Fun at the CNE

Yesterday we took the kids to the CNE, we arrived at 10am & left at 4pm. Gavin & I have gone for many years but this was the first time we joined some friends of ours & their kids. Owen had a blast despite missing the super dogs show, & Noah was there despite the lack of photos. That's the trouble when he gets carried all day in the carrier & Owen gets to have all the fun. Anyway, I'm sure that Noah will be in plenty of CNE pictures in the future.

There is a fantastic petting zoo at the CNE. We think that Owen enjoyed the petting zoo most of all, he wasn't afraid of any of the animals & he loved to pet them & feed them hay.


Harry & his Bucket Full of Dinosaurs was the kids show at 11am. Owen joined the kids at the front of the stage & danced through out the show.

Owen loves the rides, I had Noah in the ergo so it was Gavin that took him on the rides. Owen would be on the rides all day if you let him. This particular super slide ride freaked me out. It is really high & I wasn't sure how Gavin was going to manage getting Owen onto his lap at the top to ride down. They were fine, which was good because having to come back down the stairs would have been scarier than going down the slide.

6 Month Weigh In

Noah's six month ( & a week) measurements are still on the 50th percentile curve of the growth chart. Except for his head which is still in the 10th percentile. He weighs 17lbs 2oz, his height is 67cm, and his head circumference is 42cm. He had his third round of vaccinations today, he was a trooper & never cried at all for the first needle. He let out a good scream for the second one though. He has a baby wellness check-up at nine months and we are happy that there are no needles at that visit.

Temper Tantrums

Yikes! the past couple of weeks have been very difficult with Owen throwing temper tantrums. The majority of them seem to be regular ol' being two years old, but a few have been much worse. Yesterday was the worst. We had a family we traveled with to Vietnam stop by for lunch, they have two kids one is Owen's age. Owen made things so difficult, crying at the slightest things & needing to be in control of everything. At first it seemed like he was having trouble sharing (something we are trying to work on) but then things escalated, he was out of control. He was screaming, throwing himself on the floor, he wouldn't play with the kids & everything had to be his way. He ordered everyone around, telling them what they could play with, where they could sit etc. I was totally embarrassed, he had never acted like that before. Needless to say our guests couldn't stay long, & eventually he calmed down enough to have a nap. Later in the afternoon he blurted out " Daddy & Mommy went on an airplane to get me" it was totally unexpected & out of the blue. Gavin & I have been talking more about his adoption, reading stories about adoption, and the past while Owen has been wanting to watch his adoption video. I woke in the middle of the night & wondered if the visit from our travel mates triggered something about adoption for Owen, the family is in the background of his adoption video so maybe he recognized them from that? We can not think of anything else that would have brought on this behaviour. We tried holding time in the evening when he was still getting upset easily & it seemed to help. We are going to limit choices, & keep a record of when behaviour like this occurs so that we can try to pin point triggers. I just hope it doesn't happen very often. Does it sound attachment related to anyone else? any other suggestions?

I should mention that he is feeling, eating & sleeping well. The problem seems to be with wanting control.

Cover Models

My sister-in-law Tirza sent me a link to Today's Parent, and with a magazine subscription you can have a customized cover made of your little one/s how fun! The cover with Owen & Noah will not be seen in stores, it will appear on my personalized december issue. I'm looking forward to getting the mail already!

6 Months Old

At six months old Noah is sitting on his own much better. He sits straighter & longer before he starts to tip, it won't be long now until he masters the sitting skill. When on his tummy he can use his arms to get turned around but hasn't yet figured out to use his legs to crawl. That is perfectly fine with us, we are in no rush to have him fully mobile! He is starting to get frustrated when something is out of reach though, so I think he will start to 'army crawl' as soon as he can.

This past month Noah has started wearing some of Owen's old pajamas. I can't believe he is that big already. Some of the pajamas are a little big in the waist, but fit perfectly in length. Once the season changes Noah will be wearing all of the clothes that Owen once wore, I am looking forward to seeing some of those sweet clothes in the closet again!

Noah eats five 6oz bottles throughout the day, including one feeding in the middle of the night. He has started solids this past month, and so far has tried rice cereal, banana, avocado, yams, pears and green beans. The favourite has been the pears, followed by banana which he can feed himself using his nuby nibbler. I usually try to feed him cereal and a fruit for breakfast & cereal and a veggie for dinner.

He has become Mr. Chatty lately and he will babble sounds like "dadadada" "babababa" etc. sometimes he goes on like that for quite a while. He is just now realizing that his voice can get louder. He has started to screech & shriek super loud, often I think it's Owen when it turns out to be Noah making all the noise. He laughs a lot now, Owen can even get him to laugh. I just love to watch Noah laugh at Owen, he thinks his brother is so funny. Owen plays peek- a-boo & "this little piggy" with him & Noah's face lights up with delight while Owen is playing with him. Owen has shown much more affection towards Noah lately, wanting to hold him & sit with him, he is also wanting to hug & kiss him more. It is nice to see that they are becoming close. I imagine they will be good friends growing up together.


Lots of drool, but no teeth yet!

Proud Mama

I'm just so proud of my two little ones. Last night was the first night that we had friends care for the kids while we went out. The few times that we have had family care for the kids we usually make sure to get home for the bed routine. According to our two 'babysitters' the boys were on their best behaviour. They even slept in until 8am this morning giving Gavin & I a much needed rest. Last night we went to my brother's Jack & Jill, we enjoyed ourselves knowing that the kids were being well taken care of & we were able to stay out really late & well past our usual bedtime. Thanks friends! I can't wait to repay the favor someday.

