Merry Christmas!

We've had a very full Winter so far from attending various happy & busy Christmas events to battling unfortunate flu bugs. Autumn got to attend two Santa Claus parades this year, visit Santa at a Christmas party as well as at the mall for photos and we also hit up her first live performance, Dora the Explorer, and will be seeing Sesame Street Live tomorrow. On top of all of that, we spent three days including Christmas in Michigan at Auntie Rebecca and Uncle Brian's beautiful old house in the country. The kiddos cleaned up!! Lots of lovely gifts, good grub and fun people. It was also very special for us to be a part of Madeline's first Christmas and lovely to see Squish in action with a baby. She was so good with her little cousin! She struggled only slightly with understanding that certain favourite toys actually belong to Maddy and the obvious sharing issues that every two and a half year old battles. Overall, I'd say she did a stellar job of sharing for a little person her age. If only we lived closer (I know. I say that every time we visit our far-away family members!!) so that the kiddos could practice these essential life skills more often together. We missed Cole, Mel and Stafford and Kristi and Jeff but Grandma K made the trip out and we were thrilled for Autumn and Maddy to get some holiday QT in with their grandmother. We are feeling particularly lucky to have spent the holidays together since we nearly had to cancel our trip when Autumn came down with a pretty severe flu bug about a week before our departure which had us in the ER at our local hospital for an entire night. Then Toronto got hit with a massive ice storm which still has many of our neighbours living without power. Lucky for us, Autumn recovered from her bug and the roads cleared just in the nick of time and we hit the road on the 23rd of December. All was well until Christmas eve when I started to feel ill and things just went from bad to worse with a bad cough that I thought might put me into early labour. As you know, we are a well-versed family when it comes to preemie care, however Teddy nor I have any interest in going there again if it can be avoided. Teddy dropped me off at St. Joseph's last night and I spent most of the night hooked up to monitors to make sure that our little nugget wasn't in any sort of distress as a result of mama's virus. Turns out we're all good. Mama just needs lots of rest and Tylenol and a big fat prescription for a cough suppressant. I'm feeling slightly more normal today except that Squish has developed another fever so her Daddy just took her back to the Dr. to get checked out. I guess this is how it works when sickness ends up in close quarters with multiple people. So our goal right now is to keep Teddy healthy. We need him well so that he can continue to take care of us. hehehe

We celebrated Christmas early with my parents, Auntie Em and Steve. Autumn is pretty much the luckiest kid on Earth (or Erff, as she would call it...). Autumn received a play kitchen complete with every kind of food imaginable and various other books and games and cute little outfits. I took Autumn to visit my grandfather earlier in the week and it was hard to wrap my head around the fact that our family holiday dinners will likely not include him anymore. Big tears around that. That man has always lived for a good meal with his family. My Nana also opted out of attending Christmas dinner this year. Things are changing as we all grow older and understanding that it's all a part of life is significantly more easily said than done. That being said, we dearly missed Tampa this Christmas. These last 11 months have been full of first experiences without him. It makes me smile that Autumn still regularly asks about him. It's bittersweet, really. I think it's comforting that he's still fresh in her memory. She will often say things like, "Tampa loves books." and will frequently ask her Grandma where he is when they have Skype chats. We miss him all the time.

I guess I can sign off on that note and leave you with a few Christmas photos. Love to you all this holiday season and all the best for 2014.

xo, m.

Autumn reading to Madeline

She is such an incredibly happy little girl.

Dr. Kellogg testing out her new vet suit from Auntie Melissa!

Giving Garcon a check-up.

Daddy and Autumn missing Melissa, Stafford and Cole.

Mind blown that Alfie Elf showed up in Michigan!

New train set from Santa!

Reading her first note from Santa Claus.

Madeline's first stocking.

Her attention span was actually quite impressive. hehehe ;)

Modeling her new scarf from Grandma <3

Autumn also modeling some of Grandma's knits.

Bat girl!!

