we're leaving on a jet plane...

just a little note to say that tristan and i will be flying up to BC in 2 days, so you may not see much of me on blogger for awhile. tristan turns 9 months tomorrow, so i'll be sure to post his picture on his blog before we go. tristan's latest newest thing has been giving us high fives and kisses! of course the kisses are open-mouthed on his part, but it so awesome when i get him out of bed in the morning and his little face comes toward mine, mouth open, to kiss me :)

the point of this picture IS my hair

the point of this picture is not my hair....

...its what i'm holding in my hand. my hair looks awful because my friend janet and i had just come back from taking a walk with our boys. as we were walking this morning, i got a call on my cell phone from a delivery guy with a package for me. we caught up to his truck and he handed me a package to sign for and inside was...... MY PASSPORT!!!! i just about peed my pants! you see, it was only 3 weeks ago that i was told my passport application would take 15 weeks to process. it was only 2 weeks ago that i faxed off a request that my passport be expidited. and it was only yesterday that i spoke with passport canada and was told to expect it in the mail on october 10th. my flight leaves on october 2nd, so the very nice gentleman told me that he would make a few phone calls and try to get my passport to me by october 1st. so to get it the Very Next Day is nothing short of a miracle and i THANK YOU all so much for your prayers!!! my mom is not home yet and i'm so excited to tell her the good news.

in just over a week, tristan and i will be in lovely rainy british columbia enjoying the crisp autumn air, the green all around, the changing leaves and, of course, a great big thanksgiving dinner! i am so looking forward to relaxing with my family once again and getting to see my friends. as far as being away from my husband for a week....i'm just not thinking about that part of it yet. i will keep the freezer well stocked with frozen pizzas and will ask any friends down here if they would mind inviting my dear husband over for dinner while i'm gone.

some other AWESOME news that we got yesterday is that gramps' cancer is in remission!! we are so thankful to God for healing him! we just adore gramps and i'm grateful that tristan will get to know him and grow up with his love. God is so good.

tristan had his very first experience at the san diego wild animal park on wednesday. he seemed to enjoy himself, though was much more interested in looking at people than at the animals. we went on a little tram ride and got quite close to a giraffe. i kept pointing and signing "giraffe" to him, saying "Tristan, look at the tall giraffe!" he glanced over at it, then just looked up at my face adoringly. his latest thing is helping me turn the pictures of his storybooks! he just started doing that a few days ago. he also knows exactly where the flaps are on all of his lift the flap books and loves feeling the different textures in his touch and feel books. oh yes, and he's been biting lately. hard. not so much when i'm nursing him (thank goodness!) but he likes to bite my shoulder when i'm holding him. up until now, i've very firmly told him "no" and flicked his cheek with my finger. so far, it hasn't seemed to sink in very well. anyone else have any ideas on how to discipline such a young child? i really don't want to get into the habit of raising my voice at him; i'd rather speak to him calmly, yet firmly, but i definitely need him to understand. today he left little teeth marks in my arm!

well, i'm off to get ready to go into town and do some groceries. have a wonderful weekend, everyone.

silly me...

...forgot to bring the camera with us, so no happy pictures of josh and me with shorter hair. there are, however, a few new pictures of tristan on his picture blog. today i'm meeting up with my mom in law and sis in law at the wild animal park. it will be tristan's first time at the zoo and i'm so excited! i've been signing animals to him along with their noises, so now he'll get to see the real thing rather than just pictures of them. really should go get ready, though so will write more soon.

of hills and other things

this is a hill near my house. it may not look like much of a hill from this photo, but trust me: it is steep. especially when you're pushing a large baby in a stroller up it. i began walking up this hill most mornings a few months ago when i finally came around to realizing that i was going to remain an inflated version of my former self unless i got off my (rather large) rear end and did something about it! i've no idea how i kept it up because i remember creeping up the darn thing at a snail's pace, huffing and puffing and praying that nobody i knew would drive by. i was partially successful in deflating myself a bit, but then i hit a plateau and stayed there for a loooong tiiiime. my friend sara (who, by the way, is thin and beautiful and doesn't need to lose weight at all; she just thinks she does) suggested that we start doing weight watchers together. i had heard good things about the program they have for breastfeeding moms, and i really liked the idea of doing it with a friend, for motivation. so, instead of signing up and paying the monthly fee, we're cheating a litte and just calculating points on our own, but it is SO working!! i lost 7 lbs in 3 weeks, which brings me halfway to my goal already. now that i see how quickly its working, i'm going to change my goal down to my pre-pregnancy weight and see if i can make it by tristan's first birthday. because of the progress i've been making, this hill is far less daunting to me and i no longer huff and puff while pushing tristan up it. i like to imagine myself gliding up it gracefully as i cheerfully wave to those who drive by. i may not look graceful, but i choose to keep that image in my head anyway.

