Coy Bain came into this world a 6:50 PM on October 14, 2006 at 8 pounds 3 ounces

One proud Dad

He's my boy

One proud family

Peaceful

He has the hands of a wide receiver...Superbowl 2026?

His little foot

Coy with his Uncle Don

Auntie Angie remembers when Calum was this small

Desiree with her new cousin

Dakota with her new cousin

A niece or nephew on the way

Just heard from Don. My sister-in-law has gone into labor. There may be a trip to Comox in our weekend plans!

Anniversary

Yesterday was our 4th Anniversary. Both Don and I must be getting old because we both weren't sure of the actual day. At least we remember the month and general date - Thanksgiving-ish.

Uncle Rob

Grandpa's Shoes

Thanksgiving pics

Making a Mess!

Happy Birthday Larry!

It's not till tomorrow but wanted to post while I remembered. Tomorrow is my brother's birthday. Happy birthday from all of us.

We all had a tough day yesterday. Wish it was Friday already but we are sure looking forward to the long weekend. We are also counting the days till the arrival of Grant and Jen's baby.

We'll post some new pics or video next week. Happy long weekend for those of you who are taking Friday off too.

Busy once again

Things seem to come in waves for us. One day we are trying to find a way to pass the time and the next we are so busy that we wish we could just squeeze a few more hours into the day. This is one of those weeks. The kids all have colds and Don has a touch of it too. Yesterday was a long day - the kids were all home and work was beckoning from my desk. Don came home early and took Calum for a walk so I could get something done. After putting him down for the night I worked until 2am. We slept in till just before 8 and today was a much better day.

I'm taking on a small project for my Band. I will get to set up a database that's a bit different from anything I've been doing recently. I'm looking forward to it. I've started designing the structure but am awaiting some feedback before I proceed. A couple of my other projects are pretty interesting right now too so I'm happy to be back working full time.

One of my favorite holidays is coming up. I love Halloween. It's the one time of the year that I really feel the need to create. I've already decided that Calum will be a cowboy/sheriff this year. I have made him a vest from a bit of leather that I bought from Dressew. I also got him a hat and a sheriff's badge. He has a large selection of shirts and jeans that will go with the outfit, even an outdoor check coat that will work under the vest for Halloween night. We've tried on the hat and he looks pretty handsome.

I'm waiting to get my hands on a funkin too. A funkin is a carvable foam pumpkin. You carve it and can use it over year after year. I've used Photoshop to make a template from a picture of Calum and have got my ever handy dremel ready to do the carving. I need to get to Michaels craft store this weekend. I've been pretty busy the last few weekends and haven't had the time. If it turns out, I will try to see if I can make pumpkins using baby pictures of the girls too. Of course, these will only supplement the real pumpkins that we will get when we go out to the pumpkin patch later this month. Calum will really enjoy that this year!

I'm taking the night off from work and am going to have a mini TV-marathon with Don soon. We are making our way through a DVD from Season 2 of "My Name is Earl". Last night, Calum watched an episode with us and picked up some cool break dancing moves. We caught some on video tonight and will try to get a clip to post by the weekend.

Our son is where?

Calum made a run for it yesterday (or is it a roll-for-it? He may have been in his stroller at the time). Apparently he made it across the border and was in the US. He left dad back in Canada. Funny, wasn't yesterday the day there was the whole incident at the border crossings?

Don, Dakota, Calum and Grandpa and Grandma Bain (and Buddy!) were down at the Peace Arch Park yesterday. Calum made his first trip to another country when they briefly crossed the border markers. I think that he and Buddy thought the grass might have been greener on the other side but I think Buddy quickly fixed that.

It was a nice weekend. We went to Pitt Lake (slideshow below) and watched movies at home. I was busy Sunday so Don kept the kids busy. I got a text message from him when they were out and he told me Calum was in the US. My first reaction...our son is where? Sounds like they had fun though.

Pitt Lake

Calum and the butterfly

I've started playing with photoshop again. This is part of a picture from Larry and Tabitha's wedding.

RSS Feed

Now, this isn't for everyone but I know a few people that like to recieve all of their blog and news updates in feed format. I've set up a feedburner feed at http://feeds.feedburner.com/CalumsNews

For everyone else, all that you need to know about this is that it is a way of getting the same info that we post on the blog in another format. It also allows you to subscribe to a number of feeds from different blogs and web sites and get all of your updates at once. One online reader for news feeds is http://www.bloglines.com/. Email me if you have any questions about this.

