Seaborn Family

The countdown is on!

2012-02-06T21:01:00.000-05:00

My c-section date and time has been set for March 9th at noon. This means (in my head) that the baby will be born sometime between now and March 9th. I would like to have faith in my OB and believe that the baby will be born on March 9th, but that is 38 weeks and 1 day. Historically (with only a sample of 2), I have never made it past 37 weeks 2 days (Connor) and Wyatt was scheduled for 38 weeks, but was born a week and day early (36 weeks 6 days - which apparently is pre-term, which is funny because he weighed 8 lbs 2 oz). With both boys I had emergency c-sections and I have a feeling that Baby #3 will be no different, but I am still hoping for a March baby.

Although I want the baby the baby to come out (selfishly because I am getting quite uncomfortable), I know that it is still too early as I am only 33 weeks and 4 days, but it is still a vast improvement of 25 weeks 4 days when I was admitted into the hospital. The next milestone that we have set for the baby is to make it past Valentine's Day and Wyatt's 3rd Birthday (Feb 15th).

As I am setting milestones for the baby, I realize that we have to start getting ready for the baby's arrival. My labour bag and the baby's bag are ready for the hospital and we have a room with a crib in it, but it is not ready for the baby yet as it has become a dumping ground for things without a home. My biggest frustration at this point is that I can't really do anything, except make lists for Geofford. I would like reorganize the baby's room so it is set-up a little differently than it was when Wyatt was living in that room. My mother in law has kindly sorted through all of our kids clothes, so the baby's dresser is already fully stocked and ready to go, so that is done.

The other big thing that we have to do is purchase a mini-van. Geofford had to be convinced that it was the right thing to do because although it is theoretically possible to put three carseats in a Honda Civic, it really isn't all that practical (especially for a woman who will be having a c-section). We have narrowed down the van selection to the Toyota Sienna. It has all of the features that we want and the dealership is close by so servicing the vehicle will be convenient.

One of the things that I am able to do is surf the internet. A friend of mine invited me to join Pinterest in the fall (let me know if you want to join...it's addictive), which is a place to view other people's Pins or find cool things on the internet and Pin it. It's a virtual bulletin board to post up things that you think are interesting. Some of the "boards" that I have created are: Recipes, DIY crafts, Home improvement, Places that I want to visit, etc. Through this site, I have been able to come up some ideas for the kids' rooms, crafts for them to do and recipes that I want to try. I have also started planning Wyatt's birthday party using the site from recipes for the food, to decorations for the house. We shall see if I can actually follow through with any of the ideas...

Another thing that I have been looking out for is potential poses for the portraits of the new baby with the kids. Below is a practice of a baby portrait that I found. The boys were pretty excited to try, but it will be interesting to see if we can actually pull it off once the baby is born.

Connor and Wyatt practicing a baby portrait pose (with Mirabel - my cabbage patch kid who is "standing in" for the baby. I found the pose on Pinterest, but you can see the inspiration here on the Shanna Michelle Photography website...the picture on the site are stunning!

As the title of this post indicates, the countdown is on. The baby will be born in 32 days (or less), so in just over a month we will be a family of five! That will definitely be a new adventure :)

Chinese New Year...and a little regression.

2012-01-23T19:36:00.000-05:00

Happy Chinese New Year (or Lunar New Year for all of those Asians that also celebrate the Lunar Year). It is officially the start of the year of the Dragon. Although there has been some debate that the start is February 4th, which is technically in the Lunar Calendar the first day of spring, but in all of my google searches, I have not found any reference to the year of the dragon starting February 4th....if someone can provide evidence to the Feb 4th switch, then I will change my opinion.

Geofford had set a milestone for us to have a dragon baby (he is a little biased as he is a dragon himself) and now we have reached that milestone. The next milestone is to make it past the Superbowl (on Feb 5th for those non-NFL fans out there). :)

Our Chinese New Year eve dinner was special this year as my cousin Evelyn was here for the weekend (she was on her cross-country interview tour for her medical residency), so she was able to join us for dinner (since she was staying with my parents, it wasn't a big stretch). She even made a lantern out of a pomelo (even though it technically isn't Chinese Lantern season, but it was still pretty cool).

In my previous post, I stated that we made it to 32 weeks, but I was mistaken. Last Thursday was only 31 weeks. I blame the baby brain for the mistake, but 32 weeks will be on Thursday...so we are getting there. I noticed my error, not from the journal that I have been writing in that clearly states that this week is 31 weeks, but from the screen at my ultrasound this afternoon. The screen said 31 weeks 4 days, which was confusing to me since I honestly believed that I reached the 32 week milestone last week. Oh well...31 weeks is still better than 25 weeks and 4 days which is when I was admitted to the hospital.

Back to my ultrasound, the technician was able to take some measurements to try and estimate the size of the baby and also looked at the kidneys. The kidneys appeared to be of normal size from my non-technician eyes, but I verified with the technician and she confirmed my hypothesis. She also told me that the baby weighs approximately 4 lbs 10 oz based on the size of the head, torso and femur.

32 Weeks!

2012-01-19T21:25:00.000-05:00

We made it to 32 weeks! It's hard to believe that it was over a month ago that I was admitted to the hospital for a tear in my amniotic sac. Everything seems to be ok right now, but I am still being very careful as it would be nice to keep Baby #3 in utero for as long as possible. I still get very tired when I go into work so I am very grateful that work allows me to work from home for most of the week. :) At my doctor's appointment this week, my doctor didn't see any reason to move up the c-section date, but due to her own family commitments has not yet set the actual date for the c-section. So far, the date that we are aiming for is Friday, March 2nd, which would be 37 weeks and 2 days (which is the same gestation as Connor). Here's hoping Baby #3 cooperates.

