Family Life – Page 21 – a hippie with a minivan

Quebec City…

Last weekend we headed to Quebec city for a family party. It is so rare that extended family gets together is happy time (not a funeral) so I jumped on the chance…

An old friend and his wife invited us to sleep over at their house that night also which was amazingly kind considering that we are six people and they have an apartment. It was one of those weekends that everything just turned out great and we all had fun.

The party was for my mom’s cousin’s 25th anniversary. There were a lot of happy tears and catching up and meeting second cousins and relatives that I had never met before. The boys had fun running around outside and picking at the buffet and hanging out with their grandma and going to the bathroom downstairs all by themselves. All dressed up we were able to get a pic of the family… This is the first time that we are all in a picture as it is usually Simon and I who are behind the camera…

(Khéna was fixated on the fountain that was in front of us)

My grandmother was really happy to spend sometime with the kids also…

After the party we headed back to our friend’s apartment and then in the morning we headed to a flea market and then to the old city. It is amazing how you can go along the street and then meet the walls of the old city and be taken back in time. Buildings, centuries old, line the streets crowed together, and you are taken back in time. We parked the cars in the lower city and looked for a place to eat lunch.

(Chateau Frontenac, the most photographed Hotel in the world)

After lunch we decided to take the Funiculaire up to the upper city and then walk down again so that we could walk around more without us all getting too tired. The Funiculaire first went into operation in 1879 and worked on steam and counterweights. In 1907 it went electric and over the years it has been updated. It is a short ride that costs 2$ but is well worth it, and the boys loved it…

(from the street in the lower city and the view going to the top)

At the top, there are the remains of the fort that stood on that spot nearly 400 years ago. The boys loved going around in the remains and seeing where things used to be.

Of course the view from the top is also spectacular…

(another family pic!! and again, Khéna is not looking… )

After walking a bit in the upper city, we headed back down… It was a beautiful day, it was the weekend and their were tons of people, but it didn’t hinder the experience at all..

We had Gellato, we people watched and looked at murals on the walls of the buildings (click on the pics below to see in big) We saw street performers (Khéna was quite intrigued by the statue lady) and heard music and just enjoyed the history around us…. I look forward to returning in the near future for another adventure…

Marche dans le Marais…

Right after I wrote my post last week about being discouraged, I went for a walk in a marsh near my home which is also a bird sanctuary. It was a beautiful day, so I got the kids ready and headed out…

I received my new Ergo recently also so it was a perfect opportunity to put Wilhelmina on my back and have my hands and front free for the camera.

I am ashamed to say that I had never been there before, it is a 15 minute drive so I have no excuse, but I will be going back often I hope…

The walk itself is not long at all,and if I didn’t have the boys I would have done it twice at least, but going at their pace and taking tons of pics was really nice.

I saw so many birds but wasn’t able to capture them all… Since coming back from Annie’s I have a new interest in birds, I used to love watching birds but now I want to identify them and learn their calls… and what an amazing place to do so!

(Tree Swallow and Yellow Warblers)

(Great Blue Heron)

It was a lot of fun being out with the kids and just enjoying the walk…

Of course getting a bit of exercise was also great, but because I didn’t feel challenged at all by the walk, I headed out to the pool in the afternoon… I am starting to see a lot of opportunities to help me get fit this summer and a lot of places to discover…

3 months old

Wilhelmina is now three months old..

It is hard to believe that she is already three months old, but in another light I have trouble not seeing her in our family. It was just yesterday it seems that she was so tiny, yet it feels like an eternity since the birth.

She is such an amazing little one. She is smiley and happy but don’t let that fool you, when she is not happy she is not happy at all.

The time I was away with her was great, but I have to admit that it was a bit harder than I thought it would be. At home, she cries at times, but not much… but while we were away it seemed bit hard for her. The routine was off, the noises were different, we were out a lot more, and we were in and out of the car a lot more also.

