The Guardians

Justin was out of town from Friday to Saturday for a track meet, so my mom and I went to go visit Nick, Hilary, and little Elijah. Elijah is changing so quickly - and he's so cute.

Justin wasn't there, but Nick and Hilary told me that Justin and I are Elijah's guardians (as well as the guardians of any other children they will have). Of course, my next question was when they were taking their next plane trip (lol).

I think these are the cutest lips:

I can't help it, I love the yawning pictures!

Babacne

I was at a cousin's baby shower on Sunday. Justin and I drove with my mom so that he could hang out with my brothers while Mom, Giliane, Hilary, and I were at the shower.

Of course, Elijah came along with Nick and Hilary. He has changed so much in the past 2 weeks. He's already in 3 month sleepers, and he's only 2 weeks old.

Two days before the shower Elijah broke out with a bad case of baby acne. I don't know how I'm going to deal with my baby having acne... I can't imagine having the self control to refrain from picking at it!

I took some pictures of him anyway. Because he's my nephew... baby acne doesn't change that. but I'm looking forward to getting some cute pictures of him once the babacne is gone!

He also has started sleeping all day and wanting to feed all night. Look at his adorable yawn:

Lucy

This past week, while Justin and I were dealing with a roller-coaster ride, we had the pleasure of taking care of my 3 year old cousin, Lucy, for a few days.

During this time, I realized some important things about myself. I have always loved kids more than anything. My greatest goal my entire life was to be a mom. I've never felt the "selfish" feelings of wanting to carefully guard my newlywed years from the trials of having children. (This is not meant to say that that is a bad feeling; it's just not one that my husband and I experienced.)

However, I love my quiet time. I love sitting around while reading a book. Furthermore, since being married I have thoroughly enjoyed my time alone with Justin. I love waking up with him on a Saturday morning and lounging in bed. I love sitting around with him playing games or watching TV. I also like finishing dinner and not feeling rushed to clean up the kitchen, because we're on our own schedule.

I have to admit, there have been a couple of moments where I worry about how I'll feel having a baby (possibly two), and then a toddler(s), and then multiple children running around my house stealing my personal time and my time away from Justin.

Last October we looked after Lucy's older sisters, Claire and Mia, who are 9 and 6. I really noticed how our life changed when they stayed with us. Because of their ages we couldn't have our normal conversations in front of them. We also couldn't watch the TV shows we wanted, because we only have one TV (I gave our second TV to my brother, because he had none). The girls adore both me and Justin, so they demanded a lot of our attention. I truly enjoyed having them, but it was very apparent that having school-aged children would drastically affect our lives. This didn't affect our desire to have kids right away, but it did continue to cross my mind every once in awhile.

I should also point out here that I'm kind of lazy. I don't like going on bike rides or going to the park. I was like this even as a kid. I just like to stay home most of the time. So the thought of all of the things you're supposed to do when you have kids - take them to playgrounds, take them swimming, take them to sports, take them to museums, etc - gave me a teensy bit of worry. What if I didn't enjoy myself doing those things? I'd do them for my kids, but what if I didn't like it?

Having Lucy totally allayed my fears. I loved doing things with her, and she's not even my own kid! I loved taking her grocery shopping, colouring with her, playing in the yard with her, and taking her to two different playgrounds. I didn't even mind as she hopped from one piece of playground equipment to the next - like a little ADHD child - and I followed along. I had the best time doing these activities!

While Justin and I did have less time alone, we could still have many of our normal conversations in front of her. Most of the time she didn't even care what we were talking about. Furthermore, she can't spell (Justin, I need to get Lucy in her p-a-j-a-m-a-s and then I'll bring her down to cuddle before she goes to b-e-d).

I'm so glad we had Lucy for those few days. Not only did she distract us from our incredibly stressful situation, but she gave us a great taste of parenthood. And we are now even more sure that we will love and embrace it with everything that we have.

March Break!

Today is my first day of March Break!! Justin is still teaching today, but since I work at a private school we get to make decisions on our own, like adding two extra days to March Break.

In honour of this, I tried to stay up to watch Private Practice last night. I never stay up to watch it, because I always have to get up for work at 6:20 in the morning, and 11 is just too late to go to bed. But I didn't have to get up this morning, so I thought "I'm an adult. I can stay up until 11 if I want!"

Apparently not.

I was fine through Grey's Anatomy. Then Private Practice started, and the last thing I remember is Addison scrubbing out next to that man-doctor who was scrubbing in. Next thing I know I'm waking up for the last 3 minutes of the show.

That's what happens when your normal bedtime is 9:00!

Anyway, yesterday I brought my camera to work to take some pictures of the kids. I knew that flourescent lighting turned pictures yellow, so I wanted to use the white balance function on my camera to tone down the yellows (this was my whole purpose in bringing my camera to work). It worked!!

Just so you can see, this is what the pictures would have looked like if I didn't adjust the white balance:

And this is what they looked like after I adjusted the white balance to compensate for the flourescent lighting (the kid on the left is the class clown, by the way):

Such a cute face, it hardly even matters that it was ruined by that other kid's head!

Doing her work... what a good girl.

*

These two are cousins:

*

*

The more I use my new camera, the happier I am with it!

Elijah James

My new nephew, Elijah, was born on Thursday, March 5, 2009 at 7:08pm. He weighed in at a hefty 9lbs 9oz.

Isn't he adorable?

We made the trip to see him on Saturday. I just got my new camera the night before, so I hadn't completely figured it out yet (I still haven't). But I got some nice shots. (Well, this one was gotten of me.)

This is my brother, Nick, and his wife, Hilary.

New Camera

I've been shopping around for a new camera for awhile. I didn't want just a point and shoot camera. The main thing that I wanted was to be able to change aperture settings. This is a rare find in a regular digital camera, so I went with a digital SLR. I got the Canon Rebel XS. It came with an 18-55mm lens, and I bought a 50mm lens as well. The aperture on the 50mm lens goes as low as 1.8, which gives me less depth of field. That sounds bad, but it isn't. It allows me to blur out foregrounds and backgrounds to give more focus on the subject.

Here's adorable Emmie. She was my subject tonight. Tomorrow I'll take some pictures of my new nephew, Elijah James.

*

*

This face is adorable.

Silly Emmie

When we first got Emmie, she felt that she had to be with us all the time. She was almost more high maintenance than a baby. She always had to be on our laps, no matter where we were or what we were doing. Eating was a huge challenge, because she would sit on our lap and try to get at our food the entire time.

Then we got the magic spray bottle. Emmie cringes when we walk towards her while holding it (it actually makes me feel really bad!). She doesn't try to get at our food while we're eating anymore. But occasionally she will do something amusing. Like this:

Hmm, that's interesting.

Don't even think about it, Emmie.