Gabrielle participated in her first fundraiser at daycare - a hop-athon (check out the bunny ears) for muscular dystrophy. Thanks to all who donated - G raised a whopping $179!!
Above is Susie the Magnificent, Gabrielle's daycare teacher. Susie is the number one reason G is so happy at daycare. She's like the sweet, loving mommy Gabrielle never had. Um, I mean...
;-)
In the foreground is a girl who used to be much bigger (and scarier) than G but G has since caught up with her. They're like giants among all the little people.
What an INSANE couple of days (weeks? months?..) it's been. Last week, we sold our condo (we thought) but then the deal fell through before the buyer signed the counter-offer. We have just found out that our condo has been bought by someone else - as I write this, our agent is on his way over here with the final paperwork for us to sign. Assuming all the standard conditions are fulfilled, it looks like we will have sold our condo. Thanks Wallis House, you've been good to us...
On Friday night, we bid on a house on Churchill Street in Westboro along with ten other hopeful homeowners. Our agent was in the house doing his presentation while we waited at a coffee shop nearby in case we were needed. It was such a ridiculous process - the showings for the house started on Tuesday and offers were to be presented at 6pm on Friday. I went to see it with our agent on Tuesday afternoon, then Mark went with our agent on Wednesday afternoon, then we had a pre-inspection on Friday morning. Over the span of the four days of showings, the house had been pre-inspected FIVE times by five different potential purchasers. Traditionally, inspections are done AFTER the buyer is chosen, but in this competitive market, people are taking their chances and pre-inspecting so they can waive the inspection clause at the time of making an offer. Anyways, long story short, we bit the bullet and put in a very competitive offer and our agent pulled out all stops to get us the house, including offering Senators tickets to the sellers if they accepted our offer. Miraculously, we WON! We are thrilled - the house is pretty perfect for us and completely move-in ready.
Here are the MLS photos below - the bottom photo is of the basement rumpus room/guest room - please come and visit anytime (after July 26th)....
Oh yeah, and Isaac cut his first tooth on Friday. As if buying and selling a house weren't enough excitement for one day...
We put our condo on the market as of the beginning of April and realized there was no way we could show it while living there. I know some families do it, but I also know divorces happen so we decided to take proactive measures so that wouldn't happen. As it happens, our friends Dan and Amanda (hereinafter known as "AmanDan") were going out of town for the month of April, so we are housesitting and taking care of the dog, Melanie. I will post more pictures once we get back home, but here are a few taken by Meaghan on her phone:
Gabrielle is LOVING all of Naya's toys - here she is doing some computer work while simultaneously sitting on the family room potty. I love that she's already learned not to waste time...
And here's her new "big girl" ponytail, to go along with sleeping in a big girl bed and sitting in a big girl car seat.
Isaac's loving suburban life too - Exersaucers abound in this suburban mansion.
As soon as Isaac turned 4 months old, we started him on solids. This is about 2 months before the current recommendation, but I was hopeful that eating would get him to sleep more than his current one and a half to two hour stretches. Look at how happy and hopeful I am...
Isaac isn't the natural eater that Gabrielle was. He's all fists and fingers in my way, but he seems to enjoy the process well enough - I'm just not sure that he's quite grasped the concept. So far, the eating has had no effect on his sleep. And now I have to puree food for him! What was I thinking....
Isaac and I met Erin and Meaghan at the Pantry for lunch, a vegetarian restaurant frequented by all the Macdonald clan. It was my first time there, but it seemed familiar, as I had seen many pictures of Gabrielle eating lunches there when she was under Meaghan's care.
Meaghan always says the same thing when she first sees Isaac: "c'mere boyfriend."
Matt Macdonald getting in on the Isaac action - he being the one who previously had accompanied Gabrielle's dance routine on his guitar.
It's nice that Isaac's still at an age where I can pass him around. At a real estate open house the other day, I left him with the sales agent while I ran around, looking at the house. He was all smiles when I returned but not because of me - there was a crowd of house-hunters all gathered around him, cooing and clucking at him. I wish I could say it had any softening effect on the sale price of the house because it didn't - the house still sold for $80,000 over asking. We are really facing a challenge in the current Ottawa housing market (i.e. we are screwed).
Hard to believe Logan is already three, but there you go, apparently he is. Gabrielle pronounces it "thwee" and I'm sure all 2-year olds do the same. Angie had the excellent idea to arrange a tour of a local fire station as part of the birthday party festivities (but don't go out and ask your local fire station to host a birthday party because they won't do it if you tell them it's for a birthday party. So you can have your party there as long as you don't tell them, see?) Logan is your classic truck-crazy boy, and can easily differentiate the many different types of fire trucks that exist. He was pretty ecstatic about the whole thing, right down to the truck shaped birthday cake. Ten out of ten Angie!
Gabrielle was less enthralled with the whole fire truck theme, but put on a pretty good show, once she got used to the whole thing.
The babies were not left out: below are Isaac and Sawyer enjoying the view of the front of the trucks.
The kids were pretty cute sitting at their little tables, just eating on their own. Look how excited Logan looks about something Naya has just said. He's like, "Omigod, are you serious?". And she's like, "totally."
The two photos below were taken by our friend Sacha - beautiful candid portraits of Mark gazing upon his offspring, other than the chocolate and whatnot smeared all over G's dress.
Erin and her boyfriend Sean had the awesome idea of getting us out to Winterlude at Jacques Cartier Park for some sliding on the ice slides, which I had never even heard of and was dubious about from the get-go. As it turns out, the slides were a blast, or at least that was my personal opinion.
Gabrielle, on the other hand, wasn't a fan. We all linked arms and went down together the first time, sliding with our butts on the ice. G only agreed to go because she had no idea what she was in for. She was crying like crazy at the end, which was a mere 5 seconds after we left from the top. Personally, I thought it was a blast and would have stayed all day, were it not for my grumpy 2 year old. Did I mention all the other kids around us thought it was lots of fun?
When I finally got her to stop crying, she looked like this. Not a sight a mother wants to see.
We managed to moderately cheer her up by feeding her hot chocolate, but I never got a big smile out of her for the rest of the day. We went on another ice slide which I can say she hated twice as much as the first one. After that, it was a beeline to the car. So far Winterlude has been a bust with G but I give it two thumbs up.
Just to ensure equal treatment, Isaac got to take his first flight on the same route G enjoyed two years ago, i.e. Porter flight to Halifax. It was just he and I on the trip and Mark and G stayed home for a daddy-daughter weekend. Although it was meant to be a social visit, it turned out to be incredibly lucky that we chose that particular weekend - more on this later....
Isaac loved this big black beanbag chair that was strategically placed right in front of the TV.
This particular nap was on Friday afternoon, the day after we arrived. He and I were just relaxing downstairs and I suddenly felt a wave of nausea. Being alone in the house, I didn't know what to do with Isaac - I just knew I had to get to a toilet fast. I threw him onto the beanbag and ran to the toilet for the first of several episodes of vomitting that would continue for the next 8 hours. When I came back into the room, he was asleep. Thank goodness, because I could barely stand up, nevermind take care of a baby.
Speaking of not being able to take care of my baby, I really wasn't. I basically spent the next 24 hours in bed and Amos, Carolyn and the kids took over all my parenting responsibilities, other than feeding. Here is Isaac being lovingly bathed in the kitchen sink by Carolyn after a poo-nami. (copyright Angie K.)
And here's Ben keeping young Isaac company.
Dr. Amos was on hand to administer chicken soup and whatnot.
And finally, young Amelia serenaded Isaac every chance she got. How cool is it to have your very own minstrel?
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!"
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