In other family news, Wyatt is mostly potty-trained during the day. He occasionally has accidents, but on the most part stays dry for most of the day (with the exception of nap time when he still wears a diaper). The next big milestone for him will be to stay dry during his naps and then we will hope he stays dry during the night. We are pretty excited as he will be mostly out of diapers when the baby is born. Connor is still loving school. His teacher now has a twitter account in addition to her blog, so we are able to follow what is going on at school. Connor even made it onto a picture from the latest blog post! Geofford found out that he did not make the cut for the Master's Team Canada team which was slightly disappointing. He says now he can officially retire, but I'm not sure if he can go a summer without competitive ultimate, so we will wait to see how the baby's temperament is before he makes a final decision regarding his retirement.

We also celebrated Christmas with my family this past weekend. As all of us live in Ottawa, and we see each other on a fairly regular basis, we made the conscious decision to celebrate after everyone comes back to Ottawa so that our spouses can spend Christmas with their families. This allows us to enjoy the evening without the same stress of having to fit in all of the family visits in a small amount of time and also extends the Christmas season. This year, we celebrated extra late because Christmas happened at the beginning of the school holidays, and we had already taken down most of the decorations. The kids still had a fabulous time and really enjoyed playing together.

The five grandchildren...for now.

My parents with their grandchildren.

My family

I am looking forward to the next week as I am off on vacation (as my daycare is closed so my daycare provider can enjoy her honeymoon in the Dominican Republic....I am so jealous) and will be able to spend time with Wyatt. Hopefully he doesn't get too bored as we will be in the house most of the week. Fortunately my mother and sister-in-law have some time off so they will be able to take him outside to play. Also we will be celebrating Chinese New Year on Monday, which was another milestone for baby as we were hoping to have a dragon baby :)

Looking Back on 2011...and forward to 2012

2011-12-31T16:39:00.000-05:00

It has been another great year with some ups and some downs. Here are some of the highlights:

Wyatt turned 2 in February and started being able to talk to us a lot more. He also had a brief trip to the hospital at the end of November for what seemed to be an asthma attack, but we are hoping that it is a one-time occurrence and not something that we will have to watch for during cold season. He is also mostly potty-trained which is awesome as it means we will only have one child in diapers in 2012 :)
Connor turned 4 in August and started Junior Kindergarten in September at Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha.
Julie and Geofford celebrated their 5 year wedding anniversary on September 16th.
We welcomed Elena Kwok to the family on February 20th. She is the third child of Francis (Julie's youngest brother) and Jaclyn.
Damian (Julie's middle brother) and Michelle got married on October 1st, so we had many excuses to have parties: Stag and Doe, Bridal Shower, Bachelorette, Bachelor Party, Rehearsal Dinner, and the actual wedding!
Cassie (Geofford's cousin) and Ian got married on April 8th in London, England, so Geofford and Julie decided to make the trip across the pond. Julie had a bit more vacation than Geofford (since she didn't accompany him to Prague in 2010 for the WUCC), so she went for a week whereas Geofford was in London for a long weekend (Thursday morning to Sunday).
We also had the opportunity to celebrate friends' weddings: Cindy and Zach (June 4th), Tony and Whynter (July 30th) and Kevin and Lily (October 8th).
Julie got called for jury duty in March, so she got to see the justice system first-hand. She's glad to have experienced it, but hopes that she will not have to do it again.
Julie's Poh-Poh (maternal grandmother) passed away on April 14th. She lived a good life (she would have been 100 in September), with 11 children, 25 grandchildren and 22 great-grandchildren (I hope I'm not missing anyone) at the time of her death.
Julie was able to attend the Parapan American Games in Guadalajara, MX in November. It was an amazing experience and she thoroughly enjoyed her first multi-sport games.
Geofford was the best man in Damian's wedding and a groomsman in Tony's wedding, so he had a few commitments attached to each of those weddings.
Geofford also played competitive ultimate with the master's team GLUM again this summer. They came in 2nd at the Canadian Ultimate Championships (which were held in Ottawa) in August. It was a disappointing finish for the team as they were hoping to win, which meant that the team's leadership would have the opportunity to select the team going to the World Ultimate Championships in 2012 which will be held in Sakai, Japan from July 7-14th. Geofford has applied to be a part of Team Canada, but hasn't heard back yet. He is supposed to hear sometime today if he made the short list, so we shall see...
Baby Seaborn #3 was conceived and has been demanding a lot more attention than his/her older brothers did while in utero...I wonder if that is a sign of things to come in 2012 and beyond...

Here is our year in review in photos:

Make a free digital slideshow

As the year comes to a close, it is traditional to make resolutions for the New Year. We have already started one of our resolutions, and that is to eat healthier and with a better social conscience. It is something that we have been thinking about for a while and the opportunity dropped into our laps during the holidays. We received a visit from Nutrafarms asking if we wanted a free meat sample. We decided to listen to the pitch and found out that the meat is not organic, but it is all from Ontario and it is all free-range, grain/corn fed and antibiotic free. We decided to give it a try as we were trying to purchase things more local, but meat was something that always alluded us because we didn't have the time to visit different farms/farmers markets, etc. to source out our meat. We are going to try it out this year and see how it works out. The cost works out to be about half of our yearly grocery bill, but we figured the value should be worth it. We received the shipment of meat yesterday and we will see how things work out. Here is a picture of the meat:

The other big resolution that I want to make is to try and spend more quality time with family and friends. This may be a difficult one to keep, depending on Baby #3's temperament, but as I will be on maternity leave for the majority of the year, I'm hoping that we can make it happen.

With everything that we have been through the past couple weeks, a few people have commented to me that I have been quite optimistic through everything that we have endured. I guess my initial reaction was that this is nothing that I can control and if I keep thinking positively then I will be able to get through this rough patch, because that is all that this is, it's a little bump in the road of life. In the grand scheme of things, my life is pretty good and that is what I focus on. I was listening to the CBC this morning and I was reminded of the letter that Jack Layton wrote to Canadian's right before he passed away. The closing paragraph is quite moving and is something that I will strive to achieve:

"My friends, love is better than anger.

Hope is better than fear.

Optimism is better than despair.

So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic.

And we'll change the world."

Wishing you a wonderful 2012!

