Tyrrell Museum

Usually, when we have a holiday Monday we end up talking a lot about how we could spend it and then nothing really happens and it turns into a lazy day (which is sometimes kind of nice).  We have even ambitiously talked about camping.  And then it rains (like this weekend).  But THIS Labour Day, Joe took the entire day off work and we all drove as a family to Drumheller to check out the Dinosaur Museum! Last time I went was as a kid with my school class over twenty or so years ago! I remember it being pretty remarkable then and it still is today.  It was the perfect museum for Jackson and Noah, but the girls only really lasted about twenty minutes.  I lasted about ten.  I am really out of shape with this pregnancy.  Not because I want to be.  But because if I am moving around too much (or at all), I get dizzy or light-headed or... (you guessed it) barfy.  Which happened quite a few times this trip.  Thankfully it didn't bother me enough to ruin the trip (there were plenty of benches around for all the old people.  And me).  Last year at this time I was in Drumheller running the Tough Mudder race with Joe.  And now I can barely walk through a museum for an hour!  It's crazy how much pregnancy takes over one's body.  Some days can be pretty rough and intolerable (I may have cried myself to sleep last night because I am so sick of being sick), but then there are moments where you feel the baby flutter for the first time (which has been multiple times this week ---16 weeks), or hear the baby's heartbeat for the first time, like yesterday at my doctor's appointment with the girls.  Ellie said it sounded like a choo-choo train.  I am finally starting to see signs that there is a baby inside me.  My lower tummy is hardening and I booked my mid-pregnancy ultrasound.  So, although my abdomen and back are sore and my head aches from throwing up and dry-heaving myself to death, I actually have a baby inside of me.  And it's pretty darn neat.

Here are some pictures from our trip.  I think Noah's favourite part was being able to nab my camera and take a zillion pictures (one of them being the pic of Joe and I from our most flattering angel, and a super cool shot of Jackson checking out some cool dinosaur thingy in a glass box).  Jackson enjoyed sticking near Dad and reading about all the dinosaurs.  Ellie and Zoe's favourite part was not even IN the museum.  We checked out the lookout point of the badlands just outside the museum and got to spy on a not-so-shy little gofer.  After all that, we played at the dinosaur park just outside the museum just in time to catch a little sun.  It was a very pleasant day and although it was busy with it being a holiday, it was worth the drive.  The girls are already talking about going back.  And Zoe thinks that George (from her favourite TV show, "Peppa Pig") would have loved it.  I know I did.

School. Happy. Quiet. Weird.

September didn't wait long to get cold. But are we surprised? I guess I was hoping for another week of shorts, but the temperature has dipped and we are right into sweaters and jackets! Fall is here! Joe is usually out the door before I even get out of bed, but on the boys first day of school, he was AWESOME and fixed Jackson's bike that morning so that I could ride with them to school. And it was so nice not having to take the girls because it was CHAOS that morning. They had everyone wait outside until the first bell at 8:40 and THEN everyone had a few minutes to get to class. So. That was crazy. AND they posted teachers and rooms just that morning, so everyone was in the same boat trying to figure out where to send their kid. But alas, we got it all figured out and the boys were more than ready and eager to get started.  I could tell Jackson was a little nervous, but he put on a brave face.  His classroom is upstairs so he thought that was pretty cool!  But he has a massive split 2/3 class and even though there are two teachers, I think he was a touch overwhelmed.  Noah's class is not as big but when he got there he seemed fine.  It's hard to read that kid sometimes.  I couldn't tell if he was nervous or blah about it all.  But, he held my hand in the hallways so I'll take it. There was one point where he let go and I thought, "Oh, he's decided he's too embarrassed." But NO! He was just going around someone and then went right on back to holding my hand. I could have died. Jackson is SO passed that point. Ellie's first school day was the next day (which was today)! I wanted to take a group picture on my phone of all of them in front of the school this morning and Jackson was mortified. "Mom! Everyone's looking! Don't!" Haha!

