Finally - November 2007

Sorry folks...if there is anyone other than Nannie Carol who has been waiting for an update. This has been on my To Do list for ages...finally get to cross something off!! I can't believe my last blog was August. Better stop here....put the kettle on, find your spectacles, get a comfy chair and we'll get started! (or the faster version which most of you probably do is skip the intro and head for the pics!!).
Well....Since I last wrote lots has happened. Now here are the photo's.....


ha ha...as if you would get away that easy.

August 2007 :
We headed for the U.K for a lengthy visit. Fortunately, all people and beloved objects survived the lengthy stay at Nannie Carol's. I do believe Nannie Carol has survived physically unscathed....as did all household items...if memory serves me correctly.
On the way over, the overnight journey that is, Emma decided that her usual 12 hour sleep could be by-passed. She was amazing...at 2:00 a.m she was commando crawling up the aisle playing with as many toes as she could. You should have seen the state of her sleeper when we finally got off the plane....ugh!! She lasted with smiles until the final descent when she collapsed into the extremely overtired baby that she was and turned into a screaming banshee!! Was all fairly short lived as the airport proved to be too interesting a place to not stop and have a look around...and within about 2mins in the car both babies were fast asleep!! Ollie opted for approximately 2 hours of sleep rather than his usual 12 but, despite this he was a superstar! We are very sick of Spot books however so if we never see one again...it will be too soon!
The highlights of the trip to the U.K included: Jackie and Steve's wedding, a trip to the Zoo for Ollie with Nannie, trips to bounce and rhyme at the local library for Emma, Nannie Frances' and Grandad Bernie's 40th Wedding anniversary celebration (another story all together) and finally a day out on the Haverthwaite steam train!!!
Adam was not able to stay for the full 7 weeks....someone has to pay the bills around here...so after about 2.5 weeks we had to say good-bye to Daddy for 3 weeks. In that time Dad arranged to have the new house painted, new carpet laid upstairs, and new hardwood downstairs. It was a very busy time for Adam going to work, then coming home to move furniture. He also took advantage of the end of season outdoor plant sales and decided to take on the mammoth task of fighting the weed infested flower beds to plant his inexpensive evergreens! When we arrived home...the house was a bit topsy turvy as the painting had been done but the other two jobs were still in the works...so, for the first few days back (Adam was back to work) and Ollie, Emma and I crowded in a small nook in our kitchen surrounded by all our earthly possessions for picnics at Ollie and Emma's little table. The work has now been finished and things are slowly getting back to their usual state of disarray. Ollie loves his new green room and Emma seems quite content in her lilac room (no it is not purple). I will have to look up the Feng Shui of Emma's room as she has settled nicely...you (and your neighbours Nannie Carol) will be pleased to know that Emma now sleeps through the night MOST nights without waking the household!! Perhaps she now knows that she won't get to watch a little late night telly now that she is home so she doesn't bother! The house is looking great....there is still lots to do however, I think all major jobs are done! Now it's just organizing and picture hanging....make it more home-like.
Ollie has some major news....when we returned home to no flooring we decided, what the heck...why not add another stress and attempt toilet training. Perfect timing really...all our furniture was either in the basement or piled up in the kitchen....the flooring and carpet that was to be replaced was already pee soaked anyway (we discovered when lifting the existing flooring....another rant I will avoid) so, what harm could be done? We had a couple of days where Thomas, Percy and James (the underpants) suffered some unexpected showers and had to be sent to the washdown however, it wasn't long before Ollie had worked his way down his sticker chart winning multiple Thomas and friends books along the way....He quickly completed the sticker chart and got to go to the Thomas store to pick his engine...the grand prize! Now, if you could see the chart you would naturally assume that Emily the Engine would have been the Engine of choice (the first 8 stickers were Emily stickers at which point there were no more) however, we came home with Henry! He is quite pleased with this accomplishment however, we have had the odd setback...like the other day when asked numerous times if he needed to use the potty and adamantly denied only to have an accident seconds later....not so bad on the number one front but I must admit I was a bit miffed when I was informed that, "Mummy I had a poo-poo on Rick's new floor". (Rick by the way was the fella who laid our hardwood flooring!). Emma has been learning all sorts of new tricks...I am not sure if I had told you in the last blog that Emma was commando crawling...she developed this really interesting way of crawling which made everyone who saw it laugh....she somehow managed to pull herself along on her belly with her right arm up in the air and her left leg complete with toe pointed elevated behind her...like a rudder! Anyway, she has since graduated to the more conventional crawling style but until recently she would collapse onto her belly if she wanted to get anywhere quickly...now she has mastered crawling at a rapid pace..one can hardly keep up with her..she heads to the staircase and thinks she is very clever!!