~Julie

Happy Boxing Day (aka the 2nd Day of Christmas)

2011-12-26T22:43:00.000-05:00

We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas, Chanukah, Festivus, or whatever else you celebrate at this time of year. We are celebrating the fact that we are still a family of 4 and Baby Seaborn #3 is still enjoying his/her home in my belly. It has been two weeks since I was admitted into the hospital and I feel like we are in a good place right now. I am almost at 28 weeks (which is apparently a major milestone in baby development) and so far so good. Modified bed rest is a lot better than complete bed rest and I was happy to be able to leave the house twice on Christmas day - once to go to mass and the other to go to Christmas dinner. It was nice to go out into the world and see friends and family outside of my home.

There was a challenge called the Hourly Photo Challenge that was issued by a blogger that I follow. I was able to capture most of the day with the exception of the two hour block that I was napping in the afternoon. I managed to post most of my pictures on twitter/facebook before nap, but everything post-nap I uploaded to instagr.am today.

Here is my Christmas Day in photos:

9:00am - The boys actually let us sleep in past 8:00am, so my first picture was of us having breakfast after we opened our stockings.

10:00am - Getting ready to go to church, I wanted to capture the fact that it was actually a White Christmas

11:00am - I was actually in mass, so I couldn't capture a picture, but I did take a picture of the alter and environment after mass at Good Shepherd Parish (so this one was actually closer to noon, but not quite there, so I count it for the 11:00am picture)

Noon - My parents came over after mass and my mom made the boys reindeer hats, so I thought that they were pretty cue.

1:00pm - The tradition at our house (so far) is to open stockings before breakfast, have breakfast, go to mass, have lunch and then open the gifts under the tree. The boys don't know any better at this point, so it stretches out the day (but also compresses the gift opening time as Wyatt still needs to take a nap). So far, we have always made the same breakfast strata for lunch and it seems to be quite the hit as Geofford hasn't let me make anything else. This year it was a team effort as I can only do so much in the kitchen. Here is what was left after everyone had lunch.

So for the 2-4pm hourly photos, I was unable to take any pictures...so there is a slight gap in our day. Wyatt and I were napping, but I'm not sure what else was going on the house...

5:00pm - Part of the boys' stockings was a beautiful wig - all of the male Seaborns (from my immediate family) donned these wigs to enter into the house for Christmas Dinner. I personally think my boys look like Thing 1 and Thing 2

6:00pm - The exchanging of the gifts - round 2. This is a beautiful tissue pouch designed and created by Geofford's cousin - Chidima Nzakamulilo.

7:00pm - We are starting the first course of dinner: Geofford's aunt's fabulous Vichyssoise and her wonderful rolls which are a family secret.

8:00pm - The turkey dinner with the Seaborns is always a feast, so I took a picture of my plate, which is a pretty good representation of all of the fabulous dishes. I think the only thing that I am missing is the cranberry sauce, which was very tasty.

9:00pm - I didn't get a very good picture of the plum pudding, but I didn't get to eat it anyways because of all of the brandy on it, so instead I took a picture of my Christmas Cracker (and the obligatory joke contained in it).

10:00pm - The last photo of the day. The boys were already in melt-down mode seeing as it was 2.5 hours after their regular bedtime, so instead I took a picture of the Seaborn's fabulous tree. I wish we had taller ceilings to accommodation such a big tree, but we don't have that many ornaments yet, so it's probably better that we have a smaller tree :) The picture doesn't do the tree justice, but I would guess that it is almost a 9' tree.

I really enjoyed the Hourly Photo Challenge and hope the next time I do it, I can actually take and post the pictures throughout the day :)

Happy 35th Birthday Geofford!

2011-12-22T13:01:00.000-05:00

Happy Birthday to Geofford! He turns 35 today and he is still only has to care for two children. Baby Seaborn #3 is still growing nicely and I haven't had any other abnormal pains, which is great! We have made it to Week 27, which is still 10 weeks from full term, but as everyone keeps telling me, every day/week counts, so it's a good milestone.

The adjustment to bed rest has been quite difficult, but I have been lucky to have a very supportive family who have all helped out immensely. The boys seem to understand that something is up and have adjusted to all of the extra attention from our extended family, so they don't miss not having as much of mom's attention.

Fortunately, I only had to do 4 full days of bed rest at home. At my appointment with the Maternal-Fetal Medicine Day Unit (aka High Risk unit) at the Civic Hospital on Tuesday, I was informed that the leak in the amniotic sac was probably high and was able to seal itself as I was no longer leaking fluid. Also, during the ultrasound that same morning they were able to measure adequate amniotic fluid around baby, so that was all great news. The only bad news that we did receive was, during the ultrasound, they found that the baby has an enlarged kidney, which he/she may grow out of if he/she continues to develop in utero. As the baby's structures are so small, just a small blockage in the ureter could cause the build up of urine in the kidney. There is nothing medical that they can do at this point except to monitor the kidney and hope that it can be resolved before the baby is born.

I was told that I was being discharged from High Risk and could continue following my own doctors for the rest of the pregnancy unless something else came up. Since I was no longer with high risk I was told that I could do modified bed rest, which is essentially house arrest with the ability to visit the outside world on an as needed basis. This was great news to my ears, but I do realize that I still have to be very careful as to not go into pre-term labour. I'm going to bring it up with my OB, but I am hoping that this means that our original plan of having the baby at 37 weeks is still on the table, but I will find that out at my 30 week appointment on January 12th when they schedule the c-section.

Modified bed rest has been ok for the past two days. It is nice to be able to sit at my desktop computer instead of having to work off of my laptop, but I do miss all of the ergonomic upgrades that I have at my desk at work. I never really realized how much they do help. If all goes well over the next few weeks, then I hope to be able to able to go into the office a few times a week after the school Christmas break, but I was told by a few people that I shouldn't rush things, so this is all pending my progress.

In non-baby news, my family was able to trim the tree (I just took pictures) with the kids. We were lucky to have purchased our tree before I was admitted to the hospital, but we did have a naked tree (as coined by my niece) for a week.

