Fingers

My mom tells me that as a baby I was always found sucking my ring and middle finger on my left hand and twirling hair with my right hand. It made my heart happy to see Annick with these same fingers stuck in her mouth the other night when a friend was holding her.

Like mother like daughter.

Baby Blessing

Annick was blessed on December 4th. She wore the dress that I wore for my blessing. Both my sisters wore it as well. My grandmother made it and my aunt did the embroidery. I lay her on the white blanket my grandma gave to me for my blessing day. (I used it with Ryan as well.) Annick wore some little booties that were my grandma's when she was a baby--made by either her mother or grandmother. I felt a curious sense of connection to my family by having these little heirlooms, even though no family members could be with us for the event.

Siblings

A few photos from yesterday. :)

Halloween 2011

We had a fun Halloween this year. We met Adam at the Dental school for lunch along with other friends and their kiddos. We had a fun visit to the Dean's office, and Ryan showed off his kangaroo hop to the office staff. Annick had a cute festive onesie from her Grandma with a spider on it. Of course during our visit she had a massive blowout and finished the rest of Halloween in a plain old pink sleeper.

In the evening Adam took Ryan out trick-or-treating on our street while I stayed home to nurse the baby. Then we met up with a few friends and did the trick-or-treating again. Ryan definitely loved it, and we have enjoyed eating his candy. He got 28 bags of chips (the main thing given here, it seems) that Adam has been snacking on. Since there are no other kids on our street the people were apparently giving him extra bags.

Baby Dress

Here's another sweet little dress from when I was a baby. I really DO like this one and wish it were still long enough for Annick.

Pink Frill

It's no new news to anyone that one of my fears in having a girl is "pink frill"- both the pink & the frill. Well my mom brought up this little dress I wore when I was a baby, and, despite the pinkishness and frillishness of it, I put it on Annick. It was quite cute. :)

Sadly she will not wear it again because what fit ME at 4 months:


is a bit of a midriff show on her at one month. I guess that could be expected when she started out life 2 1/2 inches longer than I did.

Annick Nicole

Our sweet Annick Nicole was born on October 7th. She weighed 8 lb. 11 oz. and was 21 1/2 inches long. Her birth was a beautiful experience and I couldn't have asked for things to go any better--maybe I'll blog about it sometime. The name Annick (pronounced An-eek) is very special. It is the name of a French woman who is like a second mom to me and my sister Tina. She passed away a few years ago from cancer and left a hole in my heart. I want to honor her life through naming my daughter after her, and I hope that my own Annick will be as full of life and laughter as she was. The middle name Nicole is the name of another lovely French woman that I care about. I hope that Annick will be humble, creative, and have a love of learning like this surrogate grandmother of hers.

Annick has a good amount of light brown hair, blond eyebrows, and ridiculously long eyelashes.

Ryan was right through my entire pregnancy that he was going to have a sister. He couldn't be more proud. He absolutely adores her and can't handle not mauling her for a moment...

I was sad when I realized this week that these wrinkly feet lost their wrinkles a long time ago! Why do babies grow so fast???

Thank you Helene for taking these beautiful pictures for our family when Annick was just a day old.

Timeline of a Belly

Since quite a few friends have asked, here is a little picture collage of moi.

Here are the dates: 11 wks, 14 wks, 18 wks, 24 wks, 28 wks, 34 wks, 34.5 wks, and 36 weeks

I've gained over 10 lbs less than last time but started out higher this time so I'm close to the same size. However, I've got to say that I feel worlds smaller and more in the belly this time around. This stage is much easier for me than last time.

I was convinced every day for a week that I would have the baby within 24 hours and now Adam is gone for the weekend and with all my power I am praying and WILLING this baby to stay in until the weekend passes. Of course realistically it could still be another 3 weeks, but I am banking on not. I have had every imaginable sign of pending labor and am getting sick of it!

White Point Resort

Ever since moving to Nova Scotia we've heard fun things about the White Point Resort. When Grandma Thompson said she was coming to stay with us for a week we decided that's where we'd take her. It's a kid-friendly spot with a nice beach, craft and game times, story time with milk & cookies, and bunnies running all over that you can feed. Unfortunately we got rained on the whole time (the story of this summer...) and didn't exactly get much beach time. We tried in the misty rain until we got too cold. It was still beautiful and fun.

After our 2nd night at White Point we drove to the Kejimkujik Seaside adjunct of the national park. We hiked in the rain and got thoroughly soaked before making it to the ocean and the view of lots of seals. We liked this spot and learned it is the beach on the NS Health cards. :)

I like the Old Man's Beard lichen whenever I see it.

Before coming home we swung over to the cabin again for one extra night. We had a clear sky and another fun day out on the lake.

Thanks Grandma Thompson for coming to visit us. We always love having you here.

Also, Adam's dad came up to visit on Adam's birthday. We took a ferry to McNab's island and spent the day hiking around. We had a fun time and of course I didn't take any pictures! Stupid me. Thanks for coming Grandpa Thompson. Ryan keeps asking when you're coming again!

The Cabin

This summer some friends of ours offered to let us stay for a few days at their cabin near Kejimkujik National Park. It was a little spot of paradise--a lovely cabin right on a big lake that we had almost all to ourselves.

