New cousin

Well, I finally remembered to get permission from my sister to post a couple pics of her new baby daughter. Teagan Hanley was 7lbs 10oz at birth, and is soooo cute.

Brodie absolutely adored her. After our visit, he talked about how she was the prettiest baby ever, and how cute she was, and how much he liked holding her. I'm so glad we got to see them before they left the hospital.

Both Mom and baby are doing well.

Hope is doing great, no more throwing up.

Better?

Well, Hope surprised us yesterday and kept all her meds down and all her water. Perhaps the Granisitron (for vomitting), worked this time. She slept well last night and appears to be fine this morning. I was even able to cuddle her on the deck yesterday while we watched Alex work. As you can see below, Ashley was able to sit with me too. She wanted to enjoy some of the action!

Hope is sick again...

Hope started vomitting this evening. So she's back to her usual spot on the couch so that we can suction and monitor her more closely.

Hope's Birthday Party!

We celebrated Hope's third birthday yesterday. What an exciting day, full of food, family and fun. Hope was blessed with cuddles all day, and so was Ashley. Both girls had a wonderful day, and Brodie really enjoyed playing with his cousins.

The girls have matching outfits hand-made by Aunty Julia, all the way from England. Beautiful dresses that made it so much fun to dress them up. Brodie also recieved a gift in the package that came from England, a soccer Jersey with red and white colors that coordinated very nicely with the girls outfits. Thanks Julia, you know how much I love dressing them up.

Hope recieved a story book, with pop-up pictures, and Brodie promptly read it to her. Ashley enjoyed it too!

It was a great day, and I am so happy we were able to celebrate with family.

My sister was the only one who couldn't make it...something about walking till the baby came! And then...Oh...the baby arrived! We'll be going out to see a brand-new cousin this week. Congrats Kyla and Russ! And no, I'm not giving you more details (I have to ask Kyla's permission first...this is a public blog after-all).

Movie Night

I just had to add one more post tonight. We had our movie night and pizza tonight, and kept the girls up late to enjoy it with us. Ashley woke up from her dazed state and actually seemed to be alert and smiley for a while. She only started posturing toward the end of the movie. Hope sputtered on her secretions and enjoyed some cuddles with Daddy, while I held Ashley between Brodie and I. Too fun!

Happy Canada Day!

Busy...

It's a busy time of year. We're trying to make the most of the warm days balancing family time and working on our landscaping. Brodie is now finished soccer, and we're still enjoying baseball. Brodie had his last day of school this week, and is looking forward to a summer of playtime. Hope is doing fairly well, no real changes. Ashley is sleeping a lot and having a lot of seizures, then moaning when she's awake or else looking dopey, but not really smiling much. We haven't really found a nice comfort zone for her, but she has some good days.

Hope is better.

Hope is doing great. She's completely over her latest vomitting episode and back to smiling and filling her diaper, and having between 10-20 seizures a day. Normal!

Now that everything has settled for a moment, I can post a few more pics of our Montreal trip. The first thing we did after we arrived was go for a walk around Downtown. You can see Brodie and his Aunt walking...
Then Aunty Deanna made Jolene ride a 'bixy'... which is a commuter bike that is used around downtown Montreal. We ended up using these bikes a few times when the walks got too long for Alex's sore ankle (which is almost healed).

There is a lot of interesting places to wander of course...

In the evening, we went to see Aunty Deanna's office and check out the 'bubble' which was a room on the 40th floor that we would later return to, so that we could watch the fireworks.

We got to sleep in the next morning, then go to church at the Notre Dame Basillica. Then we had a picnic before we went to Circ de Sole (? spelling). It was a great show and Brodie was excited to get a very fun hat.

Brodie's favorite thing about the trip was the 'buzzing' feature of the apartment building. He was very quick to answer the buzz and let us into the apartment if he and Aunty Deanna beat us back.

We slept in again, found our Tim Hortons and Starbucks, then went to the St. Joseph's Oratory, which was my favorite part of the trip. Then we went to the Biodome and Brodie went crazy taking photo's (which I have spared you).

This is the day we left...

It was a wonderful trip. Thanks Aunty Deanna!