More pictures of the kids with the tree can be found on our flickr photostream as well as other pictures of our adventures.

Thanks again to everyone for all of your love and support, I will try and respond to your messages, it just may take me a little while, but I will have some time in the next couple weeks :)

Escaping from the hospital!

2011-12-15T16:43:00.000-05:00

I have been given the official word from the doctor that I will be going home today. I am no longer leaking amniotic fluid (so potentially the leak healed, or it is just up high) and I do not seem to be going into labour, so that's great news.

I will be on bed rest for the next little while, but bed rest at home will be way better than bed rest here at the hospital. My first goal will be completed tonight as I will return home, so I guess the next short term goal is to keep baby in the oven until at least 2012...which doesn't seem so bad, but it is 16 days away.

Thanks for all of the positive vibes and messages!

Hope...

2011-12-15T09:23:00.000-05:00

My doctor came in this morning and ran a test. If the test comes back negative and my ultrasound (that is booked for this afternoon at 3pm) goes well, then there is a good chance that I will be able to go home today! There seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel.

The attending physician at the High Risk Unit also came to see me and indicated that he felt that I would also probably be able to return home today, so that is double hope. He also seemed to indicate that if things go well in the next week, I would only have to return to the High Risk Unit next week for a follow-up appointment and an ultrasound, and if all went well then I would be discharged from High Risk and could continue seeing my own doctors.

So does this mean that if all goes well in the next week, I will be off bed rest? That was the question that I didn't think of until after he left. Is that hoping for too much at this point? We shall see. I guess one step at a time is what I should be doing at this point. My short term goal is to go home, so I will continue focusing on that.

Thanks for all of the thoughts and prayers thus far.

A slight complication...

2011-12-14T15:14:00.001-05:00

Here is a quick update on Baby Seaborn #3. It has been an eventful last few days to say the least.

I was admitted to the Civic Hospital on Monday evening because apparently my water broke which is an indication of labour. Seeing as I am only at 25 weeks gestation (which is about 6.5 months, full term being 37 weeks or about 9 months), this is too early for this to be happening. As far as the doctors can tell, I have not gone into labour yet, which is good but I have been placed on bed rest for the remainder of my pregnancy (which will hopefully last at least 2 more months if we are lucky). I am in the hospital as they are administering antibiotics via IV to try and close the hole in the amniotic sac or at least to prevent infection for me and the baby. Also, I have been given steroids to help the baby's lungs and brain develop in case I deliver in the next few days (eek). I was informed though, that the chances of the baby surviving at this point is about 80% if I deliver today and if the baby survives there is a further 70-75% chance that the baby will not have any major complications. All that being said, the odds of having a healthy baby increases every day that I can keep him/her in utero.

My current plan is to leave the hospital tomorrow (since I will have completed the IV antibiotics) and then ideally deliver the baby via c-section (due to history and another fun complication with the umbilical cord) at 34 weeks (where the risk of infection outweighs the risk of having a pre-term baby) which puts the delivery date around February 9th, which is a little earlier than I originally hoped which was 37 weeks. But on the bright side, I don't have to worry about the baby being born on February 29th (seeing as this year is a leap year). Again, this is my plan, but as history has shown, my babies do not like to follow the laid out plan (Connor being born during 2007 Nationals and Wyatt being born a week and a day before the scheduled c-section). Let's hope that this baby listens better to the previous two, but I can only hope. Again this is my plan, but I still have to wait and see what the doctor's say. I am hoping that they agree with my plan, and all things look good so far).

When I stated that I wanted to update the blog more often, I was hoping for bi-weekly updates, but it looks like I have a little more time on my hands, so I hope to able to provide more updates on Baby #3 as well as the rest of the family.

Latest ultrasound taken the morning after I was admitted...baby looks ok.

A gift from niece Norah. On each day of advent, their advent calendar has a family member's name. Tuesday's name was Baby Seaborn #3. She drew us a picture of all of the people praying for a safe outcome.

Her other gift to me was a drawing of herself. Since she couldn't come to the hospital, she drew me a picture of herself so she could keep me company at the hospital :)

Time flies...

2011-12-11T21:23:00.001-05:00

It's hard to believe that it is almost the end of 2011, where does the time go? I can't believe that I have already been married for just over 5 years, I have school age child, another who is almost out of diapers and a third on the way! Yikes!

November flew by, mostly because I was in Guadalajara, Mexico for the 2011 Parapan American Games for work for just over two weeks. It was an amazing experience as it was my first major multi-sport games and I was part of the Team Canada Mission Staff. It was great getting to know the athletes, their coaches and the support staff. I worked on the operations team which meant that I lived right in the Athlete's Village and helped Team Canada with anything they needed. Although the days were long, I was very lucky to be able to be able to watch some of the competition. I didn't get to all of the events that I would have liked, but I did manage to watch Wheelchair Basketball, Sitting Volleyball and Goalball. Here are my pictures from Guadalajara. I decided to just post them on facebook as the seaborn flickr stream is more about family stuff and my personal flickr isn't a pro account, so I'm not sure if I could get all of the pictures on it...:p

Connor has been really enjoying school. He has been introduced to a Math Program online that we play a few times a week (when we have time) that he really enjoys. His teacher has also started a blog to help keep the parents informed on the activities that they do all day.

Wyatt had an exciting end of the month. He ended up in CHEO for a three day (two night visit). He was diagnosed with Asthma Exacerbation, which means that that he had an asthma attack, but he is too young to diagnose asthma, so it could have been a result of a virus or his environment. Since his environment hasn't really changed, we think that it is a result of a virus, but after talking to some other parents with children with asthma, this is how it begins. He has been ok since the episode, but we have been given some Ventolin to use as needed and we will definitely monitor his breathing.