But now that we are back home, car rides are no problem again, she seems happier in the day and naps better also and continues to sleep well at night. She is a lot more smiley and doesn’t mind being in dad’s arms as well as mine and it shows that though mom is important, so is Dad, and though I don’t know how concsious it was, I do believe that she was missing him and her brothers.

EC is also back on track a bit more as things were off a bit also with the travelling. I had actually forgot about using diapers all the time and forgot them a few times when we went out. Even when we were having a quieter day, thing were just a bit more off. Now that we are at home again though, the routine is back and we are having minimal misses… Diapering is so much more work!

Willa has always been a good sleeper in the night and that is one thing that travelling did not change. She kept her routine of sleeping through the night with one or two times of waking up to potty and nurse… usually at around 1-2am and then again at about 5am… but, in the last half of the trip things started changing. When I wold hear her wake a bit at about 1-2 am I would put her on the potty as I usually did, but she would not pee and instead would either cry or just fall asleep right on the potty… and she also wouldn’t nurse. So I had to start keeping myself from reacting to her slight movements as I was doing before and she just continues sleeping until about 5-6am when she wakes up dry, pees quickly and then wants to nurse even more readily. She then goes back to sleep and wakes up a bit more often but will easily and readily stay in bed for as long as we are. Of course, we have other kids to attend to so we did need to get up eventually…

3 months…. it might not seem like a big deal to some, but as a mom that has been through this period 3 times in the past, 3 months is when a lot of things start to happen, and I am looking forward to expeirences all the “firsts” that are soon to come as well as mourning the fact aht I don’t have a ‘newborn’ anymore, I now have a baby….

New stroller…

Last week I bought a new (well, new to me) stroller.

We do already have a stroller but because we don’t really use strollers, especially in the first year, it is not a stroller that fits younger babies… but with the upcoming trip I thought that it might come in useful, if not to carry her, to carry my bag and other stuff that I will have… It will also provide a place for me to put her down for whatever reason.

I was about to buy a new stroller, but then decided that a used better quality stroller would be better and I am so happy with my decision.

I decided on a Bebecar. A stroller that bought new runs around 650$… I got it used, in great condition for 200$. For small babies, it can be made into a bassinet rear facing and when they get older the are forward facing and can go from laying down to upright completely. The wheels are big and air filled so it can go everywhere and it also has great suspension…

The day after I bought it I took her for a walk, I put the sheep skin that she sleeps on in it and just a blanket on top of her and she loved it and slept most of the way… it is also been great in the sewing room while I sew.

Meeting the greats…

Last week, Wilhelmina met her great-grandmothers. Last Wednesday, I picked up my father and went over to the nursing home his mom lives in to have lunch and spend a bit of time.

At 91 years old, she is a good shape physically, but with Alzheimer’s, her memory is slowly fading, but it isn’t gone yet. Being in the nursing home has helped her immensely these last few years.

My father didn’t tell her we were coming, so she was very happily surprised when we showed up in the dining hall… We ate lunch and then went up to her room and talked I was happy to see her and bring a smile to her face.

my dad was also very happy to meet his new granddaughter…

A few days later, on Sunday, my mom came to visit with her mom…

The last time my grandmother had come here was just before her surgery for stomach Cancer last November.The surgery went well, they took out 3/4 of her stomach and she has been recuperating since… she has lost weight and had pneumonia last month but is feeling better and is trying to gain her weight back…

She was very excited to meet her great-granddaughter…

My grandmother and my mom…

One thing that we wanted to do was to get a picture with the four generations of Women. We had a similar picture taken when I was a baby in my great-grandmother’s arms with my mom on one side and my grandmother on the other…

Then I asked the boys to come in the picture with us and surprisingly they all came without hesitation…

A picture I will always cherish…

I had a very special relationship with my great-grandmother when I was a child and a young teen. She was an amazing woman and I loved being with her and went to see her as often as I could, which was almost everyday in the year before she died. I am so grateful that my grandmothers are both still around, and I hope that as my children grow they will know their “greats” and have a relationship with them that they can remember also…