In other news, Calum and I went to the doctor today. He now needs a note from the doctor that says he's healthy and ok to return to daycare. It took about an hour to get in to see the doctor but luckily we were able to wander about the mall to kill some time. He got the ok and will be back to daycare tomorrow.

Desiree is going to continue working at the Museum of Anthropology on Sunday afternoons and will be starting a job at IGA today. Dakota is volunteering with the NDP at our local MLAs office. She's also busy preparing for student council elections. Don has his Annual General Assembly starting later this week and is getting everything set up for the meeting. I'll need to get caught back up at work so will be busy for the next little bit.

End of summer cold

Calum and I picked up our first cold. He has only just returned to daycare and already we are sick. He came home early on Friday and was busy turning the house upside down today so maybe it will be a short one and he can return tomorrow. He's been a little fussy, only coughing a little but he's been telling me that he's thirsty a lot so he must have a sore throat. Poor little guy.

Calum's Visit to Nanny and Papa's

Yesterday, at 4:00am, we left Burnaby bound for Merritt. Calum and I were going to spend the day at Nanny and Papa's. Daddy got us there really fast so we got to have breakfast with Nanny and Papa. Calum had a full day of play. We went to see the house that they are getting ready to sell. We went to visit Bonnie's daycare (Calum said that Auntie Bonnie has to teach some kids to share the toys), we played in the garden, went for walks, played with weeds and helped Nanny take care of the frogs. Calum had a lot of fun. He slept all of the way home and all through the night. I guess Nanny and Papa know how to keep a boy going.

Oh, Larry and Tabitha, Calum tried (several times) to take a nap in your old room. He wanted me to tell you that he liked your room (and the candies) and left you a note for the next time you visit.

Some pics at the end of summer vacation

Visit from Nanny and Papa

My parents came by for a visit yesterday. They were, of course, loaded down with gifts. Calum got some books that we had when we were younger. He spent about an hour yesterday looking through them all and laughing at the pictures. Dad also brought down enough salmon to fill our freezer and then some. We gave a few to our landlord and will have to have a big barbeque with some of the others.

I finished my small project and Calum is now back in daycare so I'm finally getting back to work full time again. It was a nice summer but it will also be great to get back into work and not have to rush about so much. With the move and end of summer it was getting pretty hard on Don and I. When he came home from work he had to take over with Calum while I started work. That made for some pretty long nights for me and Calum did not like not having mom in bed at the proper time.

I'm going to do a little more yard work this weekend. Calum and I raked up some of "the compound" which is what we've taken to calling our dirt patch in the back. There is absolutely no grass and it's all just dirt and dry weeds. There was also a whole lot of bits and pieces of things left over from when they cleared all of the junk out of the house. What we really need to do is to either bring in a whole lot of topsoil or to dig up the entire yard and start from scratch. That's a big project though so for now we just want to clean it up.

Calum is picking up things like a sponge these days. Last night he kept using the sign for "thirsty" because he wanted me to keep filling his cup up with water. We've only practiced that sign for a few days and he's got it. He can also sign "bird". I'm going to have to start learning more just to keep up with him. He is starting to learn to speak more words too. Yesterday he told us "me" when he wanted something. Amazing.

Finally, tomorrow is Don's birthday! We'll likley be going out for a birthday dinner on Saturday or Sunday. Calum will have to give him a surprise or two too.

Calum goes back to daycare

Calum, Mom and Dad went to Fraser River Park - we watched the planes land and we walked part of the Fraser River Trail...

Mom and Dad thought that I would fall off the trail...

Hold on - it's not time to go

Shhh...I see something

Look over there Dad

But I don't want to leave...

It's ok we can leave now...

No,no, no,no, no...NO

That's one of Calum's favorite things to say these days. He uses it for everything - and it usually involves me chasing him around the house trying to get him to stand still long enough to eat, to get changed, or to leave the poor cat alone. It's kind of cute when he says it but I wish he'd learn to say "Yes Mom, anything you say Mom."

We finished shopping for school supplies today. With the girls in high school they really just need to get the standard things. It's when school actually starts that we start getting the urgent requests like "I need X for Y. Oh and I need it tomorrow or I'll loose marks." The girls are taking some interesting electives this year so I expect we will have a few unusual requests next week.

No other news today. Dakota got fitted for some shoe supports - a very costly set of shoe supports. All I can say is the things had better work.

Calum just woke up so I'd better go settle him or I'll never get him back to sleep. Happy long weekend everyone.

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.