Geofford has briefly un-retired from ultimate and is playing on Sunday nights in the 4 on 4 league. It isn't his favorite type of ultimate, but he is out with friends playing with a disc, so it's better than nothing :)

We are gearing up to be parents of three. The boys are sleeping in the same room and the nursery (aka Wyatt's old room) is now full of boxes of kids' clothes. I hope to have some time between now and the end of the calendar year to sort through all of the clothes. It was originally on my list of things to complete before summer started, but things always come up. I am definitely looking forward to my full year off with the new baby. It will be my first full year off with any of the kids, so I can't wait! My list of things to do is lengthening, but my priority will be to enjoy the time off with the kids because they are only young once, and there is always tomorrow :)

Here is a link to our family picture from Damian and Michelle's wedding: http://www.francescomaragoni.ca/Albums/Kwok_01_10_2011/03.html#65 (The photographers for their wedding was pretty amazing to be able to get all of us looking at the camera at once). Please feel free to look at the other pictures from the wedding as well...they are stunning.

Here are the Santa Claus Pictures from this year (I love the set at Place D'Orleans and also the new format where you get digital rights of the pictures so you can print them anywhere):

The boys with Santa

The family with Santa

The cousins with their wranglers (as Jaclyn said it best)

October Art

2011-10-17T20:34:00.000-04:00

Here is some of the Fall inspired art from the kids :)

My turkey, Wyatt

Connor's Turkey Hat

The Kissing Hand Poem

Which accompanies Connor's kissing hands

And a thanksgiving wreath to show what Connor is thankful for.

What to do with Art from School?

2011-10-11T21:13:00.001-04:00

So as usual, I have been a slacker on the blog. So much has happened since last Christmas (the last time that I updated this blog). As usual, I am going to try and be better and keeping this up to date (especially since I keep giving people the link to this blog on our Christmas card).

So here is a quick update of the past 10 months...

Wyatt turned 2 - he is no longer our quiet Wyatt and loves to ask "What are you doing?" He is also a super picky eater and we have managed to introduce rice krispies to his diet which is now one of his preferred food. Unfortunately he is quite the messy eater, so we now have a fairly clean floor (or it is covered in rice krispies). He is now one of the big men at daycare since...

Connor turned 4 and he started JK in September. This is actually the inspiration of the post. Since Connor started school, he has come home with tons of art work. Now that we have a new scanner, I have been inspired to scan the ones that we can and I'll take pictures of the ones that I can't scan. Here is the first of many pieces of art that have been digitally archived...Now I just have to figure out how to display them around the house. Any suggestions?

Geofford has officially retired from ultimate (for the first time...there is already talk of him potentially playing next summer). We couldn't disclose the reason for about a month why he has to take a little time off, but it is because we were expecting Baby #3 and well I'm not sure if I can be an ultimate widow with three kids. We'll see though, so for now he is retired and we can confirm/deny him coming out of retirement when the time comes.

I am as usual quite busy with work. I have had a pretty eventful year thus far with work being a lot of fun and then getting pregnant. I will be experiencing my first major games this November when I head to Guadalajara for the Parapan American Games. I will be part of the Canadian Paralympic Committee's mission team which should be quite the experience. I am very excited and hope that the second trimester energy will kick in by that time.

As for the house, we managed to replace the floor in the kitchen. It looks quite fabulous and thanks to my dad and Damian for helping Geofford out. Connor helped a little as well lay the chalk lines down, so it may be helpful to delay some of the projects for the house so that both boys can help. We are waiting to find out the sex of Baby #3 until he/she is born but hopefully he/she will be as helpful as his/her brothers.

With respect to the family, Francis and Jaclyn had their third child, our niece Elena who is super cute. Damian and Michelle also got married on October 1st which was quite the celebration. Here are our pictures from the day. Our family (and extended one) is slowly expanding and soon we will definitely have to have a kids table at family gatherings as they are soon going to out number the adults.

We are a little bit better at keeping our flickr site up to date, so you can follow some of our adventures there. I will try and post up some more art as I get around to scanning/photographing it.

Our Christmas Celebrations.

2011-01-17T20:16:00.001-05:00

As with all families, we choose to celebrate Christmas multiple times so that we can maximize on family time and eating time.

Now that we have our own family, we celebrate with the boys Christmas morning before church by opening our stockings.

After church, we have brunch and then gather around the tree and start opening presents.

But before the boys can open presents, they must pose for the obligatory photos with the grandparents.

After our family celebrated (with grandparents), we then have a relaxing afternoon so that we can prepare for the first of the Christmas dinners. This year, we continued the tradition of heading to the Seaborns at the Sycamore House to enjoy the annual Seaborn feast. The feast starts out with appetizers and the obligatory whiskey sour.

And no Seaborn family dinner is complete with not 1 but 2 plum puddings. This is a photo of the 2nd plum pudding. Needless to say after this fabulous feast prepared by Geofford's Aunt Carol, we were not hungry for a few days.

Unfortunately for our waistlines, we hosted some of my high school friends at our annual post-Christmas potluck at our new house. As usual, there was a lot of wonderful food prepared. After the dinner, we had a Chinese gift exchange (I think that I prefer the terms Gift Grab or Yankee Swap, but that's just me). You can see in the foreground some of the gifts from the gift exchange (Keating actually stole the gift that he brought, I think that we may have to change the rules for next year).

We had one more big dinner party, with the Chinese Church friends, but Geofford wasn't able to make it so I didn't get to take any photos, but it was a fabulous dinner with a lot of wonderful food at the Chan's new house just next to the canal.

Our last big Christmas celebration was with the Kwoks. Historically we have spent some Christmases apart (as our in-laws don't live in town) and well we see each other quite frequently, so we decided to celebrate a couple weeks after Christmas Day to be able to spread out our holidays and to take advantage of Boxing Day sales :D, but really is was so that we can celebrate Christmas together without having to rush around to do so. This was the first year that the celebration was not celebrated in Manotick (this was also only the 3rd year that we celebrated late). As you can see below, the boys are thrilled to have to dress up for a second family Christmas celebration.

