Happy Birthday Grandpa Bain

Wednesday was Grandpa's birthday. Calum had a nice long conversation with him tonight wishing him all of the best. Too bad we can't get him to say "Grandpa" again. He does know how to sign "Mom", I guess I get to be one of his favorite sign language words while "Dad" will always be his favorite word.

Happy Birthday Jen

Happy Birthday to my niece Jenny! It's hard to believe how quickly they grow.

Calum is really starting to pick things up. He said "grandpa", is starting to learn other words like "red", "green", "ok" and has really taken to swimming in the outdoor pool. He starts back at daycare on Tuesday - straight into the toddler section along with most of his friends from the infant side. There is only going to be 1 girl on the toddler side this year, well 1.5 as there will be one girl going part time. He's really going to love going back.

Today we spent about an hour at the playground and he was running away from me most of the time. I guess he want to be a bit more independent. I think that the terrible twos will arrive early with this one.

A trip to dinotown

A look back

Calum at play (he's starting to pick the movies)

Calum hard at work

Calum (and Buddy) at the new house

Move in Status

Finally getting closer to not having to live out of boxes. Still a bit to unpack including more of Calum's toys but we can at least find things in the kitchen now so we are all a lot happier. The girls were keen to unpack their rooms but were a little less enthusiastic about helping unpack the rest of the house. Calum loved to help - including repacking things as I put them away and messing up things that I had just organized. He likes the new location though. He's very interested when we go out for walks, seems to think we ought to be going to the 7-11 everytime we pass it and keeps pointing over at the daycare and jabbering about it.

Thanks to our Don, Rita, Rob, Kevin, Jody, Larry, Tabitha and Chris for all the help with the move. I hope that everyone is recovering and will forgive us for having so much stuff.

We will post pictures this weekend. We will have some visitors from Kamloops. Desiree and Dakota's aunt, uncle and cousins will be in town for the weekend and Dakota will be going for a visit to Kamloops with them when they leave. She's worked hard all summer taking care of Calum for me so I hope she has a good break. Desiree is going to take over watching him so that I can finish the small contract. She is finishing up at her job tomorrow. They are going camping tonight after a lunch bar-be-que that we are going to try to attend (pending Calum's nap schedule). Where did the summer go? Soon the kids will back at school and Calum back in daycare. He should be ready for the toddler side this year and I know we will see him change so much once he starts playing with the older kids.

Oh well, must get caught back up on work now. Plenty of time to worry about things later.

Our new house...we have a lot more work to do...especially on the yard.

This is our new house - before we moved in, we scrubbed the walls and the fireplace. You can see how much smoke build up was on the wall (the dirty side is on the far right) and the fireplace (clean side on the right side). Yuck!

Not long now

Well, we have almost finished the painting. Don and I decided to do a couple of accent walls in our bedroom. Last night Don put on the first coat of paint but we will need to do a second today. We also have to finish our smaller bathroom and I'm painting the interior of the kitchen cabinets and relining the shelves. We've still got some new light fixtures that we are going to get Grandpa Bain to install and we have to put up the remaining curtains and blinds. Then, it's a final clean and we are ready for the move in. Almost. There is the small matter of some packing to finish. It's going to be a busy few days. Our internet connection will go down on Sunday and hopefully back up on Monday or Tuesday. We want to go with a wireless network so Don will have to reconfigure things for us. Is anyone using the new Wireless N router? We are trying to decide if it really is faster than the Wireless G.

We will post some new pictures next week. Believe me, you don't want pictures of us this week. Besides, our paint speckled clothing would give away all the colours of the new house.

Moving Day

We will be moving next Sunday to our new place. We spent all weekend painting and still have more to do. Don and his dad replaced some light fixtures and patched some drywall. Dakota finished painting her room - Peacock Blue, and yes, it is as bright as it sounds but looks nice. Desiree is painting her room an almost neon green and blue. I think it looks great too. Our office and the rec room are now both a lovely warm shade of yellow with white trim. That's a big improvement over nondescript green, pink and putty.

The owners are putting carpet downstairs today so we had to get all the painting in the downstairs finished. We painted the ceiling in the rec room and it took almost all day to do it. It has that strange popcorn-like finish which makes it next to impossible to paint. We were going to rent a sprayer but ran out of time so just did the best we could with a big, big roller. It's definitely an improvement.

Today I did the first coat on the main bathroom. We will have to finish it tonight. It doesn't look like Don and I will have time to start our bedroom but it's fine as is. The owners had painted the whole house, we were just looking to change the colors a bit.

Calum has been a really patient boy. We've had numerous trips the hardware store. He has been shuttled back and forth between the old house and the new house. He has had to take long walks with grandma and eat pizza from a box. He even had the first nap in the new house, on a sleeping bag. It will be nice to get this move behind us!

Finally!

Calum can now properly drink from a straw. I know that seems like a small thing but we've been working on it for a long time. He just didn't get it until yesterday. He also tried to teach himself how to spit (thanks to Dad) but I've discouraged that. Mind you, when he blows on something he almost does the same thing anyway. It's the intent more than anything.

I've got another small project coming up - great timing as I'm sure it will all go to cover the back to school expenses. Yikes, almost that time already. As much as he likes being at home with us, I think Calum is going to be really excited about going back to daycare in the fall. We need to get him around more kids, only we don't really know many people with babies in Burnaby. He has taken to waving at every kid he sees and when we go to the park he stares at all of the other kids and we are constantly making new friends.

The results

are back and Dakota's bone scan showed no problems. It could be a soft tissue issue - ligaments or muscle. I think the doctor talked about orthopedic supports in her shoes.

As expected, we got the keys to our new place today and Don and I spent about an hour taking a closer look and taking measurements. The structure is great but it will require a bit of work to get it ready for move in. The owner's were tiling the kitchen today and the downstairs will be carpeted before we move it. It's just the walls really - some damage needing repair and perhaps some lighter colours. We took another trip to Rona for some cleaning supplies and to look for paint. We are looking for something called "Asian Pear". We used it on my office in the Stride Ave house and really loved it. Rona doesn't carry that brand of paint anymore so we will have to look around a bit.

Calum loved the hardware store and was busy picking things up for us to take home. Maybe he takes after my dad.