Baby is very busy but not making me uncomfortable - just busy hands that tickle all day and a few kicks at night. Jon has felt her kick a few times but she is generally  elusive when there are hands on my belly. I like having her to myself while I can...

Big Girl, more than ever

I'm not sure what made 3 the magical age where your child gains so much independence all at once but all of a sudden Violet is now in classes BY HERSELF!  And of course she loves it - this week was her first swimming lesson without one of her parents in the pool. She didn't hesitate to go with the teacher into the pool and hung on every word she said,eager to learn all the 'moves' she had to teach her.  Today is her first gymnastics class which she will also attend by herself, even though her mother is really wanting to be a fly on the wall at least for a little while to see how she interacts with the teacher and the other kids.

V is going through some shyness these days but it isn't preventing her from doing anything yet. We are hoping to give her the confidence to go for it instead of being shy. Yesterday at the playground she asked Jon how she could play with another girl (about a 7 year old) and once given the instruction to just say hello she was on her way and ran around the playground with a whole group of older kids for an hour.

She's also riding her bicycle with a lot of confidence these days - so much so that its scary to watch her go down a hill :) She has a peddle-free bike that she pushes with her feet. The idea is that she will gain balance faster than on a tricycle because she can lift up her feet and glide when she gets going - she is just starting to pick up her feet and is having so much fun.  This has come after quite a lot of time spent with Violet and Jon slowly walking around the block as Violet got up her nerve.

We are very excited about our next baby Gleed - baby has started kicking, so far only hard enough for mommy to feel. The attached ultrasound photo is pretty unsatisfying but its all they could capture at 12 weeks because the little monkey was so busy jumping around in there. On the theme of babies, I came across this article on baby names this morning and thought there were some pretty funny ones coming out of Alberta.

We are nowhere near the atge of picking names though if our last experience is any indication we should get started because it is SUCH a hard thing to do!

Happy Valentines Day

Lots of updates from the Gleed clan, Violet as a 3 year old is, well Jekyll and Hyde basically. One minutes she is the sweetest, funniest, smartest little thing and we just can't get over how much she is developing and changing day by day. The next minute, she is in a full-on screaming, kicking tantrum about a tiny little thing that didn't go her way.  Case in point was her first experience at preschool at the open house this week. She was having SUCH an amazing time but then got quite upset when a BOY (yes - it would have been ok if it was a girl apparently) came to play beside her. She recovered from that and played happily with the other kids for another 20 minutes or so until one of her parents made a minor suggestion to correct something she was doing - tears again. And the finale, despite 5 minute warnings for about 20 minutes that we would have to leave soon, she through a total wally when we attempted to remove her play clothes and get ready to leave. This was perhaps the worst tantrum she has ever thrown, we were so proud :)

Here are recent pics from our ski trip to Mount Washington and around some others. Jon had Violet in a lesson then took her on lots more runs after that, he skied backwards all afternoon so they were both completely exhausted at the end of the day. The girl has absolutely no fear and loved the slopes. She is a bit of a speed demon.

I'm trying to type this with Violet on my lap, she has a new love of computer games ( she has mastered using the mouse and is pretty independent playing games on treehouse and Nick Jr) and is currently demanding either to type or play a game - this post will not be much longer...

To keep the whining at bay a little, here are some words from Violet. bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbcccccccccccffffffffffffffffffffffhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhdddddddddddddddddddllllllllll

I've just asked her what she is excited about these days and she said her potty. She has been fully trained for a while now and has only ever had a few accidents. She also kicked the diapers at night time.

She says she is also excited (still) about her birthday - she is already planning for next year I think.

She is most excited though about being a big sister! We are expecting a baby on Aug 31. I am feeling pretty good (and large), looking forward to the second trimester when I hope to have a little more energy and don't have to send my husband out on shopping missions for my cravings.

In looking back at the blog, we realized that we thought there were more photos and videos from Christmas and  V's birthday here are some more.

Happy Valentines Day!

Sorry this took so long. Christmas and V's birthday is a very busy time for us.

Here are few pics during and around V's birthday. Click here.

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 :)