ALBANY CLUB KIDS CHRISTMAS PARTY....

Today we attended the Albany Club Kids Christmas Party. It was a wonderful event filled with crafts, Christmas music, a special lunch, time with Grams and Grandpa and cousins Kieran and Quinn and a visit with Santa. Charlotte and Jacob loved the party and can't wait to go back next year. Thanks Grandpa for inviting us! 

Grandpa and Charlotte listening to Christmas carols 

Charlotte loving spending time with Grandpa 

Jacob and Grams listen to Christmas carols

Kieran and Quinn decorating a wreath for their house

Charlotte and Jacob decorating Christmas balls for the tree 

Balloon sword fight....

Daddy and Jacob 

Party girl... 

Mommy, Charlotte and Santa

Mommy, Jacob and Santa

Quinn and Santa

Kieran and Santa

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DOYLE....

We celebrated Doyle's birthday last night complete with Indian take out and chocolate cake and ice cream. Since the kids haven't been great at going to bed at 7 p.m. lately we let them stay up for the "party". They sang happy birthday and loved the cake and helping daddy opening his digital picture frame. Oliver slept through the whole thing but don't worry O, you can celebrate with Charlotte and Jacob in a few weeks!

PATIENCE...THE CORNERSTONE OF PARENTHOOD

If there is one thing I've learned as a parent over the past two years it's that patience plays a huge role in everything we do. 

As parents we have a lot of demands to stay on top of when raising our kids - keeping up with their energy level when we're tired, balancing the competing priorities at work and home and most of all staying focused through all the transitions that come with them growing up. 

This past week our patience level has been tested thanks to our decision to transition Charlotte and Jacob from their crib to a toddler bed. I can honestly say I underestimated how this transition would affect them. I naively thought the transition would be easy - remove the front bar of their crib, put a bed rail up along their mattress so they won't roll out and continue on with their bed / nap time routine. After all we weren't moving them to a completely new bed - we were just converting their crib to a bed since they were jumping out of their crib regularly and I figured if we didn't do something about it soon our next stop would be the emergency room at Sick Kids.

I will be the first to tell you this is not how it has gone. Sure removing the bar and putting up the bed rail were easy, what I wasn't prepared for was the reaction we'd get from Charlotte and Jacob. I knew they'd be intrigued by the freedom and would climb out of their bed, what I didn't expect was the amount of times they would climb out night after night (and afternoon for that matter) and the resistance we'd face every time we'd put them down. I used to look forward to bed time now I dread it because I honestly don't know what to expect when we put them down, no matter how closely we stick to the routine. We have tried keeping the light on in the room at the dimmest setting, keeping the door open, closing the door, sitting inside their room, sitting outside their room, sitting right next to their beds, encouraging them to bring books in their bed, giving them flashlights, letting them cry, putting them in for a bit and taking them out and then putting them back in 20 minutes later. No matter what we try the bedtime routine stretches night after night. For instance tonight we started the bedtime routine at 6:45 p.m. Jacob finally settled at 8:30 p.m. and Charlotte is still awake (it's 9:10 p.m.). She is currently standing in our doorway with her blanket as I type this. We are doing our best to ignore her no matter how hard she tries to get our attention. 

Transitions are hard at any age. I don't like change and I'm 36 so I shouldn't expect my 23 month olds to adapt to it quickly. But it's hard especially since we have never had an issue with them going to bed. We just put them in their cribs and walked out every night never really giving it another thought. Now bedtime is filled with many thoughts and lots of angst on my part. 

The easy solution would be for us to put the bars back but no one said parenthood was easy. For now we'll continue to persevere because as we all know...this too shall pass. 

HAPPY TWO MONTH "BIRTHDAY"...OLIVER

Today marks two months since Oliver arrived. It has been a crazy ride these past two months but we cannot imagine our family without Oliver. 

For the most part Charlotte and Jacob are adjusting nicely to their little brother. Jacob still has his moments with him - we still catch him poking his eyes and scratching him from time to time but he can also be very loving to him too giving him lots of hugs and kisses. Charlotte is more gentle with him and is always interested in knowing where he is if I don't have him with me. 

Oliver has been quite active this month. From November 9 to December 9 he has:

• Gained weight: We won't have his official two month weight until our next doctor's appointment on Dec 17
• More periods of awake time: We aren't on a firm schedule / routine yet but Oliver is starting to have longer periods of awake time. He still prefers to sleep a lot during the day and tends to be awake in the evening. We continue to work on reversing this trend
• Eaten 4 oz every three/four hours depending on his mood (except in the evening when he seems to eat every two hours)
• Finished his casting visits at the Club Foot Clinic at Sick Kids (he required two weeks of casting): We are now waiting until Jan 3 to see how his feet are at his follow up visit before we determine what our next steps are
• Gone to sleep around 9 p.m. and slept until 4:30 a.m. and then back to sleep until 7 a.m. (for the past week and a bit). We aren't considering this a firm routine yet but it has certainly been nice to get a few extra hours of sleep!
• Started to smile 
• Found his voice
• Met his Grandma and Grandpa "Brown"
• Met Auntie Anne
• Had a Christmas photo shoot with Charlotte and Jacob at the Real Canadian Superstore
• Visited Santa at Yorkdale mall
• Had lots of visits with Grandpa, Grams and Grammy
• Activities outside the house: Walks in the stroller, Stars and Stroller movies (The Flight and Sliver Linings Playbook), visits with GG

TIS THE SEASON...