We started off the festivities in Russell where we had brunch. We also tried to take pictures of the family, but decided that the kids really are the most interesting ones to photograph. As it was almost nap time, it was difficult to get a serious picture of all of them, but it was very easy to get a picture of them making funny faces.

After the kids naps (I don't think that any of the adults were able to adults napped, and I know for certain that Jaclyn gave up her nap to make Connor's Toy Story 3 cake), we returned to my parents' house for another fabulous Christmas dinner (although I still have yet to roast a chicken properly - I can do turkey, but not chicken...go figure), we were able to enjoy Connor's Toy Story 3 cake, which was the culmination of months of hard work on his part. We promised him that he could get a Toy Story 3 (emphasis on the 3 because that is what all of the commercials are for right now, and he is 3) cake when he no longer needed diapers. Unfortunately (but fortunately), this coincided with Christmas (so it was a wonderful Christmas present for Geofford and I) so we decided to delay giving him the cake so that we could have a proper celebration for this momentous occasion. Congratulations to my little man for achieving this important milestone!

We hope that all of you had a wonderful Christmas (or holiday if you aren't Christian) season!

Love, the Seaborns

Back from a year and a bit Hiatus

2011-01-05T20:02:00.000-05:00

So my New Year's Resolution last year was to keep this blog better up to date, obviously I failed because there was not a single post from 2010. Maybe 2011 will be better. :D

Here are some highlights from 2010:

Wyatt turned 1 in February. He learned how to walk this year and uttered his first words as well (Dada - same as Connor).
Connor turned 3 in August. He also became potty trained which probably more exciting for us than him.
Geofford made the decision to play Master's Ultimate with GLUM after playing with them Fall 2009. With GLUM he attended the World Ultimate Club Championships in Prague in July, the Canadian Ultimate Championships in Sherbrooke in August where GLUM repeated as Champions for the 3rd year in a row, the North-east Regionals tournament for the UPA Club Series in Boston in October where they placed 1st to win a spot to go the UPA Championships and finally the UPA Club Championships in Florida at the end of October where GLUM won bronze after losing the semi-final on Universe point.
Julie got a promotion at work so now is half-way through the development program.
And the biggest news for 2010 is that Geofford and I bought our first home and moved from Manotick (his childhood home and the home where our kids were born into) to Orleans.

Here are some photo highlights of the year:

This slideshow design personalized with Smilebox

As always, we try and keep our flickr site up to date: http://www.flickr.com/photos/seaborns/

November!

2009-11-23T22:18:00.000-05:00

So I am going to try and take a new approach to our blog. I have taken this inspiration from my friend Laura's blog. She is a lot wittier than me, but I have cute kids to distract you from my prose.

When Geofford was away at UPA Nationals in Sarasota at the end of October, the boys and I stayed home. Connor helped me rake the leaves. I think next year it may be more useful to get him a rake that is more proportional to his size.

Wyatt tried to help as well, but unfortunately he cannot stand up by himself yet.

It wasn't all work though, Connor also got to play on the new play structure donated to us by Geoff's wonderful ex-neighbours at Georgian Bay (thanks to Ken, Mags, Matt and Jason!). I think he will be very disappointed next summer when he has to share it with Wyatt. Right now, he is the only one that is allowed to play on the structure, but that will change when Wyatt can start running around.

Wyatt does not enjoy being outside as much as he is a lot more limited to what he can do right now. I guess sitting still is not as fun as jumping him his jolly jumper. I think that once he is more mobile, he will also enjoy being outside like the rest of the family.

The boys got into the Remembrance Day spirit by each wearing poppies. I can't wait until they are old enough to understand a little more so that we will be able to take them downtown to the Remembrance Day ceremony at the War Memorial.

Wyatt has also developed a funny new skill. He can blink. I think it may be a signal to us that he is tired of getting his picture taken, but we think it is pretty cute. He demonstrated this skill on his 9-month-aversary. Whenever my father tried to take a picture of him and the pre-flash would go off, Wyatt would blink. At his 9-month check-up Wyatt weighed 20lbs 2oz and measured 73.5cm long. It's hard to believe that my baby boy is already 9-months!

As the Christmas season is almost here (although the stores will have you believe that the Christmas season begins immediately following Halloween), I have been trying out different cookie recipes in preparation for my cookie exchanges.

The first recipe I tried was for Chocolate Sugar Cookies, which didn't turn out as well as I would have hoped. They had an interesting texture, but I wasn't sure if these were the ones that I wanted to share.

So then I tried a different recipe for just regular Chocolate Cookies and they were a hit. So pictured below are the cookies that I will be bringing to my neighbourhood cookie exchange. I'm still trying to decide what to bring to the 2nd cookie exchange. The 3rd one, we pre-decided what each participant would bring, so that's an easy decision.

As always, we have tons of pictures up at our flickr site, so please keep checking that site and we'll try and update this one a little more often.

We are in the terrible twos....

2009-10-07T10:08:00.000-04:00

I think that we have officially entered the terrible twos (or as our daycare provider calls it the testing threes). Geofford says that Connor has been developing opinions that we haven't given him. I think part of the change in temperament has been due to the change in our routine. Since I have been back to work at CCG, the whole family had to get up a lot earlier than the old usual. Now after about a month, we are finally settling into our routine and the morning routine is a little easier to get through. There are times though that the cereal that Connor wanted five minutes ago, isn't the cereal that he wants now.

Wyatt is being a great little guy though which really helps. He is spitting up a lot less now that I am no longer eating/drinking any dairy (who knew that would be so hard) and he is also drinking the lactose free formula at daycare. We have also started him on solids (so far rice, oatmeal, apples, pears, butternut squash, prunes, peas and carrots), which he really enjoys. Like his brother he likes the sweeter foods. I am hoping to be able to go to Millers' this weekend so that I can buy some apples and squash to make some more food for him.

Geofford will be heading to Devens (just outside Boston) this up-coming weekend to compete at the UPA NE Master's Regional Tournament. (Damian and the rest of the BFC team will be competing at the same time at the NE Mixed Regional tournament.) If they qualify top-2, then the team (and him) will be heading to Sarasota, FL for the UPA National Championships at the end of October.