I am glad that Kindergarten is every other day.  I've been feeling not ready to let Ellie go and I'm not exactly sure why.  Yesterday was great with both the boys at school and the girls at home.  The girls PLAYED!  As in, together!  All day.  Ellie was the big sis and Zoe was happy to be commanded.  I think when the boys are around they kind of take over and Ellie finds herself wanting to impress them.  But when Ellie is the oldest at home, she gets a chance to be the big kid and Zoe doesn't seem to mind.  They spent an hour alone just sliding down the stairs together pretending they were wiggly worms.  Today we got to come inside and meet the teacher, Mrs Barrow (I can already tell she is awesome---very maternal and you can tell she likes her job) and see the classroom.  The girls were both in heaven!  They had play-dough out, painting, colouring, a play house where you can dress up and play house!  Oh my heck.  Every little girl's dream.  The teacher let us parents stay for a bit but when it was time to go Zoe was TICKED!  What?  This wasn't all for her?  And yes, she made a scene.  We knocked down the play house area trying to leave because Zoe was holding on to it.  Awesome.  And she screamed the whole way, limp noodle and all.  I couldn't help but laugh.  I could tell when Ellie was meeting her teacher for the first time that she was a bit shy, but once she got settled and saw all these other kids join her, there was no way she was going to be shy anymore!  When I told her I had to go, she was like, "K, bye!"  Which as a Mother is what you want.  Otherwise my heart would have crumpled a little leaving.  But Zoe made sure that my heart was sturdy as I carried her away as awkwardly as possible.  And then I went home and barfed.  For the second time that day.  Haha!  ...Ha....

So today was just me and Zoe.  Which has never happened before.  It was kind of nice and I found myself being WAY more attentive to her.  I even read her a book before her nap and felt like the best Mom ever for it.  Ha!  It will be good for us to have this one-on-one time and I look forward to it.

As per tradition we had school blessings the day before school, and hearing some of the beautiful things that Joe said made me so proud of our kids.  Some days I can't believe how we got to be so lucky.  And then my paranoid self says, something bad is going to happen because you have it too good!  I really do have it too good.  My kids are happy and healthy and good natured (generally).  And we get to add another in the new year.  I feel like I could break into song!  Except I won't because Zoe is napping and this is the first time in a VERY long time that I have had a quiet house to myself.  It's very strange.  But nice.  Ish.  I don't know how I feel about it yet!

Here are my cuties in front of our home.  Jackson had his lunch all ready to go and backpack ON before I even sat down for breakfast.  Ha!  He was so ready/anxious for his first day.  And Ellie's smile gets me!  Ha!  She's smiling so big you can't even see her lips.

Almost Camping

I heart camping. But not when I'm pregnant. And not when Joe is crazy busy with work. So, we compromised. Living in Okotoks is awesome because all you have to do is drive five minutes and you are in the country. Or you run into a river. Or cows. I love it. We picked a hot Saturday afternoon and Joe took us to a river about twenty or so minutes away to go fishing, tubing, have tinfoil dinners and make s'mores. It was a perfect day. It was one of those days that I wish could be every day because it was so perfect (minus my nausea).  The kids were in good Spirits, the environment was beautiful, the weather was perfect and nobody drowned.  I'll admit, the more comfortable the kids got with the water, the more nervous I became.  At first the kids all went down the tube together (even Zoe went with Jackson a couple times), but Ellie could have gone down that tube all day and night.  She loved that thing.  Joe, who is way less paranoid than I am, let her go down several times by herself once the boys were tired of it.  YIKES!  My heart was pounding the whole time, but in all honesty, the river was so tame and had a lot of eddies that there really wasn't much danger involved.  I am just paranoid.  And water scares me sometimes.  Don't get me wrong, I love swimming and I am a strong swimmer, but there are some bodies of water that I feel are overwhelming, and running rivers is one of them.  When we lived by Niagra Falls, I would almost get dizzy watching the Falls because the strength and magnificence was almost too much.  You will never see me white water rafting, let's just say that.  Anywho, Joe took the kids fishing and Noah caught his first fish!  We fried it up once we got home (Joe didn't have his gear to cook the fish that night with our dinner).  Noah was pretty proud of himself and even bravely watched his Dad cut the fish up.  Which I think is pretty gross.  It was one of those things where I kind of wanted to watch.  But I didn't.  Like a horror movie.  You peek and then look away, and then peek again.  I had a bite of it though when all was said and done, and it was pretty tasty!  Well done Noah.

TIN FOIL DINNERS!  This is one of things where I feel so lucky that I married Joe because he has this gift of going the extra mile with food prep and even making camp food taste amazing!  I was too sick to help him at all (because the fresh onions were too smelly), but he made us gourmet tin foil dinners complete with roasted garlic buttered naan bread toasted over the fire!  Oh my.  It was so good.  And that's saying a lot for a pregnant woman who hates food these days.