to motivate myself even more, i set little rewards for every 5lbs i lost. my first reward was a haircut. when i first met josh, my hair was shorter than his is now. after the pain of growing it out, i was so happy to have my long hair back that i just let it grow...and grow... and grow... until i finally looked in the mirror one day and realized how blah it looked. so i am now sporting a new 'do, complete with sideswept bangs (which drive me crazy, so i keep them pinned up anyhow) and have found a few of my old clothes that fit me, (i used to call them my fat clothes, but obviously never had a clue what fat really meant!) and i feel wonderful. tomorrow evening is jessica's 30th birthday and we're going to a bit of a posh restaraunt for dinner, so i'll be sure to have someone snap a picture of me and my hubby and WILL post it on here. but only if you all promise to comment on how skinny i look. *just kidding*

teeth...

tristan now officially has 4 teeth! i just posted a few pictures on his blog and hope to write a proper post on this blog soon.

whats new

i've felt completely uninspired lately, which is why i haven't blogged, but i know how annoying it is when others don't update their blogs, so i'll write a few uninspired words anyhow :)

the massage was heavenly. i think i may have even drooled a little bit, which the masseuse told me was not out of the ordinary! unfortunately, the spa is located next door to an animal hospital, so the first 15 minutes of my massage were serenaded by a poor little puppy, just crying his eyes out. didn't bother me much, though, as having a baby kind of gets you used to perpetual crying! when it was over, she told me to be sure to drink plenty of water to flush all the toxins out. i came home and did just that, but despite nearly drowning myself in glass after glass of water, i started feeling quite sick and was pretty much out of commission for the next few days. i really don't think the massage caused it, but it may have helped to bring it on. tristan was miserable and sick as well, so we were quite the fine pair. tristan still has a bad cough that keeps both of us up at unearthly hours of the night, but his snot bubbles seem to have dispersed.

though our neighbors are now back from vacation, they still welcome us to use their pool, so we've been taking advantage of that, especially now that the temperature has been over 100 degrees the past few days. my friend janet and her son kolby came over friday morning to go for a walk, but even though they got here at 8:30, it was already too hot to be outside! it frustrates me that we live in such a seemingly "ideal" area of the world, yet its often too blooming hot to enjoy the sun! right now thunder and lightening are heading this way, adding to the humidity. i just hope we get a huge dumping of rain!

as i said in my last post, my mom purchased the plane ticket for tristan and me to fly to canada in early october. i called the passport office a couple of days ago to see where my renewal application was at. i was told that it would take 15 weeks to get it back!!!! i asked if i could expedite it, and even that cannot be promised. my heart just sinks everytime i think about it. my mom is still quite optimistic, and many prayers have been going up daily. i'd hate to think that the money my parents spent on the ticket would be wasted (it wasn't a cheap flight!) and it also disappoints me that i may not be able to visit this year....i was so looking forward to sharing canadian thanksgiving with my family. i'd appreciate it if you all could just send a little prayer up for my slow-moving passport, that God would give it wings and have it fly through all of the necessary steps and arrive at my doorstep in ample time for my vacation. thanks!

tristan is 8 months old today. he has graduated from pureed food to slighty chunky food, like mashed bananas and avocados. he's not too good at getting finger food into his mouth yet, but he sure loves the organic teething biscuits i bought him. he has a very sensitive gag reflex, though, so if too large of a chunk gets to the back of his mouth, his entire dinner comes back up! he just got the hang of his sippy cup and LOVES sipping on water during his meals. he's not any closer to crawling, but his favourite thing is still practicing his walking while holding onto our hands. he's outgrown so many clothes and is now wearing 12-18 month sizes! his hair is getting thicker and i love how its all messy when i get him out of bed. he's down to 2 naps per day and usually sleeps 12 hours at night (6:30-6:30) though rarely straight through! he is overall a very joyful little boy and we enjoy him so much. i've been reading a few baby sign books and am starting to use signs with certain words to get him used to it. there are so many milestones and stages to look forward to, but i'm savoring each new day with him. he is my sunshine.

well, i should go tidy the house a bit. our friends tim and gia are coming over with their 2 girls to go swimming with us. have a lovely long weekend, everyone!