Emma has started talking as well!! We all knew it wouldn't be long! Most of the time she is having a proper conversation and gets most upset when you answer her gibberish with an inappropriate response..however, she is becoming slightly easier to understand as a few real words are thrown in every now and then. Her repertoire includes: bye bye, baby, boo, roar (she doesn't say roar she just roars like a lion...it is one of two universal animal sounds for Emma woof being the other), car, Ollie, Hello, Hiya, Mum and Da Da of course. She has mastered the art of winking, at least in her estimation, as she leans her head back and closes both her eyes with a goofy grin on her face.
Emma of course celebrated her first birthday. We had a lovely ice-cream cake after dinner on her birthday, November 20th. Nannie Carol was here as were Nannie and Grandad Halligan, Uncle Mike, Auntie Liz and Uncle Carl, Dad, Mum and Ollie. Ollie was very helpful blowing out the candle and singing happy birthday..he also helped Emma eat some of her ice cream cake...that did not go over very well with Emma. One does not touch Emma's food without her having something to say about it!!
Ollie and Emma have started to go to daycare. They go to Teresa's house every tuesday, wednesday and Thursday. At first there was much weeping and gnashing of teeth on the part of both Ollie and Emma, it broke Mum and Dad's heart having to extricate ourselves from their desperate grasp. Now, Ollie says, "Bye Mum" and closes the door on me before I am ready to go!! In fact, today is Monday and Ollie was all excited about going to Teresa's house and was actually disappointed when I informed him that it was only Monday and that he would be staying home with me!! He has all sorts of new friends there. Teresa takes care of two other brothers (Conner and Zach) in the mornings as well as Dillon and then in the afternoon Dillon's older brother Jack gets picked up from school to join the gang. Emma is a firm favourite with all the men. In fact, when I go to pick them up Emma is desperate to get to me to get away from the kisses from all her young admirers!! I must admit though, she is a great kisser. I often get greeted with repeated wide open mouthed snotty kisses upon my return!! The other day Adam had been working all weekend and when he was home on Monday morning he brought Emma into bed with us and lay her on his chest where she just kept kissing him over and over!! She is very lovey dovey!! She has a baby (in fact it happens to be the one she gave Ollie when she was born as a big brother gift) and she slathers baby in kisses. She keeps repeating "Baby" and "Eye" as she pokes and goobs on the baby's eye. While on the subject of anatomy I think it is safe to say that Emma will not be following in Mum's footsteps. Whenever you ask her to points to her nose she points to her ear and says, "beep beep" or pats her head. Her ear is her eye etc...anatomy seems not to be a strong point!! Emma is not walking yet..but it won't be long!! She pulls to stand on everything and often uses the chairs or any other piece of furniture (since everything has those floor protecting pads on them and are therefore easily pushed about) to practice ambulation. We do have a toy designed specifically for this purpose which Ollie used to love however, every time we bring it upstairs for Emma's use Ollie decides that he too needs to use it to "crash and bash" as he puts it so poor old Emms misses out again in the name of wall and floor and furnishings protection.
We have had lots of snow around here...thank goodness we have Ollie and his snow shovel. He refers to himself as the snow plow and spends ages outside with us shovelling. His favourite thing to do is follow along behind you and generally get in the way but, I don't really expect to get the shovelling done when I have "help" anyway. It gives the neighbours lots of entertainment seeing him out there anyway. Emma has proven to be a snow bunny. In Ollie's first year he didn't like the snow on his boots so, it was difficult to actually play out in the snow with him..Emma on the other hand loves it (unless her mitten falls off in which case she screams blue murder when she discovers that snow is actually quite cold). After one day of fairly heavy snow fall we went down the school down the road with our one sled. I went down with Ollie and then came back up for Emma. Well that was it...I wasnt allowed to take Ollie down again. Emma refused to get out...she would have to be lifted out kicking and screaming and trying to crawl back in if we didn't get down the hill fast enough. She eventually decided to forget about the sled as she would crawl down the hill face first until she got to a steep enough part where she would then slide down the hill spread eagle on her tummy...laughing all the way of course.
Anyway, here are a few photos of some of the recent events.
Sorry it took so long to update everyone!!
Take care,
Rach