Last year I took Charlotte and Jacob to the Real Canadian Supercentre's photo studio to get Christmas and "1st birthday" pictures done. The pictures were great and we even used one of the shots for our Christmas card. Given last year's success I decided to do it again this year. I booked an appointment for November 21, got the kids in their new Christmas clothes and set off with Claire and my mom (extra hands are always good for things like this) excited to see how this year's photos would turn out. 

When we arrived we found out they were running behind - very behind - an hour and a half behind...thanks to the fact they were short a staff member due to illness. The kids were great while we were waiting (despite the fact that they weren't feeling well - ahhh winter cold season) we walked around the Supercentre, they loved touching the battery packages in the photo studio and looking at the Christmas DVD display. When it was finally our turn things quickly changed. We walked into the studio room and Jacob decided he had no interest in cooperating for the photos. He walked off the backdrop several times no matter how many props we showed him, cried and said 'no no no'. Charlotte was much more cooperative and smiled and laughed with each new prop that came out and Oliver slept through the whole thing. I kept pleading with Jacob to just sit for one picture but he flat out refused. 

When I was reviewing the pictures with the photographer I nearly cried. All I kept thinking was last year's experience was so different and this was miserable - I have great pictures of Charlotte but none of Jacob and Oliver looked dead in many of them thanks to the way the photographer had positioned him. Needless to say I didn't take any of them and decided to rebook for the following week in hopes I'd get some nicer pictures with all three of my kids together. 

When we returned for "take two" of Christmas photos the studio was thankfully on time and the kids were no longer sick. They even seemed interested in being there until the photographer walked in...that's when Jacob looked at me and said 'no no no' and walked off the backdrop again. After a few more "protests" on Jacob's part I decided it was time for bribery so I picked him up and whispered "if you stay on the floor for the pictures mommy will get you a special cookie when we're finished". Well I might as well have told him I was giving him a million dollars because when I put him on the floor he was a new person and cooperated for every picture! I had to do the same whisper in Charlotte's ear because after Jacob started cooperating she decided she was done with the picture taking and walked away. Funny...my little whisper worked for her too and after 15 minutes with the photographer we had Christmas pictures!!! 

It's amazing the things we'll do or say for that iconic Christmas picture...

HEY SANTA.....

Yesterday we took Charlotte, Jacob and Oliver to meet Santa. Doyle took the day off because his parents were visiting so we decided that Monday would be a good day to visit the "big guy". We arrived at 11 a.m. and it turned out that many other people had the same idea as us. We waited in line for an hour and when it was our turn to see Santa the kids would not let us leave them with him by themselves so...Doyle and I stayed for the picture. We did try one picture with just the kids but as you'll see below it's not exactly "frame worthy". 

The most annoying part of our adventure was when I went to download the pictures from the flash drive we bought and there were no pictures on the drive :( 

I have since sorted it out and we have got the pictures! 

The Browns take over Santa's lap

This one will be fun to look back on in a few years! 

FREEDOM....

Watch out world...Charlotte and Jacob are on the loose. We have officially transformed their cribs into toddler beds. It really wouldn't have been my first choice this early but after a few weeks of Jacob jumping out or over into Charlotte's crib we figured it was the safer option - seemed like a better solution than a trip to the emergency department at Sick Kids for a broken "something". 

They have been in their room with their new beds for almost 45 minutes now and I've lost count on the number of times I've gone in to coax them back into their bed. They have already removed the heat vent, knocked over their large wooden dinosaur and flower piggy banks (I have since taken them out) and emptied their basket of stuffed animals and split the contents between both of their beds. I figure the novelty will wear off at some point and I'm glad we did the transition for nap vs their first over night sleep. I don't anticipate we'll have as easy a bed time as we usually do tonight but they'll get used to soon enough....I hope.

For now we'll deal with their excitement of having this new found freedom and hope the transition doesn't take too long...

Last picture of their cribs together

Charlotte and Jacob's room before....

Let the dismantling begin

Jacob's "new" bed...

The room after the bars came down

Their "new" beds

Hey...what did you do to my bed?

Hmmm...I think I'm going to like this!

How the heck does this thing work?

Loving his new bed

Happy he can still stand up and look at Charlotte

Testing the climb in 

First nap in their "new" beds...