Enough said...

Top Of The Charts

Owen was weighed and measured at his two year check-up today. He is 29 pounds and 87cm. According to the growth chart the doctor uses he is in the 60th percentile for weight & 50th for height. According to the Vietnamese growth chart he is sitting right on top of the weight curve!

I wish I could say that our blog absence was due to exciting things, but this past week has been just the opposite. Gavin returned to work after a fun but exhausting holiday, I think we were all just worn out from being so busy.

Owen made a mess of the windows...again


We made baby food. Noah doesn't mind yams, is getting use to banana, & absolutely hates avocado.


We visited friends on the holiday monday.


We had fun on the new climbers Owen got for his birthday.




Owen & Gavin went swimming


Noah was so well behaved at my cousin's couples wedding shower, he never cried once. I was so proud of my boy!

Birthday Video

Happy Birthday Owen!

Today our little guy turns two, I can hardly believe how fast the year has gone. Walking turned to running, jumping & climbing. Baby talk turned to simple words, sentences & mini conversation. Crying turned to fussing, whining, & many opinions. Snuggles turned to hugs, kisses & "I love you's". The year has been fun, busy, & full of new exciting things. We are so lucky to experience life with Owen. Happy 2nd Birthday, Owen we love you!

Last night we decided to take the kids to Canada's Wonderland for Owen's birthday. It was much more fun this year than last. Owen loved the rides, he wasn't afraid of any of them this year & wanted to keep going on rides over & over. Here are some pictures from the day.

update - when owen goes to bed we usually talk about our day and the fun we had. I'm listening to him on the baby monitor talk about wonderland & all of the rides he went on, he's been at it for 45 minutes! he's just starting to settle down now and it's 9:30pm.

Camping Fun

We just returned yesterday from taking the kids camping for a couple of days. Packing up our stuff & getting everything in the van must have taken a few hours at least, what a lot of work! No surprise as we had to take the high chair, play pen, bassinet, & wagon. We had lots of fun though, & Owen was worn out by 8pm and asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. The rain held off for the most part despite a few short showers & we were able to enjoy most of our mini vacation.

I was impressed by how much confidence Owen has gained this year, it was a completely different camping trip than last year. He was eager to get in the water & swim, he tried blowing bubbles in the water & even dunked his head under water. Gavin & Owen took a paddle boat ride ( as suggested by owen), it was short to say the least. The boat cost about 5 dollars a minute, Owen wasn't scared he just got bored really easily & wanted to swim instead.



We ate lots of marshmallows. Owen had to practice patience while waiting to toast his marshmallow before eating it!



Noah and I lounged under the umbrella at the beach. I was very thankful we stopped to buy a big beach umbrella because it rained twice while we were at the beach.


Owen collected rocks when we went for walks.


Noah slept whenever he was in the carrier, so we tried to plan hikes around his nap time.

Owen's 2nd Birthday Party

We celebrated Owen's 2nd birthday on sunday. The entire week before the party Owen kept talking about his birthday coming soon, it was nice to hear him excited about it. This year we planned to have his party at a local park so the kids would have lots of room to run around and play. However, just as we finished setting everything up we could hear thunder & knew a storm was on the way. So plan B it was - cram everyone in our house!. It was great fun though, and worked out despite the cramped quarters.

We had each kid decorate their own cupcake to take home. I think only one or two cupcakes actually made it home, the rest were eaten up - before the cake.



Owen loved sprinkles apparently.


Birthday Cake


Every gift that was opened Owen wanted to play with right away, he didn't really understand that there were more gifts to be opened! I'm sure next year will be much different.


The party was a success because Owen mentioned more than once that it was a "fun day". That's all that matters.

1st Solid Food

Today we gave Noah some rice cereal. He kept opening his mouth for more, grabbing the spoon & shoveling more food in his mouth. He loved it. The doctor suggested trying him on cereal when he turned 5 months so that if there were any feeding issues we could discuss things at his 6 month appointment.

5 Months Old

This past month Noah has been full of smiles, giggles & non stop chatter. We have definitely loved witnessing all of the new things he is learning lately, he seems to be doing new things almost every day. He's a very cuddly baby & wants to be held & snuggled all of the time. Holding him so much makes it difficult to get anything done, but I know that once he's older the snuggles will be less frequent so we are loving our time together now! Noah loves to look at himself in the mirror, he gets the hugest grin & babbles away at himself it is so sweet. But really can you blame him? I could stare at him all day.

checking himself out.


practicing sitting by himself! such a big boy.

4th Wedding Anniversary

Wow four years already and what an exciting four years they have been! I wonder what fun things are to come in the next few years? I am so lucky to have married a man that has so much love for his family, a man that was excited to start our family through adoption with adopting Owen, & then excited to experience the birth of our second son, Noah. We have done so much in the past four years, while I expect the next couple of years to be slower paced, I'm sure we will experience many exciting times raising our kids together. I look forward to what is to come!

Family Get-Together

This past saturday we enjoyed an afternoon with Gavin's family. We don't get to see his cousin's & aunt very often so we look forward to the annual get-together at his aunt's place. It poured rain in the morning & we feared that the weather would put a damper on things, but the rain held off until dinner & it was actually a really hot afternoon. Here are some pictures from the afternoon:

Alex taught Owen how to 'gamble'. He looks like a pro doesn't he?


Tanya & Aunt Meggie lounging with Noah & Kian


playing peek-a-boo with papa


Noah with his cousin Kian