The many faces of Isaac

Gabrielle is 2!

Cake artfully created by Belinda and Gabrielle. Bizarre inscription atop cake? "Gabrielle you're cool". What can I say, I panicked.





She was a pro at opening gifts after all her recent practice at Christmas. Gifts included the cute summer hat she immediately plopped onto her head (hope it still fits this summer!), a magnetic dress up girl, mini electric piano, etc...



Horsing around with Amelia...



... and Ben.



"How's the cake, Gabrielle?"
"Yummy!"
"How's the wine Belinda?"
"Yummy!"



Amos and his doppelganger.

Christmas

This photo pretty much sums up our holiday as it went downhill after Christmas Day.



Our Christmas holiday began innocently enough with our arrival in Lennoxville on the afternoon of the 24th. To my surprise, the tree was not yet decorated, and it didn't look like anyone had any real ambition to do so. After some strong hints, Mark finally jumped up and ralleyed the troops. He strung up the lights with his dad and then collapsed onto the couch from his exertion, leaving Kitty, Gabrielle and Maggie to put up the decorations.

We returned on Christmas morning to open the stocking gifts, which were plentiful as always. Gabrielle had a great time ripping open the wrapping on each individual gift, although I have no photos of her doing so, as our camera was dying and I had left the charger at home. It was alot like last year - she'd open a gift, examine it, and then move on to the next. Among the awesome things she received were the season's must-have red Olympic mitts from the Bay, books, hats, jammies, and chocolates. Isaac also had a stocking full of stuff which I got to open for him. He thanks everyone for their generosity.



Christmas dinner was particularly delicious this year. No log, but ah well...



A lovely photo of Big Sis and Lil Bro on Christmas night. Isaac's new boots, courtesy of Santa and G's monkey jammies, courtesy of the Macdonald girls.



We ended up leaving Lennoxville a few days earlier than planned, so Gabrielle was presented with birthday gifts to open before departing. Here she is opening what is now one of her favourite toys: a stroller. This also doubles as a shopping cart in her imagination. Note cousin Trevor making a cameo appearance in this photo.

Gabrielle had been acting strangely throughout the holiday, most likely from the penecillin she was taking for an ear infection. Nonetheless, she spent a couple of nights screaming in pain - something we were not at all prepared for or used to. She kept complaining of stomach pains and would run fevers intermittently through the night. We decided that we should head back to Ottawa, in case a trip to a hospital would become necessary. The odd behaviour continued until G finished her antibiotics. Once we got back to Ottawa, Mark and I were both struck with horrible colds that basically ruined the rest of our holiday, and making childcare a nightmare: "can you get up and change Isaac's diaper?" "No, I can't move, can you do it?"

Christmas 2009: can we do it over?

More testing...

Here's Isaac, finally passing a hearing test, and putting to rest our concern that he could be deaf (or whatever the appropriate term is these days). Of course, this doesn't end all our worries. As the woman performing the test said "he can hear you but I can't guarantee he'll listen!" Nyuck nyuck - a real comedienne, that hearing technician.

Family shopping trip

We attempted something only the very brave or the very stupid would do: we went out as a family for some Christmas shopping about a week before Christmas.



Gabrielle actually loved it - the girl's got materialism in her bones. She loved looking at all the pretty sparkly things in the windows. Too bad those pretty cocktail dresses don't come in size 2T.



Isaac was in his usual sleeping position throughout the ordeal. I have those glazed "get me the hell out of here" eyes.



This was the closest G got to Santa. "Sorry sweetie, we're not waiting 2 hours in line to see the big guy. Plus you're at least half Jewish. So your relationship to Santa is going to be a little complicated...."

Sigh...

So much blogging to catch up on...

OK so to start with, here's Isaac wearing Gabrielle's snowsuit from 2 years ago. Still cute!