Pics from last weekend - Gliding and Puddles

Happy Anniversary

Because things just got really busy again and because of all the excitement tomorrow will bring I thought that we'd better post this tonight.

Happy Anniversary Grandpa and Grandma Bain!

Bazooka - The fish with one less fin

Noticed something strange floating in Bazooka's bowl this week - his dorsal fin! I'm not sure how it came off but it's off. Bazooka was still happily swimming around, taking the occassional nibble on it. YUCK! Calum, Dakota and I cleaned his bowl and gave him some real food. He seems OK and if you didn't know it was missing he looks normal. Now that I think about it I didn't check on him this morning.....better be off.

Blue, Blue

Blues Clues - Calum thinks that it should be on 24 hours a day. Sometimes he'll wake up a couple of hours after I put him to bed and demand "Blue". He wants to get up for a little late night tv. The funny thing is that we don't actually own any of those DVDs. We rent them and every week he will pick one of the two that are his favorite. Imagine watching the same 4 episodes, every day, numerous times a day for weeks. I can honestly say I hope that he gets over this phase quickly. It's my fault though because I wanted him to watch it at first because they do a lot of signing.

What ever happened to Sesame Street? At least that show has variety.

We don't know what the weekend plans are yet. I have some documents that should be arriving today so I expect I will be busy with some database work. I'm almost finished my small project for my Band - still a few glitches to work out and some report templates to design. Hope you all have a good weekend.

Mine!

Calum is still trying to learn the concept of sharing. Unfortunately he's still in the "everything is mine" stage. He's taken to pushing the other kids at daycare away if he feels they are too close to anything he considers his. I see this in the mornings when I go to drop him off and spend some time settling him in. Today, nobody else was allowed to play with the Thomas trains. I consistently tell him that he has to share, that he can't push other kids, that he has to be nice but he's still testing the boundaries. Hopefully he'll learn not to do this soon.

I've decided to start the potty training over Christmas break. He's almost ready now. Last night before our bath he was running around the bathroom naked as I got the tub ready. It was only about 2 minutes and I turned around and caught him peeing! He knew what he was doing and proudly pointed it out to me. Once before he stood up in the bath and happily did the same thing. That little stinker.

The girls are doing well. Desiree is working a lot these days - nothing like retail to take advantage of cheap labour. Dakota is supposed to be going gliding this weekend for Air Cadets - if she manages to get a permission form before the weekend. She's been especially forgetful about things like notices, forms, and letters lately. I think that she had the form she needed last week but lost it and forgot to get a new one this week. Don and I have told her that it is her responsibility to get the form so we'll see if she follows through. I've also told her to get a new form for parent teacher interview requests. She "lost" that one too but I may just pop across the street this morning and get a new one.

Interim reports went out yesterday and happily Dakota is doing much better so far this year. I want to talk to a couple of her teachers about their comments though. Desiree reported she is doing well but I didn't see her report.

Calum has a Halloween party on Monday night. Last year he cried and we had to leave early. This year I think he'll be more excited. They've decorated the daycare and he loves showing it all to me. He also likes pumpkins. They've got a bunch for them to play with and he is always carrying the little ones around.

Calum and Dakota on the Beach

Exploring the Alleys of Vancouver

OK, so it was just up the street from Don's office. The alley was painted this year and we thought it would be a good place to take some photos. Unfortunately, there were people sleeping there and it smelled like pee. So, we took some quick shots and made our way to Starbucks. Calum mostly liked looking for birds and getting attention from the other people walking in the alley.

Happy Belated Birthday to Papa

Calum wrote a very special message for his Papa. His birthday was on the 19th.

The Calum Pumpkin

Finished carving my foam pumpkin. It was pretty quick to do. It isn't as detailed as I had planned, mainly because I'm missing a part for my project saw and couldn't use the smaller bits. Oh well, at least you can tell it's Calum.

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.