Today is my last day of work here at CCG and I am quite excited about my new adventure at Sport Canada. I have started a new personal blog, but will still be rambling about the family here. Also, we haven't updated flickr, but here are some of the pictures that I have uploaded to facebook for Alexa and CK's wedding and the 2nd annual Kwok family photoshoot.

Too long

2009-09-11T10:33:00.001-04:00

It has been too long since we have posted. Now Connor is two years and one month old and Wyatt is almost seven months old. Geofford and Julie are also older, but it is not polite to post our ages ;)

We have been up to a lot since our last post. Connor and Wyatt have a new cousin (Simon Peter Wei-Ming Kwok), a few new second cousins (Zoe Tompsett, Charles Ernest Allard, Kristen Woodward) and a ton of new friends. We have travelled to Georgian Bay a couple of times, endured an entire ultimate season of Geofford playing and captaining (including travelling to a couple of tournaments - Toronto, Waterloo with the kids, and Julie organized an ultimate tournament in Ottawa - Mixed Up).

Wyatt is now in daycare as Julie is back to work. So far he seems to be enjoying his time (as far as we can tell). He is a very happy baby, only fussy when he is tired, hungry or soiled. He is almost sitting up and is frustrated that he isn't moving when he is on his tummy. He also loves jumping in the jolly jumper. When he is in the mood, Wyatt will also turn over, but most of the time he is happy kicking at the toys on his playmat. He also loves putting everything in his mouth. We will have to be careful to watch if Connor shares any small toys with his younger brother. At Wyatt's 6-month appointment (on Aug 17th), he weighed 8.22kg (18lbs 2oz) and measured 70.5cm (27.8") tall.

Connor seems to be enjoying having his younger brother at daycare with him. Our daycare provider Lynne reports that Connor is a "great little helper". Connor is quite the little man now, he is quite verbose, but gets frustrated when we don't understand what he is saying. Most of the time we don't understand because he is not using words but little grunts to try and get us to do something for us. As the NFL season is now upon us, Geofford has taught Connor a few calls including touchdown, safety (Connor can even be prompted to describe the safety - that it is two points and the ball), and offside. Connor also is learning to jump. It has been fun watching the progression of just bending his knees for a jump to actual jumping. At Connor's 2-year appointment (on Sept 8th), he weighed 11.11kg (24lbs 8oz) and measured 89cm (35") tall. I think that the scales at the doctor's office (now that they have moved offices) are a little off because I weighed him at the doctor's office in July when he was sick and he weighed that much.

Julie is now back to work at the Canadian Coast Guard, which has presented some new challenges including everyone in the family being awake at 6:30am. Connor has had the toughest time adjusting because that little man loves his sleep, but he also loves to play.

Geofford also has a few new challeges this fall, he has additional responsibility at work and he will be playing ultimate with the Master's team GLUM (that may give you a hint regarding his age, there is a minimum age to play Master's).

As always, we have been trying to visually document our time with our flickr photostream. Hopefully we will keep up with the blogging as much as we are posting photos.

Our family at Wyatt's baptism on June 21, 2009

Introducing Wyatt Seaborn

2009-02-22T11:50:00.000-05:00

Wyatt Seaborn was born February 15, 2009 at 10:00am at the Ottawa Hospital - Civic Campus. He weighed 3677 g (8lbs 2oz) and measured 50cm (19.7 inches) long. Although he was scheduled to arrive tomorrow (Feb 23rd) at 10am, he decided to come a little early.

After a short unexpected labour, Julie gave birth via c-section to Wyatt. Connor seems to be adjusting well and is very interested in the baby. Everyone is doing fantastic, although we had to stay an extra night at the hospital to monitor Wyatt's weight.

We have been taking pictures and have been posting them on our flickr account: http://www.flickr.com/photos/seaborns/ or for Wyatt specific pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/seaborns/sets/72157607040176456/

January and then some :)

2009-02-13T12:39:00.000-05:00

I am going to try my best to keep this more up to date with our news. I have a little bit of stream of consciousness going, so hopefully this all makes sense. Here goes:

We celebrated Christmas with the Kwoks on January 11th, which is just outside of the Christmas season, but it was the best time for all of us. We made a whole day of it starting with a brunch, followed by playing in the snow and ending with a dinner. I managed to undercook the turkey, so that was disappointing, but I think overall we still had a fantastic time.

January was a tough month for me as it was final one at work. Trying to tie up all of the loose ends before the baby is born. The bus strike only aggravated things as I had to get up quite early (5:30am) to avoid terrible traffic. So weekends were nice when I got to sleep in until 7:30. I think it was also quite difficult on Geofford because I was so tired all of the time, so he really had to take care of both Connor and I, as I wasn't the biggest help. Now that I am off work, things are much nicer - although I think I may be getting less sleep but that is due to my ballooning belly. I am torn because I really want to meet this new baby but at the same time I know that life will be a lot more hectic with a baby and a toddler in the house, but it should be fun.

I was thrown two baby showers by my friend Stephanie. The first was a pseudo-baby shower where we just had a wonderful ladies' night in/appetizer potluck. It was a lot of fun and great to see some friends that I hadn't seen in a while. The second was a work baby shower which was attended by a ton of my co-workers which was very surprising. It was also a lot of fun and really helped to make me appreciate my co-workers. It was funny though because a lot of people thought that that was my last day of work, but I still had another week, so it was a running joke that everything was my "last". I think that I had 3 or 4 "last" lunches, and in the end I worked one extra day, so I came back from one more "last" day. Too funny. I am hoping to be able to find something back at Coast Guard when I am ready to go back to work because they are a wonderful group of people.