Summer 2007

What a delinquent I have been. I have been telling myself that I need to get around to blogging but have yet to do so. I have lots of great pictures so I think (and most of you will be pleased to read it) there will be more pictures than words! (There's a first).
Ollie has had a great summer! He really enjoyed having his cousins here...full-time playmates! However, this visit showed Mum and Dad how important it is that Ollie get back into daycare to develop his social skills. He and Noah loved the train set however, they always seemed to love the engine best that the other had! This lead to plenty of arguments and the odd scuffle. There were plenty of instances where "Owver Daniel Hawley" was making Noah "very cross" (and I quote). Ollie had several daytrips this summer. He went to visit Thomas the tank engine in St. Thomas, Ontario. He went to the Storybook Gardens in London where we met with some pesky peacocks that kept trying to eat Ollie's lunch. We went up to a cottage in Haliburton with Nanny and Grandad to celebrate Nanny's big 6-0! Ollie caught his first fish, went swimming, jumped off the dock into the lake and saw some deer at Santa's village. He also met with Santa in Santa's village but seemed a little starstruck as he was lost for words when he actually had the chance to make some requests for this year. You'll see in the photo I nearly cut Santa off as Ollie was just a little too nervous to sit beside the big guy...no such fear when it came to photo's with the reindeer!
Emma has also had an eventful summer. After starting solids at 6months she is now quite the pro devouring Adam Hawley size portions of food three times a day! We have yet to find something that she will not eat I am pleased to say! Emma learned to roll earlier in the summer and quickly became proficient. She could get to wherever she wanted to be with several rolls. She too seems to be developing the Hawley trait of being a chatterbox as she constantly babbles. She has begun to sign finished, she claps hands and waves whenever you say hello or goodbye. We have discovered too that Ollie's free reign will soon be over as Emma has proven to be a force to be reckoned with. In the past, Ollie would snatch a toy from helpless Emma and not a peep would be uttered....not so now....Emma certainly lets Ollie know her feelings of discontent! She has also learned to commando crawl. She started crawling on August 6th and within days nothing was safe. She can have a sea of age appropriate toys in front of her but within the blink of an eye she is under the table pulling at the lamp cord or under the computer desk or lifting up the vent...she is really working on her pincer grasp and seems to be doing quite well. When we were at the cottage I got a fright because, I picked Emma up off the floor where she had been playing with the boys and went upstairs to feed her dinner. When I bent over to pick up a bib or something a marble fell out of her mouth! No one had seen a marble before or since in the cottage. Emma seems to be much more into things than Ollie ever was...I say this in warning to Nanny Carol with all her pinecones and ornaments that she has at her house as we are about to land upon her for another extended period....If anyone visits Nanny Carol between Sept and mid oct. be prepared to see everything moved up a little!
Anyway...here are the photos as promised!!



happy canada day







behind bars


















pondering?



Watching Thomas


My Hero!