We LOVED having our friends the Farlands join us for 1/2 the trip. The two little boys couldn't get enough naked time in the water! Couldn't blame them, really...

Kingston let Ryan borrow his Strider Bike, and Ry Guy was in heaven. He thought he was cool stuff.

We loved, loved, loved, being out on the lake in the kayaks. It was my first time in a kayak and I was surprised at the speed they can get. But let me tell you, kayaks are NOT built for fat prego bellies... Holy smokes that thing was hard to get in and out of. It led to some very sore muscles & ligaments, a few whines & tears, and falling into the water...

We loved relaxing by the water, eating mallows at the fire pit, watching Harry Potter in the evening, and hanging out with friends. We played with frogs and watched a snake eat a frog. Three of the five of us got bit by leeches (Poor Ryan, I thought he had a stick on his leg but it wouldn't come off!). We also got to watch a lightning storm (fairly rare here) at night over the lake through the cabin windows. That was incredible. Honestly I've never been so relaxed on a vacation in my life. Thank you Whalens!!!

PEI Camping

In July our family set out for a little camping trip in PEI. I wanted Adam to be able to see the province since he hadn't been able to go on the Anne of Green Gables Trip. We stayed for 3 nights and had LOTS of rain. In fact, the first night we moteled it because I was not willing to set up camp and pee 4x in the night while it was dumping buckets of rain.

This is the lighthouse at North Rustico.

Here we are at the Greenwich Beach. Luckily the sand there squeaked so Adam got to experience the "singing sands" of Prince Edward Island (they squeak because of their high silicon content).

This is the Province House in Charlottetown. It was fun to tour and learn a bit more about Canadian history.

LOVE the wildflowers...

It was fun to see the difference in the landscape driving through PEI only a month after I'd been there. Many of the wildflowers were already gone and the red potato fields had turned into long rows of green plants growing.

My favorite thing we did on that PEI trip was go to a Ceilidh. This was an evening concert with a fiddle, 2 accordions, and a piano. There was a girl doing some highland dancing and a guest trumpeter. The concert was super informal and the players were really funny. Ryan didn't stop stomping his feet and clapping the whole night, even though it lasted until 10. The performers pointed him out and said he was their number one fan. We had a blast.

I'm so glad we got to make it out to PEI again!

Kejimkujik

After 3 years in Nova Scotia we finally made it to Kejimkujik National Park. We went in June (bug season supreme!) when Adam had a long weekend because we thought we wouldn't get another chance to go this summer. We were all sick but went anyway. We gave up on staying any longer than 1 night because we were so sick and covered in bites... Good thing we came home early, too, because the first night home Ryan broke out in a ginormous rash all over his body. How terrible that would have been to have a boy screaming in pain all night in a quiet campground with no medication for it...

We had a perfect camp spot--nice and big with a view of the lake. Ryan loved the tin foil dinners and of course the marshmallows. :) We had perfect weather and enjoyed a nice canoe ride. We enjoyed all the short kid-friendly hikes, minus the mosquitoes (Ryan kept telling them, "No fank you! Don't suck my bwood!) and Ryan kept begging all summer to go back.

Anne of Green Gables

Our dental school summers have always been so jam-packed that I don't actually look at the photos until much later and have never posted about summer. I'm breaking that trend by loading some pics of PEI. My mom and 2 sisters came for a life-long awaited Anne of Green Gables trip to Prince Edward Isalnd. It was FANTASTIC!

Here Anne welcomed us to PEI--the first place you reach on the island. :)

We loved doing little Anne reenactments all over the place and wearing the Anne braids.

Before leaving PEI we all got our pictures taken as Anne. Even the baby (6 mo. belly) had a turn. Honestly, after we finished our silly plan and I saw the pictures of my Anne belly I laughed so hard I peed my pants...

Sisters Shot--a view from the first cottage we stayed at by Chelton Beach.

This was the Greenwich Dunes trail. Greenwich was probably my favorite part of PEI. The dunes were amazing (way better than the main section of the PEI national park) and the trail was super fun with a long floating boardwalk (at least Ryan thought it was awesome...I got rather nauseous on it!).

We loved walking along the beach at the end of the Dunes trail. Ryan had some great naked time and loved being in the water with Grandma & Aunt Tina.

The PEI countryside is absolutely gorgeous--just gorgeous. We loved the potato fields with potatoes just starting to bud, and especially the purple lupines all along the highways.

Here's a cute little lighthouse in Victoria by the Sea. I liked the maple leaves on it. :)

When we got back from PEI we got to spend Canada Day together as a family. We went to the Citadel and had fun dressing up in soldier's attire.

Here's a sisters pic at Duncan's Cove, one of our favorite places nearby to go hiking. We've been there a dozen times, I'm sure.

Tina and Ryan played "tea party" with a shell for ages.

I took my mom and Becky to Blomidon, a fun provincial park where you can observe the tidal differences in the Bay of Fundy. We spent about 2 hours on the beach and watched the tide come in. Becky and I stood in the water to time it's rise. It went from barely touching my feet to being above my knees in about 10 minutes. Pretty neato. :)

It was so fun to share PEI & some new Nova Scotia spots with my family and we soaked up the girl time. Thanks Mom, Becky, and Tina for a fantastic vacation. We'll have to do it again in a few years!