Connor has been making such great progress over the past couple of months. Torch and Michèle saw him at Christmas and then stopped by for a night on their way to Montreal/Rawdon and noticed many changes that we may not notice because we see him everyday. I started making a list of how many words he can say and as of February 1st, he had about 35, but I suspect that he may have more because his daycare provider Lynne keeps telling us about more words that he has. It is very exciting that we can start understanding what he is saying and start communicating with him a little easier. We just hope that the transition with the new baby will be quite smooth. So far, he has changed rooms and we have started adding in the baby's things - swings, bouncy chairs, etc around the house. We took one of my old cabbage patch kids and he is holding the baby properly - although there are some times that he likes to carry the "baby" around and then sees something that interests him a little more, so he just puts the baby down on the floor. We'll see what happens with the new baby, but I know that he won't be carrying him/her around.

Geofford has been coping with work, dealing with a cranky toddler (at times) and dealing with an exhausted wife. I think he has been doing quite well, and I am very thankful to his boss that he did not have to spend two weeks in Kingston like he did last January. He did manage to have some fun - on the coldest day of January (when there was a windchill warning), he had planned with some friends and co-workers to do a canal pub crawl. In the end, some people bailed due to the cold, but he had a great time on the canal, skating from bar to bar and imbibing at each establishment. I think that next time, he will try and plan it for a day that we have plans for dinner (we were celebrating an early Chinese New Year - fortunately for him it was at my parents' house so he was able to relax a little more than if we were going out to a restaurant).

We have maximum 10 days now until the new baby is born and we'll see if we last that long. Right now I am just nesting and trying to make sure that everything is ready for the new baby's arrival. I can't wait to sleep on my back again!

Happy New Year!

2009-01-06T10:00:00.000-05:00

We hope everyone had a Happy Holiday Season. Ours was a good combination of hectic and quiet times. It is always nice to be on holidays, but sometimes nice to get back into a familiar routine.

Connor had his first Christmas concert at daycare on December 19th. We tried taking a video of it, but it turned out quite dark. I think that our little man has a little bit of stage fright. I used to watch some of his practices with the older girls at daycare and he would just sit on his little chair playing the tambourine and having a blast. At the concert, he seemed quite overwhelmed and at one point just stood in front of all of the parents frozen not knowing what to do. It is a really cute video and we will be sure to tease him with it when is older :)

Geofford celebrated his 32nd anniversary of his birth with a wine & cheese chez us. It was nice having friends over to celebrate and we had quite a bit of fun with the rockband. Who knew our friends were such good singers?

As the Kwoks had abandoned us (Peter and Sophie were in Hong Kong, Damian and Michelle were in North Bay and Francis and Jaclyn were in Halifax), we celebrated the holidays with the Seaborns. We had a wonderful meal at the Seaborns on Cambridge and then had a great time (despite the rain) in Perth trying to find alternatives to the original plan of snowshoeing and cross-country skiing. Connor managed to have some fun on his sled, but not that much fun because he ended up fast asleep at the end of his sled-ride.

First half of December update

2008-12-17T08:09:00.000-05:00

I will have to try and think of some better titles because this one is pretty lame. The first half of December has been pretty busy for us. Connor has cut two more teeth (so now he has five!) and is babbling up a storm. If we ever receive a call when he is awake, he will demand the phone so that he can talk to whoever is on the line. I wonder how telemarketers would enjoy talking to a 16-month toddler. I should try that sometime.

We had three cookie exchanges the second week of December (Dec 9th, 10th and 13th), so the first weekend of December was spent baking cookies. Geofford has discovered an awesome peanut butter cookie recipe, that he has tweaked and is planning on tweaking some more to make it more awesome. I discovered that standing for many hours in the kitchen makes a pregnant lady's back really sore. Fortunately this year, I decided to go with drop cookies as opposed to shaped cookies, that made things a little easier. Although I did make some gingerbread cookies to decorate at the cookie exchange that we hosted. Here are some pictures of those cookies. Connor was even able to participate and it looked like he was having a fantastic time.

Damian has always raved about the Swiss Chalet Festive Special, so two years ago we decided to have a pre-Christmas dinner there as members of the family were going to be dispersed from coast to coast. This year, we decided to go back to enjoy the Festive Special as we again would not be celebrating Christmas together. So all of the kids and their significant others and dependents went to Swiss Chalet to have a pre-Christmas lunch on Dec. 14th before everyone scattered. Here are some pictures of the lunch. We didn't get any pictures of the food because we were all too hungry :)

The bus strike (and snow) has really changed my commute. Because I have to pick up Connor by 5pm in Barrhaven, it has been difficult to find someone who wants to carpool, so I have been driving myself in (with the exception of a couple of days where I could carpool with a co-worker because we were on course). The drives haven't been terrible except the day when we got ~30cm of snow when it took me 3 hours, but 30minutes of that was sitting behind an accident that we couldn't see because there was a big truck in front of us. The parking has been the big difficulty. I have a lead on a parking spot downtown so hopefully that will work out and it will be one less worry. The bus strike hasn't really impacted Geofford's commute, but at times he has had to go pick up Connor just because there was no way I could make it back to Barrhaven in time. His other impact was yesterday when Connor was supposed to get his second round of shots. It is definitely an experience that Geofford does not want to repeat because once he got to the doctor's office, he found out that there was no doctor in, so he wasted all of that time getting there (after waking Connor up extra early) and now they have to go back next week.

I hope to have another update following the Christmas holidays with some pictures. If you are missing seeing pictures of Connor (and us), you can go to our flickr sites. We have been slowly updating flickr, and hopefully we will have some more pictures soon. I will put the permanent links on the side, but in the meantime:

Seaborn Pictures
Connor's first 8 months

If you are travelling during the holidays - safe travels! And if you are around, give us a call - Geofford and Connor are home for two weeks.

Genesis!

2008-12-04T15:33:00.001-05:00

This is the first post of the blog that I hope to keep more up to date than my own personal blog. This blog will be a place where we post information about our family, probably more specifically about the kids' development.

I can't promise wit or humour, but it will hopefully provide updates to what we are up to and what we plan on doing.

Enjoy!

Here is a picture of our family from Thanksgiving 2008 - in front of the Kwok's house.