May-June

Hello folks,
Well all is well here at Caryndale Drive! We have finally settled in..and things are actually looking like someone lives here now. Upon first arriving we were the house that was letting the neighbourhood down by spreading our dandelion clocks for miles around! Now, we have grass! Granted we are not yet allowed to walk or play on it...that is except for Dad who is mowing it with his new non-powered lawnmower...don't ask!! The sod was laid last Saturday and the place is transformed. Our "Patio that Robbie built" as Ollie refers to it is complete...all we need now is a fence so that all our neighbours won't have to watch us eating our dinner! Despite the fact that we can no longer keep Ollie inside...he still "no yikes it Ollie's new house" in fact, he was telling us tonight that he was not actually going to bed as we thought but rather he was off to work in Goderich where he works at the hospital bringing books apparently! I never knew!
Ollie continues to dislike lots of people and things. It seems Uncle Mike is the prime target...everytime Mike gets up in the morning or re-enters a room, Ollie is quick to point out that he no yikes Mike...sometimes however, he does yove Mike despite not liking him! It is a good job Mike knows better than to take offence to a rather fickle two year old!
Ollie has a new best friend. Auntie Lizzie and Big Carl as Ollie refers to them are visiting this week. Auntie Lizzie may have an even wilder imagination than Ollie if this is possible. Ollie had to explain to her last night that the loud noise she was hearing was just the garage door closing and not the elephant that lives in the garage as she had assumed! He and Liz were cuddled up on the couch this morning watching Postman Pat while I had to rush off to work!
Emma has had some major accomplishments this month! She is now eating 3 square meals a day + breast feeds. I have read that you are to go steady and slow with the introduction of solids. Textbooks suggest that babies should work their way up to 3 meals a day consisting of 1-1.5 ounces which would be approximately 1-1.5 ice cubes worth of that days mealchoice...well, Emma complains if we serve her any less than 8 ice cubes at dinner time! Today she had 5 ice cubes of sweet potato and 3 ice cubes of Mango! She loves watching her brother eat (could be very dangerous as those of you who have had the pleasure of eating with Ollie know that he would not be described as the neatest eater) so half the time when you are trying to feed her you are aiming for a moving target! Ollie and Emma have been getting along famously as Emma thinks that her brother is the bees knees...Ollie loves that Emma is such an easy audience and therefore things have been quite harmonious. I think that is about to change however! Emma has become extremely proficient at rolling from her back to her belly. In fact, you can't keep her on her back for very long at all. No sooner have you laid her down than she has flipped onto her tummy where she can somehow manage to get where ever she want to go...she is showing a very determined effort to get mobile...at which point I think we will have wave 2 of the difficult period! Right now Ollie will commonly stroll up to Emsy Wemsy as he calls her and steal one of her toys away and run across the room. I have warned him that Emma is going to get bigger and bigger and will soon be able to keep up with him...at six months she weighed 18.5 lbs...Ollie only weighs 30lbs now so I think they'll be pretty evenly matched in no time!
We are looking forward to our cousins arriving in the very near future. Ollie is looking forward to telling them that he is going on the real Thomas with Nanny and Grandad (and his cousins) in July when they are over. Thomas the tank, Annie and Clarabell make an annual trip over to Canada and take their fans for a 25minute ride in the small town of St. Thomas! Ollie is very excited but can't decide if he should ride in Annie or Clarabell. Perhaps his big cousins will have a preference.
Well folks...I will try to find some new photos for you....take care....

2nd Birthday Bonanza!!

Well the big day has finally arrived!!! Oliver Daniel Hawley is 2!!! What a day we had!! Ollie started his day by chatting with his cousins Noah and Ellie. He had two lovely renditions of "happy birthday" by his big cousins even though Noah was feeling poorly!! We then went to Jesus' house where he informed myself and everyone else at church that he is a good boy (he took exception when I tried to tell him that he was actually a great boy). We came home and soon everyone arrived! We had yummy hamburgers that did not resemble hockey pucks like they did last year! And then we had "Ice cream Cake!!" . Ollie managed to blow out all the candles with very little help (mum put a few extra on the cake since Ollie had been practising blowing out candles since Noah's birthday in March). He then dug in without waiting for an invite. He was very good about offering his sister a little bit of the icing too. He then shared his cake with all our cousins, aunts and uncles. Later he had some help from his big cousins to open all his great gifts! Here are a few pics of the days events!! Perhaps the best gift of all however, arrived by post. The postman doesn't come on Sundays but when cousin Skye checked the mailbox there was a letter inside that we had not yet picked up! It would seem that the Deer that Ollie adored at his cousin Ellie, Noah and Hannah Lucy's house had managed to get himself on an airplane and come all the way over here to Ollie's new house! Ollie is delighted. We haven't yet decided which wall he will live on in our new house. Ollie keeps moving it around. He has also showed the deer all his new toys and given him many kisses (as have his mum and dad at Ollie's request). I think that the deer will eventually live in Ollie's room and help Ollie like his bedroom a bit more because he keeps telling him Mum and Dad that "Ollie no yike's it" when speaking of his new bedroom. Well...here are a few pics of the big day! I can't believe my baby is two!! Thank you everyone in England for all the great gifts! Ollie is spoilt for choice!!

Long Time!!