Usually Summer feels short, but this time around it's felt like an eternity (probably because I am sick).  The kids (and I) are so ready to start school up again this week.  We are renting in a Lake community so we have access to the beach and we have spent a good majority of our Summer there.  I have no pictures of our fun times there because I am usually too busy making sure that nobody is drowning!  Well, the boys are fine swimmers, so it's mostly just the girls.  I feel super lucky and now feel like when we look to actually buy a house here we had better stay within the community!  We are also a five minute walk to the church, which is also so nice.  We tested how long it would take to walk to the kids' school and it took us TWENTY minutes.  Ack!  I feel like it should only take ten but there's a gate that goes around the entire field so no one can cut through!!  That would shave off at least five minutes.  Sheesh.  I'm already griping about school and it hasn't even begun!  It will be nice to be just me and Zoe at home every other day and I like that Kindergarten is every other day for Ellie because I kind of feel like I wasn't totally ready to let her go all day every day just yet.  This will be a good transition I think.  Two more days!

We've been here almost two months now and our house is ALMOST there.  Remember when I promised myself that I would never move while pregnant again?  Well.  I didn't plan it this way!  The worst of it was that I couldn't tell anyone I was pregnant yet because it was too early, but that's probably when I needed the most help!  I have been way too sick to do anything and Joe has been way too busy at work to help with much.  So, I've been slowly but surely taking care of this or that.  It has been painful because I usually like to have things in order right away.  Thankfully I am on new medication so it's better now and I feel way more functional.  I refused to take Diclectin this time around because I don't think it helps that much.  So I asked for a different medication and started with Ondansetron (which Joe and I think sounds like an eighties robot dance) which is basically Zofran (for chemo patients).  But I was still head in the toilet nauseas almost every day!  I say "almost" because I was very inconsistently sick.  Some days I was functional, and some days I couldn't get out of bed and I could never predict which days would be what.  I even woke up once in the middle of the night to vomit.  No thanks!  Finally, I went back to the doctor just a couple of weeks ago and tried Diclectin again and it's WAY better than what I was taking.  WAY!  I still throw up occasionally if I've waited too long to eat, or haven't had enough sleep, etc.  But I can function and I even mostly enjoy food (as long as I haven't waited too long to eat and as long as I don't eat too much).  I really didn't want to do Dicectin again because it wipes me out and I feel like a zombie much of the day, but it's better than running to the toilet.  So, so, so, SO much better.  I DO find that I am a bit more snippity with the kids because I feel tired all the time so the Grumpy bear is always at the edge of my tongue.  Hopefully the kids will forget how crabby I have been once the baby is here.  Or realistically, once the baby and I are sleeping through the night.  Haha!  Before I forget, I have to say Jackson has been a dream of a boy.  He is very observant and on days where I've felt the most sick, he will make me toast or clean up, or play with Zoe so she isn't attached to my hip.  He has been very good at stepping up and making sure things are taken care of so that I don't have to do them while sick.  One of those daily things is making sure that Zoe has breakfast in the morning and turns on a show for her so I can sleep in a little.  What a good kid.  So grateful for that boy.  And for my fam.  I think this is my last baby so it's a little bitter sweet for me.  I haven't been able to enjoy this pregnancy yet, but I am sure I will feel the baby start moving in the next couple weeks and it will start to feel like there is an actual human being growing inside me.  And only a few weeks away before we have an ultrasound to find out the gender!  THEN it will really start to become real.  I have a girl name that I am in love with but have no boy names.  If it's a girl, I am set on Jane.  I have always liked the name Gibb for a boy, but when I say it out loud, it doesn't seem to roll off my tongue the way I want it to.  So I am not set on that name just yet.  But I DO like it.  Lots of pressure for the final Burnham baby.  I am determined not to fret until we know the gender in a few weeks.  I asked the kids if they want  brother or sister.  And of course the boys want  a brother and the girls want a sister.  I told the boys that if they have a brother they have to take care of it.  And if it's a girl, the girls will have to take care of it.  Jackson changed his mind.  Hahaha!  I don't blame him.  He's been taking on enough responsibility lately.

Okay, enough rambling.  This post isn't even supposed to be about babies!  It's supposed to be about almost camping!  Well, here are some pictures from our fun day.  Good bye Summer.