Fall

Reading with Sam

Reading with Will and Eilidh and Auntie Val

going trick-or-treating with Natalie

Halloween with the MacKenzie cousins...

Halloween with the Nickel cousins

my first bubble bath - I loved it!

kissing 'Jakey'

2year old + 1 bucket at the cottage=hours of fun!

Great-grandma

Is he going to eat me?

Exercising with Will!
Wow. Time flies when you are having fun! It is hard for us to believe that it has been almost 3 months since we have updated our blog - so much for the monthly updates - sorry! Life at home with Ivanna continues to be a delightful adventure. In early September, Ivanna and I (Shona) flew to Ottawa with my parents to spend some time at 'the cottage' on Big Gull Lake. We had a wonderful time there with Auntie Joyce and 'Grandpa' Gord and other family that came to visit. The weather was lovely and we spent as much of our time outdoors as we could. It is amazing just how a child can entertain herself with very few toys when there is the great outdoors to play in! Ivanna was enchanted with Jake (Joyce and Gord's Dalmation) and once she had mastered the cottage door was very happy to serve as Jake's door opener. She gave him much love over the week there and continues to call any Dalmation 'Jakey'! I think he is still recovering from her attention/affection. We learned our little swimmer is not so fond of cold water and the concern of being so close to water with a 2 year old lessened after she'd been in the cold lake once or twice. From then on if you mentioned going in she would back away and say 'no wanna'! It was a relaxing week and wonderful to introduce her to extended family. Darren unfortunately couldn't come as he was working hard on his thesis - next time though. Since our return home, we have settled into our fall routines. Darren started working through the University in a research position and continued to work hard on his thesis and so has been quite busy. Ivanna started a music class for toddlers and mom's with her auntie Lecia, which she has grown to love (she's not much for sitting still and has quite a mind of her own, so a structured class was a little challenging at first - but now she seems to really enjoy it). We spend much of the rest of our week repeating the songs we learn in music class. 2 year olds sure do like repetition! We also are in a parent/tot gymnastics class, which is quite a lot of fun. Again quite structured which Ivanna does not always enjoy, but she sure does love to jump and swing and do summersaults! We do both of these classes with our neighbours (Jen and Rob) and their little girl Natalie - the girls have become quite the little buddies. Besides these classes, we spend time with friends playing or going to the library story time, as well as weekly having tea with the ladies from Darren's mom's side of the family (where Ivanna plays with some of her cousins). I've also been going the mom's program at our church which is a nice break as they provide childcare for the children. The weeks fly by. This fall we also participated in a Parent Language Program through the local hospital Speech/Language Pathology Department. We have learned many ways to help Ivanna's language to continue to develop and it does seem to be helping. She has a phenominal vocabulary, considering she's only heard english for 6 months, but has been somewhat slow in starting to put words together in phrases. This has really improved in the last several weeks and she talks constantly at home. She's still not exactly understandable to strangers - but we generally know what she is saying! "No wanna" continues to be a favorite phrase, but I suppose that is relatively normal for 2! Other excitement this fall was Ivanna's first Halloween in Canada - where she dressed up as a ladybug (or 'budeedee' as she calls them). It didn't take her long to figure out that people would give her candy as we went to the doors (she didn't master 'trick or treat', but did manage to learn 'treat'!)- we only did a few houses in our area where we know people and she certainly gave us funny looks as we passed other houses when she saw other children going up the walks! It was quite fun and after a drive to visit both sets of grandparents and meet up with all the cousins, she went to bed quite late and exhausted!

In the last week, Darren has submitted his thesis to his commitee and that is a tremendous relief. He will have more time to spend with us as a family once he has finished his defence, as he is working 80%. I have formally requested an extension of my leave from work and so will not be returning to my position until the fall of 2008. So life in our little family is settling down. It is a good life and we are daily grateful.