Hello Everyone!!
Sorry that it has been so long!! I know I had better get moving on a blog when I note that the Stott's have updated before I have!! We have been a very busy bunch!!
I am not sure when we last blogged but I do know that we had the house up for sale when I last saw most of you...well, our house is now officially sold which is good news (although we will miss it) however, we weren't looking forward to having to cover two mortgages for an extended period of time!! We took possession of our new house on none other than Friday the thirteeenth of April! We are slowly moving things from here to there with cars packed to the gills on each trip to Cambridge. We had our first official night in the house last night! I hope we will go on as we started...with Ollie and Emma sleeping the whole night without a peep!! This is not a really monumental moment for Ollie as he has been sleeping thru the night since he was nine weeks old..however, our lovely little girl seems to be a bit of a night hawk!! This past week when we were staying at Nannie and Grandad Halligan's house...Emma decided that 2-4 am was a good time to work on your laryngeal strength by screaming the house down. I think Nannie Frances is glad to see the backside of us as she never had a good nights sleep the whole time we were there and we gave her our cold in thanks for her hospitality!!
You will see from some of the photos that we had a visit to Windsor where we stayed with second cousins Hannah and Ava! Both girls were excellent pseudo-mum's helping out with Emma as often as possible! They even watched while she fed and encouraged her to drink up! Numerous difficult questions arose out of these feeding sessions. I am still not sure why only milk can come out of boobies why not solid foods! (I am actually quite glad myself of that little quirk of nature!!). While in Windsor we went to visit our friends Kristi and Pete Havens along with their son Noah (or rather "different Noah" as he will always be known by us, not because he is strange but rather because he is not Noah Stott) and their newest addition Hannah who is lovely!
Emma is now officially five months old. She is constantly smiling....which is a good thing. I keep telling her that if she wasn't soooo cute during the day I really might contemplate selling her to the gypsies should she not get this waking up in the night thing sorted!! She is very close to sitting up. In fact, sitting up is a great way to eat the latest and greatest discovery which is her toes! Very tasty treats it would seem as no sooner do you have her nappy off and those piggies are in there!! Given the fact that her truncal mobility is so good she has discovered the joy of the exersaucer and better yet the "jolly jumper" in fact as I write this blog she is hopping madly up and down in the door frame smiling from ear to ear!! She absolutely loves it which is great because Ollie just hung around in it and never really got into the jumping, not so Emma she took to it like a duck to water!! She has yet to start solids however, I don't think I am going to be able to hold out much longer. You are not able to hold on to her while you chew without her chewing with you and without having to wrestle whatever tasty morsel you have got away from her (as you will see from the photos, Adam was not about to let Emma have any of his white chocolate macadamia nut cookie that I had just made but, he broke a sweat in his attempt to keep her from it!!). I am hoping she will love her food as much as her big brother....it certainly looks as though she will!!
Ollie continues to impress us with his grasp of the English language. We have apparently been spending too much time at St. Frances' house as he is often saying, "Mummy....alleluia"! It may just be the Easter Celebrations that have inspired him...he will commonly ask me to sing Alleluia but, wisely if his dad starts to sing it he says, "no Daddy". He really seems to have grasped what Easter is all about as he told me one Sunday shortly after entering the pew that "Jesus is backa yife" interpretation, "Jesus is back to Life!". The priest is proud that someone seems to be listening. Now he did also chastize Jesus for being a "Cheeky monkey" as he had no socks on and also pointed out that Jesus was showing his boobies in church during the same mass. Oh yes and the stained glass window which depicts St. Francis of Assissi helping Jesus down from the cross with St. Francis' foot on a spherical rock like structure, this apparently really depicts Jesus playing football!! We have read the Stott's blog and note the extremely cool new train that Noah has recently inherited! I think Auntie Katey and Uncle Dave have now solved the problem re: the constant battles for turns with the pink umbrella stroller...however, Ollie has decided that he will definitely be having an "Ollie turn" on his visit in the fall! We too have inherited a toy that I think may inspire some differences of opinion regarding turns when Noah and Ellie are over. One very expensive haircut! I was taking Ollie for a haircut when I spied a garage sale (oddly enough at a house without a garage) anyway, we managed to come away with a massive tractor that one can ride on and operate...see the photos attached.....
Anyway folks...now the dreaded photo upload...
Hope you are all well. We are looking forward to Nannie Carols impending visit to "ollie's new house" as it is referred to! Only 18 days to go!!!
Take care...
Rachael, Adam, Ollie and Emma!