Autumn received some beautiful hand-made items from her Auntie as well

Summer's End

Fall is here and I have once again fallen so behind on my updates. It seems like summer just whizzed by. It wasn't a particularly nice summer---either cool and rainy or brutally hot and muggy. Hopefully this means we'll have a warm Fall and an easy Winter. At any rate, there is a lot to report, so I won't waste any more time. 

Our summer ended on a beautiful note with a little holiday to Victoria where we got to be a part of Auntie Melissa and Uncle Stafford's wedding celebrations. The wedding was beautiful--perfect weather, lots of good laughs and happy conversation. Squish got to be a flower girl for the second time and her sweet little cousin, Cole was the ring bearer. We also got to meet Auntie Rebecca and Uncle Brian's new little girl, Madeline. She is gorgeous and smiley and super bald just like Autumn was. So adorable. It is always bitter-sweet to have everyone together, particularly now that everyone has babies. So nice to be together and so sad to all leave to our own corners of the continent. Living away from family is a huge bummer. 

We spent the majority of September house-hunting and had zero success. The rental market in Toronto is pretty pitiful these days and we did not anticipate such a challenging search. We extended our current rental an extra month and we are hoping to have more luck finding a place for November occupancy. We need a little more space because Autumn is going to be a big sister in the spring. Yep, another sweet, bald baby to bring even more love to our family! We are due on March 30th and keeping fingers crossed that this one will be on time. 

I have so far found this pregnancy to be significantly more challenging than my first. I have felt more ill, and been more exhausted and have had a busy two-year old to chase around. No rest for the wicked, I guess. It's been pretty hard so far though. I am regularly a patient person and have found myself with way less patience and as a result a super ton of mom guilt for not having the energy to play and chase my girl around the way that I want to be able to. I am nearly 15 weeks now and hoping that these next few weeks will find me feeling more like myself. Fingers crossed.

Anyhoo, I gave myself the length of an episode of Dora to write this so I will post a few pictures and sign off. I promise, I won't let it go for two months without another update. Love you all.

Happy little Cole.

Daddy/Uncle Teddy & the munchkins.

Beautiful little flower girls, Autumn and Emerson.

Great-Nana Stella and Maddy June.

Tony & the squish shucking some corn for a BBQ.

Testing out Auntie Kristi's pumps.

Beautiful bride, Auntie Mel & her handsome little boy.

Autumn, Cole & Emerson: wedding party kiddos.

Here we go...

Uncle & little sweetheart, Cole.

The Kellogg ladies

Auntie Dar and baby Madeline.

Looking ready.

Cutest little ring bearer ever.

Flower girls

<3

Relaxing after the wedding, waiting for some dinner.

summer

Little Soccer Star

This summer has been pretty low-key so far for the most part as a result of terrible weather and minimal days off together as a family. Teddy and I have both been working as much as possible to catch up from our time off during the Spring when mama and the squish had our little car accident. Though we have stayed mostly local, we have been busy as bees playing soccer on Sundays with the Little Kicker's League and hitting up the wading pool at every opportunity. We also had a few days in BC to celebrate Tampa Kellogg's life at Teddy's uncle and aunt's beautiful home and farm in Kamloops. It was a beautiful celebration and was lovely to meet some of Tampa and Grandma's friends and hear some old stories and also to connect with family that we rarely see--particularly Grandma. 

Toronto flooded last week and unfortunately, our basement took on some of the city's overflow. Thankfully, things are not too messy around these parts and a few towels took care of most of our little house's damp spots. Others were not so lucky, including Teddy's employer who was forced to close up shop for a few days following the massive storm that dumped all that water on our city. Finding a silver lining, we headed North to the cottage to enjoy a bit of RnR. We were only able to get away for two quick nights and one and a half lovely days, but oh man, was it worth it. That fresh air and sunshine was exactly what this mama needed to recharge the batteries and it was so nice to spend some time away, just the three of us and Elliott. Here are some photos: